* * *
City of Aven, Truscum
Latona of the Vitelliae sat on a bench, basking in warm spring sunlight. The leaves were still coming in on the sycamore trees that lined the walk, and at this hour, the nearby Temple of Tellus did not cast a long shadow. All around Latona, the oleander bushes were half-flowered, spots of pink dotting the deep green shrubs. A nipping breeze had many of those strolling through the garden tugging their mantles close around their shoulders, but Latona hardly noticed it. She was practicing, and it kept her warm within and without.
Her attendant, Merula, sat next to her on the bench, alert as ever for any potential menace, and a copper dish with a few glowing embers in it rested at Latona’s feet. Latona drew energy from the nearly-banked flames, drawing in the Fire magic and breathing it out again as Spirit.
It was delicate work, transmuting the elements within herself. The first time she had done it, it had been an act of desperation, during the fires on the Aventine that had disrupted the previous year’s elections. Now, she was learning to control the process. As people passed by her, she flicked out her Spirit magic, testing how quickly she could get a read on their emotions. Bolstered by the Fire magic, she found that the empathy of Spirit came swiftly—but less accurately. Emotions came in sharp bursts: a flare of desire, a twinge of worry, frenetic sparks of distraction, the gray haze of listlessness, but if a pair or a group passed her, she wasn’t always certain which of them was experiencing the particular feeling her magic had picked up on.
‘Less than ideal,’ she thought, mentally giving the embers a prod to keep them from guttering out. ‘But something I can build on. Perhaps the influence of Fire makes Spirit less predictable, or scatters the focus? I should ask Rubellia.’ The High Priestess of Venus was Latona’s close friend and had become something of a thaumaturgical mentor, even though she controlled Fire alone. There were other mages in the city who controlled two elements, as Latona did, but no one else with her strength in Spirit, and so in that, she often had to forge her own path. The gods bestowed some gifts more frequently than others, and Spirit was a rarer talent. Latona’s early education had been foreshortened, and for years, she had suppressed her talents, fearful to draw too much attention to herself.
No longer.
The past year had taught Latona that since she had the ability to do good with her magic, she had the moral imperative to act.
Merula’s callused fingers touched Latona’s wrist. “Domina,” she said, her voice tight, “that woman is approaching, that priestess, from the Capitoline—”
Latona snapped her focus out of metaphysical contemplations and the wounds of the past. She followed Merula’s dark gaze and saw the slight figure of Aemilia Fullia, High Priestess at the Temple of Juno Maxima, moving purposefully in her direction.
With effort, Latona managed not to frown. Her bad blood with Aemilia went back years, to Latona’s childhood, when Aemilia had been a pitiless woman sending a grieving girl away after the death of her mentor. Fresher was their dispute over Latona’s “unwomanly ambitions”—precisely the end goal of the practices Latona was in the middle of trying to perfect. ‘Juno’s mercy, what does she want now?’
“Vitellia Herenniae,” Aemilia said, looking down her thin nose at Latona. She always used the marital form of Latona’s name, and Latona wondered if it was genuinely strict adherence to form or done deliberately to aggravate her.
Custom dictated that Latona rise to greet Aemilia. To remain seated at the onset of a conversation was a mark of superiority, and Aemilia was a High Priestess, whatever Latona thought of her occupation of the office. So Latona rose—but she took her time in doing so, nudging the bowl of embers to the side with her foot first, so that her skirts wouldn’t risk blowing into it. At her side, Merula was even more grudging, not bothering to disguise that she was glaring daggers at the older woman.
It mattered little. Aemilia didn’t spare Merula so much as a glance.
“Aemilia,” Latona said, in as warm a tone as she could manage. “Pleasant day.”
“Still a bit cool for my liking,” Aemilia said, her eyes flicking significantly over Latona’s shoulders, their golden skin bared to the sunlight. Aemilia was, of course, dressed with exacting and modest perfection: a pale pink gown pinned over a long-sleeved white tunic, her hair caught up underneath a purple band. She pressed her lips thin, clearly on the verge of saying something—and yet no words were forthcoming.
She knew it was unlovely of her, but Latona almost enjoyed Aemilia’s obvious discomfiture. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“I understand—that is, I have heard—that you’ve made a practice of working your gods-given gifts out here.” Aemilia gestured to the garden around them, as though the idea of magic in such a space was somehow unfathomable.
Latona furrowed her brow. “Do you have someone spying on me?”
Aemilia gave a hollow laugh. “How over-dramatic,” she scoffed. “Though perhaps that shouldn’t surprise me.”
“I should rather call it analytic.” Latona’s hands settled on her hips. “What I’m doing is Spirit work. Invisible. You don’t have any magic.” She gave that a beat to hit and was somewhat gratified to see Aemilia’s cheek twitch in irritation. “So I have to wonder who informed upon me.” Latona felt her lip curling slightly; the idea that someone was reporting on her use of magic to an authority figure reminded her too nearly of the days of the Dictatorship, when Horatius Ocella had done all in his power to cajole, threaten, and suborn mages to do his bidding—and when he ruthlessly persecuted those who refused his commands.
“A concerned citizen, that’s all,” Aemilia sniffed. “Someone who knew I would take an interest in a devotee of Juno who had strayed outside her proper bounds.”
Latona thought about pressing the issue of the informant’s identity further, then decided against it. If it seemed necessary, she could put her older sister Aula on the scent. There were few enough mages with reason to report to Aemilia; fewer still who could have seen Latona’s magic in effect. Not all elements bestowed the ability to see magical signatures: Spirit, Air, Water, and Light owned that talent. The field would be narrow, and Aula would relish ferreting out a tattletale. “I can’t see where it’s any concern of yours,” Latona said. “I’m a free woman, exercising my gods-given talents in accordance with the leges tabulae magicae.”
“Just because what you’re doing is permissible doesn’t mean it is right.”
Lucretius Rabirus had said something similar to her the year before, and Latona hadn’t liked it any better then.
“It is my duty,” Aemilia continued, drawing herself up pompously, “to counsel mages blessed by Juno, even if they are not under my direct supervision in the temple.”