XVI—Lucius Marco of Florencia

“Wait,” Lucius Marco said. “We are to have free reign of the House of Gates later tomorrow?”

They were in one of the smaller ballrooms. Lucius was taken aback, unsure of what to say at first, but his feelings of anger and hated boiled to the surface. “Lord Capri killed two of by brothers not six months past. How can I possibly be asked to spend a single moment in the same room with him?”

Angelic Bronte, always the one to cool hot tempers in a heated room, shrugged. “You will have the freedom not to speak to him. Stay on the opposite side of the House if you must.”

“Tch!”

This is preposterous, he thought. He had had the impression that this parley would be like parleys in the past, but this was nothing like that. Has Emperor Justin gone mad?

“I can see your thoughts,” Angelica said.

Just the look of her calmed him. She had a beautiful, but kindly face and golden silk for hair. How she was wearing one of those foreign fashions from the east. A kimono was it called? It was bright red, the hem of which was silk with a high sheen.

“I am sorry, Lucius,” she said. “If you should meet him, I will be by your side.”

“For what reason? To make sure I don’t do something brash?”

Party goers glanced at them and made faces that indicated he was disturbing them.

“Not so loud,” Angelica said. She took him by the hand and led him out of the ballroom.

Lucius almost jerked away. The very sight of her pulling him by the wrist would spawn some new joke at his expense, or some inane gossip about their relationship, of which there was none, other than their longstanding friendship.

He sighed, but in the hubbub of the busy evening, he couldn’t even hear his own breath leaving his body.

Eventually they had gotten to a quiet space on one of the third story balconies. It overlooked the gardens and one of the many roads leading up to the House of Gates. Because of the brightly lit grounds due to the lamp poles, Lucius could see nobles still arriving and disembarking from their carriages of in the distance.

Most of the people arriving at this time would probably be lower class nobles, Gentlemen and gentlemen-at-arms, knights and other lesser nobles.

“You must contain yourself, Lucius. Now is not the time for vengeance.” She glanced out over the gardens as he had been doing. Then she turned to him. “I do not know what our emperor has in mind for this event, but what I do know is that he’s working closely with Empress Caelestinius.”

“What?! Truly?”

She nodded.

Impossible.

“But that’s… almost—“

“Careful,” she said. “Do not say something you will regret.”

Sighing, he said, “You are right. It’s just… it’s just this all has my blood to boiling.”

“And you won’t be the only one,” she said. “We must keep cool heads, or this event will turn into a bloodbath. Do you want that?”

“I can’t say that part of me does not.”

“And what of your younger sisters and your mother? What if one or even both of them were to be slain during the fighting? All for you to get a chance at your revenge.”

At her words and the implication of which, he took pause. “You are right.”

“Yes.”

“Cool heads,” he said.

“Indeed.” She smiled with a nod.