1.19

The Son of Rome

Anastasia drew attention as a matter of course. It was a consequence of her status and appearance both – men couldn’t help but steal what glances they could when she was nearby. But as she choked and coughed and hammered her chest, the other mystikos in the bath looked openly our way. She mastered herself quickly, setting her cup aside, but the damage had been done.

After a night of hunting Crows and a full day of drinking the following day, it had been my old mentor’s name that finally broke her steady composure. It wasn’t an encouraging thought.

“You-” she said, when the worst of it had passed, “You’re serious?”

“Why would I lie?” Ironic, perhaps. But valid in this case.

“I can think of a few reasons.” She shook her head, brushing damp hair out of her face. Her lips pursed as she mulled the knowledge over, green ember eyes flickering. “How did you come to know him, if I may?”

I frowned. Oddly enough, I didn’t mind telling her. Maybe it was that poisonous nostalgia, or maybe she’d managed to charm me while I wasn’t looking. The result was the same either way. I was not, however, comfortable with the rest of the bathing pavilion listening in. I reached out with my influence and smacked down every grasping hand that I could feel with my Sophic sense.

Every single Philosopher in the pavilion flinched. The degrees varied, some recovering in a split second and carrying on their vapid conversations, while others jerked and kicked up ripples in the water. One and all, they retracted. Even here, the baths were nothing but viper pits filled with gossips. From Rome to Greece, everything under the sun was the same.

“You get used to it,” Anastasia assured me. “It isn’t as if they can do anything with the information. They’re just children.”

To a cultivator of her standing, perhaps. But I wasn’t so far above these people, or above them at all. Many of them were older than me, their cultivation further advanced. That wasn’t even the crux of the issue, though.

I’d thought my year in chains had ground down the last of my pride, yet here it was, rearing its head again. I’d grown used to the respect afforded to me in the legions, come to expect it, even if I’d never truly deserved it.

“A child doesn’t fear a flame until it burns them,” I said, smoothing out a scowl. “That was one of the first lessons he ever taught me. Said it was his duty to burn me himself, before I threw myself fully into the fire.”

“You were young,” she said, half a question.

I leaned back against the marble rim of the basin, the cool stone a pleasant contrast to the scalding water. “I was an arrogant child. My mother was convinced that the world revolved around me on a satin thread, and my father’s duties kept him too busy to notice until the damage had been done. I’d never been burned. Was convinced I never would be.”

“That sounds familiar,” Anastasia said, mirth briefly overtaking her tension. “I was wondering what you saw in Griffon to take him on as a student. It was you after all.”

In a way, she wasn’t wrong.

“Griffon is better than I was,” I disagreed anyway. It was worth saying, though I’d never say it to his face. “I’m the fruit of all my mentors’ labors. Griffon is what he is in spite of his.”

“For better and for worse,” she said wryly. I smirked faintly.

“For better and for worse.”

“How did he convince you to take him on?” Anastasia asked. That one was easy enough.

“His cousin challenged me to a fist fight.”

Anastasia blinked. “Where did he stand?”

“The seventh rank of the Civic Realm.”

She winced. “I assume Griffon didn’t take his passing well.”

I glanced sidelong at her, frowning. “I didn’t kill him.”

“Truly?” Anastasia looked at me, as if in a new light. “I didn’t take you for a merciful man.” As if sparing a child that didn’t know any better was mercy. Every time I forgot, the world reminded me what vile creatures cultivators could be.

“He wasn’t a threat.” I shrugged. “I could have beaten him in chains.”

“The fearsome Legate in chains,” Anastasia mused, reclaiming some of her smoke and teasing. “That’s a sight I wouldn’t mind seeing.”

I rolled my eyes and took up her cup, drinking deeply from it. The water was cool and refreshing. The rim of the cup tasted inexplicably of figs. Sweet.

“Griffon stepped in before I could do much to the boy, regardless,” I continued. “He demanded that I stop. Told me that I’d had enough fun.”

“You took him to task for that, surely?”

I smiled faintly. “I did.” That struggle in his family’s filial pool had been the first time in months that I’d felt truly alive. It had been the same for him, too, I knew.

“But he impressed you, and here you are,” Anastasia deduced.

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“Here we are.”

The conversation stalled, the Heroine hesitating suddenly. I offered her cup back to her, raising an eyebrow. We’d come this far. Might as well see it through. Anastasia took the cup, running her thumb along its edge.

“And what about you?” she finally asked. “How did you convince your master to take you on?”

“I didn’t.” At her blank look, I elaborated. “I was in the forum with a group of my peers-” Not friends. Not really. “-and we’d just caught a pair of thieves our age attempting to pick us. We decided we’d take the hands they’d slipped into our purses as punishment, after we’d properly shamed them.”

The memory was the oddest sort of bittersweet. Shameful to look back on through the lens of my younger self, but warm for what it had ultimately led to.

“Looking back, I think they were brothers. The older of the two begged us to take both of his hands instead of one from each of them. We refused, of course, and so he tried something different and goaded us instead. Insisted up and down that we’d do no better than him if put in his position and made to survive.” I sighed. “The young patrician couldn’t stomach such an insult, especially in front of my peers. So I offered him a wager.”