The Mosaic

Chapter 73 | All Our Yesterdays

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. – Macbeth, after his wife's death.

The evening sky was blue as steel. Against the striking light, the old ruin on the cliff stood out like a foul tooth, stone darkened in the shadow of time, jagged towers and crumbling walls slowly caving in on themselves them like a closing grave.

Laelia could hear the distant roar of the river below the cliff – when they had arrived she had shot up the stairs to the outer wall, dragging a half-excited Lorenzo with her, to peer over the edge. It was a steep drop. The river looked dangerously calm, the black depth hiding how fast it ran through the canyon. Sharp rocks protruded at the foot of the cliff, the current slammed against them and hurled white foam high in the air. A black jaw with wicked fangs, waiting to swallow them whole.

Lorenzo's initial excitement – and she suspected he was only excited because she had been – had quickly vanished at her fascinating aspects of bone-shattering drops.

There was a small lake in the forest surrounding the cliff. Lorenzo had fled from her enthusiasm to bathe with Alessandro – Laelia started to suspect Alessandro was fatally allergic to the concept of sweat – leaving Laelia and Marius with a grouchy Giacinto. Traitor.

Laelia couldn't bathe with the men and though they had offered Marius to join them, the priest had waved it off with an uncomfortable smile. Giacinto had fled at the mere mention of swimming.

Which gave him more time to torture Laelia in their absence.

The morning after their fight, a knock had woken her up, her room grey and still in the hour before sunrise. Her cheeks had itched with dried tears. Opening the door, she found the gloves she had thrown at Giacinto folded neatly on the ground. Torn between kicking them to the end of the hallway and quickly putting them back on – she had worn them religiously, her hands felt naked without them – Giacinto had stepped out of the shadows, holding out a long dagger. Laelia had seen her surprised reflection sliced in two by the blade.

"Beat me and I take back everything I said."

That had caught Laelia's stubborn pride.

"If you lose, you train with me."

Laelia had not beaten him. No powders, no needles, no daggers found their mark, Giacinto was a black lightning bolt, winning without even drawing his own knives – he'd twisted hers out of her hands in the blink of an eye, the cold metal brushing her neck like a deadly promise.

Now she had to train with him – deep down, she was excited, Giacinto spared most people less than a glance, but he woke her up every morning in the cold grey of dawn to show her 'how not to die'.

But it was hard to be excited when the air was still cold and damp from the fading night, long shadows brushing their fingers over the back of her neck. It was hard to be excited when her legs shook getting up, sore and tired from riding all day. It was even harder when Giacinto's eyes were so cold and distant.

Giacinto, who looked like a living corpse.

Giacinto, who was still stronger than all of them.

"Again." The Greek's voice snapped her out of her thoughts, strained with impatience. He had a bad temper these days and Laelia would have written it off as the aftermath of their fight, if she hadn't been the one to smash the bottles of alcohol he had packed.

He'd gotten twitchy – well, more twitchy than he usually was – a few hours after they had left the Medici's hunting manor. There was a faint sheen of sweat at the back of his neck, his hands shook when he thought no one was watching, he took forever to force down barely half his dinner.