14
S
tones in hand, Silvia walked along the ancient street, Via Sacra. She was still in the form of Michaela, both of them uninjured by the blaze she'd created as she'd bid Bastian a hasty farewell. She had been greatly relieved to discover that Occia had been right in saying that possession of the stones would enable her to create a firegate for travel within this world. Trying it had been risky, but it had paid off. The gate had transported her from the Atrium House to this road in a quick burst. But even with the aid of the stones, she hadn't been able to travel far while in a mortal host.
And now she would take this road far from here. Since she dared not trust Michaela's fragile form to more travel by flame, she must go on foot in the human way. She passed the intersection of Vicus Eros, where the shrine of Bacchus once stood, and on the ridge above, the colossus of Nero. And still she walked on. Every step was a torture, for she longed to simply curl up and cry.
The full impact of her dearest friend's demise had largely been kept in abeyance over the past weeks, but now it came rushing at her, overwhelming her with grief. The miles passed and her eyes grew red and raw from weeping until she could hardly see the road at times. She would keep Michaela with her for as long as she could. But her mind raged at the knowledge that all too soon, she would lose her as she had every other host she'd encountered in the past.
A week after leaving Rome, Moonful came and went. Silvia didn't return to ElseWorld to Replenish, for this would have meant a permanent departure from Michaela's form. And she was not ready to face that yet. Was not ready to face Pontifex yet either, not until she had all six stones. Instead, on the night of the full moon, she found a small cavern in the hills out of sight of the main road, and there she set her three firestones out upon a rock. She worshipped Vesta and summoned flame from them, and this ritual had seemed to serve in lieu of a visit to the hearth, for it had seen her safely through the night. But she did not let her thoughts dwell on Bastian, for she did not want to ponder howâor with whomâhe passed his own Moonful.
When the next morning dawned, she moved on. It was in these last days of their existence that hosts became weak. Now that Michaela was no longer strong enough to hide them, all of her secrets came flooding out. And Silvia learned things she wished she had not, for some of Michaela's whisperings were far, far too terrible:
That night of the scourging . . . after you were sent away . . . I was made to service Pontifex . . . and the other pontiffs as well . . . they threatened to hurt you if I told . . . or ran . . . so I stayed . . .
Although Silvia shrank from the horror of these revelations, she grimly listened on as Michaela shared her past as she would, regaling her with sordid details of that awful night. There had been six of them. Grown men of religion and politics, who had used her in vile ways. None had been fool enough to defile her virginity, for they'd feared Vesta's reprisal, and Michaela had thought herself spared that violation at least.
But the following Moonful, Pontifex had been overcome with lust, and had taken her to his bed. When he discovered through his rape that she had already lain with anotherâthe boy in the spice marketâher fate had been sealed. A bargain had been struck. He would not see her buried alive for her crimeâa single act of fornication with a spice merchant's sonâand in return, she would become his concubine. Thereafter, when the other Vestals had taken individual prayer at Moonful, she had lain with him in secret. Even after the temple fell, she had gone to him. For centuries. To protect Silvia.
It was only once a month,
Michaela told her soothingly, seeming to sense how debilitating this new information was to Silvia.
Not so awful.
But it had been, and Silvia howled with the horrible, complete knowledge of all that had transpired. Wishing she had known. Wishing they could go back to that afternoon when they were eighteen and tending fire. Wishing she had agreed to flee the temple forever, when Michaela had suggested it.
And on another day on this final walk they took together, Michaela shared yet another devastating secret with her:
Bastian did not love me.
When this whispered thought came, Silvia stopped in the street. Had she misheard? But Michaela went on:
Dear Viaâdon't be angry at him. . . . He warned me he could not love me before we first lay together . . . but I thought I could change him. . . . Alas, I could not . . .
And then on other days came better, happier memories of the joyous events in their lives. Silvia smiled and laughed and wept as Michaela brought to her mind many of the fun times they'd had as girls. First crushes on boys, pranks pulled on other Vestals, the learning of magic, the acquiring of property in their own names, the quiet times as they tended fire together, and occasional, soft summer nights of loving. A thousand silly, poignant, small, precious remembrances shared between the closest of friends.
I'm tired
, Michaela whispered to her almost daily now.
Let me rest
.
But each time she heard this, panic stirred in Silvia and her steps only quickened. “Just a little farther,” she would plead. “I don't want to lose you. Not yet.”
And then one day as a light snow began to fall, Michaela had had enough:
I'll be with you always, Via.... Carry me in your heart and I'll carry you in mine . . . but my body is tired . . . let me go . . . it's time . . .
Silvia took a deep, shuddering breath and stopped in the street, utterly exhausted. She'd paused beside an ancient mile marker. At intervals along the roads she walked, she'd passed many of these two-ton columns. Each rose five feet tall and was twenty inches in diameter. She knew this because in the Republican era, she'd been joined to a host who was part of the crew that had set the markers into the ground. The panel at eye level on this one indicated the distance to the center of ancient Romeâthe Forum. She'd walked exactly one hundred miles.
Over these past days, she'd scarcely eaten, barely slept. Michaela was right. They couldn't go on. Giving in with the greatest reluctance, she veered off the main road and wandered deep into a primeval forest of cypress, pine, olive, and plane trees.
She was dry-eyed now and moved like an unfeeling automaton as she located a small hollow among the roots of an ancient, gnarled olive tree. There, she buried the three firestones for safekeeping, for she would not be able to carry them when she resumed her Ephemeral wraith form.
Next, she gathered snow-dusted boughs and heather to form a thick pallet some five and a half feet long and three feet wide. It was to be a funeral pyre, for she would not leave Michaela's body for Pontifex's minions to find.
When all was in readiness, she lay on her back upon the soft, sweet-scented pyre and gazed up at the snow drifting down from a gloomy sky. The air was fresh and cold on her cheeks. She smoothed her hair just so and arranged her limbs, folding her hands over her chest.
Then dear friends whispered one last good-bye.
Silvia closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, until her lungs were full to bursting. Then she expelled every wisp of breath they held . . . and felt her essence fleeing along with it . . .
In the next instant, she was without corporeal formâan Ephemeral once more. She stood there in the silent forest, gazing down at Michaela's beautiful, perfect, still body.
Reaching down, Silvia gathered the heather and pine boughs more neatly around her body and then sprinkled her with snowdrop petals. As she prayed to Vesta to accept her into her blessed care, she summoned a firegate, and with a fag she lit from its flames, she set the pyre ablaze. She stayed there at Michaela's side until all was done. Until her cherished friend was gone from both worlds forever. Finally at peace.
For the first time in her extraordinarily long life, Silvia felt truly alone. She had failed to protect Michaela, and now she was dead. But there were others suffering under Pontifex's rule. She worried over the fates of those Vestals, almost all of them locked away in stasis now for hundreds of years. She could save them. Would save them. This thought kept her going. And the next morning as she took invisible form and traveled on, a fierce heat burned in her. For revenge.
Her next summoning took her to a young human girl who'd become lost in the woods, tripped, and fatally struck her head. Humans were only for brief travel, not meant for a long stay. After taking her on as host, Silvia retrieved the cache of firestones, playing them in a more secure location. A day later, the girl's body was found in her bed, neatly dressed and well cared for. Her Deathwish had been to return home, and so she had.
Silvia wandered northward then, exchanging one body for another, barely living. As she ran from her loneliness, she kept searching for the remaining three stones. Only the whereabouts of two were uncertain, for she knew where the sixth resided. Back in Rome. With Bastian
.
She would seek it only after she had the other five in her possession. When her heart had sufficiently healed against him.
And when she had all six stones, she would visit Pontifex again. Then they would each have half the stones. Half the power. And then they would see who would win all.
A crushing pain traveled with her as she mourned Michaela's loss. She wept often and became accustomed to seeing her eyes rimmed red and her cheeks chapped from tears and frost. Winter became spring, spring became summer and then autumn, and she hardly noticed. She'd felt Pontifex's call over the Moonfuls that had passed, but she hid from him and refused to heed him. The three firestones she possessed continued to offset the moon's effects on those nights, enabling her to Replenish her Vestal fire as she must to survive.
Eventually, she heard rumors of a large opal in the city of Ravenna. This one had originally belonged to the Vestal Floronia but was currently hanging on a chain around the neck of a society matron who had no idea what it was. When one of her maids took ill and died, it was an easy matter to take her as host and make off with the opal.
After the theft, Silvia deposited the four firestones in a bank in Florence for safekeeping and continued her search for the others. During the course of her hunt, she was slowly forced to reconnect with the world around her in order to obtain information that might lead her to yet another stone. Finally, in September, she got a lead regarding a fifth. It seemed there was to be an auction in Venice soon. One that would feature an unusually sizable opal.
September 1881
A week later, Silvia was in Venice. Brushing raindrops off her cloak, she scurried inside the stately private residence just as the auction was about to commence. Behind her, the massive double doors through which she'd entered the house swung shut with a solid, expensive
thunk
. She'd only just missed having to pay the fee auction houses traditionally levied against latecomers.
Yet this was no traditional auction venue, she'd quickly realized as the majordomo took her drenched cloak. It was the grand
salone
of a stately, three-storied Renaissance-era palazzo, which fronted Venice's Grand Canal. The only access was by gondola, and since the day was stormy, passage here had been difficult and delays inevitable.
The chamber she'd been shown to was opulent, its walls painted with soft-hued frescoes. It contained little furniture aside from the three dozen straight-backed chairs set in arced rows and occupied by other attendees.
Items to be auctioned were neatly stacked in the adjacent room, which she could see through a doorway. She'd meant to arrive early in order to examine the opal and quite possibly steal it, but the storm had prevented her from doing so.
Since an auction seemed a promising occasion for finding a firestone, she'd been perusing the catalogs of auction houses for some time now, which had led her here. She was no stranger to auctions. In ancient Rome, they had been popular for the sale of war plunder and family estates, and much later, one of her hosts had been involved in the auctioneering of Tuscan wine.
A somber-faced group of men filled the bidding room, heads bent as they examined the printed dockets they'd been given. Some were notorious treasure hunters. Each was already absorbed in calculating which purchases were most likely to bring them a profit.
As she found a seat, the gentleman next to her shot her an interested smile. Her current host was young and comely, with green eyes, brown hair, and a narrow waist. However, the man's smile withered as he noticed the bruise on her pale cheek. She read the pity in his gaze. The bruise had been worse only an hour ago when she'd taken this body as host, but it was already fading and would likely be gone soon. Her occupation of a body generally healed such wounds quickly. Unfortunately her own scar was not as easily dispatched.
When he continued staring, she leaned close to him and confided, “The worst of it is on my back, where it doesn't show. Jealous husbands can be such brutes.” Her glance went pointedly to his wedding ring. Then she gave him a sweet smile, pleased that he appeared horrified, for she was not in a mood to be charitable toward husbands.
Her current host had been bludgeoned to death with a poker by her spouse this very afternoon. After his crime, he had blithely gone upstairs with his mistress. No doubt he'd been quite surprised when he'd later returned to the murder scene only to find his wife's body gone, along with his pistol and all of the savings from his safe. How she wished she could have seen the look on his face!