Chapter 34
The opening in the Ossuary Wall closes behind us like it never existed, leaving Nyatrix and me in what appears to be a stable-yard. A low-slung building crouches along the ramparts to my right, lined with latched half-doors. A packed dirt courtyard ringed in stone extends out into the night, past the reach of the lamp set atop a curving metal post.
“Who goes there?” demands a thin, serious voice.
“It’s Nyatrix,” the Lupa Nox calls, holding a hand out to indicate I should wait. As if I planned to take a single step in this city without her guidance.
A door opens and closes somewhere close by, and then a man appears—tall, gangly, dressed in rough linen, much like Nyatrix.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says, a grin breaking across his face. “You’re alive. And you brought home a stray.”
I duck my head, heat rising to my cheeks. Nyatrix told me Liminalia will barely survive the winter, and yet here I am, another mouth to feed. I can only hope my skills in healing are worth the price of keeping another person alive.
“Faunus,” Nyatrix replies, warmth flooding her voice, “this is Ophelia, but please don’t mention her to anyone just yet. I have some . . . politicking to do first. Actually, don’t tell anyone I’mback, except Agrippina. I need her to meet me at my domus. But no one else. I’ll deal with it all in the morning.”
The man draws closer, crossing his sinewy arms over his chest. “Delighted to meet you, Ophelia,” he says, examining me with cat-like eyes. He pauses, watching my expression, before turning back to the Lupa Nox. “Nyatrix,” he adds, his face growing tight and stern. “There’s something you should?—”
A loud neigh shatters the evening, devouring Faunus’s words. Nyatrix reacts immediately, turning toward a tall wooden fence at the edge of the courtyard. “Sorry, give me a moment,” she says with a laugh. “You know how impatient he gets.”
Between the moonlight and the lamp’s illumination, I can just make out what appears to be a wide, open space, populated by sparse vegetation and more rocky soil. Along the rampart walls, craggy trees reach twisted limbs up toward an empty sky. Nyatrix hooks one foot into the fence and hoists herself up just as something moon-pale begins to move through the dark of the night. The sound of thundering hooves fills the air, and then a massive equus slides to a halt by the fence. I step closer, awe stirring in my heart.
The equus is a beautiful gray, dappled in steel and heavily muscled. Its mane is near-black and thick, falling past its shoulder in long waves. Nostrils flared, it shoves its enormous face into Nyatrix’s. She lets out a delighted laugh, sounding lighter than I’ve ever heard her, and reaches to scratch the equus’s forehead.
“I thought I asked you to keep his mane braided,” she says, turning to look at Faunus over her shoulder, eyebrow arched.
“Argento objected to having his hair done by a mere mortal,” Faunus replies with a shrug. “Apparently only his Fatum mother is allowed to do that.”
“Is that true?” Nyatrix asks Argento, as if an equus could possibly talk, scratching the animal beneath the chin. He’spositively massive, nearly twice the size of the equui the Noble Houses keep in Lumendei for their carriages.
I watch—something tender blossoming under my breastbone all the while—as Nyatrix sighs and reaches over the fence, beginning to pick bits of bramble and leaves from Argento’s pitch mane. “I’ll be back,” she promises, bringing her forehead to his.
She slips down off the fence, her gaze meeting mine, but Faunus lightly catches her by the shoulder. Even though he’s a stranger to me, something about his expression makes my stomach drop. As Nyatrix glances down at the stablemaster, any shred of softness flees her face.
The two exchange terse whispers, their faces shadowed, and my heart begins to hammer. I so desperately want to step closer, to ask what’s happening, to not be left out as I always seem to be. But in truth, I’m afraid—afraid my place in Liminalia is still too fragile and untested for such boldness. A memory of Renault conspiring with the High Ecclesians in the Libris Sanctum creeps into my mind. I drag air into my lungs and try to shove it away.
Nyatrix steps away from the stablemaster, her expression grim. Panic thrashes against my sternum as the Godwinds pull at my hair. “Let’s get you inside,” she says to me as she approaches. “Faunus, not a word toanyone.”
The stablemaster nods wearily. “I’m still far more afraid of you than the Centuria,” he replies. “I’ll send Agrippina soon. Please be careful.”
“We will,” Nyatrix promises, surprising me when she takes my hand. I surprise myself, too, when just the brush of her cool skin calms the gallop of my heart. “Do you need me to carry you? It’s not terribly far.”
“You should ask the Scholae Medicorum about a currus for her,” Faunus remarks, leaning against the fence as he looks at me.
“I intend to,” she says, though her gaze never leaves mine.
“If it’s mainly flat, I think I’ll be all right,” I tell her, though my tongue longs to demand answers instead.
She nods and guides me through the stable-yard, exiting onto a narrow, winding side street. I can’t help but notice her free hand rests on her sword, like she’s ready to spill blood at any moment.
“Nyatrix,” I begin, my voice unsteady. “What was that about?”
The knight clenches her jaw as we pass buildings of sturdy pale stone that sweep up from the ground, undulating in strange formations that defy the kind of godly order to which I’m accustomed.
“Not here,” she murmurs, just loud enough for me to hear. Anxiety boils in my stomach and I find myself clenching her hand tighter as we walk. When we come around a bend, I catch our reflections in the dark faces of the windows, distorted by the rippled Liminalian glass. Sand whips across the walkway, a tumble of dried branches caught in its wake. I cannot help but feel much the same: cast about by forces much greater than me.
“Who lives here?” I ask her to distract myself. I keep my voice down; the narrow path is deserted, the strangely shaped windows shrouded and quiet. They must be the homes of very important people, I assume, to be so beautiful.
“Regular folk,” she says with a shrug. Her hand still hasn’t left the hilt of her sword. “A good portion of the Celeres—I think you’d call us knights in Lumendei. Mounted soldiers. Some of the craftspeople, like the weavers, and a few apprentice healers. Me.”
