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“What! Don’t go saying that! That’s a serious accusation, that is.”
“So? All I’m saying is that everyone else is saying it!”
Aurelius rolled his eyes.
Ashen passion? For fuck’s sake. Even a million miles from home, I can’t escape the bigots and superstitious old fools.
Ashen passion was one of the five divine illnesses. It was to Ardor what wandering vigor was to Mesti. But looking down at the sweaty, determined man across the square, outlifting and outperforming all those around him, Aurelius certainly couldn’t see any sign of the timidity and lack of motivation that supposedly accompanied the ashen illness.
And yet, even Aurelius had picked up the insinuation in Urosina’s folio about Calix retreating from public life in the last year or so. And although he did not believe the rot about divine illnesses, he knew better than to completely ignore the chatter of a crowd.
He filed the information away in the back of his mind.
The battles played out for another hour, the crowd rising to their feet with a “One... Two... Three!” whenever someone was pinned.
All the while, Calix stayed on his own, barely noticing those around him.
Then, at last, he moved, lowering the rock for the last time, and making his way down a shaded path beneath the far stands.
Aurelius grinned and jumped to his feet. “Time to get to work!”
“Where are you going?” said Teigra, her eyes wide.
“Where do you think? I would bet all my money that tunnel leads to a bathhouse. And I didn’t take a four-day journey just to look at him.”
Teigra went bright red. “You don’t mean you’re going to try to... Right here? Right there?”
He chuckled at her delicate sexual constitution. “Oh, darling, this isn’t like those dates your mother foists on you. Making boring small talk with even more boring men. Holding hands and doing little else? We do things a little differently in my world.”
“But, no! You can’t go back there! It’s just for the soldiers.”
He batted his eyelids. “I’m a tourist, Tiggy! Not even a diplomat yet. Just some posh fool looking to take my daily bath, as any citizen of Dynosia is permitted to. How was I to know the area was restricted?”
“Aurie, please, no! Stop! Don’t do down there! You don’t understand!”
He waved away her hysteria. Before she could say anything else to dissuade him, Aurelius blew her a kiss and sauntered away.
27
TEIGRA
Calix knows about the mission!
Teigra wanted to scream the warning from the top of her lungs, but it fell silent on her lips. Instead, she watched in horror as Aurelius headed toward the bathhouse, filled with men that were trained to kill.
Her cousin was in grave danger! Anything could happen to him!
And it was all her fault. Because she’d thought that there was no way Calix could know about the mission. Because there was no way that the woman who’d stolen the folio could have given it to him yet.
But Teigra had been wrong.
Calix did know. He had to.
Because the person who stole the folio wasn’t a day’s ride south. She was here, standing in the center of the female wrestlers. Because the thief wasn’t some lowly hoplite. Because the thief was someone important. Someone powerful. Someone whose unmistakable description was written into the very notes she’d stolen.
Because the thief is Princess Zosime Viralis!
Calix’s sister.
