Page 16

Chapter Fifteen - Luka

T he days grow warmer as they travel southwest. The snow melts and the horses increase their speed to a jaw-rattling trot that makes Luka’s bones ache. He’s sat in a saddle for so long now, that every break when he hauls himself free, he’s surprised to find the leather hasn’t been pressed into the shape of his behind.

Each evening sees him so tired he’s nearly unable to keep his eyes open, and yet he still trains at Darri’s side until his arms ache. The shape of the knife’s pommel becomes so familiar to his hand that sometimes he wakes imagining his fingers still cradling it.

Luka takes better to wielding a dagger than he ever took to wielding his father’s fuille . There is no echoing boom and – for now – there is no body leaking blood. There is only the air, his invisible opponent, and the occasional makeshift targets Darri makes for him. The contact of Luka’s blows on wood is a satisfying and welcome distraction. Though he desperately wants to be at Cesscounthe now – or even better, yesterday – the thought makes his palms slick with sweat.

He tries imagining seeing his mother again – seeing his father , knowing that they both conspired to murder his elder brother.

To see Cassian again.

The Kiterans at first avoid Luka as he trains with the blade, but after a day or two of watching him warily, they join him. Luka is unsurprised to see them wielding fuilles – weapons they must have taken from his fellow Siacchians. Though he tries to avoid it, he finds himself unable to stop himself from correcting the aim of one soldier.

“Like this.” Luka takes the fuille from a brunette with big blue eyes and demonstrates how to brace it against his shoulder. The shock of the weapon in his hands takes him back to his childhood. He had never been very good with it, but now, as he hefts it, leveling the sights with his eyes, he finds it easy enough to aim –

BANG.

The shock takes him a step back. He blinks, expecting to see the little red body of a fox.

But no, there is only the target.

And his perfect bull’s eye.

It occurs to him afterward, that he is teaching his enemies how to attack his own people, but in the moment, Luka finds himself caught between horror at the violence his own hands are capable of –

– and… a strange power.

I can fight.

I can defend myself.

When he curls in his tent that night, the BANG echoes in his thoughts, but it doesn’t leave him frozen with fear. Instead, he pauses, considers.

It makes him feel stronger.

He isn’t sure how much time passes before he jerks from his routine one late evening, eyes going wide, and shouts, “What day is it?”

Unfortunately, the person nearest who has the answer to this question just has to be Octavian. The man glances at him. Winter sky unspools at his back, the full moon a silver coin dropped amidst a sea of stars. In the distance, an owl cries. “It’s the third day of the month.”

“Curse Thought ,” Luka spits.

“Why does that matter?” Octavian asks around a mouthful of dinner. The fire crackles before them, a flimsy, flickering barrier against the winter chill. Darri sits not far away. He watches their conversation as he takes a long drink from his wineskin.

Luka digs his lengthening claws into the log beneath him, and for once, he doesn’t flinch from the way russet fur creeps down his arms. “The Bombani Exam takes place on the twentieth day of the month.”

“Oh, that silly exam they have you Siacchians take to see if you’re beastly?” Octavian picks at his teeth.

Luka blinks, momentarily shocked from his rage. “What?”

“I’ve heard of it,” Octavian continues. He takes in Luka’s white face with a sidelong glance before drinking deeply from his wineskin. “They test all of your children around… what age is it? Six? Seven?”

“Seven,” Luka says, eyes still wide. His thoughts race ahead of Octavian, running in circles, avoiding the true meaning behind the man’s words. The test we take to see if we’re beastly.

“I mean, didn’t the Siacchians move west to avoid hopiar, after all? So it makes sense they would test you to ensure you were kept in the lower caste.” Octavian looks at him through the flames.

“It’s a test of intelligence,” Luka says, though his voice is faint.

“I’m not sure they usually prepare children by slapping them with rulers and pushing for a bad temper for tests of intelligence ,” Octavian says, face growing serious.

“But…” Luka fumbles. Memories of his mother’s face, warped with anger, as she told him he failed tear at him. The knowledge that the one thing Luka had to keep him afloat was all a lie she fabricated and then ripped away just as easily.

“You Siacchians want to stay superior by calling it a test of intelligence, but anyone who does a little digging could see through that easily.” Octavian raises his brows, looking over Luka’s shoulder. “Put those hackles down, Balivartian. I haven’t done anything to him.” He adds after a long slurp of his dinner, “Yet.”

Darri stands so close to Luka, his warmth washes over him. “Luka?” he says, the question clear in his voice.

“Yes, yes.” Luka waves a hand. “I’m fine.” He’s certainly not fine, but the crisis he’s undergoing isn’t one Darri can solve. Unfortunately.

He presses his hand to his face, staring through the gaps of his fingers. His mother always knew that Luka would likely fail the test. She put him through all of that suffering, saw all of those poor scores on the preliminary exams, and she looked him in the eye and didn’t care.

He closes his eyes, recalling Alessandro. The only memories he has of his elder brother are those of his grave, just outside the walls of Cesscounthe. That, and the way Linne’s hands would grip Luka’s arms after she dragged him into the night, her breath misting in white clouds around Luka’s neck as she hissed, He failed. Don’t be like your brother.

Luka’s throat works. He doesn’t bother to calm his whirlwind of emotions. I never had any chance to make her happy.

And then beyond that terror and despair, a lighter feeling blossoms: it never really mattered.

For so long, Luka draped the idea that he was the second ever to receive a perfect score on the Bombani Exam around himself, using it like a cloak that could protect from his past failures. He gained a reputation that mattered, a reputation he bolstered by his genius at Cesse –a genius that was impressive in spite of his beastly nature.

But none of it was ever true.

None of it ever mattered.

“Wow,” Octavian says. He empties his waterskin. “You seem to be thinking very deep thoughts over there, Luka.”

Luka opens his eyes. None of it ever mattered .

But the words no longer crush him. They mean he is free . He can build his own identity.

Who am I? Who do I want to be, beyond my mother? Beyond the Lockehart name?

I want to be someone who helps people. I want to be someone who never repeats the horrors that my mother imparted.

I want to save Cassian. I want to save all the impyassi.

And then, like a shot to his chest, Luka realizes: Cassian has to be an impyassus.

All of those pretests that Cassian failed; the knowing gleam in his mother’s eye as she watched her youngest son across the dinner table, like a fox about to descend on a rabbit.

The sad, determined set to Carlo’s mouth.

“How many impyassi even pass the Bombani Exam?” Luka asks. He’s shocked by the steadiness of his voice. Darri’s hand lands on Luka’s shoulder, warm and heavy, but Luka feels far away from the reassuring pressure.

Octavian says, “Your mother told me that both you and Xyla Mobiele passed the test, so there’s likely a few others.” He smiles, but the gesture doesn’t meet his eyes.

“I didn’t pass,” Luka says flatly. “My mother swapped my failed scores for someone else.”

Octavian shrugs again, his gaze falling to the fire. “Ah, yes. I do believe Linne mentioned that. That means the one who got the perfect score… was another.”

“Do you know Linne well?” Darri asks, and Luka glances back at the Balivartian. Darri’s face is smooth but for the little pinch between his brows. “You betrayed your… what do you call your leaders? Your Sevell ? You betrayed Theodori for her alliance, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Sevell. That’s what we call the second highest rank of hopiar .” Octavian nods, clearly stalling.

Luka takes one, two, three long seconds. He lets his emotions uncoil. Anger. Sadness. Fear. It sours his tongue. After allowing them space, he slowly folds his emotions into a square. He imagines tucking the neat package into one of the even sections of the Cesse board. He will return to them later, when they are useful to him.

He turns on Octavian. “When was the last time you saw my mother?”

Darri squeezes Luka’s shoulder, anchoring him.

Octavian looks from Darri’s face to Luka’s, and his expression oddly shifts. Vulnerability, brief and flickering, shines like meat from parted flesh. Octavian clears his throat, going blank again, but he knows that Darri and Luka saw his soft underbelly –it’s clear in the paleness of his face. His eyes dart from them, flickering around the surrounding guards, as if contemplating escape.

Octavian says, quietly, “It’s been three weeks. I left Cesscounthe in her hands. I didn’t expect she would…” He clears his throat again.

Luka tries to conjure images of Evland Childes bleeding into the catacombs. He tries to recall Octavian’s expression –likely one of glee, at having won.

Or was that really how it happened?

Despite himself, guilt warms Luka’s chest. He whispers, “What has she done?”

Octavian stands, but he doesn’t move away. He gazes at Luka. “My spies have said she’s pushed all hopiar – Aiutani and those who passed the test alike – to the Gamgy District. They’ve been removed from their homes and forced into servitude, living under a strict curfew. They all fear her. Some children have been… taken.”

“Did she not realize what you are?” Darri asks. Luka glances at the man out of the corner of his eye; Darri’s face is blank, neither eager for Octavian’s vulnerability nor sympathetic.

“She knows what I am.” Octavian looks past Luka. “But she was never afraid of me. She was never afraid of any of… any of us.” He blinks. Another strange emotion passes through him. “She even – she welcomed us. Some of us.”

“Why?” Luka whispers. “I never understood why she hated… us so much.”

Octavian shakes his head. “She wants to purify the bloodline –is what she said. I knew, after seeing how she lost control –even Kiterans don’t allow themselves to fall to such bloodlust –that I could never trust her.” Something akin to regret borders his voice.

Luka forces his eyes open as memories pound against his skull. The fear of his mother is one written in the long-healed bruises on his skin.

“You look a bit like her, you know,” Octavian says distantly. “In the eyes.”

Luka bares his teeth. “That is unkind, Octavian.”

Octavian shakes himself. “Right,” he says. “Right,” he repeats, quiet enough that it must be a reminder for his ears alone. He takes another sip of his wineskin. His cheeks flush in the firelight. “I don’t regret it,” he declares after he has swallowed. “It let me move up through the ranks. I couldn’t stay by Theodori’s side –you likely don’t remember, but he wasn’t always… he’s… he’s kind to you. He was never like that with me.”

Luka blinks, but before he can speak, Octavian rises. He brushes dirt from his trousers.

“I’ve said more than enough,” Octavian says. He nods to them both. “Maybe I was better off when I was still trying to kill you,” he mutters, just loud enough for Luka’s sharp impyassus hearing to make out as he turns for his tent.

Darri shifts so he stands at Luka’s side, watching Octavian go.

“You don’t need to glare at him like that,” Luka says.

Darri quirks a brow. “I’m not glaring,” he says. “This is just what my face looks like.”

The days that follow stretch painfully long. Luka’s body grows only sorer as his hand grows more familiar with the blade and his shoulder more familiar with the fuille . He contemplates, in the late evenings over a pint of mead, approaching a friendlier Kiteran soldier to ask for recommendations on how to… be a hopiar ? But even the question imagined seems ridiculous, so Luka never pursues it.

It doesn’t help that Octavian avoids Luka pointedly. He spends his nights in his tent, and in the day, he rides at the front of their troop, avoiding eye contact.

Luka is left to only stew.

He spends his days unpicking the neat box he folded his emotions into. He unfurls the anger and sadness at his mother’s betrayal, though the process leaves his palms damp with sweat. Every night, before he falls asleep, he pictures first Cassian’s face, and then Linne’s. He pictures her every move, how she might station herself on his mental Cesse board.

And he wins against her. Every time.

He doesn’t bother thinking about Carlo. His father has always been a second note to Linne, and now, knowing that he killed Alessandro all those years ago, Luka finds nothing but anger toward him.

Nothing useful.

As the winter warms and the forests fall away into flatlands covered in sweeping fields, Cesscounthe suddenly seems too close.

Eight days pass, and despite the way time stretched out before their arrival, it seems abrupt when the massive walls of Cesscounthe rise on the horizon.

Vittoria rides ahead of their group, shouting orders. She delivers a booming speech, her face flushed beneath her war helmet. The night before, she rehearsed the battle plan with her people, and Luka churns her orders over in his head now, overlaying the commands with the strategy he and Darri formed on their own.

Vittoria’s horse froths at the mouth as she trots back and forth, shaping them into lines. The impyassus herself looks fierce; her armor is all leather pads and loose hinges, making it easy for her to shift from woman to wolf and back again. Her blonde hair has been bound flat to her skull in a long rope braided through with blades, promising punishment for whoever attempts to grab it.

“We have ridden long,” she says. She starts speaking low. Her warriors lean in. Luka, despite himself, echoes them. “But we have arrived.”

“We have arrived,” rises a low whisper around Luka, emerging from the Kiterans.

“This city is ours. We have claimed it before. We will claim it again. It matters not what opposition we face – be it from the West or the South. We have never needed their help. We stand strong.”

“We stand strong.” The whispers around Luka increase in volume.

“This city is ours. We will take it back.” Vittoria rides her horse back and forth. She meets all of their eyes. Her gaze burns.

“We will take it back!” cry the Kiterans.

Vittoria turns her back on them. She faces forward, raising a fist. “We come here today for blood!”

“Blood!” her warriors echo back. The soldiers swarm around him, eyes widening. Their exhaustion falls away like melting snow. They throw their heads up, lips peeled back with a terrifying, hungry expression marring their helmeted faces.

“We come here for vengeance!”

“Vengeance!”

“We come here to retake what is ours!”

“What is ours!”

Despite what Vittoria says, despite knowing the words aren’t meant for him, Luka raises his head.

“We came here prepared for death, but when victory is ours, we will all return home!”

“Home!” the warriors roar, and Luka echoes the call. Darri startles at his side, but Luka hardly notices.

Vittoria tosses her head back, her braid like a blonde whip, and releases a bloodcurdling howl. The sound races through the air, and even though the walls of Cesscounthe are small in the distance, Luka has no doubt that the occupants hear them.

Luka joins the howl. The noise that crawls from his throat is rusty and hesitant at first, almost embarrassed, but then he lets his beast fly free. Who will hear him in this crowd? He can’t distinguish his own voice from the others.

But surely combined, together, his mother will notice their screams.

She’d best be afraid.

Because Luka has had many days to plan now. He knows how to keep the Kiterans from breaching Cesscounthe’s walls. He knows how to prevent bloodshed.

He knows how to take Linne Lockehart down.

This time, she won’t catch him unprepared.