“I’m a bit unclear on that point myself, at times.”
Octavian’s visage hardened briefly. “I will do as I see fit with your life. It is mine to spend. Remember that.”
Fidelias frowned and inclined his head slightly. “As you wish, my lord.”
“That’s right,” Octavian said, some measure of bitter humor touching the tone.
Fidelias studied the young man for a moment and realized that… the Princeps was torn over some decision. Normally he was so confident, so driven; Fidelias had never seen him like this. There was uncertainty hovering behind his words, hesitance: Octavian himself wasn’t sure what his next steps would be.
“Are you planning on leaving the force, sir?” Fidelias asked carefully.
“At some point, it’s inevitable,” Octavian replied calmly. “If nothing else, I will be obliged to make personal contact with the Legions in Calderon—and hope to the great furies whoever is in charge over there has had sense enough to listen to my uncle.”
Fidelias grunted. “But… that isn’t what you think will happen.”
Octavian grimaced, and said, “Someone has to command the men, regardless of what happens to me. We have to take down the vord Queen—and her cadre of captured or treacherous Citizens. I will, by necessity, be in the center of that conflict. And… the odds seem to be long against me.”
Fidelias debated on how to respond to the moment of vulnerability the Princeps was showing. He finally just began chuckling.
Octavian frowned at him and lifted an imperious eyebrow.
“Long odds,” he said. “Bloody crows, sir. Long odds. That’s bloody funny.”
“I don’t see what’s so amusing about it.”
“Naturally, you don’t,” Fidelias said, still chuckling. “The furyless boy from the country who stopped an invasion.”
“I didn’t really stop it,” Tavi said. “Doroga stopped it. I just…”
“Completely demolished an operation backed by the most dangerous High Lord and Lady in the Realm,” Fidelias said. “I was there. Remember?” The last words were not bereft of irony.
Octavian gave a small inclination of his head in acknowledgment of the touch.
“The boy who personally saved the First Lord’s life in his second term at the Academy. Who took command of a Legion and fought the Canim to a standoff—and who then stole Varg from the most tightly guarded prison of the Realm and brokered the first truce in history with the Canim to get them out of the Realm. The young upstart Princeps who pitted himself against a continent full of vord and hostile Canim and won.”
“I got my people and Varg’s out alive,” Octavian corrected sharply. “I haven’t won anything. Not yet.”
Fidelias grunted. “Sir… honestly. Suppose you defeat the vord here. Suppose you unite our people again, take Alera back. Will that be a victory?”
Octavian raked his fingers through his hair. “Of course not. It’ll be a good start. But there will be severe repercussions for the balance of power in our society that must be addressed. The Canim will, probably, be settling here, and we’ll have to reach some kind of mutual understanding with them, and the Free Alerans are never going to back the same set of laws that allowed them to be enslaved. Not to mention the fact that—”
Fidelias cleared his throat gently. “Young man, I submit to you that your standards of victory are… set rather high. If you continue that way, no matter what you do, it will never be enough.”
“That is exactly correct,” Octavian replied. “Are the men and women the vord have already killed only partially dead? Are they only technically dead? Only legally dead? Can a compromise be made wherein they are given back some portion of their lives?” He shook his head. “No. No compromise. My duty to them, and to those still alive, demands nothing less than everything I can give them. Yes, old soldier, my standards are high. So are the stakes. They’re a matched set.”
Fidelias stared at him, then shook his head slowly. Gaius Sextus had held an air of absolute authority, of personal power that arrested one’s sense of reason, at times, to extract support and obedience. Gaius Septimus had been a vibrant figure, driven and intelligent, always looking to the future. He could have inspired men to follow him down any path of reason, no matter how winding.
But Octavian… men would follow Octavian into a leviathan’s gullet if he asked it of them. And crows take him if Fidelias himself wouldn’t be one of them. The headstrong lunatic would probably discover some way to lead them all out the other side draped in the rings and crowns of a devoured treasure ship and somehow emerge clean.
“I couldn’t lead the Legions and the Canim,” Fidelias said quietly. “Not alone. But… if you made your will known to Varg, then Valiar Marcus could serve as Crassus’s advisor, his huntmaster. Varg would give him the chance to stand on his own merits in that case. And I would direct him as best I could.”
“You know the Canim,” Octavian said. “Better than anyone else I have.” His eyes glinted. “You’ve spent time with Sha, I think.”
“I’ve met the Cane,” Fidelias said calmly. “He seems most professional.”
“And have you ever met Khral?”
“I do not believe my duties as First Spear ever brought me into contact with him, my lord.”
“Oh,” Octavian said, smiling suddenly. “Very smooth.”
Fidelias inclined his head, his mouth touched with amusement at one corner.
The Princeps turned to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Marcus.”
Fidelias dropped his eyes. “My lord…”
“Whatever else you’ve done,” Octavian said gently, “I have seen you. I have trusted you with my life, and you have trusted me with yours. I have seen you work tirelessly to serve the First Aleran. I have seen you give your body and heart to the Legion, to your men. I refuse to consider the idea that it was all a ploy.”
Fidelias looked away from him. “That hardly matters, sir.”
“It matters if I say it matters,” Octavian growled. “Crows take me, if I am to be First Lord, we’re going to establish that from the outs—”
The earthcrafting went beneath Fidelias so swiftly, so softly, that he hardly noticed it. He froze in place and narrowed his eyes, sending his own awareness into the ground beneath them.
A second passed by him. And a third.
They were all heading in the same direction—toward the command tent, the center of the camp.
“… if I have to crack every skull in the Senate to…” Octavian frowned. “Marcus?”
Fidelias’s hand went to his side, where his sword would normally be. It was, of course, gone. “Sir,” he said, his voice tight, “there are earthcrafters passing beneath us at this very moment.”
Octavian blinked. Powerful the young man might be, but he didn’t have the subtlety, the awareness, that could only come from decades of experience. He hadn’t sensed a thing. But once he closed his own eyes for a moment, frowning, he let out a blistering curse. “Friendlies would never attempt to enter the camp like that. The vord had a number of Citizens in their control.”
“Aye.”
“Then we can’t send legionares against them. It will be a bloodbath.” He “listened” for a moment more, then opened his eyes. “They’re heading for command,” Octavian said shortly. Only his eyes showed strain. “Kitai’s there.”
“Go,” Fidelias said. “I’ll bring the Pisces after you.”
“Do it,” Octavian snapped, and before he was finished speaking, he took a single bounding step and leapt into the air on a roaring gale of wind. Within another heartbeat, he had drawn his sword, and white-hot, furious fire burned forth from the blade.