XIX

WILL, WE WERE TAUGHT OVER and over at the academy, is a gift. Not just in the sense that it is something good and wondrous, but that it is literally a gift: it can only ever be given, never taken.

Another of the great lies of the Hierarchy. Possibly their greatest. And yet, perhaps, also their greatest truth. Like any power, it can be coerced. Fought for. Demanded. Requested under false pretences. But in the end, it is always the giving that is the important part. It can be reluctant. It can be because it is expected, pressured. It can even be a last resort against death itself.

The reasons never matter. It is always a choice being made. Always a personal responsibility.

As I’m ushered by my lictor through a surprisingly large mob calling my name and beyond the massive sandstone walls of Governance’s Alta Semita compound, a sharp summer dawn scything across Caten, that knowledge weighs on me. I’m not a fool; I know the alternative would have been as unacceptable. Running away, hiding from the murder of my friend, pretending my abstinence was worth more than justice. This is the only way I can understand what happened on Solivagus. This is the only way those responsible for Callidus’s death, and the deaths of so many others, will get their due.

It doesn’t make today, or the long two months leading up to it, any less a nightmare made real.

I trail after the burly, shaggy-haired Sextus who accompanied me here: one of a rotation of lictors on loan from Tertius Ericius who have been serving as both bodyguards and frustrating shadows, castigation for my visit to Lanistia. My hollowness is exacerbated by a strange pain in my chest this morning, not to mention the physical heaviness to my limbs, the mental torpor that has accompanied my ceding. Sneaking out last night, seeing Eidhin again, went as smoothly as I could have hoped. But there is a part of me missing. Even knowing it is being held by my friend, I cannot escape the pain of being so diminished.

The courtyard entrance is wide and grand, surrounded on all sides by multiple tiers of balconies rising above poplars and fountains. A massive blue Hierarchy symbol is inlaid into the cobblestones in its centre. It is largely empty as we enter, and I don’t recognise the few who mill in its corners. That’s not too surprising. This is a massive walled complex, taking up almost five acres of Alta Semita, comprised of many different entrances and interconnected structures. The Sevenths and Sixths from the Academy all went through this a few weeks ago, too. I doubt I’ll even catch sight of Aequa and the others I know, today, until we’re gathered in the central gardens for the Placement exam.

Behind us, I hear the booming sound of the compound gates closing. The thunk of them being barred.

“Why is the gate being shut?” Unease skitters across my mind.

“I don’t know, Catenicus.” The lictor, Darius, responds with the same cool politeness and lack of information as he does to most of my enquiries. He, and his five peers, have made no secret of the fact that they disapprove of how they are being used. Tradition dictates that they guard no one but Tertius Ericius. It seems that as suspicion and distrust increasingly permeates the city, though, many such time-honoured roles have begun to morph into something more utilitarian.

On the far side of the courtyard, three figures emerge from between the poplars. Two are men, near identical with their short-cut black hair, imposing physiques, and tinted glasses. They loom behind the third in the group—a girl, younger than me. Perhaps sixteen. Vaguely familiar, though I can’t place her.

“Catenicus?” she calls, her gaze focused on me.

“Yes.” I look around. The name has drawn eyes, the few people around pausing in their conversations to cast surreptitious glances in my direction. “Where is Magnus Tertius Ericius?”

“He’ll meet you for your ceding ceremony.”

“Isn’t that what happens first?” I can’t let on that I know about the blood test. I make my step energetic, put everything I have into feigning alertness and excitement. I slept for almost ten hours after ceding to Eidhin last night, a luxury few Octavii ever get. I still feel as though my sandals are made of lead.

“Not today. Please. Follow me.” She pauses, softening into something apologetic and infinitely warmer as her gaze lands on the lictor behind me. “Darius, do you mind waiting? No one’s allowed in or out until after this is done.”

Vek. I barely manage to keep my face smooth as Darius departs for some other section of the compound. “You’re shutting down the entire complex?”

“Now that you’re here. You’re the last to arrive.” No further explanation, and from her tone, none forthcoming. Another security measure? Tensions have been higher than ever in the city, and given that the timing of today’s test was meant to be unknown to the general public this year, the crowd outside the gate was far larger than I expected.

In the end, though, its purpose doesn’t matter. Its effect does. Eidhin won’t be allowed in.

My sluggish mind struggles as we walk, the frustrations of pointless weeks of tightly controlled schedule and blurred repetition threatening to bubble up and overwhelm me. Up before dawn each day, an hour of lonely physical training in an empty courtyard. Slowly, slowly learning to adapt to my missing arm. Then mornings spent being shown the intricacies of Caten’s runnings. The Senate and its interminable, showy debates in the Curia Caten that hinge far more on oratory performance than argument. The judiciary, which is even worse. One day in the Temple of Jovan, we watched the trial and subsequent sentencing to a Sapper of a man who tried to protect his daughter from ceding.

Some small part of me died when I didn’t stand up, didn’t announce my objection to his punishment. But it was his choice to be part of the Hierarchy.

Same as mine.

I squint at the familiarity of the girl leading me toward the farthest structure. Have I met her? It’s certainly possible. My afternoons for the past seven weeks have been filled running minor errands for Governance’s elite, shaking new hand after new hand. Tertius Ericius’s way of giving me a chance to make contacts. I’ve been studious enough in that endeavour, but it’s had the added benefit of my slowly getting to know the unsettled morass of Caten. The dark corners of Praedium, the deceptive heights of Alta Semita. Every district has its own flavour, its own expectations. In Esquilae, I hide my missing arm because I know I will be mobbed if I am recognised. In Sarcinia, I hide it because if I do not, Military Praetorians are more likely than not to deliberately delay me without provocation.

And that knowledge, in turn, has let me move around unnoticed in the evenings. Find my way to the tucked-away smithy in Sarcinia that Quintus Elevus arranged access to and, exhausted though I’ve been, work late into the nights without being seen or interrupted.

“Wait.” I start as my recognition of the girl in front of me clicks into place. Her long brown hair is braided, but the few strands that are loose curl. She’s not as gaunt as either her father or Callidus, but still slimly built. Dark skin and sharp, appraising brown eyes. I caught a glimpse of her at the funeral. “You’re Callidus’s sister. Livia?”

“Yes.” That same stiff formality, closing off the possibility of a conversation.

I try anyway. “It’s nice to finally meet you. He spoke of you a lot.”

Her prim façade twitches, but quickly reappears. She doesn’t respond otherwise.

I tamp down a weary flash of irritation—it’s too easy to lose control of my emotions, in this state—and follow Livia beneath the stylish pyramidal archway that allows us indoors, then through an atrium and down a yawning flight of stairs. Thick sandstone continues to line the way ahead. Torches crackle as we descend.

“Where are we going?”

“There is to be an interview before your induction as Sextus.”

“Your father didn’t mention that.”

“No, he didn’t.”

We emerge into a long hallway. It’s wide and high, well lit, as inviting as an underground passageway can be. Heavy-looking doors line it.

“In here.” Livia stops outside one and steps to the side, indicating I should enter.

“You’re not staying?”

“No.”

I wait for more of an explanation, but none comes. A quick glance back reveals only the burly forms of the two Sextii, standing just close enough to show there’s no retreat. Livia waits mutely.

I push open the thick oak-and-steel door, and enter.

THE ROOM ISN’T LARGE, PERHAPS twenty feet wide. it smells of smoke and dry dust. A lantern on the table in its centre illuminates three strange banners on the wall—one white, one blue, and one red—each embroidered with angular patterns, dense designs that seem almost complementary yet don’t quite fit together.

On the opposite side of the table sits a small, wizened man with dark glasses. Only a few wisps of white hair still cling to his head. He must be a Sextus—no one would dare wear those glasses, otherwise—but it’s surely in a retirement pyramid. There’s another seat on my side. Nothing else in the room.

The door shuts behind me with an echoing boom. As it slowly fades, it’s punctuated by the metallic click of a turning lock.

“Sit, Vis Telimus.” The old man’s voice creaks into the trailing hush.

“Who are you?” I do as I’m asked.

“You may call me Quaestor.”

“Just ‘Quaestor’?”

“Yes.”

I settle into the uncomfortably hard wooden chair, and don’t have to pretend to the unease that would surely be expected of me. “What is this about?” The implements for taking my blood are on the table. Emissa was telling the truth.

“First, your signature.” He pushes a piece of paper across the table with a single finger. It scratches in the silence.

I scan it. “A Silencium?”

“It covers everything that may pass here.” Quaestor leans forward and gives the sheet a single, slow tap. “And it will be enforced.”

It’s not as if there’s much choice in the matter, though the dusty certainty in the man’s voice gives me pause. A trip to the Sappers is the consequence of breaking a Silencium. And I’ve been through the Aurora Columnae, now. I’m as vulnerable to them as anyone else.

Excessive, for what we are about to do. But I sign the document. Quaestor tucks it away with slow, deliberate motions. Then he picks up the scalpel. Behind his low-perched glasses, black floods his eyes. “Hold out your arm.”

I do so, not showing any of the reluctance I feel.

“The burns on your hand.” He observes them as he makes a small incision and blood begins dripping into the obsidian vial. “They look recent.”

“Boiling soup. One arm.” I flex the injury with a grimace. It’s red and raised in a line from the knuckle of my thumb to the back of my hand. A hair off blistered.

“Hm.” He doesn’t look convinced, or suspicious, or even particularly interested. An absent question, nothing more. That’s good. Anyone with smithing experience would probably be quick to guess at the real cause, and while I have done nothing technically wrong, it will be far more useful to keep what I’m doing hidden.

A few tense seconds pass as Quaestor frowns, his attention now on the obsidian vial. My stomach twists as weariness drives my anxiety, heightens it. I’ve been assuming that my ceding will satisfy this test. But I only have Veridius’s relayed word for it.

The old man’s eyes clear from their brief darkness, and he uses a bandage to cover the small wound. “Thank you.”

I ensure my face shows more confusion than relief. “That’s it?”

“That is a beginning.” Quaestor finishes my dressing and clears his implements with unhurried motions, then reaches into a drawer. Pulls out something and places it between us.

“A Foundation board?” No need to fake confusion, this time.

“I assume you know the rules.” He starts taking the red and white pyramid stones from a leather bag and placing them in their starting positions. Every movement slow and deliberate as he sets stone against stone. Click. Click.

“Uh. Yes. Of course.” I hate the slowness of thought that comes with being an Octavii. “You… want a game?”

“To pass the time, while you answer a few questions.” Click. Click. “There. You may have the first move.”

I stare at the completed board. Foggier than I want to be. Is this part of Placement, now?

Nothing I can do about it. I make an opening play.

The craggy-faced man observes the board for an unnervingly long time, then swivels and sweeps his arm at the banners behind him. “Do you recognise any of these? Look closely.”

My brow furrows, but I bite my tongue and obey. The patterns on the banners are dizzying to the eye, all sharp corners and interwoven lines, similar and yet somehow distinct from one another. None of them mean anything to me. “No.”

Quaestor picks up a pen, dips it in the inkwell on the table, and writes. Slowly. The scratching of words being committed to parchment fills the room.

Then he moves his first stone. Click.

“What was the last thing you wished to do on your own?”

I blink. “Pardon?”

Quaestor looks up. His eyes are a faded grey over the rims of his glasses. “What was the last thing you wished to do on your own?”

“Um.” It’s a strange question, but one I don’t particularly see any benefit to avoiding. “I suppose… pay my respects to my friend.” A lump in my throat accompanies the answer.

Head back down, revealing a liver-spotted pate. More scratching. “Make your move.”

I do. He looks up. Studies it. Makes his own again, slow and measured. Click. “If the sea is the sky, what does that make a shark?”

I resist the urge to make him repeat the question. Repress my confusion. “Uh. An eagle, I suppose?” I shift a stone before he asks, this time. The first few moves are always easiest, and he’s playing a standard opening.

He writes again. Stops. Click. “Can a man go a hundred days without sleep?”

I pretend to study the board, this time. My foggy mind trying to discern what these questions could possibly signify. I answer as I push the next stone. “No?”

Click. “Today I feel the colour of a blue sky. What does that mean to you?”

I turn a disbelieving chuckle—the man’s grim delivery is starkly at odds to his statement—into an awkward cough. “I suppose that you’re happy?” I can’t help but pose my answers as questions in and of themselves.

Pause. Write. “Malum. Terreo. Carina. Lapis. Vinculum. Luteus.” His gaze flicks up. Watching me more intently than before.

“Is that… Vetusian? Something about a stone, and… something orange?”

He grunts. Writes more. “Make your move.”

“What are these questions for?” I let irritation into my tone, in part to cover my increasing anxiety. This seems frivolous, meaningless—but it’s surely not. Not knowing its purpose means I don’t know how to answer. Don’t know what I’m revealing. The blood test, I expected. This is something else.

“Make your move,” Quaestor repeats. No change in intonation. Calm and dry.

I scowl, and do. He ignores my irritation in favour of the board. Click.

Then he moves a gnarled hand to a face-down frame next to him. Flips it over and pushes it in front of me. “Tell me what you think of this.”

It’s a painting. A city of some kind, the structures black and mirror-polished. There are people walking the streets, but to a man they appear downcast. All of them have their faces covered. Everything is tinted a garish green.

The artistry is incredible; combined with the surreal landscape, it instantly calls to mind the sketches I was shown after the naumachia last year. This feels like the same, immensely skilled hand at work. And their proximities to the blood test cannot be ignored.

“It’s very strange,” I say noncommittally. Make my next move. More slowly, this time. The game is entering its next phase. Clashes and counter-clashes, attack and reaction. I am diminished, but I’m still going to do my best.

He jots it down. Click. “Why do people enjoy competition?” That same creaking voice. That same rhythmic, almost mechanical tone.

And so it goes, and on, and on. Some questions are riddles I’ve heard before. What can be held without touching it? Move. Click. What is so fragile that its name will break it? Move. Click. Some are deeply personal. Describe your earliest memory. Move. Click. Tell me the most influential event of your life, and then describe how you feel it is affecting you right now. Move. Click. The latter type of questions, I often have to lie. I have no idea whether he notices.

Those are interspersed with more pictures. More ancient Vetusian. More questions that could at best be described as abstract. And throughout, that dry, unsettling scratching as he records my answers. That same, slow, deliberate picking up and placing of his stones.

The interview continues interminably, the passing of time impossible to gauge down here. I hold my nerve. Barely. Twice more I try to ask what these questions are for, what their purpose could possibly be, but I’m met with the same lack of response. Quaestor simply moves on, the old man ignoring my confusion with infuriating, indifferent calm.

I begin to lose the game of Foundation. I am not making categorical mistakes, but the fog across my mind—not to mention the added pressure of the questions—makes it difficult to see more than a couple of moves ahead. And Quaestor isn’t a particularly dynamic or creative player, but he is very clearly skilled. I fall one piece behind. Then three. He plays conservatively but inexorably.

And then I am defeated, his final stone’s click as dry and precise as all the ones before. He observes the end state of the board. Scratches something more in his book.

“A final question, Vis Telimus.” He taps the board, just once. “If you had not made any mistakes, would you have beaten me?”

I shake my head slowly.

“I may have beaten you,” I tell him quietly. My father’s words echoing on my lips. “Foundation is like life. You can make no mistakes at all, and still lose.”

He studies me. Filmy grey eyes curious. “Hm.” Head down, one last note. “You may go.” He finishes, then begins packing up the board with considered, rickety care.

I stand uncertainly. Shuffle across to the door, knock, and the lock’s click quickly echoes. One of the two burly Sextii waiting outside gestures for me to leave.

I hesitate, wanting to demand answers even as some part of me knows I should obey, grateful I have apparently not stirred suspicion. Quaestor just writes, head bowed, pen scratching. He doesn’t seem to feel my glare.

I stalk past the waiting Sextii, and back out into the underground hallway.

“TERTIUS.” AN INEVITABLE EDGE TO my voice as i join Tertius Ericius and his daughter in the main courtyard. The grey of the overcast morning glares down, heat reflecting off the stones underfoot despite the clouds. The interview can’t have taken more than an hour. It feels like days have passed.

The Hierarchy’s Censor dismisses the Sextii trailing me with a flick of his wrist. “Hail, Catenicus.” His gaze slides briefly from me to the compound’s entrance. Still barred. Still guarded. “I take it you’ve completed your session with Quaestor.”

I try not to look. “I have. It was… unusual.” I want to ask outright, but Catenans—cultured Catenans—are rarely so blunt. I’ve learned to play the game better than I’d like.

“A request from Princeps Kavius. I have to admit, I am curious to know what they asked of you. A shame the Silencium I assume you signed prevents you from saying anything.”

“A shame,” I agree carefully, answering the question he’s really asking. So he doesn’t know the details. Interesting. “One day, I should tell you about the tests I underwent after the naumachia.” A little clumsy and forward, but it’s the best my weary mind can conjure.

He doesn’t look at me, though there’s a sharpening of his gaze as he watches the men and women in the courtyard. “That sounds intriguing, Catenicus. One day soon.” He exhales and then claps me on the back. “But right now, come. They’ve been waiting. It’s time for the exciting part of the day.” He glances at Livia, who nods and jogs ahead of us.

I hide the turning of my stomach, and trail after the limping Tertius across the courtyard.

The cobblestoned space is still fairly empty, save for the group Livia is now talking to, gathered over by some decorative poplars. Five men and a woman. They have been watching us—watching me—with keen interest. As we walk toward them, I spot more crowding the tiered balconies above, hanging over the edge in apparently indolent conversation. Though I also notice that as soon as the Tertius and I emerge from the shadows of the archway, many of those conversations falter and fade away.

“This is a strong group. These Septimii are all talented enough to imbue independently, and their Octavii have all been carefully vetted. You won’t find a better base outside of a Magnus’s pyramid.” Callidus’s father says it quietly as we walk. “I’ve done all I can to help, Catenicus. The rest is up to you. Prove yourself this afternoon.”

“I will.” Resisting the urge to show my cynicism. The most favoured get the strongest pyramids. The best chance. Even here, the game is rigged. I do all I can to quell my discomfort as I examine the people whose Will I’m about to take. The Septimii return my gaze with variations of eager smiles.

Livia moves to stand with the group, facing us. I don’t understand for a few seconds. Then frown, an extra layer of queasiness washing through me.

“Tertius?”

“Livia is here through merit, Vis, not favour.” The Tertius is firm. “She is old enough and strong enough. She would have attended the Academy next cycle, if we were still intending to send our best.”

“As you say, Magnus Tertius.” I tuck away the information about the Academy, unsurprising though it is, and focus on the more immediate. A hedge against my loyalty, and an acknowledgement that there is a very real chance I won’t succeed this afternoon. If I’m not reporting directly to him, he wants a way to keep an eye on me.

Livia, for her part, watches me coolly. A willing participant, but unlike the others, not an enthusiastic one. I don’t know whether that makes it better or worse.

“Linus. Step forward.” The Tertius isn’t wasting time. A man of around thirty separates from the line, all but bounding up to me. “Vis, this is Septimus Linus Manius. His father is the proconsul in Tensia.”

The latter’s unnecessary; I know who the Manius family is. “A pleasure to meet you, Septimus.” Linus is tall, gangly. His fairer skin and blue eyes betray his southern heritage.

“And you, Catenicus.” He’s eager, almost shy, despite the difference in our age. His black hair recedes at the front. “An honour.”

“Are you both ready?”

I confirm it as the other man does the same. Brace myself, emotionally and physically. Accepting Will is meant to be just as simple as ceding it, but after the strangeness of the Aurora Columnae, I have no idea how this might go.

“Catenicus. Extend the worthy right hand.”

I extend my hand; Linus clasps it, hand to wrist. He takes a breath. “I freely give my Will.”

My skin tingles where it meets Linus’s and then everything sharpens. My harrowing morning, washed away in an instant. Energy in my limbs again. I feel good, even as I despise that I do. Every part of my body lighter. The nub of my missing arm suddenly, blessedly, no longer aches.

It all happens in a moment; when I focus again on Linus he’s still smiling, but some indefinable part of his verve has diminished, the spark in his eyes gone. He may still have twice the Will of a regular person, but I’ve taken something from this man.

I let go of his hand as if it were burning me. Nothing changes.

“Stronger together,” says Linus as he steps back, giving me a respectful smile before rejoining the others. He seems fine. Emotionally unaffected. I wonder if it’s a façade.

Callidus’s father calls out the next name.

The ceremony passes in a kind of horrific, sick slow motion after that. Excited Septimii stepping forward before the silent, fascinated crowd on the balconies above. We clasp hands. They utter the words. Their strength, their life, flows into me.

I don’t know what I was expecting. It should not feel like this. A celebration. Smiles and good cheer and respect. They have not dreaded today. This is something they simply accept. Have looked forward to, even.

For my part, physically, it is what I have been taught. A small jolt each time and then more clarity, as if I’ve suddenly gained the benefit of a good night’s rest. More energy and strength and awareness. There is no tangible sense of the extra power I now have at my disposal, otherwise.

Finally, only Livia remains. She stands in front of me, and while nothing about her expression is different from the others’, her eyes are cold. She grabs my wrist as if it’s the neck of a dangerous animal.

“I freely give my Will,” Callidus’s little sister says dispassionately.

It happens as easily as with the others, though it feels like it shouldn’t. A flush, and then her Will is just… there. Augmenting me.

She drops my hand as abruptly as she took it. Steps back.

“Welcome to Governance, Catenicus,” Tertius Ericius loudly congratulates me.

There’s a smattering of applause from the balconies above; I look up to see even more onlookers now. My Septimii are clapping too. Smiling.

I fake a smile myself, raising a hand in acknowledgement. Head still buzzing. Skin still crawling.

The Censor limps over. His mood is jovial, though I suspect at least some of his grin is for the spectators. “Congratulations. Spend some time getting to know your Septimii, and then Darius will take you and Livia to your Placement.”

“It’s not being conducted here?” Vek. On the one hand, it means that Eidhin won’t need to find another way past that locked gate. But I’m not going to be able to steal away from Darius for any unexplained detours, either. Eidhin will be waiting just outside, planning to enter as soon as he’s allowed. He’ll have felt the extra Will passing through me to him. It will only take a moment of physical contact for him to stop my ceding. I just have to make sure he knows I’m coming out.

“Not this year.” A breath of hesitation. As if he wants to say more, but can’t. “Do well, Catenicus.”

“As you say, Tertius.”

He studies me. Nods. Limps off, and leaves me to the lionizing attentions of my new Septimii.