A million thanks to the wonderful TheFruitBat for beta reading and bearing with me as I flailed about trying to get this one done by the FK Fic Fest deadline.
Thanks also to Brightknightie for running FK Fic Fest. It's been a lot of fun to participate.
Hat tip to Greer Watson for the name Lucius Divius Lucianus because I otherwise would have spent waaaaaaay too much overthinking LaCroix's full Roman name.
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In a daze, Lucius drifted from the Valley of Kings to Thebes and their rooms—his rooms, now. Servants had lit the oil lamps and disappeared before he arrived, the light bathing the chambers in a warm, flickering glow. He sat on the edge of his bed and stared blankly at the dried blood on his hands. He couldn't find a name for what was happening inside him. Grief? Pain? Rage? All three echoed in the hollow that had been carved out of him tonight. On a visceral level, he understood the lamentations of Cicero when his beloved daughter Tullia had died.
But then, Divia had not simply died. With the grief, pain, and rage, came something more. Relief. Righteousness. He would not have changed things. Her behavior could result in no other course of action. Perhaps it had been a long time coming; he had just been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to see it.
He rose and went to the wash basin that sat on a side table, plunging his hands in the cool water and watching the blood dissolve from his hands in faint wisps of coppery red.
He did not miss her and yet, at the same time, he missed her deeply. Or rather, he missed someone she used to be and someone she never was. She had been such a bright and active girl in life. Who would she have been as a woman, as his daughter grown? She'd have had an advantageous marriage, he would have seen to that. To someone of wealth and power, and who could appreciate and value her cleverness. She'd have been a mother for certain. Invitations to her home would have been sought after, and she would wield influence over her husband's political career from behind the scenes. There's nothing he would not have done to secure such a future for her.
That was all a fantasy, of course. Even assuming she had survived the illness that had nearly taken her while he had been on campaign, they would have died together under the fire and ash of Vesuvius.
He dried his hands on a clean linen cloth. The faint scent of her blood from the water made his stomach turn and he draped the cloth over the basin in a futile effort to block it off. He changed from his blood-spattered clothes into clean ones and kicked the soiled ones into a corner.
He headed to her room, the larger and more resplendent of the two. She'd insisted and he'd given in easily. There was little he'd ever denied her in their mortal life or after. That was how he had failed her. Divia's mother had once warned him, "You'll spoil her, Lucius, if you're not careful. She'll think she can have whatever she wants. That will be her undoing."
"And you were right, Seline," he murmured to himself. Would less doting and more discipline have changed things? He shook his head. It didn't matter now.
He entered Divia's room and opened the small trunk at the foot of her bed. They traveled light and often, never lingering more than a year at a time, moving ever further east and south in the Empire. They always left before Divia's agelessness or the disappearances and deaths that aligned with their tenure in the provincial towns could start to generate dangerous rumors.
In their various incarnations over the past two decades, Divia had made little effort to control herself and she had liked to toy with her prey. They both had. Games had been something they'd always indulged in together and in their immortal life, the deadly stakes had thrilled them both.
He caught her often staring at other girls who appeared her age. She had asked him once, as they sat watching mortals at a festival as it wound down, "Do you think they should ever grow up?"
He had followed her stare to a girl with pale hair and delicate features like her own. "Do you want to make one of them like you?" he'd asked.
"You mean like us," she had responded, then put on a friendly smile and approached the girl, leaving him behind.
But that was not what he had meant.
She was different from him, remaining perpetually half grown. As the years passed, he observed in her that just as her body stayed stuck between child and woman, so did her mind. A perpetual state of in-between. She would laugh like a child and hold out a toy; children would be drawn to her and die. She would cry like a little girl lost and separated from her parents; mothers would be drawn to her and die.
In her frozen place in time, she nonetheless appeared old enough to leave childhood behind, and she had been eager to do so, like any girl of her seeming age. Her favorite game became attending events on his arm, wearing golden jewelry and garments woven of the finest cloth, and blinking wide and innocent at the young men in attendance. He'd never have allowed her to make such a display of herself in their mortal life. If he were honest, he had not liked it in their immortal life. But mortal lives were just games to her and as ever, he indulged her. The young men were drawn in at the prospect of wealth a wife such as her would bring them. That had not just drawn them to her, but to him.
He and Divia would play for weeks at negotiating a betrothal while the young man grew weaker and weaker. They'd drain him over time, making him forget the terror of each encounter, only to relive it again on the next visit.
She'd asked Lucius once, after finally finishing off another suitor, "Do you think I should get married, Father?"
The question had surprised him. "To what end?"
"A new game. A new way to pass the time. After all," she gave one of her coy and secretive smiles," I've never been married." Then she had looked pointedly at him—perhaps the look had meant something more at the time and he had not seen it—and added, "Come to think of it, neither have you."
He had snorted. His lack of marriage had been vaguely frowned upon in his mortal circle, but his status and success had meant no one ever questioned it outright. He had his favorites and they were not suitable for marriage. Chief among them, Seline, a constant in his life since even before she gave birth to Divia. Not that he couldn't have found a suitable wife if he'd wanted to.
"I came very close to marrying once," he had told Divia in response. "A well-born widow with two sons. An ideal match." Unspoken, but understood by both of them: ideal because he had no sons himself.
"Why did you not then?"
He had looked at her fondly. "She would not agree unless I sent you away. I refused."
Divia had come around behind where he sat and put her arms around him. She had whispered in his ear, "I think we should rectify that. We'll find a widow with a son ready to marry. And if we cannot find a widow, we can create one."
He had wanted to protest. He'd not intended for her to think there was anything to rectify. The story was meant to be about his paternal loyalty and devotion to her. But she had started chattering excitedly about the new game and so he had let it go.
In the end, Divia had outdone herself. The widow she had found, a woman named Aelia, was charming and educated. Her son Marcus, much the same. The four of them would speak late into the night of art, poetry, philosophy, and the Empire. Despite himself and the game, Lucius had found himself enjoying their company more and more. Perhaps the game should change so they could gain the company of Aelia and Marcus permanently.
Divia did not seem to feel the same. Under her giggles at Marcus' jokes, there was something cold. When Lucius had kissed Aelia the first time in a darkened doorway, he'd seen Divia watching them, something strange in golden eyes; perhaps it had been jealousy. Later that night, Divia had said, "I'm tired of this game. Let's end it and move on."
The double-wedding had been unusual, that was certain. But Aelia and Marcus's family had been amenable and so the wedding went off. They escorted Divia and Marcus to the house Lucius had bought them, a small crowd cheering the couple as they disappeared behind the heavy doors, a latch locking behind them. With a small slip of regret, Lucius suspected Marcus was already in a death grip, Divia draining the life from him.
At his own home, he pulled Aelia with him to the bedroom. Perhaps her outcome might be quite different, if he could manage it. He'd never tried. She eagerly shed her tunica, dropping it to the floor and they embraced. Her heartbeat became loud in his ears and he felt his fangs descend. She started to tug at his clothes, but he stopped her and pushed her onto the bed, sliding in behind her, kissing up along her shoulder blade until he got to her neck. Unable to resist any longer, he sank his fangs into her flesh, reveling in the taste of her blood. He drank from her slowly, savoring her as she groaned softly. He felt her heartbeat slowing. He brought one of his wrists to his mouth and bit into it, ready to feed his blood to her.
Then Divia was there in the room standing in front of Aelia, staring at her, eyes glowing red with a scorn he'd never seen before. Divia didn't bite Aelia, she tore her throat out. As Aelia choked and tried to gasp, Divia slid in front of her, drinking the blood as it poured out. Lucius turned over, his back to Aelia as Divia finished her off. As Aelia's corpse cooled between them, he felt Divia's small hand come to rest on his hip. He pulled away and sat up, his back still to her.
"I don't want to play this game again," Divia had whispered.
"Nor do I," he had replied before he had stood and left the room without looking back.
Lucius shook himself out of these dark reminiscences as he found what he was looking for in Divia's trunk. The cameo necklace he had given her before his final military campaign. It was the only thing she had kept from her mortal life. He wondered if it meant something different to her than it did to him. For him, it held the last truly happy memory he had of her, the last time when she had been his beloved daughter.
The day he had given it to her, the rays of the setting sun had shone like gold off her hair. From the bench where he sat, he had watched her as she kicked her feet in the water of the small pond, splashing at the ducks she had been feeding. Lucius had brought her and her mother to his country estate just outside of town, a few days respite and rest before he would begin the long march to Gaul.
"Divia," he had called to her. "Come sit with me."
She rose, but then slipped on the bank, falling into the water. It was only a shallow pond, and she stood up easily, with the water not quite coming to her waist. He laughed, and pulled off his red cloak and held it wide. She sputtered and momentarily looked affronted before laughing herself. She sloshed out of the pond and ran to him, letting him wrap her in the cloak and pull her next to him on the bench. She rested her head on his shoulder. "Mother will be angry I've soiled my clothes."
"I don't think she will, not about that," he assured her and then changed to a sterner tone. "She is angry though that you slapped your maid." And more sternly, "I'm not happy about it myself."
Divia pouted. "Cressida is a dolt. I was telling her to fetch something for me and she wasn't paying attention. I simply got her attention."
"Be that as it may, she's not yours to punish. If you are not happy with her, come to me and I will address it."
"She's just a slave," Divia said haughtily. "What does it matter?"
He reached down and lifted her chin, looking into her pale eyes, like mirrors of his own. "It matters because I am the master of this household and she is under my care, protection, and discipline. Much like yourself."
She jerked her head away with an indignant look that made him laugh. "Though of course, you are no slave and you have no equal, my dearest."
He went on, "Cressida displeased you. I'll see that she is gone. But heed me, if you have any qualms with the next, you address them to me, or, while I am away, to Kallias."
"But Kallias is a slave," she said petulantly.
"Nonetheless, I entrust him with the affairs of the household. You know this."
She scowled.
"Tell me you understand," he insisted.
"I understand," she grumbled.
"Good," he said lightly. "I would not want to leave on a sour note, nor before I could give you your gift."
A smile now lit her face, her mood shifting, "Gift?"
He lifted a small red pouch he had set next to himself on the bench and handed it to her. She opened the pouch and slid out a necklace, her image expertly engraved in onyx and set in a pendant that dangled on a gold chain. Divia laughed in delight and kissed him on the cheek before putting the necklace around her neck.
"I wish it could just be the two of us," she said wistfully as the sun sank below the horizon.
He bent his head and kissed her pale gold hair. "We will spend time together, just the two of us, upon my return. I promise."
That was the last time he'd truly been a father to her, and perhaps the last time she had seen him that way. Once he had returned from Gaul, whoever Divia had been and whoever she might have become had already died. Maybe, in some way, both she and he were entombed together in the ash that had buried Pompeii.
The painful echoes of loss and anger stirred inside of him again as he pulled himself out of his reverie. He looked at the cameo in his hand and brushed his fingers over the delicate features of the face carved into the stone. A small piece of her from before all this. A piece of a daughter justifiably gone, but gone all the same. He put the necklace's chain over his head, and slid the pendant under his tunic where it rested against his cold, still heart.
Everything else, he burned to the ground.