The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(13)

Kassandra bit her lip and looked like she was trying to keep from laughing.

“What?”

“I think I might have misunderstood,” she said, something close to a giggle in her voice. “I though you wanted me to propitiate the goddess on behalf of you and Cai.”

“Cai?” I blinked at her. “But why . . .”

“She’s the goddess of love, Fallon.”

“Oh . . . Oh!”

She tilted her head and looked at me, frowning. “Aren’t you and he . . . I mean, aren’t you together?”

“We’re trying to be.” I sighed. “The rest of the world keeps getting in the way.”

“Ah.” Her frown shifted to a sympathetic smile. “I heard about what happened—with his father and Cai’s . . . disgrace. But I also know the truth of why it happened. And being a gladiator isn’t a dishonor to my mind.”

“Nor mine,” I said wryly.

She smiled and squeezed my hand. “Keep trying to be together, Fallon. A man like Caius Varro isn’t one you’re likely to come across more than once in this lifetime.”

We continued our slow stroll through the market stalls, the crowds streaming past us on either side. “What are you doing at the temple, Kassandra?” I asked. “I mean—that is to say . . .”

“It’s all right,” she said, shoulders lifting in a shrug that was almost a shiver. “Life in the House of Venus wasn’t agreeing with me so very well. But my mistress there was a good woman, in spite of her trade, and she thought the temple of Venus might suit me better.”

“Last time I saw you,” I said, hesitantly, “you told me of bad dreams.”

Dreams were the province of the druiddyn in my tribe, and talk of them usually made me—and any good Celt worth the name, really—wary. I wasn’t sure if the same was true of Rome and Romans.

Kass was silent for a moment before she answered, and I wondered if I’d offended her. But then she said, “Not dreams so much as . . .” There was that shiver-shrug again. “It’s . . . not important.”

I looked at her, wondering, as we passed a particularly tawdry market stall selling erotic talismans and cheap defixio—thin strips of tin carved with either a spell or a curse purchased by the desperate and the lovelorn, which would then be left on the altar of Venus as a votive offering.

Kass rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Sometimes,” she said, lowering her voice as the woman behind the stall eyed Kass’s priestess garb with a narrow gaze, “my dreams . . . they come to pass. If it keeps happening, the high priestess has said she might have me trained as a sibyl.” At my puzzled expression, she explained, “A soothsayer.”

“Ah!” I exclaimed, understanding. “We have those in my tribe—men and women—only we call them druids. My father’s druid, Olun, once told him that I would follow in the footsteps of my sister. For a long time, we’d both taken that to mean that I would die on a battlefield.” I shook my head. “Little did either of us know just how right his auguries were. Just not in the way we thought they were.”

Kass had lapsed into a strange silence beside me.

“It’s a position of great honor,” I said, trying my best to be encouraging. “The druiddyn are revered. And only a little frightening. They get the best seat at the council fire and are always served meat and mead first. At times they—”

I heard a soft gasp and looked over to see Kassandra staring down at her feet, an expression of horror on her face. I followed her gaze and saw that the cobbles beneath her delicate beaded sandals shone slick and crimson. The channels between the stones were red rivulets—it was like gazing down over a miniature hellish landscape carved by streams of blood. Startled, I rocked back a step and spun around to see who it was that had been murdered and lay emptying out their veins into the street . . .

Only to see that, in the chaos of the crowds, someone had overturned a wine stand. Shattered amphorae lay scattered on the ground, leaking rich red wine, and a vendor stood loudly lamenting the loss of his finest Mamertine vintage.

Wine. Not blood. I started to laugh in flustered relief.

“It’s all right, Kass,” I said. “It’s just—”

Her eerie wail stopped the words in my mouth.

I turned to see that Kassandra had gone ghost-pale and rigid. Her eyes were wide and white-rimmed, staring into the middle distance over my shoulder. I glanced behind me and saw that Caesar had finally left the temple and his procession was approaching. The crowd lining the street stood at least ten deep between us and the gilded chariot where he rode. A phalanx of praetorian guards with their gleaming armor and crimson-plumed helmets surrounded Caesar, faces uniformly stern.

As Caesar’s chariot rolled past, I caught a blur of motion out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see Kassandra throw off her palla and lunge through the teeming crowd, her long dark hair streaming behind her as she squeezed through the guard perimeter, hands outstretched to grasp the side of Caesar’s chariot.

“Caesar!” she cried. “Mars comes for you, great lord!”

The guards reacted on pure instinct, and I heard the rasp of swords being drawn, even as I scrambled after my friend. As the crowd parted with cries of surprise and alarm, I dove between two matronly women, shouldered aside a young man swathed in a choking cloud of scented oils, and missed grabbing Kass’s shoulder by a fingersbreadth.