The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(58)

“I understand her anger,” he said to me in a low murmur, “but we could have at least gotten some information out of him before she cut his throat.”

I sighed, nodding in agreement, but it was a rather moot point.

There was nothing for us to do but carry on and hope the message left behind by the queen might deter any of his friends who decided to continue the hunt. Cai and I doubled up on his mount—mine had bolted and was nowhere to be seen, nor was there time to go back to look—and we moved out in short order, continuing on our way toward Cosa.

We brought up the rear while the rest of the caravan rumbled along ahead of us, with Quint riding point. After Cleopatra’s execution of the Dis rider, we’d wasted no time tending to wounds beyond rudimentary bandaging and washing the blood from Sorcha’s face with water from one of the skins we’d hastily filled. There would be opportunity enough for Neferet to work her medical magic later, hopefully. Once we were on board a ship and safely away from the shores of Italia.

Cai’s arms were wrapped around me, and it was tempting to just lean back against his chest and close my eyes as we rode, but I couldn’t relax. Not yet. “I’m starting to worry about Hestia,” I said. “And—”

I was about to say “Acheron,” but then I heard him, hallooing us from a distance. I twisted in the saddle to see him riding down a steep path from the top of the ridge of hills. He was covered in dust and leading Hestia’s mount—her riderless mount—and there were bloodstains on Acheron’s hands and arms. I felt my guts grow cold. His expression was grim, and there was a black-feathered arrow shoved through his belt. Cai pulled his horse to a stop, and we waited until he’d caught up to us.

“I’m sorry,” Acheron said, and pulled the arrow from his belt, holding it out to me. The iron point was stained with blood. “They got too far ahead of me. When I caught up . . .”

The arrow in his hand was like a poisonous viper, and I shrank from it. “Where is Tanis?” was all I could ask. “The archer—where is she?”

He just shook his head.

“You lose some along the way,” Charon had once said to me. It was after Meriel had fallen, saving me from Nyx’s sword. Now calm, steady, capable Hestia was lost. And wry, wintry, methodically dangerous Vorya. I was losing too many.

“What happened?” Cai asked, when I couldn’t.

“I found the girl—Hestia, was it?—on the ground,” Acheron said. “With this arrow through her heart. No sign of the archer. I took the time to pile what rocks I could find over her. You know. To discourage scavengers . . .” He looked at me, an expression of helplessness in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Victrix.”

I nodded, wondering . . . was Hestia’s sacrifice part of the price the Morrigan demanded of my prayer? What more would she ask me to pay? I dismounted and reached for the black-feathered arrow Acheron held. He gave it to me, and I snapped it in two over my knee, hurling its pieces into the scrub with a snarled curse.

I mounted up on Hestia’s horse and turned to Cai. “Let’s get out of here,” I said.



* * *



—

We arrived in Cosa to an eerily calm market square. The port settlement, nestled in the harbor below the actual town, was one of those hardscrabble places where everyone kept to themselves, avoiding too much familiarity or even, in most cases, simple eye contact. What I knew of its history was that, never hugely popular due to its relative proximity to Ostia, Cosa had, some twenty years earlier, endured a string of bad luck: an earthquake, a full-scale pirate sacking, and a plague of vermin. It showed. While the forbidding structures of temples loomed over the town from a high hill, down along the shoreline most of the houses and shops were squat, ugly, makeshift structures that looked like they might blow over in a good stiff breeze. The whole place smelled of rancid fish sauce.

The place, Cai told me, was a den of thieves and scoundrels. Perfect for making bargains with very few questions asked. The folk of the town came and went about their business, eyes averted, browsing the stalls and ignoring our wagons. As if it were just any other day, I thought, and not the beginning of the end of the Republic as they knew it. News, it seemed, had yet to really travel as far north as this little seaside settlement. I did notice one or two groups of men—soldiers or men with the bearing of ex-legionnaires—huddled in clusters of urgent conversation.

But word clearly hadn’t filtered out to the general citizenry, and that was cause for relief. Because even here, the plebs had heard of the Aegyptian queen and her sorceress’s sway over Julius Caesar. Word of his death wouldn’t take long to spark the kind of gossipy tinder that could light a bonfire of fear. Or worse, avarice. With her hood pulled far up over her face, Cleopatra was as anonymous as any of us, but for her kohl-rimmed eyes, which stared out from the shadows of her cowl with an intensity a blind man could feel. I sent up silent prayers to the Morrigan and Minerva and Sekhemet that we could just get her aboard a ship without incident.

We rolled through the rutted streets of the town, and I felt like there were eyes watching us from every shadowed doorway. I rode beside the queen’s wagon, where Elka had taken over the reins. She glanced over at me.

“If this all goes south,” she said in a low voice, “I say we just get out of Her Majesty’s way and let her unleash all that wrath she’s carrying around. This place wouldn’t stand a chance.”