Wrath of the Storm (Mark of the Thief 3)

I didn't take much. Perhaps more than ever before in my life, I was keenly aware of how many crimes I had already committed, and stealing food from a friend was not one I wanted added to the list. I doubted Crispus would see this as a theft. It was really no different from the meal he would've shared with me anyway in the morning. And yet it felt different, so I took no more than he would've fed me had I been eating alongside him.

Like Radulf's home, Crispus's home also had a rear exit that led to the stables. Callistus was there and would take me as far as we could ride together. Away from Britannia. Away from Rome, and the Praetors and the Mistress. Away from everything and everyone I had ever cared about.

Yet as I approached the door, I saw a wax tablet propped on a shelf beside a single lit candle. It was the same tablet I had just left on my bed. I knew because it had the same scratch in the upper corner of the frame.

Holding it against the light, I saw letters carved so deep they probably had threatened to break the tablet itself. They read, "We will talk now."

While I was gathering food, Aurelia had found my note. Of course she did.

I sighed and brought the tablet with me out into the courtyard, where I already knew Aurelia would be waiting. She had Callistus saddled and was mounted on his back. Her bow and a quiver of arrows were fastened to the saddle, ready for battle. Her arms were folded, and her red face betrayed a level of fury I didn't think even she was capable of.

"If I love you, I will go to Britannia without you?" Aurelia asked. "What was I supposed to do with a message like that? In the wagon tomorrow, should I have congratulated myself on truly loving you because I left you behind, to fight and die on your own? Is that your understanding of love?"

"Yes, if it means you would live!" Her anger would not affect me this time. I wouldn't give in on this.

"I will not leave you alone here!" she said. "How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"Tell me a thousand more times; it won't change my decision. Be as angry as you want when you leave this place, but you will leave."

"I won't!"

"People around me are threatened, or hurt; they even die!"

"Which is why you need my help -- to stop that from happening."

"Unless it happens to you!" My voice was too loud. It'd wake Crispus and the rest of his household. More quietly, I added, "Can you give me the peace of knowing yours is not one of the lives I will have ruined? Please leave, Aurelia!"

She dismounted and came over to me. Now her tone softened. "Where were you going?"

"Away. Away from everyone who knows I have magic and wishes to control it. Away from those who want either my life or my death if it means they get what they want." I stopped pacing to stare at Aurelia. "Away from you. Because I care more for you than either life or death, and the Praetors know that. Don't you see how dangerous it is for me to love you this much?"

Aurelia placed a hand on my arm. "And don't you see how impossible it is for me to love you any less? Whatever the vestalis asked of you, we can do it together."

"You know what she asked." I met her eyes, conveying all the seriousness within my heart. "So you know why I must leave."

She shook her head, as if her determination and grit were enough to change my circumstances. "There are still other choices!"

"And all of them are bad. Let me at least make the choice that gives the greatest number of people a chance to survive." I stepped toward her. "Don't make our last conversation a fight. Let me go, Aurelia."

Tears filled her eyes, and her breathing became uneven. "If I could do that, don't you think I would have a long time ago?"

I widened my arms for a final embrace, and she closed the gap between us, holding me with a fierceness that conveyed her desperation and sadness and growing hopelessness. If anyone could change my mind, it was her. Yet I knew with absolute certainty that the bulla and Malice drew enemies to me like an eagle hunts its prey. The only way this war ended was with me making a Jupiter Stone. But I hoped for another option, one that even the vestalis had not considered. If I disappeared from Rome, taking the amulets so far away that even the gods could not find them, then the war would atrophy on its own. Maybe the rest of my life would be miserable, but at least I would stay alive, and so would Aurelia.

"What about me?" Atroxia asked. "Set me free."

"No," I mumbled. Aurelia leaned back, curious about why I'd said that. I pulled her close again and whispered, "Know this. My heart will always belong to you."

She wiped her tears on my shoulder, and looked up at me. "If that is true, we should leave together."

She was staring so intently at me that it was impossible to look away. If this was the last time I ever saw her, I wanted to memorize every detail of her face so that if I closed my eyes twenty years from now, I would still be able to recall the intense look of her eyes, the color of her cheeks, the soft smile of her lips.

My hand slid up her arm, then as it moved around to her back and neck, I pressed her closer to me. I kissed her with a strength different from what magic had ever given me. This power came from sharing and giving, not the taking of power from the bulla or the Malice. A kiss like this was its own sort of magic. Love was far more wonderful. And so much harder to leave behind.

She couldn't come with me, of course. But the memory of this kiss would carry me far into the night, and that would have to be enough. Maybe one more ...

Instead, the Mistress interrupted with a gravelly laugh that filled my head and knotted my insides. Something was different from before, as if she had been waiting for a moment like this. I pushed away from Aurelia, simply out of a reflex to protect her. Aurelia reached for me, but I put up a hand, warning her to stand back.

"So the sewer girl loves you too," the Mistress said inside my head. "Her promise to marry the senator's son was only a trick. She no longer has my protection. I call upon the goddess Diana to deliver her to me. Let my revenge begin with this lying girl!"