by Hazel Hunter
Gaius’s smile was thin.
“If you are going to rescue Titus and Augusta, who will rescue Olaf Snorrison, Athelwulf of Umbria and Berys of the Umaii tribe?”
Liona blinked.
“Other people of power,” she murmured. “Our family is not the only one that has gone missing.”
Gaius nodded grimly.
“Whoever these evil men are, they are powerful, and they are looking for people just like us. I know that other clans have lost their sorcerers and sorceresses. I know that when I ventured out to Londinium a few months past, I had to fight off a pair of armed men. I thought they were after my purse, but now I see that there might have been far more sinister implications.”
Though Lucius shook his head, he looked resolute. “Then we are at war.”
Liona and Gaius looked at him with surprise. There was a fire in his eyes that Liona had never seen before. With a shiver, she thought it must be the look of a man who too often had to kill or be killed.
“War occurs between tribes and nations,” Gaius began, but Lucius cut him off.
“No, this is a war between those like us and those who would see us destroyed. I am certain of it. We are being taken, perhaps killed. It is time we fought back.”
The words he spoke brought a flicker of Liona’s power. She gasped, touching her head. For a split second, her mind was crowded with the vision of snapping banners and high walls. She could hear footsteps in the dark. She could see assassins striking people down. She could see men and women of power, some with fire in their hands, others in the form of wild animals, fighting and dying.
She came to herself with Gaius on one side and Lucius on the other. For a moment, she only rested, not caring whose hands were whose.
“You are going to change the world,” she said to Lucius. There was dread in her voice.
He shook his head, his face stone.
“They came after our family. If we do not show them that there are consequences to this, they will never stop. People like that don’t stop.”
Liona let out a slow breath.
“First we find our family. Without them, all else is pointless anyway. Then you can start your war.”
Lucius’s hand was warm on hers, but there was something distant about him. She wondered with a deep pit opening in her stomach if she had lost him already to some dark future she did not understand.
“We should start in Londinium,” Gaius said finally. “That is the largest city in the region. It is only a few days ride away, and it is still early enough to make the crossing. We can find the answers we seek there. But make no mistake. We are at war.”
• • • • •
Hailey abruptly realized that she was in her bed at the infirmary, rather than in the small cottage in Gaul. But the realization didn’t lessen the pang in her chest.
“I think I’ve heard that before,” she said softly.
Somehow they had changed positions. Now Liona lay on her back, gazing at the ceiling, and Hailey curled into her side. There was something distant and hard about the woman, Hailey realized. There was something terrible about living so long. People changed, and sometimes, the way that they changed hurt.
“I’m sure you have,” Liona said. “I would wager that every member of the Magus Corps has it tattooed over their hearts.”
Hailey thought of Kieran, of duty that could call him like a wolf’s howl. She wondered if he had ever known of Lucius, the man who had so early on determined a need for the Magus Corps, or something like it.
Shyly, as if afraid she would spook the other woman, Hailey reached over to touch her shoulder. Liona stiffened for a moment, but then she relaxed under Hailey’s touch. When she unwound, when those dark eyes fluttered closed, she looked like a girl again.
“Think very carefully before you decide to walk the long road,” she said quietly. “Think very carefully upon it indeed, Hailey.”
Liona lay still for such a long time that Hailey wondered if she would ever hear more. When Liona began to speak again, she did it without opening her eyes.
“Artos, the chieftain of the Altanii did not want to lose us. He considered me kin already, and of course a sorcerer such as Gaius cannot be found so easily. We swore we would return, and we did mean it, though of course Lucius made no such promise. His eyes were fixed north in Londinium. In some ways, he felt lost to me, though I would have done anything to get him back.”
CHAPTER TEN
“RIDING LOOKED SO easy when I saw people do it in the streets,” Liona whimpered, falling into the bed that Lucius had made up for her. The sturdy northern horse that she had ridden snorted as if it had heard her words. She would have made a rude gesture at it if she had the strength.
She caught her breath as she rolled on her sides. The insides of her thighs were red and sore. She felt as if she would never be able to walk correctly again.
“It’s not easy, but it will get easier,” Gaius promised. “Can I see?”
“If you could make me feel better, I would strip off my skin for you.”
Gaius laughed.
“That won’t be necessary, but I may be a little more intimate than you expect.”
He glanced at Lucius, who smiled.
“If you can help her ride without making those sad little sounds, I would thank you as well.”
Gaius rolled Liona slowly on her back. With a gentle hand, he pushed the hem of her wool dress up to her waist. The stone ridge that they were camped underneath kept off the worst of the wind, but still she shivered.
“Shush, shush, beautiful lioness.” Somewhere along the way, he had picked up Lucius’s name for her. “Let me see… Ah, poor thing. You’re so raw.”
He spoke with the same absent kindness he would have given a hurt bird or kitten. Liona relaxed to his touch, flinching only a little as he inspected her thighs.
“Fortunately, I have just the thing. Stay still for me, darling, and I can make this better.”
Liona heard him rummaging in his bag, and then she smelled something bright, almost summery. She watched as he scooped a pat of white balm out of an unstoppered jar. She trembled when he started to sleek it against her sore flesh. His long fingers were gentle, however. Slowly, she relaxed. The tingle of the balm soothed the dull roaring ache of her skin. Soon she was stretched out on her bedding. The tenseness of her muscles had been causing her more pain than she thought. When she relaxed, the ache faded.
Gaius massaged every trace of the salve into her skin. When he took his hands away, she whimpered piteously.
“I thought you were going to make her feel better,” Lucius said, a teasing lilt in his voice.
Gaius laughed, but he didn’t reply to Lucius’s words.
“There, that should help you sleep well. Tomorrow will still hurt, but hopefully it will hurt less. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll take a look around. I don’t know the area, and I’m curious to see what I can before we lose the light entirely.”
“I can tell you,” Liona said. “It will be trees, trees, trees, a rock, and more trees. I think after this is all over, I’ll never want to see a tree again.”
Gaius smiled at that, but he slipped away, a strange expression on his face.
Once he had the fire built up, Lucius came to stretch out by her side. She turned to bury her face in his chest. With his arm around her, she felt safer than she had ever felt.
“Gaius is strange sometimes,” she mumbled.
Lucius’s laugh rumbled through his frame.
“I take it you didn’t realize what he’s off to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“He had your skirts up and his hands on your thighs. He looked like a man who liked what he saw, and would have liked even more to touch.”
For a moment, Liona had no idea what Lucius was talking about. Then she figured it out, blushing fiercely.
“Does it bother you?” she whispered. “Do…do you get angry because of this?”
“Do I look angry? No,
” he shook his head. “I would have thought I would, but I like Gaius. He has kept us safe, and he obviously cares about you. I don’t think I can find it in me to be angry at someone who cares about you as well as he does.”
There was a kind of peace to Lucius’s words. Years later, Liona would look back on that moment with a flinch. Now, however, she merely burrowed deeper into Lucius’s chest, relishing his warmth.
“I…I like him a great deal,” she muttered.
She wasn’t sure if it was the truth. If it was, it wasn’t all of it. The power of her emotions frightened her. Now that she was rested and safe, she could look at them more closely. What she saw startled her. The feelings she was developing for Gaius, they weren’t so far off from what she felt for Lucius. It didn’t matter who she had met first. It made her wonder if her affections weren’t so very powerful. It felt strong to her, the presence that they had in her heart. It was like looking at the sun. She couldn’t think about it for too long without flinching. Instead she fell into a light doze. At some point, Gaius returned. They had been sleeping three together for the past few nights simply because it was so cold. He slid against her back, enveloping her in warmth.
Liona dreamed of the future, but it always outpaced her. Her vision was clouded and troubled. When she awoke from a fitful sleep, someone kissed her hair, and someone else stroked her shoulder until she quieted.
• • • • •
Though Hailey had turned on her side, away from Liona, the older woman never broke their connection. She spooned Hailey’s smaller frame easily from behind. Though Hailey had listened intently to Liona’s tale, so many questions burned inside her. What would it be like to be immortal, or to even have that choice? What kind of power would be unleashed in her? And though Liona was a seer of legendary ability, Hailey couldn’t bring herself to ask her own future.
“I know it is much to take in, dear one,” Liona whispered, her breath warm against the side of Hailey’s neck. “Perhaps it is best we stop.”
“No!” Hailey blurted out, turning her head.
To her surprise, Liona had been trying to glimpse her face. With the barest, glancing brush, their lips touched. Before she could stop herself, Hailey gasped. As her nostrils filled with the honeyed scent of Liona’s perfume, Hailey’s head swam. Liona’s dark eyes seemed lit from within, a brilliant sparkle gleaming from an untold depth.
“Be at ease, dear one,” she crooned, nuzzling the side of Hailey’s neck. The weight of her brow gently moved Hailey’s head back to the pillow. “There,” Liona said quietly. “Just so.”
The older woman slid her hand around Hailey’s waist, then slowly up her tummy. Hailey’s mind blanked as Liona’s deft touch left a trail of muted warmth. Her hand slipped between Hailey’s breasts, pressing down gently on the breastbone.
“Your heart beats like a captured bird,” Liona whispered. Hailey swallowed hard as her nipples tightened and beaded. “What troubles you?”
Hailey could hardly think straight. What was her body doing? Was it the tale she had heard of Liona’s love for her two men? Was it Hailey’s desire for Kieran and Piers? Did her body sense Liona’s great power, and the way she seemed to know what Hailey was thinking? But as the quiet stretched on, she sensed Liona waiting.
“Please,” Hailey said in a quaking voice. “Please tell me that Gaius, Lucius and you…that…that it wasn’t just a dream. That the three of you…”
“Hush, dear one,” Liona whispered. “Let me tell you what you need to know.”
• • • • •
The crossing to Londinium was easier than the journey from Rome. Even so, Liona didn’t begin to feel herself until they had found a room in one of Londinium’s many inns. Within city walls, she felt herself grow stronger.
“It’s not Rome,” she had said to Gaius after a few mornings there. “I mean, I doubt any city is like Rome, but this isn’t a bad place.”
The earthwork was in the middle of the forest.
“I didn’t realize that Rome smelled so foul,” Gaius said drily.
But as they became used to the city, they also settled into their tasks, each seeking information in their own ways. Lucius thought the answer lay with warriors, fighters from all nations who had come to sell their swords in Londinium. Gaius sought the scholars, the ones who came looking for the future in the past.
For her part, Liona cultivated a reputation as a gossip, a young girl who read fortunes and who was always happy to chatter for a little while. She made a little bit of coin here and there, but she heard more. She talked with women at the well, with well-to-do women who went shopping in the market every day, with little girls who carried enormous bundles of wood between the houses.
One young girl, her face smudged with charcoal, looked startled when she mentioned the emblem. She looked down and around, but Liona was patient, and finally the girl spoke.
“There’s a girl like you, who tells fortunes at the house with the green door on the docks. She treats with the men with that symbol. She can help you.”
“Is she always there?”
“No, ma’am. I think she sails with the ships. The last of them is leaving in the next day or so. She’s sure to be on it.”
Liona cursed before she remembered herself. She handed the girl a few copper pieces and sent her on her way. She thought furiously. Lucius was north of the city that day, trying to find old Roman veterans who might speak with him. She didn’t even know where Gaius was. There was no help for it. She would need to find this fortuneteller herself.
The girl’s instructions led her to a shabby area of the docks. She kept her eyes down and walked as if she knew where she was going. After a little bit of fumbling, she found the green door the girl had promised. Biting her lip, she knocked on the door twice. A muffled voice told her to enter. When she did, she froze.
The small space was lit only with a lantern, but she could see well enough. A large man closed the door behind her. In front of her, seated at a bare table, was an ascetic-looking man, rail thin and with his hair cropped close in the Roman fashion. In his hand, he held a sharp dagger. Around his neck was a gold pendant bearing the sigil of a hand reaching out of the flame.
“Well,” he said, his voice as dry as the slither of scales over rock. “We have been looking for you for quite some time.”
“Who are you?” she whispered. “What did you do with my sister?”
“That is information that you will learn in time. For the moment, we have business with you.”
Liona swallowed hard. She wished fiercely for the ability to turn into a wolf or an eagle, for the power to spit fire from her fingertips.
“What business could you have with me?”
“You are very lovely, aren’t you?” the man spoke carelessly, as if he were praising the worth of a gem or a tool. “It does not matter, not really. Still, I have an offer to make to you.”
“An offer?” Liona’s voice shook. She couldn’t take her eyes off the man. He was as hypnotic as a snake.
“Yes, a simple one. You can come with us tomorrow morning, willingly and on your own two feet. If you do that, your men will not be harmed.”
“And what happens if I refuse?”
“Then we take you now, and when they come looking for you, they will be killed. It is as simple as that.” She started to open her mouth, but he stopped her. “We have agents in every part of this town. We are deadlier and stronger than you could ever imagine. Fortunately, right now, what we want is you. If we do not get you, your sister will be killed.”
Spoken as a plain fact, the last was what decided her. Something inside her died.
“You will not harm them?”
The man’s lip curled as if the thought sickened him.
“We have no interest in mad dogs that we cannot control,” he told her bluntly. “We have learned that men like that are not worth the time it takes to bring them in. We will leave them, or we will kill them.” He shook his head. “There will be a man by
the door of your inn tomorrow. Before dawn, you will come down to him, and he will take you to our ship. If you know what is best for them, you will keep them well away. Do you understand?” She nodded mutely. “We do not wish any trouble. You can make things much easier on yourself, on them, and on your sister. Do you understand?’
She nodded again. His eyes grew narrow. In that moment, she could see how much he hated her, how much he despised the fact that she shared the world with him.
“Fine. Get out of my sight.”
She stumbled back into the light, feeling a thousand years older than she had a few moments before. She didn’t doubt the power the man held. They had likely been waiting for weeks to find her without Gaius or Lucius.
She understood their fear well. Both Gaius and Lucius were powerful men. If they fought, they would fight to the death. If she went missing today, they would find her before the ship could sail. She had to make it easy on them. Only she could facilitate her own kidnapping.
She returned to the inn where they were lodging. She spent some of the silver she had on a roast chicken, asking that it be sent up. Her mind was a haze. She bathed herself in the basin in the room. It made her think of the safety of the hot springs cavern of the Altanii. When Gaius and Lucius returned together, it was almost dark. They were grim from their work, tired of finding nothing, but they both smiled at her when they saw her clean and waiting with food.
“Eat,” she said, taking a small portion for herself. “We don’t know when it will come again.”
It was strange but everything seemed much clearer to her now. As if she was on the other side of a clear sheet of ice, she saw herself laugh with them, touch them both gently. It was love that bound them both together. When the light outside was gone entirely and the chicken was done, the three prepared for bed. Lucius and Liona had been taking the wide bed while Gaius contented himself with the trundle underneath. Instead of letting him pull it out, however, Liona stopped him with a hand on his arm.
