A woman was crying. Not in sobs, but in sharp breaths as if she'd been crying for a long time. I put my hands over my ears, testing whether I could still hear, but that only made it louder. Sure enough, this was happening inside my head. No one else would be able to hear it.
I gently slid off the unicorn's back. "Wait here," I told him. "Don't let yourself be found by anyone but me."
Then I started to walk away, but hesitated midstep and removed the bulla from my neck. Radulf was also right about that part of his plan. If the Praetors found me, I couldn't risk them getting the bulla too. I knotted it to a dangling cord on Callistus's saddle and then tucked the amulet beneath the saddle. Even if someone found Callistus, they would never notice the bulla, and Callistus wouldn't let anyone come near him anyway.
Night was approaching, but enough light still remained to see my way through the fields. As I followed the sound of the crying, it grew louder, so I knew I was getting closer. I didn't dare call out to the woman -- if this was a trap, the last thing I wanted was to announce myself. I could hear her better now, and the desperation of her tears worked its way deeper inside me and weighed me down. It was the saddest thing I'd ever heard, as if the woman had lost everything she loved.
My mother might have shed tears like that, perhaps when we watched my father die, or when she was sold away from Livia and me. She would cry the same way tomorrow if I didn't come up with a way to save her.
So maybe that was it, then, what I was hearing.
What if these were the cries of my mother?
If my mother was so close, then suddenly, finding Aurelia was no longer the most important reason for being here. I ducked low behind the last row of vines, surveying the open field. The tree I had accidentally toppled two months ago was gone, though a few innocent sticks from its massive branches still remained. There was also the same pile of rubble a little farther on. If Valerius had his servants carry away the broken tree, it surprised me that he would allow the rubble to remain. Maybe that was related to the Roman worship of the gods. If their temples were sacred, perhaps the rubble from their temples was equally sacred.
The crying started again in my head, a little louder now, and I scanned the area, confused as to why I couldn't see who it was coming from. Nor could I find a spot where someone might be hiding. I crept forward to get a better look around, which led me right into the center of the open field, a virtual trumpeting of my presence if anyone was watching. But having to listen to so much sadness was twisting my insides and boring deeper into my mind. Knowing it might be coming from my mother only made it worse.
The problem was that now, no matter what direction I went, the sound became softer. How was that possible? Nothing was here. No one.
I walked over to the rubble, which was really just a pile of fallen stones. A column lay on its side; if a second column had ever been here, it was gone now. There was certainly no place for anyone to hide.
Then why did it seem as if the cries were coming from this exact place?
A new sound replaced the sobbing now, this one a low growl to my right. I turned and caught my breath in my throat. Facing me was a large black wolf with yellow, glowing eyes. It was crouched low, and the fur stood high on its arched back. Probably not a sign he wanted us to be friends.
If I still had the bulla, I could speak to him, maybe convince him to bare less of his sharp teeth. But the bulla remained with Callistus. Crispus had once told me a wolf lived on this property. I should have remembered that and been more cautious now. I still had the Divine Star's magic, which I could use if necessary, but I didn't want to, not if it risked harming him. I was an intruder on this wolf's territory, not the other way around.
So I lowered my eyes, showing the wolf I was no threat to him, and slowly backed away. The wolf continued to growl, though he didn't follow me.
"Nic?"
Lights were hurrying down the hill from Valerius's villa. A moment later, Valerius stepped into the field, holding a torch. He was the one who had spoken. Crispus stood directly beside him with another torch. I turned back to where the wolf had been, but he was gone.
"What are you doing out here?" Crispus asked.
I didn't know how to answer. It felt stupid to ask about Aurelia, and even stupider to suggest that a unicorn had brought me here on his own.
"Whatever your reasons, you need to leave," Valerius said. "The Praetors watch this land very carefully."
"Is it because of the crying woman?" I asked. "Is she my mother?"
"You hear someone crying?" Crispus looked over to his father. "He hears the Mistress."
"Who?" I remembered that Radulf had mentioned the Mistress too. But I had left his home before he'd had the chance to tell me about her. Based on the tight expression on both Crispus's and Valerius's faces, perhaps I should've been more willing to listen.
Valerius immediately doused his torch and ordered Crispus to do the same. Then he grabbed my arm and shoved me forward until we were in the vines.
"You have the key to the Malice," Valerius said to me.
"I don't!"
"Lower your voice." Nervously, he looked around the field. "Come back to my home. It's safer there."
I snorted. "Not for me."
"It'd be safer to throw you overboard a ship than to leave you in that field." He nodded at Crispus. "Lead the way, but keep your head down."
I followed, more out of a curiosity to learn about the Mistress than anything else. We walked in darkness and in total silence back to his villa. The crying woman -- the Mistress -- continued to wail, so loud that I didn't understand how Crispus and Valerius couldn't hear it too. The cries had been joined by a kind of pounding sound, like fists beating on a door. It was hard to think straight with her desperation filling my head.