XXXIX

A DEEP, JAGGED PAIN BEHIND my eyes as I blink awake. Throat dry. Muscles aching as if finally released from hours-long cramps. My eyes search the room.

STRONGER TOGETHER.

The gold-etched proclamation on the wall, and the three-pronged symbol above it, are as familiar to me now as the too-clean smell and echoing silence in here. Some proud Catenan’s idea of encouragement for those in pain, no doubt. I wonder if they could even conceive of how profoundly opposite an effect it can have.

The last time I was in this room, I spoke with my father’s ghost. Some part of me strains to listen to the darkness, and aches for him to be here once again.

“Vis?” Aequa’s voice from somewhere near my head, startling me. I summon the energy to twist. She and Eidhin are both stirring from where they’ve evidently been drowsing in chairs next to my bed.

“Hail,” I croak. Eidhin offers me a cup. I sip messily. “So, that could have gone better.”

Aequa flashes a relieved smile, while Eidhin snorts. “See? He is fine,” he mutters, giving me a look that clearly blames me for the worry I’ve caused.

I ignore him, groaning as I prop myself up farther. “How long?”

“A bit more than a day.” Aequa takes the cup from my shaking hand.

“Veridius? Livia?”

“Veridius headed for the ruins as soon as he decided he couldn’t do anything more for you here. Livia…” She looks at Eidhin.

“Around.”

“Helpful,” I growl at him. “Does she know?”

“That you crept off the Academy grounds with Aequa, then returned unconscious while being hauled by a tame alupi? Yes, my friend. Word may have gotten around.”

“There was no way to get you back over the wall,” adds Aequa, vaguely apologetic. “And Diago… made an impression on the guards at the gate.”

It takes a moment for my mind to catch up, the name a shiver of pure panic before I remember. “You used Diago to carry me back?” The awkwardness of saying it aloud to them covered by my confusion.

“ ‘Used’? Not really. More ‘allowed, so that he didn’t eat me.’ ” She gestures irritably at my questioning look. “You were spasming, even after I got you out of that device. I couldn’t make you stop. So I carried you back—I figured the sooner I fetched Veridius, the better. But Diago wouldn’t let me out of the gods-damned building with you until I stopped self-imbuing.” She takes a breath. The tiniest catch to it. For the first time, hinting at how shaken she was. “The way you talked to him, I figured you might be a little upset with me if I took a… less friendly approach. And I thought I could probably carry you anyway, but then Diago… he just kind of inserted himself under you. Helped me take you back. I think we’re friends, now,” she adds brightly.

She grins at me, but I can hear the stress beneath the words, can see the tautness behind her eyes. “I owe you.”

“Gods-damned right.”

I lean over and take the cup from where Aequa deposited it on the table, drinking deeply this time. My head’s clearing. “Diago’s not on the grounds?” It’s rhetorical. I can still sense him. Faint, but enough for an approximate direction and distance. He’s not far beyond the Academy’s front gate.

I’m still not sure what to make of that.

Eidhin stirs. “No. Your pet alupi did not seem interested in entering the Will cage. He wandered back into the woods after leaving you for medical attention.” His look assures me he’s going to demand more of that story later.

“He’s a good boy,” I respond cheerfully. Eidhin scowls at me.

Aequa smiles at the exchange, though it quickly dies away again as she leans forward. “Do you remember what you said in there?”

I nod slowly. The words may not have been mine, but they’re engraved on my mind. I couldn’t forget them if I tried.

“Good. I told the Principalis what I could recall, before he left, but I was a bit… distracted, to be honest.”

I nod again, my grimace both at the motion and the information. Veridius is going to have a lot of questions. “How angry was he?”

“Not completely disappointed you came back alive. I think.”

I wince. I wasn’t intending to keep our little detour from Veridius anyway—if he says he’s trying to prevent a coming Cataclysm, I’m not going to be the one to withhold information—but I would have much preferred to disclose, rather than admit. Like Ulciscor, I need him to remember that he’s earned my mistrust and that he can’t sanction me anymore. It would have been far better for him to see this as me standing up to him, not sneaking around behind his back.

“What do you think it meant?” Eidhin, curious. No need to guess at what he’s referring to. I assume Aequa’s already filled him in on the details she remembers.

“I don’t know. ‘Gate defences’ has to be related to that device past the Labyrinth. That was called a ‘gate’ in the inscriptions.” I wrack my brain. Combing through the words for meaning. “But the rest… I just don’t know. I’ve never heard of the sanguis imperium”—the Vetusian translates to something like “blood command,” I think?—“or the Nexus. Whatever in all hells that is.”

When I look up, Aequa’s gaping at me. “You understood what you were saying?”

Before I can answer, the door to the infirmary opens and Veridius strides through. Formal toga, hair neatly brushed. Grim and as properly presented as I’ve ever seen him inside the school.

“Vis. You’re awake.” He almost sounds glad. Almost. “Aequa and Eidhin, I need to speak with him in private—”

“They can stay.” It comes out as a croak, less authoritative than I’d have liked.

“No. They really can’t.”

Veridius’s voice brooks no argument. I give it anyway. “They’re gods-damned staying. I don’t talk unless they’re here. I’m going to tell them whatever you tell me anyway.”

Veridius looks about to counter when Aequa gets his attention with a wave. “We’re gods-damned staying,” she reiterates calmly.

Frustrated anger in Veridius’s bright blue eyes, so rare and quick that I almost think I’m imagining it. But Aequa’s a Quintus as well, now. Veridius still has seniority, but it’s a fragile thing, far more nebulous. Certainly not enough to let him simply order her from the room.

“What do they know?” he eventually asks me unhappily.

“Everything.” Everything relevant to this conversation.

He’s not pleased. Studies Aequa and Eidhin, who return his look boldly, before sighing and sitting on the bed next to mine, shaking his head as some of the tension drains from him. “How are you feeling?”

“I have a headache. Nothing worse.” I sit up, almost disproving the point with a wave of light-headedness.

He nods with what seems to be gentle, unaffected relief. Then his brow furrows. “Rotting gods, lad. What were you thinking?”

“That I wanted answers.”

He glances at Eidhin and Aequa again, then closes his eyes. Thinks. “I cannot fault you for your mistrust,” he eventually grants carefully. “And I cannot fault you for your anger. But you are a smart man, Vis. Some part of you knows that I am not the enemy here. And if there was ever a time to put aside emotion in the interests of repairing whatever was broken between us, now is it.”

“Put aside emotion?” Energetic enough now to put force behind the words. “You sent Belli to die.”

“I sent her to run the Labyrinth. She trained for it, and she did so of her own free will in the pursuit of something far bigger than her. Than either of us.”

“But you knew what would probably happen. There were others before her, too. None of them made it back.”

“And they were the same. I sent them to—”

“You sent them to die!”

“I sent them to SAVE US!” Veridius roars the words. Stands. Something snapping in him, his façade finally gone, all fury and pain as he towers over my bed. “Why can’t you grasp this? Do you think I wanted them to fail? Do you think it doesn’t break me inside, Vis? This all started with me losing my two best friends, but I keep on going because I gods-damned have to! Because this is the ONLY WAY!” He screams the last at me.

I do all I can not to cringe, and meet his outrage with the colder steel of my own. Eidhin is on his feet. Aequa’s eyes are wide and black, and her every muscle is taut. For an eternal moment, no one moves.

Then Veridius grimaces, sagging back into his seat, head bowed. The threat in the air dissipates.

“It tears me apart, Vis.” All raw, aching sorrow now. “Every single one gods-damned tears me apart, and now I think you’ve achieved what I’ve been trying to do all this time and all I want is for you to listen. Will you just listen?” He raises his head wearily to look at me.

I’m as shocked as Aequa and Eidhin look—I don’t think I’ve ever seen Veridius even raise his voice—but I do my best to conceal it. To appear unaffected as I answer with cautious assent. Even now, I don’t know whether this is real. It feels real. Authentically visceral. But then, the Principalis has always come across as genuine.

“And you two?” Veridius glances at Eidhin and Aequa. They both nod, though Eidhin’s is typically brusque.

“Good. I’m…” He raises a hand as if to apologise, then lets it fall again with a sigh. His calm demeanour recovered, though layered with world-weary hurt this time. He focuses on me again. “I take it your expedition to the ruins last night had something to do with helping Lanistia.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Miseram pacem vel bello bene mutari.” Eyes on me when he says it. The vague sense of tension, then a spark of relief in them after a lingering pause. “There were only three of us who knew that phrase. And I cannot imagine Caeror gave it to you.”

He has me there. No benefit to lying about it, anyway. Not when Veridius may actually know something that could help. “She remembered it after the Aurora Columnae.” Most of Caten has heard some version of what happened there by now—it’s still being thrown around as proof of how unchecked Military has become, no matter my own protests—so I don’t bother asking if Veridius is aware of the attack. “She kept repeating the same thing the iunctii were saying, after I ran the Labyrinth and was coming back out. When they were trying to kill me.”

“ ‘Complete the journey, warrior.’ ” Soft dread in Veridius’s voice. “She did the same thing seven years ago. Said the exact same rotting activation phrase you just tried. Though at least she thought she knew what she was doing.”

It stops just short of a frustrated remonstrance. He knows I know it was reckless. He also knows that the alternative was my trusting him. It’s a shared blame.

“So that’s what happened to her?” When Veridius hesitates, I shake my head. “No lies, Veridius. No more secrets. Ulciscor and I have been doing everything we can to block it for months, but they’re about to put her in a Sapper. A gods-damned Sapper. I’ll go back to those ruins and try again if I have to.” I pour weight into the statement. “You say you want to repair what’s broken between us? You can start by explaining how she really got hurt. Otherwise we have nothing more to discuss.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“If you’re being honest about what’s at stake, then you won’t take that chance.”

He stares, then snorts a rueful laugh. “Gods’ graves. I liked you a lot better when you were afraid of me.” His smile fades when I don’t return his amusement. “Perhaps you are right, Vis. Men condemn what they do not understand. It could be that I have held these secrets too long and too tight. Yes, is the answer to your question. Lanistia’s injuries came about because she did exactly what you just did.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a way to access the iunctii guarding the Labyrinth. A kind of external control point, designed to temporarily shut them off. At least, that’s what we all believed based on our translations. What I still believe.” He exhales. Something draining from him at the admission. “That entire underground complex was built to circumvent the security around the Labyrinth. To allow someone to get out—like you did. But seven years ago, it was Caeror who went through during the Iudicium.”

Silence as Veridius pauses and I process. I’d wondered, of course. Guessed that Veridius’s obsession with the Labyrinth and his involvement with Caeror’s death were likely tied. “She was trying to save him.”

“Yes.”

“What went wrong?”

He lets out a regretful puff of air. “We didn’t fully understand it, back then. We still don’t. There is a reason we’re still analysing what’s down there.” He hesitates. Reluctant, but I think he’s accepted now that he needs to disclose everything if he wants my cooperation. “To work, it seems to exploit a sort of loophole. That device you activated is meant to add a iunctus to the Labyrinth defences, but there is a short period—a few days, maybe, at most—where if someone living initiates the process, they’re still in control of their own minds. They can influence the way things work, down there. But in doing that… eventually whoever does it is taken over, and their control is lost. They die. Become a iunctus themselves.”

A long pause. I feel sick as I put together the pieces. “Marcus.”

“A brave man. He was there for Belli, but you owe him your life.”

“And the message on my arm? Was that Marcus too?”

“No. We’ll get to that, but… no.” Veridius shakes his head slowly. “It’s something Belli already knew—there was a specific timing to all of it. That message saved you as surely as Marcus did.” His voice is distant. Gaze focused briefly inward.

“Wait. If Vis did the same thing as Marcus, why didn’t he end up the same way? Or like Lanistia?” It’s Aequa; she and Eidhin have been listening with mute, intense fascination. She glances at me. Cocks an eyebrow. “Glad you didn’t, obviously. Just wondering.”

“You said you pulled him off the device as soon as he started talking?” Aequa nods, looking faintly sick with memory. “You interrupted the process early enough. Marcus sacrificed himself so that we had the best chance of getting Belli out. And Lanistia…” He grimaces. “Lanistia was alone, when she activated it. For almost an hour.”

There’s something about the way he says it. Angry. Aching.

“Was she meant to be?” asks Eidhin.

Veridius looks across at him. Looks down again.

Silence, and for the first time since I have known him, the Principalis of the Academy has no words.

“Why did Caeror run the Labyrinth, Veridius?” Dreading the answer. So much has happened since I went through that nightmare, and yet everything seems to come back to this. “I went through that ‘gate’ down there and I know something is happening to me because of it. But why did Belli and Marcus give their lives for this? How in the rotting gods’ names will any of this stop another Cataclysm?”

Veridius leans forward. Hesitates for a long second.

“Have you ever heard of the Concurrence?” he asks quietly.