L’armi dei poltroni non tagliano, né forano.
Cowards’ weapons neither cut nor pierce.
DAYS BEFORE DIVORANDO: 12
It was after midnight when they returned to the Cittadella, but Alessa had to see for herself.
A woman dressed in medical whites dropped a quick curtsy as Alessa entered the Fonte suite. The Cittadella’s attending doctor, bent over the large, four-poster bed, didn’t immediately look up, busy with whatever task she was performing.
Kaleb lay motionless beneath crisp white sheets, his eyelids blue and his lips pale.
The walls closed in around Alessa.
They lied.
She groped behind her for a hand to hold, but Dante was waiting in the hall. She had to face this alone.
“How is he?” she asked, holding her breath for the answer. Surely, a corpse wouldn’t need medical care.
“Stable.” The doctor’s clipped response and her expression held Alessa fully responsible. “He was quite dehydrated and overtired. I would have advised him against any strenuous activity, if I’d been consulted. Which, obviously, I was not.”
“So, you don’t think … I mean, he’d been fine previous times.”
“In my professional opinion, his collapse was a result of multiple factors. Divine or not, your profession is physically taxing, and Mr. Toporovsky should have taken better care of himself. I do hope when you are called to train the next Duo, you prevail upon the Consiglio to assemble a team of medical consultants. Despite what some may say, it is not an insult to Dea to use the wisdom she granted us.”
Alessa bowed her head like a guilty child, though she’d never objected in the first place. The Consiglio were the ones who got their robes in a bunch when Tomo had suggested seeking outside opinions about Alessa’s little problem.
“I expect he’ll make a full recovery, but until then, he needs rest. Complete rest.”
“Yes, Dottoressa. Of course.”
The nurse gave a sorrowful look at Kaleb’s angelic profile, as though she suspected Alessa was there to finish him off.
Alessa closed the door too fast, and the sound rang out in the quiet.
Dante, leaning against the stone banisters, raised his eyebrows as if to say, “See? I told you.”
She wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or both.
Dante held out his arms, and Alessa walked in. Her harbor in stormy seas, warm and solid and hard to kill.
Kaleb was alive. And he’d remain that way as long as she stayed away from him. She still had a Fonte. Technically. He might not be strong enough to fight, and they’d have to replace him with one of the others for the actual battle, but she hadn’t killed him.
Startled by a sudden shout, they leapt apart, Dante’s face mirroring Alessa’s alarm.
Afraid to look, but needing to know who’d spotted their ill-timed embrace, Alessa peered over the railing.
Renata stood in the courtyard below, her hand pressed over her mouth.
Behind her, Tomo stared up at Alessa, looking more disheveled than she’d ever seen him before.
Dante whispered, “They were frantic when I left.”
Alessa let that fact sink in as her mentors hurried up the stairs.
“Blessed Dea, we thought you were dead!” Renata said, breathless, when she reached the top.
“Not quite,” Alessa said with a rueful smile.
“We thought we’d lost you,” Tomo said.
Renata cast her eyes to the ceiling in silent prayer. “Child, you scared a decade off my life.”
Tears trembled on Alessa’s lashes. They were relieved to see her alive—her, Alessa, not the Finestra. She hadn’t realized how much she needed that. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d killed Kaleb, and the gods were telling me to sacrifice myself.”
“Dear girl.” Tomo shook his head ruefully, too choked up to continue.
“While I admire your decisiveness, this would have been a very good time to ask for a second opinion.” Renata exhaled a shaky breath. “But I must say, I am proud of you for your willingness to make difficult choices. You’ve grown up.”
The tide of guilt retreated at Renata’s gentle tone, and Alessa pulled herself together. “What will we tell people?”
“Nothing,” Renata said firmly, brushing her sleeves as though trying to smooth the wrinkles in their plans. “You’ll pick someone else, and we’ll keep it quiet until after Divorando. I don’t like lying to the public, but all will be forgiven once you’ve saved us.”
“We’re just thankful you’re safe,” Tomo said fervently.
Renata’s face softened. “Dea have mercy, I might sleep tonight after all.”
“Come on, then.” Tomo tugged on Renata’s arm. “You need sleep, and I need a drink.”
Alessa backed away from the railing as they left, and the Cittadella fell silent once more.
Brushing her hair aside, Dante dropped a kiss on the back of her neck. “I should go,” he said, but his arms tightened around her.
She turned to face him. “Nina swore she wouldn’t tell, and that man has no idea you’re here. Stay until Divorando, so I can drag you to the Fortezza myself and face battle knowing you’re safe and not doing something reckless like trying to protect the docks single-handedly.”
“Always with the hero stuff,” he murmured against her lips. “I keep telling you it’s not my thing.”
She slid her hands into his back pockets and pulled him closer. “You can lie to yourself, but you can’t fool me.”
At the sound of a harsh throat-clearing, they leapt apart again.
Poised at the top of the stairs, Renata’s face was studiously blank. “I forgot to mention, your armor is in your room.”
“Armor?” They were still two weeks away from battle.
“For the Blessing of the Troops.”
Of course. When the sun rose, she’d stand before the assembled army and most of Saverio to bestow Dea’s grace upon the army. Carnivale celebrations were over, she had wed Kaleb on the day of Rest and Repentance, and now the final stage of preparation began. Soldiers would bid farewell to their families, march to their posts, and camp out on every hillside, cliff, and stretch of shore around Saverio, weapons at the ready and eyes on the sky. Saverians with Fortezza passes would begin to move inside in shifts, and those who were marked would nail up every window, erect makeshift barricades, and pray with newfound desperation.
“If we’re lucky, it will be so blinding, no one will notice your Fonte isn’t with you.” Renata speared them with a loaded glance. “Until then, might I suggest you move this reunion behind a closed door?”
Dying a thousand deaths by mortification, Alessa managed to nod regally. She’d never asked what the punishment was for a Finestra who violated the rules about touching someone who wasn’t a Fonte before Divorando, but not tattling was probably one of those unspoken courtesies each Finestra offered to the next.
Alessa followed Dante inside her suite as Renata’s prim footsteps ended with the slam of a door on the level below, and covered her face. “Please tell me that didn’t just happen.”
Dante was trying too hard not to laugh to answer.
“How can you laugh? That was mortifying.”
“Consider it a rite of passage.” Dante kissed the margins of her face around her splayed fingers. “You know those two were getting handsy before their big battle.”
“Why would you put that image in my head?” Alessa wailed. “Besides, they were wed and blessed, so they were allowed.” She nudged him with an elbow. “I’m the terrible person who left her unconscious partner’s bedside and got caught groping my bodyguard.”
“You call that groping?” Dante pried her hands away from her face. His smile died as they stared at each other, and she knew he was going to bring up leaving, to offer her what little safety he could with his absence in case Nina didn’t hold her tongue. As long as he was gone, Alessa would be able to dismiss any rumors as hysterical fabrication.
But once he was gone … he’d be gone.
Two suits of armor lay on her bed like stiff metal bodies. One, constructed for Alessa’s precise measurements; the other, one of the many usually mounted in the Fonte suite, chosen because it was the closest to Kaleb’s measurements.
“You and Kaleb are almost the same height, you know. Similar build, too. Under a suit of armor, no one would know the difference.”
Dante tucked her hair behind her ears. “I can’t be your Fonte. What would I do, heal myself until the scarabeo gave up and flew away?”
“I’m not asking you to stay for the battle.” She kissed the hollow at the base of his neck. “Only for the Blessing of the Troops. It’s my last public event, and people will talk if my Fonte isn’t there.”
Alessa twined her fingers together behind Dante’s back.
“Please?” she said. “Stay a little longer and save me one last time?”
The metal was cold and unforgiving, even atop a thin, sleeveless tunic and leggings, as Dante eased a chain-mail tunic over her shoulders, then helped her don the breastplate, and strapped panels to her thighs and calves.
She’d wear gloves for the Blessing, but not for the real battle.
Her hands, feet, and legs would be bare beneath the armor when it came time to fight, so her Fonte could hold on, even if he or she became too injured to stand.
When she’d gotten her first armor tutorial, she’d asked why the Fonte and Finestra helmets left the back of their necks exposed, but Tomo had explained how looking up was essential in a war when your enemies attacked from above. And, hopefully, the Finestra and Fonte would do their jobs well enough that very few scarabeo got within range of them anyway. The troops, densely packed together on the hillside, were a much more tempting feeding ground than two lone figures atop a peak, protected by magic. She hoped.
“I didn’t think he could even sit up,” Renata said as Dante descended the stairs to the courtyard. “How’d you get him into his armor?”
Dante flipped up the visor.
“Oh,” Renata said. “Brilliant.”
Dante flipped it back down as Captain Papatonis marched in to escort them to the piazza.
Alessa had to admit it was impressive—the thousands of armored soldiers in perfect lines, standing at attention in the piazza. And if she let out an ooh of admiration when they began their first series of drills, it was drowned out by the watching crowd’s awe.
As they moved into the second series, her gaze caught on a flutter of white. Icy fingers crawled up Alessa’s spine as Ivini led a line of robed figures into the piazza.
He’d never brought anything good into her life before, and she doubted he was here to make amends, but the Fratellanza made no move to disrupt anything, merely filling in the little bit of empty space on one side. She couldn’t exactly have him expelled because her neck prickled with warning.
Renata wasn’t pleased either and said something to Captain Papatonis that sent him toward Ivini, a cold look of determination on his face.
Alessa sent Ivini one last glare, poking him full of eye-daggers, then returned her attention to the troops. Ivini had tried his best and failed. He wasn’t worth another moment of her time.
The Captain rejoined them as the exercises concluded, and Alessa stepped forward to take her place for the Blessing. Dante stood slightly behind her on one side, Renata and Tomo on the other.
“Dea, blessed Goddess of Creation,” Alessa began. “We ask you to guide our weapons—”
With a hiss of metal, a guard in the front row drew his.
“Creature of Crollo!” he yelled and sprinted toward them.
Heart in her throat, Alessa fumbled for her ceremonial sword, but Dante drew first, stepping in front of her. To protect her.
“Get back, Finestra,” the Captain yelled, running forward to join Dante as a human shield.
Or so she thought.
But when Captain Papatonis raised his sword, it wasn’t to ward off the mutinous soldier. And Dante was bracing for an attack from the front, not behind.
Alessa screamed a warning, but it was too late.