In the space of weeks, Athenodora studies Caius with the diligence of an astronomer seeking order in the stars. His brothers are conundrums made flesh, their butterfly-pretty wives freewheeling upon eccentric orbits of their own, but there is reason to him, a subtle symmetry to be uncovered.
His brand of tyranny, gleeful and steadfast, astounds her, the sentiment running chilly fingernails over her sides. In the periphery of a throne room where she does not quite belong, Athenodora watches her lover dispense punishment that barely bothers to disguise its yawning rictus behind justice's mask. Censure casts its vein-blue shadow over her thoughts for a moment, before she recalls that Caius has two brothers to hold him in check, should they so choose.
Gentle, monastic Marcus is neither, she realizes, flinching at her own misjudgment.
Idly and without whimsy, she wonders what she would do with the world if it were presented to her, as it has been to the man she half-loves. The conclusion is an honest, unflattering thing: she would be craftier, perhaps, and cleverer, a creature of silken brows and deft hands, but she cannot claim kindness.
It becomes simpler to forgive Caius then, to weave her fingers through his and pull him into her rooms though there is ash, feathery as snow, in his hair and the incense-sweetened stench of slaughter upon his skin. Cruelty thaws and runs in rivulets over his flesh and hers, as though her touch remakes him into something less monstrous.
It is a heady idea, Athenodora knows, and a fallacious one.
She sees shards of her own intentions in his devotion, the need to run and forget and become unmade. Perhaps, then, he is as ensnared in Velathri as she is.
[-]
When darkness streaks bruised fingers across the sky, Caius permits Athenodora to tug him outside, beyond Velathri's borders where the trees are sparse, slender things and the bones of the land peek through tawny ground. Between hunting and scarred, shivering sex, he finds himself inextricably looped around her, her delicate vertebrae prickling his chest and her lips teasing his arm as they shape the words of a cool inquiry.
"Why are you here, Cai?" Athenodora says. She has stumbled upon the name given to him at birth, promptly discarded when Rome rose from the Tiber's banks, but it does not sound quite as ugly when she speaks it, he decides.
The question startles him, its intent unfathomable.
"Because a very stubborn girl insisted upon dragging me outside," he offers, tracing her clavicle with curious fingers. "And now there are stones digging into my spine."
She laughs so easily now, and phantom warmth coils in the silent shallows of his chest.
"Not quite what I meant," she amends. "Why are you here, in this godsforsaken hilltop city, planning a war you cannot win with Aro?"
Immediately, Caius snarls, irritated. His loyalty is pristine, a heavy mark of pride and he cannot stand Athenodora's condemnation.
Some sentiment, too eagerly tender to name, halts his wrath long enough for civility to take the reins. He does not wish to contemplate how unpleasantly besotted that seems.
"Where else is there for me to go?" he says, the edges of his voice skinned and scabbing.
"That is a poor reason for remaining anywhere," she says. "And this is spoken by a master of staying for terrible reasons." Her fingers tangle in his hair and ruffle it affectionately, a gesture that is both unpardonable and charming. He finds himself calming beneath her palms, sour observations about the sirens'-lure of her approval flickering and dying like forgotten embers.
He hesitates, tugging the threads of his memories and finding a recounting whose truth cannot be questioned too much.
"I owe Aro and Marcus my allegiance and I am glad to give it to them," he says, the pronouncement stern as any Roman edict, and hopes that this will appease her. Perhaps, on a night of the sort described in poetry, she will show mercy and sheathe her claws.
"I sense a story," she grins, twisting to face him in a sinuous arch.
The vain hope of a less-inquisitive Athenodora turns to mist.
"When I was mortal, I was a soldier. Not the best—" he adds, remembering how sunlight playing on bronze shields scorched his pale eyes and tightened pain in bands around his skull, "—but skilled enough to be feared. The tribes spread word of a white-haired demon, merciless and mad. With time, the tales came to the attention of immortals."
The silence breathes, sated with secrets and memories of a man who lived for the delirium found only at the blade's edge, muscle shredded by pitted metal.
"My maker was from the coven that calls itself Dacian now. They were powerful even then, and they were collecting members. When I awoke from the metamorphosis, I was furious and defiant beyond reason, as newborns are. I killed my creator a few days after that."
"Now I can see why you were reluctant to share," she says, beading a kiss onto a thin thread of a scar. "Though I must admit that I haven't contemplated your death."
"Sweet of you."
"Continue," Athenodora urges, propping herself on an elbow and permitting her nails to dance over his ribs.
"The coven did not take kindly to such...insolence." His smirk is ivory, marked by too many teeth, as though he sees shades of himself in the rage of his former masters. "I destroyed or ran from every immortal sent after me. In little more than a year, I was no stronger than any of our kind, and I knew that I was damned."
"And then I found Aro and Marcus," Caius says. "They accepted me into their coven, although I was ungifted and pursued. Can you see how much of a kindness that was on their part?"
"Two other immortals? That was enough to stop the most powerful coven in our lands?" Athenodora wonders, falcon-eyed as ever.
"I tell you about my near-death, and you question the logistics?" he grins, trailing tickling fingers over her stomach until she giggles.
"Clearly you survived and my worry would be unwarranted," she says, soothing the statement's sting with fluttering fingers. "Now answer my question."
"Yes. Killing nomads is simple. Clans have alliances and vendettas."
Her smile strikes sparks in her eyes. "Besides the debt of gratitude, I assume that you remain here to plot your elaborate revenge."
He laughs, the gesture uncustomary. "Perhaps. Aro and I are of one mind in that regard."
"Are your boredom and blind faith in your brother a fair price to pay for vengeance?" she says, soft and certain.
"Spoken like a child." Her idealism is caustic upon his tongue.
"No. Spoken like someone who is a stranger here," she counters, ablaze. Her skin no longer rests against his, and distance hisses between them.
"How dare you presume to know anything about my sentiments? You are not as clever as you seem to think you are, my dear." His voice is cruel now, pitiless as the northern sea, because she is too observant, too near-sighted, too close to naming the doubts that gnaw at his ribs if given a chance.
"How dare you drag me into your miserable existence if you aren't certain about it yourself?" Athenodora says. She turns quiet when she is enraged, her words like struck crystal, too clear, too lucent to ignore.
"I am not miserable."
"You aren't happy," she challenges, shoulders taut and angled.
"Did you anticipate eternity to be kind, to me or anyone else?" Contempt tastes of old blood upon his teeth and tongue, but Caius does not regret resorting to it.
"I suppose not," she says, a feeble concession. "But I did not expect you to embrace centuries of tedium and impatience for the sake of a cause that will leave you dead, either."
She meets his gaze with the helpless eyes of a drowning girl, her fingers worrying at the silver tumble of her hair.
"I've trusted you," she murmurs, her voice a resting place for ghosts. "I've followed your laws and learned your ways because I thought that you knew better than I did. Can you fault me for being angry that you are just as lost as I am?"
Athenodora dresses with clever, pattering fingers and runs, dawn tracing shimmering trails upon the bones at her shoulders, leaving Caius behind her.
If pressed, he would call himself furious, a shadow-eyed creature wrenching at its tethers, but only because he fears the insinuating emptiness that will devour him when anger flees on ashen wings.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The Romanian coven would probably be referred to as Dacian back in the day, if they were named based upon the region they lived in. Here ends your history lesson.
A loving thank-you to everyone who reviewed and favourited the previous chapter. Your encouragement, as always, is appreciated.