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It’s odd how quickly one thing can take over a mind.
The loss of his arm demands attention, as does all that he had seen at the Ruins, as does his looming reunion with everyone from Class Three, and the Anguis, and I need it to win the Iudicium , and the phantom feeling of sticky blood across his skin.
The ship on the side table had diverted all of his attention, for a moment, every nerve consumed with the feeling of his own name, his real name, etched underneath his fingers. Courage . Remember who you are . It’s the only thing he can think of, for seconds, minutes, hours. But his thoughts spiral, unraveling as questions pepper his mind. Who left it here? Who knows? How did they find it? Indol has the most access, but Ulciscor had been at the palace too. Would Relucia have found a way to procure it? Is this merely a means to intimidate him? Some show of solidarity? Regardless, someone knows.
There’s an obvious fear that shoots through him at that, quickly followed by icy anger. Someone knows, and they’re using it against him. He’s kept his identity so close to his chest, close to his heart, and now it is little more than a tool for someone to use, some string to bind him with. It is terrifying, and it is infuriating, and he is helpless against the pull of it. He is subject to the world, to everything out there that sought to destroy him, that has destroyed parts of him. Callidus is gone from him, Emissa is practically unrecognizable, and he’s to be working within the Senate, the very thing that he had been running from at the start of this endeavor.
It’s nauseating. Even not fully lucid, Vis knows that there is no going back, not if he wants to make any of this even remotely worth it. The betrayal, the blood, the tears, the lives lost. His head spins with it, sweat prickling at his forehead.
And then Aequa walks in.
He’s so caught up in his own head that he doesn’t realize at first, eyes cast at his remaining hand as it grips the sheets. She says his name once, twice, impossibly casual each time, forcing normality into her voice as if her life depends on it. When he looks up, she almost looks the same as the day they met, raven hair gracefully falling over her shoulders, hands clasped together, blue silk adorning her shoulders. Her face is different though, more solemn, eyes less examining. The world shrinks to just her frame. The only question in his mind: why is she here?
“Hi,” she says, slightly awkward. He’s rarely heard this tone from her, even after her fall from grace in Class Four.
“You want to know, don’t you?” His voice sounds wrecked. He can’t say it doesn’t feel fitting.
“ Rotting gods .” There’s an underlying sadness in her voice, alongside an overtone of disbelief. “I- Vis, your arm .” Aequa looks away, schooling her features. “Eidhin told me about the Iudicium. I don’t need to know much else for the moment.” A beat, then, “I’m… I’m here to make sure you’re alright. They weren’t letting anyone visit.”
Vis can’t form a reply to that. His mind is still spinning. He still feels Callidus’ limp weight in his arms, the knife in his side, the sound of teeth meeting flesh, the sight of Belli’s body in the maze. Aequa is merely caught in that storm, another incomprehensible part of an incomprehensible… day? Week? He’s already forgotten how long he’s been here.
“I can leave, if you want.”
“ Don’t. ” He’s ashamed at how quickly the words come out, at how desperately he wants to have someone else here, if only to break up the stifling silence.
She nods, and then sits beside him, just barely on the edge of the bed. For a moment, she seems content to sit quietly, before taking another look at Vis and opting to speak. She speaks about benign things – mentioning Indol’s defection to Religion, the new positions of Ianix and some others in class Six, two students from Class Four who have finally started officially dating. She mentions Emissa only once, after seeing how he stiffened at the mention of her, before steering clear of the subject. In fact, apart from Indol and the new happy couple, no students from Class Three or Four are mentioned, their proximity to the Iudicium likely making them too delicate a topic. Whether the topic is truly too delicate for Aequa, or she’s merely being cautious with his feelings, Vis doesn't have the energy to parse out.
It’s remarkably one-sided chatter. Aequa often has to pause to think of something else to say. There are only so many happenings at the Academy that don’t concern him – Domitor, Catenicus, Telimus – and Vis isn’t doing much to push the conversation along, beyond nods and hums to show he’s paying attention. His eyes drift back to the boat on the side table that Aequa has dutifully ignored more often than not. He’s grateful for the side-stepping of the topic – he has no idea how he would justify it being given to him, not when he doesn’t even know who placed it there.
Still, he burns. Inside and out, he needs to speak, to run, to leave and never return, to light the whole island on fire. There is a roiling sea inside of him with nowhere to go, and he has no idea what to do with it. But his muscles ache, and his head pounds, and the growing hole inside of his chest seems to consume all the energy he has remaining.
“Ulciscor sent me here,” he blurts, needing to tell someone, anyone who wouldn’t see it as just a piece in a larger puzzle. It’s been his whole world this past year. It’s cost him — rotting gods, it feels like it’s cost him everything he had left . Veridius knows, but that fact is little more than a crumb on his plate. To Aequa, at the very least, it may feel nearly as all-consuming to her as it does to him.
“About Caeror,” she finishes, “it’s how you really got the cut on your hand, isn’t it?” She walks over, picks it up without a second thought. She stiffens, after a moment, regret for the gesture lining her shoulders. It’s the only sign of remorse on her, though — everything else is the picture of poise, every other inch of her showing a softer version of her usual calculated focus. Her thumb runs across the scar, wide and slightly whiter than the fresher ones now adorning his skin. “You got this going over the wall, didn’t you? And then you ran off during the Iudicium. To investigate for him.”
“Yes.” It is almost freeing, to tell this part of the truth, to no longer have to worry about her discerning eyes. He can give her this, after everything they’ve just been through. The hollow ache in his chest abates a bit when she does not pull away. Her eyes flare with something Vis cannot name – not quite anger, not quite protectiveness, not quite sorrow – before she stamps it out, refocusing.
“And that’s how you were able to move up so quickly.” She’s fishing for something in that statement, any other information on his situation that he’s willing to give. That, Vis has to shake his head at. He can only expose so much at once.
“Ulciscor’s household trained me for a few months. I was educated in Aquiria,” the correction comes out rote, toneless. Based on Aequa’s expression, it’s entirely unconvincing. Still, he can’t help but cling to this part of the lie. It’s all he has left, as tattered and see-through as it is.
She tilts her head, eyes narrow, seeing the lie for what it is. She opens her mouth to pry, to prod, before her eyes fall on the empty space where his arm would be. There’s a softening at the corners of her eyes and Vis can recognize it as pity, but there’s something else there, too. As though she’s staring into the bottomless pit full of all she has never known. As though remembering something she’d rather forget.
“You could have died, Vis.” She pauses, swallowing hard, closing her eyes for a long moment. When she speaks again, her voice wavers. “I thought you died. Doing… whatever you were sent to do.”
“I had to do it.”
“Because he made you do it?”
“It was my choice. I had to see it through.”
She hums at the words, clearly disagreeing, but lets it be. She wants to press, to pry him open and let the truth spill out, but she’s restraining herself, eyes casting down towards where her fingers still touch the scar on his hand. Her shoulders drop. A small sigh escapes her lips.
Her grip on his hand tightens, and she looks up at him, silently asking. He could pull his hand away, now, and he’s sure she wouldn’t mind it. But, just as he hadn’t wanted her to leave, he doesn’t want her to move away. He needs this, this closeness, like he needs water. Her hand is warm, the point that their palms meet an anchor. Vis’ mind is still. He does not want to weather the storm without her touch.
Her grip tightens, her chatter resumes, and Vis, for a moment, basks in his mind’s newfound silence.
----------
That silence ends once Ulciscor arrives.
Aequa lets go of his hand the moment he enters the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. She’s on edge with his arrival in a way she’s never seen before. It goes beyond suspicion, but Vis can’t place what it truly is.
The man takes a step forward, then another, taking in the sight of him. Vis knows he couldn’t possibly look worse than he did at the Iudicium, but the mess of him now may very well be more jarring than even that. Grief flashes across his face, but for what, Vis doesn’t know.
“My boy,” Ulciscor says, genuine, and something in Vis nearly shatters at the sentiment. He does not let it show. He keeps the fragments in place with sheer willpower.
Ulciscor was so close to the shape of a father that Vis could sometimes pretend, if he wanted, that he was something more than a prodigal of a nation that no longer existed. He could pretend to be a faithful son, to lean into a hug and soak up whatever minuscule bits of pride Ulciscor grants him, to let it fill the hole in his chest that has existed ever since his father had let go of his hand.
He never has. He wants to, aches to give into the charade of being the grateful orphan, to pretend that simple story is all he is, but he can’t. He is not Ulciscor’s golden son, he is not a wayward child of Caten or Aquiria or anywhere but the bright sea surrounding Suus. The boat on the side table confirms it, in his own youth-laden handwriting. That is not something he can forsake.
Existing as no one — stuck in a limbo, neither Diago nor Solum nor Catenicus — was better than truly becoming Vis Telimus, in his mind. No one could fill the hole his family left. To say anything else would be a betrayal.
Still, it has never been more tempting to give into the lie than now. It would be so simple. He would rebuild his life, reshape whatever is left of his mind into Vis Telimus. It would be easier than this. There is a war-torn softness in Ulciscor’s eyes.
Aequa saves him from himself when she shifts in front of him, posture straightening, nearly blocking his view of the man.
“Not another step.” When she speaks, her voice sounds like it’s from an entirely different person. Rough and low and old, as though she had seen five lifetimes in the last few moments. “You’ve done enough.”
“He’s my son,” he says, a vague threat low in his voice. Not of violence, no; his shoulders are too slumped, his beard unkempt, jaw set, eyes slightly sunken in from lack of sleep. He sounds like an adult chastising a child. It feels so out of place in this room.
“I don’t care. You have no right to be here.”
“I have every right to be here.”
“Just like you had every right to send him to his death? Would you like to do it again?”
Ulciscor’s eyes whip to Vis, questioning. Vis’ mind is too scrambled to parse out whether he’s upset that he told her, or examining the elephant in the room that is the ship on the table, or simply confused about their dynamic. Maybe he’s taking in the stump of Vis’ shoulder.
There’s too much going on at once, too little room to breathe, too many hands pulling him in different directions, and — he can’t — he’s trying but there’s no air —
“Vis.” Aequa is whispering to him, and he is so very tired. “I need you to take a breath for me.“ Vis can’t quite process it, fresh tears spilling down his face once again. Aequa wipes them away with a thumb. Her touch is a balm and a burn all at once. He wants to be alone. He wants her to stay. “You can breathe, it’s alright, you’re safe. I promise.”
Vis, embarrassingly, childishly, foolishly, cannot say a word. They get caught in his throat, too many trying to spill out at once, for once uncontained by years of lying. He’s left to shake his head, face growing hot. He is weak, he is vulnerable, he is afraid, and he is so tired. To save himself now feels too herculean an effort, too much for his addled mind to muster up.
Aequa’s hands move to sit at his shoulders. Her face disappears from his field of vision, leaving the touch as the only thing in the world he can focus on. There’s a gentle pressure there, not restricting but merely present , that grounds him.
A breath sputters through his lips. He coughs as soon as it fills his lungs, tender ribs screaming at the force of it. Aequa and Ulciscor are saying something over his head — arguing, he can imply, even half-dead — but it’s merely another part of the incomprehensible haze that surrounds him. He coughs again.
The world is pain, pain, pain, until he’s tipped forward and there is a hand in his hair and a solid chest against his forehead. The hand is far too broad to be Aequa’s, the chest too sturdy to be Veridius or even Eidhin. The voice that rumbles beneath his head can only belong to one man.
“I’m so sorry,” Ulciscor says.
For a moment, as though to save itself, his brain gives in to the lie.
He takes a breath in. Aequa placed a hand on his back, tethering, reminding. He trusts it to bring him back. Vis lets himself sink into the hug, his arm coming up underneath Ulciscor’s arms to grab him by the shoulder.
And, rotting gods , the man is warm . Vis is used to feeling cold, too unused to the long winters and constant winds that are commonplace in the southern parts of the Hierarchy. The cold of Letens had always left his hands dry and eyes teary, the wet days and frozen nights had exacerbated every ache and pain on Solivagus. Nothing would ever compare to the constant, sometimes blistering heat of Suus — except maybe this. This eruption of warmth that works its way down to his core.
It draws a sob out of him. Within moments, the lie doesn’t feel like a lie anymore, just a fact of life, alongside everything else he’s ever experienced, anything else that’s ever been said. He grips on with what little strength in his arm he has, fingers bloodless where they press against the man’s back.
Ulciscor doesn’t say a word, doesn’t move an inch. Aequa’s still there, too, hand at his back, occasionally moving up and down as his chest hitches. She reminds him to breathe.
“The Censor,” Vis says, nonsensically, as though this is the man’s greatest priority in the wake of all that’s happened. It was never even part of the agreement, that he work for Military, but defection still feels like spurning him. “I said-“
“Veridius told me. I don’t care. I’m just glad you’re alive.”
The hand at his back tenses. “So you don’t have to live with that on your conscience too, you mean.”
“I-“
“Aequa,” he says, throat tight. He is so tired. “It’s alright.” There’s a sharp breath beside him, as though she’s about to protest, but she doesn’t say anything in response. Vis can’t bring himself to be grateful for it. He doesn’t have the capacity.
The hand on his back loosens just as a weight settles beside him, taking the place on the bed his head once did. He can feel the weight of her arm now, too. Technically, it’s only against the back of his ribcage, but it feels like she’s covered every part of him Ulciscor can’t reach.
They stay like that for a long while. It’s mostly silence, the only interruption in the stillness being the crashing of waves outside the window. Ulciscor will occasionally mutter some reassurance or paltry fact about life back at the manor — Kadmos has, in his absence, taken up gardening. It’s all innocuous, nothing even remotely related to Vis’ mission or their ultimatum or Caeror or any of it. Neither Vis nor Aequa responds, Vis too tired and Aequa too unwilling, but it’s a comforting thing. Vis’ breaths even out, over a time, before he’s practically half asleep against Ulciscor’s chest.
A few years ago, this would have been a dream. Cared for, full, protected, warm — it’s anything he could have wanted, alone on the blustery cold streets of Letens. It couldn’t have been real, in the wake of all that had happened.
(He almost has the urge to laugh, that his life has gone even more awry. The cold of Letens and the cruelty of the matron and the violence of the Theatre felt like a mercy, compared to the enormity of what he was now thrust in the middle of.
There was certainty in that vortex. It would always rain, the Matron would always hurt him, the Theatre would always give him coin to call his own.
This is a pain of a different kind. It is one he hasn’t known since he pulled his sister from the sea. Then, it had been secondary to his grief, nearly washed out by the tide of it. Now, he can feel it in full force.)
More has happened since, and yet, somehow, it feels all the more real for it. The moment is concrete, even as his clarity fades, even as his body slowly melts as what fight he had escapes him. There is still the roiling mass of guilt and fear and uncertainty in his chest, but it’s a caged thing, for now, like the howling of hounds held in a kennel blocks away.
Aequa’s hand, absentmindedly, drifts down to the imprint the restraints left on his torso. She can undoubtedly feel the scars along his back, even through the thin fabric and bandages, but it’s this that she’s taken notice of, this that her hand cannot help but trace.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand you,” she says. For a moment, he thinks of it as an insult, or a concession, or some move in a game of Foundation he didn’t know they were playing. Only, there’s a lighter lilt to it, soft and warm warm warm in a way that Vis can’t shake.
“I’m sorry,” he says, muffled against the fabric of Ulciscor’s clothes. He doesn’t quite know what he’s apologizing for. The phrase feels foreign on his tongue.
“Don’t apologize,” the man says, shifting slightly as he says it. If Vis had to guess, his head has moved up to face something. Aequa, more than likely, as turning to face the ship on the side table would require him to let go of Vis. Something tells him he isn’t capable of doing that for the moment. Vis can’t help but revel in it.
------
When Veridius returns, Vis half-expects a flank of soldiers behind him. Instead, it’s just Veridius, short-hair slightly askew, his glasses in his hand. He remains straight-backed and calm, though there is a lack of his usual palpable charm that Vis finds disconcerting. He stands at the edge, expectant of some sort of welcome. He receives none.
Aequa stands silent, unsure, unwilling. Fortunately, Ulciscor does not need backup.
“Out.”
“Ulciscor-“
“ Out. It can wait.”
“ None of this can even remotely wait.” A beat, then, “he told me everything.”
Vis’ grip on Ulciscor, impossibly, tightens. He can’t convey it with words, not in front of them, not on the verge of tears as he is, but he tried to pour his heart and soul into it. I didn’t, he tries to say, believe me, please, don’t leave me, please, I did everything you asked, I’m not on his side, I’m still of use to you, please, please please please.
He knows, even within the fantasy, that Ulciscor may discard him over this, grow cold beside him, pull away. That as much as he is a son, he is also an extension of Ulciscor himself, in the same way Indol is an extension of his own father. A legacy, a tool, a means to an end — the line between them is thin.
And yet, he clings. Ulciscor doesn’t move a muscle.
“Then what more could you possibly need to ask?”
“We just need to talk. The three of us,” Aequa pulls away at her exclusion from the statement. Vis can’t help but mourn the touch. He pulls back ever so slightly, chasing it, only to find it just as out of reach as it was before. The hand remains, but the touch is light, barely tethered to his skin. “I’m not going to hurt him.”
Silence hangs in the air a moment. Ulciscor and Veridius share a glance. Aequa, from beside him, observes the pair of them not unlike how she would often observe the Labyrinth — confusion mixing with frustration at the puzzle, at the situation, at herself.
“Principalis,” Vis says, trying to make his voice sound like his father’s all those years ago, addressing his people with an utmost sincerity alongside authority. To his own ears, it sounds like little more than a bad impression. Though, it could simply be how hoarse his voice is, or how it’s slightly muffled against the fabric of Ulciscor’s clothing. “There is nothing more you could say to me.”
“This is a serious matter. Regardless of your feelings towards me, you must hear it. Privately.”
“Then you may say it after I leave,” Aequa says. All eyes in the room turn to her. Her head is held high, blue eyes steady as they rest on Veridius. She looks every inch a senator’s daughter, poised and proper and sharp, like a freshly whetted blade. This, beside her talent, is what got her to the top of Class Four.
Vis stares at her, this girl he has known for what feels like both moments and years, and finds his lips quirking up into a ghost of a smile. It’s… nice, to have her between him in the world, to have the warmth of Ulciscor’s arms around him – even if he isn’t truly Vis Telimus, even if the boat on the side table proves it, even if this illusion cannot substitute for a real life. It’s enough, for now. It’s a safe place in the storm around him. It makes the hollow ache in his chest subside, leaving only the aches and pains of his body that grow duller by the moment.
Until, finally, he sleeps. No nightmares chase him.