1.29

The Son of Rome

We parted ways after the immediate plans had been made for sundown, Griffon and Elissa heading back to the ruined residential streets while Jason and I made for the Raging Heaven.

For the most part, Jason was quiet. Every so often he would ask me a question that I had no desire to answer, and so I wouldn’t. Questions about the demons of Carthage, about the campaigns against them, and about my role in those campaigns. I had offered both of them as much of the truth as I could stand to tell. Eventually, he took my silence for what it was and subsided into solitary contemplation.

We passed through the gates of the Raging Heaven Cult unchallenged. Jason exchanged pleasantries with the men on guard, armored by bronze plates that clung to them like second skins, chiseled musculature carved into the metal itself. Their eyes followed me curiously, but they made no comment.

We were climbing the stone-carved steps up to the secondary levels where the respected initiates and future competitors kept quarters, when Jason finally asked the question he’d wanted to ask the whole time.

“These demons… They took something from you, didn’t they? Personally.”

I closed my eyes and quietly sighed.

“Would it matter if they did?”

“Of course it would!” he said, affronted.

“Why?”

“Why? Why? Because there’s a difference between doing what’s right for its own sake, and doing the right thing only if your heart demands it. What you’re planning here and now, would you do it even if your own feelings weren’t involved? Is it the right thing to do, or is it the right thing for you to do?”

Was I doing the right thing for the right reasons? Was my anger focused on the right thing, at the right time, to the right degree? I didn’t know. But Jason‘s life could depend on the answer.

“They took my city,” I finally said. “They took my wife.”

I’d told Anastasia. How could I not tell him?

Jason exhaled explosively. Overhead, the Storm That Never Ceased howled.

“I came here to compete in the Games, I wasn’t lying about that,” he said. I nodded, accepting that. “But the glory is secondary. The political influence, the money, it’s all nice. But that’s not why I’m here. That’s not why I have to win.”

I stopped, realizing that he’d fallen back three steps ago. He leaned against the stone face of the mountain, gazing up at the storm. I knew that look in his eyes.

“Have to?” I echoed. He nodded.

“I come from the Coast, Solus. I’m a sailor by breed. It’s what drives me, what’s always driven me, since I was a boy who couldn’t even tie a proper knot. It’s how I rose through the ranks of cultivation so quickly. I was born for the sea.”

“So why-”

“Why am I here? Up on this mountain, closer to heaven than high tide?” he asked bitterly. From the folds of his pale yellow and blue tunic he pulled a length of rope, and began tying it into knots.

Rome was never a maritime nation, and I’d never bothered to learn more than the bare basics of the naval arts. Watching Jason’s fingers nimbly fasten a dozen different knots in the span of a minute, each more complex than the last, I was struck by the absentmindedness of the motions. I fastened my armor the same way. With the surety of a thousand past experiences. Thoughtlessly.

His hands were shaking.

“When I turned twenty I was a captain of the Sophic Realm, captain of my own ship, and I decided to sail further south than I had ever ventured before. Against the warnings of my father. Against the heartfelt wishes of my mother. I was young, I was strong, and I was on the precipice of the realm of legend and myth. Every day, the wanderlust called out to me louder than before. And why not indulge it? I was invincible on the open sea, with my sworn brothers and sisters beside me.”

I reached out and gently took the rope out of his hands. It was a ruined ball of knots and strangled threads. Jason pressed shaking hands to his forehead, his eyes distant. Ocean blue flames flickered.

“Monsters in the shape of men,” he said, with as much reluctance as I had. “Demonic cultivators. We never found that far flung shore. But something found us.

“Maybe Griffon is right. A few years ago, I would have been the first to agree with him. All the world’s greatest heroes are and have always been audacious souls. That much is undeniable.” His jaw clenched. “But that doesn’t mean that every audacious man becomes a great hero.

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“I was audacious once,” he said, a quiet admission, and an even quieter entreaty to me. “That’s why I’m here. Those waves doused me. I seek the Olympic flame, because it’s the only thing I know won’t ever stop burning, won’t ever go out… And I’d rather die than sail again.”

“So die.”

Blazing blue eyes snapped up to meet mine, too shocked to be offended. So, this was what it was like from the outside looking in. How pitiful.

“They took your crew from you,” I said. Declared it, because I could already tell. “They took your closest friends, and they should have taken you. But they didn’t. And you ascended, even so.”

Jason stared at me.

“The heavens are never fair,” I said furiously, reciting the words of my first mentor. “Justice is the responsibility of mortal men. What happened to your crew, was that justice? Did they deserve what was done to them?”

The rage that came over his face at the mere suggestion was answer enough.

“Do they deserve justice?” I pressed. Watched that fury turn inward, upon himself. That familiar loathing. How fucking pitiful. “Do they deserve to rot at the bottom of the heartless sea, forgotten and unavenged?”

“No.”

“No to what? Justice, or oblivion?”

Jason slammed a clenched fist against the mountain behind him, and the amethyst veins of jewels running through its stone face flashed bright as the sun for a moment before fading to their usual lustre.