She stared at him, memorizing his features. When next they met, she would be in a new bodyâa stranger to him.
Eyes narrowed, he took another step toward her. “I've had a lot of time to think over the past weeks. Since Moonful.”
She stepped back. “About what?”
“About that night at the salon, when you told Sevin I'd drunk from a tainted decanter.”
“And?”
He advanced another step and she fell back one, their dance fraught with tension. “I hadn't told you that. Which means that you either had a hand in spiking it with liquor, or that you were the female specter I had explained the matter to earlier that night. Which is it?”
“I didn't spike it, though I believe I know who did.”
A silence. “What the hells, Michaela?” he said softly. “I'm trying not to come to a bad conclusion here.” He angled his head toward her hands. “I'll ask you again. What are you hiding?”
Slowly, she revealed the stones in her palms, holding them outward as if to give them to him. But instead, she bent her head and blew gently upon them. Instantly, a wall of fire leaped between her and Bastian. She gazed at him where he stood beyond the fire, recoiling from its heat. Words unspoken bubbled up. She parted her lips to tell him what Michaela was so adamant that he know. What she felt in her own heart. “I love you.”
Something changed in his face. He lunged toward her. Toward the fire. She moved toward him as well, into the fire she'd created, from its opposite side. And before his eyes, she simply disappeared, the flame winking out as well, only seconds after her departure.
Bastian stared at the spot where she'd been, stunned, his world rocked by what he'd just seen. By what she'd said. Going to the statue, he examined the crests in Vesta's palms. Found the hollows beneath them, where the stones must have been hidden. How had Michaela known they would be there? Whom did she work for?
A ruddy flush singed the bones of his cheeks, but there was little else to outwardly indicate his fury.
The firestones were gone. And her with them.
Michaela was a thief.
Simple deductive reasoning.
Had she only stayed with him all this time in order to steal? The hot rage of betrayal rose within him. It fueled his journey homeward and saw him into his study, where he shoved aside a tremendous bookcase with the strength of his ire.
Behind it stood a steel door ten inches thick. He twirled a series of numbers in its combination lock, and when it clicked open to reveal a secret chamber, he entered. Inside was a treasure trove of the most priceless of all the ElseWorld artifacts that he and his father had found at various archaeological sites throughout Europe. At great expense and trouble, they'd been brought here for safekeeping. Each piece had been created with the use of enchantments over centuries past, and many hummed with magic.
He didn't pause to admire any of them now, but only stalked directly to the tall, glass jewel vault. Thousands of gems sparkled and winked within it, but two among them gleamed with an inner fire that burned more brightly than any other gems he'd ever seen. Twin opals. He'd found one of them three years ago and the second only last Moonful, both in the Forum digs. They exactly matched the three Michaela had held. Which meant there were five in existence. Likely six, for he believed there to be six Vestals, and that each had received one upon her initiation. Relief filled him to see that his were still here. Michaela had been in this house for months and had no doubt searched for them.
What was it that made her want these stones so badly that she'd come here and tricked him in order to obtain them? And who the hells was she? Not the Michaela he'd first met, even if she did look like her. In these recent weeks, something about her had changed. It was as if she'd begun the month playing the role of Michaela with precision, but had slowly forgotten her part and now become someone else.
She'd claimed to love him. Ha! What sort of woman stole something so precious from a man she professed to love?
Thank the Gods he hadn't spoken of his own feelings to her. He knew his brothers thought him incapable of love, but he shunned entanglements only because he was devoted to his work. He'd never anticipated loving any woman. But over the past few weeks, all that had changed. He'd begun to care deeply for Michaela. To love her. And she'd repaid his affection with treachery.
He turned the opals in his hands, wondering at their power. How had she created fire from them and then escaped through it? Gods, what the hells was she?
The specter in Monti had sought to steal one of these opals last Moonful. And that night marked the beginning of the change in Michaela. How were the two females related? And how were they related to the presence he'd felt here in his home two months ago, and to Rico? All four shared the common theme of causing him to see color. When he'd lost the specter in Monti, he'd followed it by the trail of color it had inadvertently left behind. However, Michaela had simply disappeared, without a trace.
But he would find her another way. By dangling that which she most wanted before her. One of these opals. He would lure her with it, and she would come for it.
And then he would make her pay.
S
cena
A
ntica
VI
384
A.D.
Regia, Rome, Italy
A ring of eleven glowing candles encircled the room, all lit from Vesta's flame and brought here to the Regia for this solemn occasion. Each represented one of the Vestals, who were not present here. The twelfth Vestal, Silvia, stood alone in the center of the ring, awaiting punishment. Her back was straight, her chin high. She would not cower.
The room around her was in near darkness and she could not see beyond the candles. Had all six of the pontiffs come to witness her punishment? “Why don't you show yourselves?” she challenged, and heard the rustling of their starched robes.
Vestalis Maxima stepped into the center of the ring, holding a golden chalice out to her. “Drink this. It will dull any pain.”
Silvia shook her head, mutinous.
Coming close, Vestalis murmured at her ear. “They'll force you to drink if you don't take it from me. So that you will not scream.”
Scream?
Of course, what had she expected? That a scourging would be painless? Silvia lifted the chalice and swallowed the entire draught, suddenly eager to have the ordeal begin, for that meant it would end all the sooner.
“I'm going to remove your gown,” Vestalis said. Her voice was kind but resigned. Silvia knocked her hand away. “It's in the doctrine that matters proceed in this way,” Vestalis insisted. If you fight, they'll only bind your limbs and gag you so that I may proceed.”
When she reached out again, Silvia didn't stop her this time, and Vestalis began removing her
infula,
then unwrapping her
stola.
“The lash will be applied lightly. Only twelve strokes,” Silvia was informed. Once she was divested of her chemise, girdle, and fascia, some final advice was offered. “Remain still, Silvia. Still as death. They won't mark you. Not unless you flinch.” Vestalis gave her hand a reassuring squeeze in farewell. Then, leaving her clad only in her sheer suffibulum veil, she backstepped her way from the ring, eyes lowered in deference to the pontiffs. A door opened as she departed. The sharp
click
of the lock turning was loud in the room. There would be no escape now, not until her punishment was done.
A few moments passed and Silvia felt the stare of powerful men. She refused to break the silence. Refused to break. They had taken her clothing to humiliate her, but she would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her shrink from them.
Suddenly, Pontifex's voice rang out. “Virgin Silvia, you are guilty of a heinous crime against Vesta, for you allowed her fire to dwindle.” He was behind her somewhere, shrouded in blackness. At his accusation, she heard the stir of robes and murmurs from the others.
“But it did not go out,” she reminded them.
“A fortunate distinction, or you would not get off so easily.”
Easily?
She felt his warmth at her back. Her flesh cringed, but she remained still as Vestalis had advised. Somethingâthe braided leather handle of his floggerâlifted the curtain of her hair forward and pushed it over her shoulder so it draped her breasts and bared her back for the forthcoming lash. The tip of the handle drew down her spine, then away.
“Do what you will and be done with it,” said Silvia. “I'll not grovel.”
His voice rent the inky darkness, soft and fearsome. “And that is precisely why you appeal to me so.”
Appeal to him?
She shuddered, revulsion sweeping her.
“Are you cold?”
“What do you think?” she said, but her voice sounded strange to her own ears, and she felt somehow detached from it. She felt her eyes slowly dilate, her cheeks flush. The potion she'd drunk from the chalice was having its intended effect on her.
“I think, dear Virgin, that you are ready,” he replied at length.
Slowly, he began to circle her. Though his eyes scalded every inch of her skin, they would not meet her own now, as if to do so might transform what he would do here into a violation rather than a sacred rite.
Then he spoke, his voice ringing with authority as it filled the room. “Virgin Silvia, for your grave offence against our most sacred goddess, you are sentenced tonight to a scourging. A dozen lashes. Each pontiff will step forward to administer two of them, so that we may equally share in the burden of your punishment. Let us begin.”
Coming to a halt before her, he extended the whip over her shoulder toward somethingâsomeoneâbeyond her. She heard steps and the rustle of robes. Another of the pontiffs stood behind her, she assumed. Taking the whip, he stepped back, just far enough that he might strike.
Crack!
The flick of the lash came unexpectedly, licking fire at her shoulder. She bowed forward, then straightened. Gods, how would she stand eleven more?
Pontiff's eyes flared and he spoke again. “One more, brother. She deserves one more by your hand.”
“Brother?” Silvia echoed.
Pontifex smiled at her. “It is his right to take part in your punishment. I yield my two allotted strokes to him.”
Silvia turned her head as the lash struck again, and felt its second bite cut her cheek. She lifted her fingers to her face and they came away with blood. She dropped to her knees. Through a haze of pain, she saw a dear, familiar face. “Father?”
Murmurs of distress spun around her. She glanced toward the raised voices of the other anonymous pontiffs hidden in the inky surroundings beyond the candles. When she looked back to where her father had stood, he was gone. Her searching gaze darted wildly around the room, but he was nowhere to be found.
Pontifex's face swam into view. He lifted her to her feet, and his dry hand cupped her jaw, tilting her wound to the light.
“What will everyone say when they see how you let him disfigure me?” she taunted, hoping to shame him. But he only pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, and said, “They will say that you are beautiful.” Weakly, she pushed him away.
A banging came on the outside of the door. “Stop! Let me in! I'm the guilty one.”
Michaela? Silvia shook her head and tried to speak, but her tongue was thick in her mouth. The potion. With a release of the lock, her dearest friend was in the room and at her side, hugging her close.
“I am responsible for what happened,” Michaela announced to the room at large. “I was the one who let the fire dwindle, not she.”
“Occia reports otherwise,” someone countered.
“She lies. She is jealous of Silvia. Ask anyone.”
Silvia managed to form words. “No, the punishment is mine. It was my fault. Ten more lashes.” She swayed and put a hand to her swimming head.
Michaela left her and stepped close to Pontifexâcloser than propriety allowed. Her tone lowered to a beguiling tease. “Let her go, pontiff. Punish me.”
Pontifex searched her face and something changed in his own. He gestured an attendant forward. “Take Silvia back to the house,” he instructed.
“No,” Silvia murmured, but she was too drugged to fight, and so was carried away and remanded to the care of Vestalis. As gentle hands tended her, the potion she'd drunk overcame her. When she woke the next morning, she found Michaela in the infirmary beside her, lying on her stomach. Silvia gasped at the sight of the ten red welts that crisscrossed her smooth back.
Vestalis was applying compresses to them. “Shhh. I've given her a medicinal philter. She'll sleep through the day and into the night. And unlike your own, her marks will fade.” Silvia put a hand to her cheek, felt the fresh cut.
When Michaela woke that night, she refused to break her silence regarding all that had happened at the Regia after Silvia had gone. She made Silvia swear never to ask Pontifex about it, and she never again broached the possibility of escape from the temple. But Silvia knew something awful had happened. Never again would she trust Pontifex or her father, or any man.
And from that day on, neither of them would tend Vesta's fire without the other. For of the two of them, only Silvia's heat could thereafter stoke it. And this was something no one must find out.