The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(12)
“If you’d told my ten-year-old self that this day was in my future,” I muttered, “I would have cut your tongue out for lying. And maybe burned it for sorcery.”
Because when I was ten, my sister was dead. And Caesar was my greatest enemy. Now? Neither of those things was true anymore. Charon put a hand on my shoulder, and I sighed. Life was far too complicated, I thought, and there were far too many paths for my feet to tread.
And not just mine, it seemed.
Flutes and drums began to play, and the priestesses of Venus filed out onto the dais with their incense and offerings. They bore sheaves of flowers and baskets of fruit . . . and I was astonished to see that I knew one of them. Her long dark hair was unbound and fell forward, obscuring her face as she knelt to place her basket at the feet of a statue of the goddess, but I’d already recognized Kassandra, the girl I’d first met in a slave cage in the middle of Gaul. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been working in a brothel that catered to a mostly patrician class of patrons in the city. As she stood and turned, her eyes met mine and she blinked, as surprised to see me there as I was to see her. A small smile flickered at the edges of her mouth, and she gave me a little nod of greeting. Then she went to stand with the other priestesses, leaving me to wonder how her radical change of profession had come about.
It was strange. I’d actually been thinking about her over the last few weeks—about how she’d risked her own safety to try to warn Cai about his father—and I’d been meaning to pay her a visit. As music ended and the high priestess of the temple stepped forward, I decided I would try to speak with Kass after the ceremony. In the meantime, I resigned myself to suffering through the next hour or two of invocations and singing and incense wafting up my nose, all of it making me want to do nothing more than either nap or sneeze.
I envied Elka her decision to stay back at the townhouse.
* * *
—
In truth, I don’t remember much about the actual dedication ceremony. Perhaps because of everything that happened after, or maybe it was because I simply didn’t understand Romans and their gods. I do remember a few details: Caesar, wearing a laurel wreath on his brow, standing on the dais. His wife, Calpurnia, was at his side and looking as if she’d rather be anywhere else in that moment. I suppose I could hardly blame her. There were three statues in the temple. One, of course, of the goddess Venus. One of Caesar. And one, rendered in bronze and leafed in shimmering gold, of Cleopatra. Caesar’s paramour. I nudged Sorcha and nodded at the effigy. She bit her lip and gave me a wide-eyed glance that told me she didn’t fully understand Romans either.
When, finally, the thing was done and Rome’s elite filtered back out into the sunlight where the plebs mingled and milled, I told Sorcha I would catch up with her later and stayed back, waiting to see if Kassandra would appear. Eventually she did, trailing behind a group of priestesses who drifted like wraiths out from beneath the temple portico and down the steps, blending into the crowds below enjoying the festival that had blossomed in the streets surrounding the temple, with food and drink stalls unfurling canopies like leaves and merchants selling wares from carts and baskets.
I hurried to catch up with Kass, tugging on the sleeve of her stola.
She glanced over her shoulder without stopping, but when she realized who it was, she spun and reached for my hands, a genuine smile lighting her face. “Fallon!” she exclaimed, drawing me into a hug. “I’m so glad to see you . . .”
I hugged her back, feeling how thin she was beneath her robes. When she pushed me back to arm’s length, I saw that the shadows beneath her warm brown eyes were still as deep as the last time I saw her. But there was no mistaking the happiness in her expression at the sight of me.
“It’s been so long—and I was so worried,” she said. “We heard such stories of the ludus and Aquila. And you!” Her glance darted around the bustling street. “Of Varro . . .”
“I know.” I smiled and shook my head. “It was . . . well. A lot has happened. But everything is fine now. I mean, better. Much better. Mostly.” I didn’t know if she knew what had happened to Cai. I still wasn’t sure if Kass had—then or now—feelings for him. Although I suspected that, even if she had, the fact that she was a priestess now would render the issue moot.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, slipping her arm in mine as we walked away from the temple to find a space in the street that wasn’t so crowded. “I never suspected you as a devotee of Venus.” She grinned. “Minerva, yes, but . . .”
I grinned back. “My sister is here on Caesar’s invitation.”
“Ah. Of course.”
“I just decided to come along too.” I shrugged and glanced over my shoulder at the temple. “Mostly because I wanted to talk to your goddess.”
“Oh!” She blinked at me. “You did?”
I nodded. “She seems like she’s probably a bit busy right now, though. But I wanted to ask her to take care of a . . . friend.”
“I see.”
“How would you go about asking your goddess to do such a thing?”
“Well . . .” Her expression turned priestess-serious. “If this friend means a great deal to you, perhaps I could sacrifice a dove or—”
“No!” I exclaimed, recoiling from the thought of any living thing spilling blood because of Nyx ever again. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to waste a perfectly good dove. Not for this.”