Read Shadow's Prey :: [Act I] 04: Those Who Stayed *

The rest of the Tower was just as blinding white as the sparring amphitheatre. From the marble of the floors to the stone of the walls, each hall was a mirror of the next. Anyone unfamiliar with the layout could get lost in the labyrinthine structure, wandering without end.

Though there were some that had lived in the Tower far longer than he had who sometimes found themselves turned around in the serpentine halls, Haru had never found the Tower’s structure confusing. When he first arrived he’d searched each level, every unmarked twist, endlessly following a trail that he hadn’t understood then.

Haru wound his way through the halls to the Legatus’s quarters, Osawa and Vahn haunting his heels. The locked door lacked a keyhole, but he didn’t need one. He placed his hand against the door and called the light on the other side. It wove through the mechanism, pushing aside the pins and twisting the catch, opening his way.

Early afternoon light streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows that took up the outside wall of the room, overlooking the eastern gardens and beyond. Though the marble floors continued here they were heavily veined in smokey greys and black. The room was expansive, but nearly empty. The cold scene was broken by the warm wood of the Legatus’s desk, a simple, dark antique. Beneath it was a patterned rug in blues and reds and yellows over a grey backdrop. A second rug had been added later, though it didn’t match the first, along with the single armchair and side table positioned between the door and the desk and facing neither.

“So we’re having one of these days,” Vahn said. He brushed past Haru and walked over to the desk, though his lean frame did little to block the light.

Behind Haru, Osawa slipped into the room, sliding off to the side and shutting the door behind them.

Vahn moved behind the desk and began to sit.

“Not there,” Haru snapped.

Vahn straightened, his hands held up and empty, and stepped away from the desk. He fell instead into the single chair, tossing his leg over one of the arms.

Haru stalked past Vahn and stopped in front of the desk. He clenched his hands, his nails biting into his palms, before relaxing them. He leaned over, placing his hands on the desk’s surface.

The wood was sun warmed and worn smooth. It’s surface held an assortment of unopened reports on one side, and the dates of those that had been opened and read were over a year past. Haru reached across to straighten one of the stacks, only to slide it back how it had been previously.

“There isn’t anything here, Haru,” Osawa said. “How long are you going to keep doing this?”

Haru turned to the window to replay the reports he had heard, try to piece together what he had found.

Five seasons earlier, the Tribuni Velinius Catarr had returned from what was supposed to be a routine scouting mission with a tale of horror. The regiment had been attacked near the Ilazki border, slaughtered by insurgents who had set an ambush. The Legatus had fought bravely, but fallen with her command.

Velinius was the only survivor.

After, Haru had taken the Legatus’s remaining guards and set out to see the devastation. Haru remembered the cold, the numbness that dug into his hands as he turned over body after body, the white of their uniforms stained and stiff with blood and death.

They identified the fallen, the faces of their companions frozen in twisted masks of death. Despite Velinius’s account of the conflict, however, they did not recover the body of the Legatus.

A part of Haru was still out there, still searching.

Osawa interrupted his thoughts and continued, carefully. “I know you want to believe she’s alive--”

“She is,” Haru countered before Osawa could finish.

In the silence that followed, Haru heard the sound of a wooden drawer scraping open. He turned to see Vahn reach into the side table next to the chair and pull out a deck of cards. He snapped the rubber band off, discarding it onto the table’s surface.

“If she’s alive, why isn’t she here?” Osawa prodded. “Why hasn’t she come back?”

Vahn smirked and began to shuffle through the cards.

“I don’t know,” Haru said, his voice low. “Something is wrong. She could be captured, or--”

“Or she’s dead,” Vahn reminded them, his eyes on the cards in his hands. “Or she just left. People do that, you know.”

“No.” Haru pushed himself away from the desk and began pacing. “She wouldn’t do that.”

The heels of Haru’s boots clicked against the floor, falling silent when he tread on the edge of the rug and rising again when he hit marble once more, hissing when he reached the end of the room and turned back.

“She’s not dead,” Haru reiterated. “But she would’ve said something to me. Would’ve taken us with her. Something is wrong.”

Vahn snorted. “What isn’t?”

“Vahn,” Osawa sighed the name. “You aren’t helping.”

“Didn’t know I was supposed to,” Vahn said. He shrugged, then went back to focusing on the cards in his hand. He ran his fingers around the deck to align the edges and bent them at the middle, splitting it and shuffling once more.

Haru left the two behind him, entering into the Legatus’s private chambers attached to the office. The voices behind him continued, hushed and indistinct.

This room was far darker. Light filtered in from the open doorway, but there were no windows here. Rugs were piled on the floor, three deep in places, completely covering the marble and preventing the white from reflecting the ambient light. A long bureau was on one side of the room, two spindles standing upright on each side but empty where the mirror had been removed.

Haru’s steps were silenced by the rugs as he walked past the bed, its coverlet tucked tight against the mattress, to the bath. He reached for the light and turned on the switch. With a warming buzz, the electrical lights flickered and brightened, or at least the bulbs that weren’t black and burned out. The room was cold and clean, and smelled of nothing.

Even her ghost was gone.

He turned the light off.

The conversation in the Legatus’s office ceased when Haru re-entered, both Vahn and Osawa turning to him.

He stood straighter, his eyes narrowing. “What is it?”

Vahn looked to Osawa, but Osawa looked to the floor.

“Apparently,” Vahn said, keeping his hands occupied with the shuffling cards. “Velinius has been named the Legatus ultra vires.”

Vahn didn’t offer any more, and neither did Osawa.

“What?” Haru asked through gritted teeth when neither continued.

Osawa shook his head. “What did you expect, after yesterday?”

Haru clenched his hands to fists again, remembering the devastation that had followed the attack on the train lines. An unknown fire loa had synched in one of the public transit cars, and the blast had taken out the entire train, as well as the line itself and several city blocks. The Palamidia rushed in to aid in emergency recovery, but there wasn’t much left to recover.

“Without the Legatus, we have no recourse against attacks,” Osawa continued. “Something had to be done. Someone needed to lead, and Velinius was the last person to hold the title.”

Haru put his hands in the pockets of his jacket and leaned back against the Legatus’s desk.

“Weird that it was a fire loa,” Vahn said, though his voice was even and pointed. He leaned over and placed the cards back into the drawer he had gotten them from and slid it shut. “Considering all the regions we come from are part of the Empire.”

Haru’s eyes widened, and he looked up, meeting Vahn’s violet gaze. Vahn’s stare was steady, glinting with something dangerous, as he leaned back into the chair.

Osawa had the same knowing gleam in his eyes, but his was tempered with concern.

“That’s it,” Haru said, sitting up. “This was her plan all along.”

“Velinius doing whatever she deems necessary for control,” Vahn muttered bitterly. “Shocking.”

There was nothing else to say. There were lines that were never meant to be crossed, and Haru was about to leap over one and he knew it. He stalked to the door.

“Where are you going?” Osawa asked as he pulled it open.

“I think it’s time I speak with Velinius,” Haru said.

“What?” Osawa called behind him. “Haru, wait--”