“Not just missing me?” Juba asked hopefully.
Caesar’s smile seemed genuine and warm. “You know that it was more than that, Juba. You served me well at Actium. You served Rome well.”
Actium. Juba had used the Trident of Poseidon that day. Octavian had made him use the artifact to kill before—he’d used it to topple a trireme at sea, and he’d used it to kill Quintus, the slave who’d raised him—but never on the scale that he did at Actium. There he’d raised a towering wave and used it to crush ships, to drown hundreds of men. Juba fought hard to keep the memories of that day out of his mind. He fought hard to keep at bay the dead faces in the water and—perhaps worst of all—the glorious feeling of unbridled power that had coursed through him as he’d summoned the power of a god.
“I know you do not like to use the Trident,” Octavian continued. “I have seen what it took from you. You have not been the same man since that day. And I am sorry for it.”
The admission was so unexpected, so honest and true, that Juba could only stare at him. Octavian reached out and gripped his shoulder.
“I never wished to cause you pain, my brother. Truly this is so. I have only ever wished to do what is right for Rome.” He let go of Juba’s shoulder in order to sweep his arm across the meadow. “These men, all this death … I don’t want any of this.”
“No one should,” Juba said.
When Octavian turned back to him, there was a fierce fire in his eyes. “I will have a world at peace, Juba.”
“You’ll have the world be Rome.”
Octavian blinked for a moment in a look like confusion. “Could it be anything else? You’ve seen the rest of the world. Look at these men here, what this Cantabrian bastard has done to them. Rome is law, my brother. Rome is civilization. Rome is the future. We both know that. And yes, I will have the world be Rome, even if you and I must kill a thousand Corocottas to do it.”
Juba felt like shaking him, screaming at him that killing Corocotta would only breed another like him—but then he, too, blinked. “You and I?”
“Yes, Juba. I sent for you for a reason.”
“The Trident. You want me to use it to kill this man.”
Octavian nodded as if this were the most obvious conclusion in the world. “You will do what is right, my brother. I know that you will. You’re a good man, and you always have been. You’re a better man than I ever will be. You’ll do what’s right. You’ll help me avenge these men.”
Juba felt like a caged animal, looking for a way out. “But the Trident is no use here. There’s no sea. And even if I met this Corocotta, a common legionnaire has a better chance of catching him than I do of using the Trident to kill him.”
Octavian began to grin. This time when he reached for Juba’s shoulder it was to turn him toward the wagon. He pointed to the crate he’d been staring at so closely. “Look closely at this box, my brother. Tell me what you see.”
Most of the crate had been burned to crumbled planks of wood mixed with whatever had been inside of it, but one side was still partially intact. There was a black scar across it, a line of fire. “It looks like someone has run a flame across it.”
“So it does,” Octavian said. “Only—”
Juba squinted at the line. “Only the scorch doesn’t extend up,” he said. “It’s not right. It’s too even. The flame of a torch would have licked upward.”
Octavian patted him on the back as if he were a prized student. “Exactly so, my brother. Ever the smart one. You’ve seen in seconds what it took me weeks of visiting such sites to see. What not one of these other fools has yet to see.”
Juba looked up at him in confusion. “But if not a torch, what?”
“You know what. You of all people know what.”
Juba stared for a moment, weighing the impossibilities. But of course Octavian was right, even if he didn’t know what the Shards of Heaven were. If there was a Shard to wield water, and a Shard to harness the wind, then there was a Shard to control fire.
And Corocotta had it.
6
THE ASTROLOGER’S PLAN
ALEXANDRIA, 26 BCE
From the stone bench in the middle of the library he’d once hoped would be his, Thrasyllus watched Apion lead the strange man up the stairs and out of sight. Whoever the man was, the astrologer was sure of this: he was no Macedonian. If that was so, it stood to reason that his name wasn’t Philip, either.
Plus, Thrasyllus couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew the man somehow. When their eyes had met, something about him had seemed familiar.
Apion, the man who Didymus had chosen over him to assume the position of chief librarian when he retired, had been in the middle of lecturing him on moral responsibility when they were interrupted with news of the coming of this messenger who insisted on seeing Didymus. Thrasyllus was sure that Apion knew the man was lying—whatever else he was, Apion was no fool—but he also clearly saw no harm in bringing him into the presence of the chief librarian.
Thrasyllus turned to look down at the pool behind him. The waters were a constant ripple from where they tumbled down the steps from the reflecting pool in the entryway. With his finger, he pushed into the cool surface and made a slow circle that cast little ripples of its own. They were quickly rolled over and disappeared.
That was a difference between them, Thrasyllus thought to himself. Apion trusted, where he suspected.
Looking up, he saw Apion hurrying back down the stairs, alone now. His face was pale, and it appeared he might be sick. Clearly, after Didymus had announced his decision—and after Thrasyllus had made a show of storming out—Apion had celebrated his appointment through the night. He was paying for it now.
Even sick as he was, though, the other scholar managed to stare daggers as he scurried by on his way to relieve himself in the back rooms.
Thrasyllus wanted to sneer back, but he couldn’t manage it. That kind of anger required pride, and he felt like the last of it had been beaten out of him today. Sitting here bruised and penniless, prepared to beg for a position—any position—at the Great Library, he knew he had nothing left.
So instead he turned his gaze back toward his finger swirling in the water and watched the current erase the signs of his passing, wave by tiny wave.
Spurred by a sudden anger, he pulled his finger out of the water and shook it dry.
No, he told himself. He would not just roll over for Apion. When the scholar came back he would settle for nothing less than the third in line at the Library. And he would demand several coins in advance, to hire new rooms and make a fresh start. He would not leave the Great Library with nothing.
As if spurred by a sudden shout, Thrasyllus abruptly smiled—painful though it was to do so. He reached into his pocket and pulled free his father’s coin. Then he held it up to the light, examining its worn edges, its rough surfaces. Not nothing, he thought. He still had this. It was battered by what it had been through, and it was still smeared with dust, but with work it would gleam once again. And it was still worth something.
Just like him.
Beyond the coin in his hand he could see the top of the stairs, where Didymus kept his office. He remembered how years earlier, when the city had fallen to Octavian, he’d stood up there himself. He was a much younger man then, but already he’d spent most of his lifetime here in this place. So many of the librarians had fled when the Romans advanced, for they were certain that the legionnaires would finish the work of Caesar and put the Great Library to the torch. Didymus had told them all to go, but a few of the librarians had stayed with him, barricading the doors as best they could, and vowing to stay with their books to the final end. Apion had left, but Thrasyllus had been among those who stayed. He had nowhere else to go.