1.69

The Son of Rome

Anastasia‘s shadow pulled away deliberately from mine beneath the wood-carved table, an active separation that was impossible to see and nearly impossible to feel. I almost hadn’t noticed it at all, the sensation for some reason so much deeper now than the last time I remembered feeling it that I’d almost mistaken it for something else entirely. If Anastasia’s eyes hadn’t given her away, smoldering flames flickering in response to Griffon‘s silent message, I might have dismissed it as a remnant from the Aetos’ story.

Griffon hadn’t caught it. The state he was in right now, he might not have even if he knew what to look for. But shaken or calm, I could never forget the feeling of a scavenger creeping into my shadow.

As long as I lived, I would never forget the rats.

The raven that lurked inside of Griffon’s shadow roiled beneath the table, raising a bronze hilt up in offering. Anastasia‘s smile deepened to match the schemes in her eyes, and in response to her challenge the raven brandished twenty iron hilts alongside the bronze.

“I didn’t meet Damon Aetos until a year ago, when he was already the man he is today,” I answered the question the Heroes around the table had posed, the silence having stretched long enough. Through my shadow, as sharply as I dared, I added, We’re not fighting here. Stop posturing before they notice – and where did you even get that many swords?

The scavenger edged back in, listening curiously while the woman controlling it continued perusing Socrates’ map.

“So that story took place after he’d already been to Rome,” Scythas said, before frowning. “Unless, no. He could have gone after, but that would mean…”

Souvenirs from our lesson with the Gadfly, Griffon’s shadow answered mine, withdrawing the hilts of his celestial axe and twenty iron swords.

“That would mean he taught Sol just a decade or two ago,” Jason said doubtfully. “Taught. Even the Gadfly only advised Bakkhos, as he’s advising Sol now. How can a Philosopher be master to a Tyrant?”

“What is it about him that makes you want to kiss his feet?” Elissa asked him scathingly, jabbing a finger at me while she pinned Jason with a glare. “Who says he’s a Tyrant at all?”

You’re a terrible actress, Griffon‘s raven taunted Anastasia‘s crow, while he laid his cheek in his hand to stop its furious clenching. Shoving your face into a map like it will save you from being found out.

It worked on you, her crow replied laughingly.

“Who says? You were there when we went out posing as crows! Have you not been paying attention?” Jason demanded.

“A question I could ask a few people,” Griffon mused. He went ignored. Beneath the table, he added, It never will again.

No, nothing ever works twice on you, does it?

“Whatever he is,” Kyno interjected, pulling down the Sword Song’s pointing hand. “He can tell us himself.”

“He already has,” Scythas declared.

Though the term Legate won’t mean much to them, Anastasia’s shadow mused, wings fluttering as it mingled between mine and Griffon’s.

“Well?” Lefteris asked, leaning forward on the table.

“It’s rude to ask a man his standing among heaven and earth without first offering your own,” Griffon chided him.

“You’ve been to our cult and climbed the stairway to heaven – our ranks are plain to see. Yours aren’t.”

“Mine is.” His smile was just the wrong side of sharp, his affected levity noticeable even to the boys sitting by Lefteris. “In fact, I just saw it earlier today.”

“Liar,” Lefteris accused him, rising from the table. His fuchsia cult attire, negligently wrapped as it was, spilled nearly entirely off his shoulders and exposed his bronze breastplate. “I checked them, every step from the twenty-first to the thirtieth. Not one of those names was yours!”

“You checked the wrong steps,” Griffon said, eyes narrowing. “The twelfth step is where you’ll find me”

“More lies.” Elissa pinched the bridge of her nose. “The same now as before. And you wonder why we don’t want to go chasing after myths with you.”

Perhaps the truth this time, Anastasia advised him through her shadow, throwing his words back in his face.

A single pankration fist formed in the air above the table. It raised its index finger, its glow casting a shadow across Griffon’s features.

“Call me a liar one more time,” he invited the room, and I knew what was coming next.

“Stop.”

Kyno pushed Lefteris’ chin up, closing his mouth with a click of teeth against teeth. Elissa crossed her arms mutinously, still leaning against him, but didn’t speak further. Anastasia‘s scavenging shadow withdrew from my own, the woman herself finally looking up from the map on the table to regard me curiously. Jason silently reached back and dunked his empty cup into the clay jar of spirit wine.

“Solus?” Scythas asked me quietly. I closed my eyes, falling back into a state of mind that felt too familiar. More comfortable than I deserved it to be.

Get to the point, the first spear had advised me in my last private moment before assuming control of the fifth legion. Truth or dishonesty, bright news or bleak, whatever it is you have to say – be direct, or don’t say anything at all.

“I am a Legate,” I told the Heroic cultivators arrayed against me. Lefteris’ eyes widened. “In Rome, a man’s standing is measured by his place within the city. Our realms are different than yours, eight instead of four. We have our own paths, as you have yours.”

The Soldier. The Senator.

And of course.

The Captain.

“Whichever path a man takes, the outcome is the same. It’s called the Cursus Honorum, and it is the progression of a Roman soul.”

“And how far down that road are you?” the man in the crocodile skin asked me. Lefteris mumbled something undistinguishable, unable to open his mouth with Kyno’s hand still pressing up on his chin. He smacked the hulking cultivator’s hand away and tried again.

“A legate is a commander,” he said, staring hard at me. Searching my face for falsehood. “A man that leads thousands of soldiers directly.”

How interesting, Anastasia‘s crow softly cawed. Lefteris, for his part, grit his teeth and ignored her caustic gaze.

“He does,” I said, nodding once. “A full legion. I commanded men that together could sweep a hundred drakaina screaming back into the sea.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I said to tell the truth, Griffon commented, no less irritating for the fact that I didn’t have to hear him say it aloud.

Hush, Anastasia scolded him. He snorted.

Scythas nodded slowly. “So you are, then.”

“A Tyrant,” Jason said with quiet conviction.