The Tyrant's Tomb

reduced that the entire legion and the citizenry of New Rome could now fit
inside that one building.
Reyna hobbled over to us.
Thalia gave her a smile. “So, Praetor Ramírez-Arellano, you ready?”
“Yes.” Reyna answered without hesitation, though I wasn’t sure what she
was ready for. “Do you mind if…” She nodded at me.
Thalia gripped her friend’s shoulder. “Of course. See you at the Senate
House.” She strode away into the darkness.
“Come on, Lester.” Reyna winked. “Limp with me.”
The limping was easy. Even though I was healed, I tired easily. It was no
problem to walk at Reyna’s pace. Her dogs, Aurum and Argentum, weren’t
with her, I noticed, perhaps because Terminus didn’t approve of deadly
weapons inside the city limits.
We made our way slowly down the road from Temple Hill toward New
Rome. Other legionnaires gave us a wide berth, apparently sensing we had
private business to discuss.
Reyna kept me in suspense until we reached the bridge spanning the
Little Tiber.
“I wanted to thank you,” she said.
Her smile was a ghost of the one she’d had on the hillside of Sutro
Tower, when I’d offered to be her boyfriend. That left me in no doubt as to
what she meant—not Thank you for helping to save the camp, but Thank you
for giving me a good laugh.
“No problem,” I grumbled.
“I don’t mean it in a negative way.” Seeing my dubious look, she sighed
and stared out at the dark river, its ripples curling silver in the moonlight. “I
don’t know if I can explain this. My whole life, I’ve been living with other
people’s expectations of what I’m supposed to be. Be this. Be that. You
know?”
“You’re talking to a former god. Dealing with people’s expectations is
our job description.”
Reyna conceded this with a nod. “For years, I was supposed to be a good
little sister to Hylla in a tough family situation. Then, on Calypso’s island, I
was supposed to be an obedient servant. Then I was a pirate for a while.
Then a legionnaire. Then a praetor.”
“You do have an impressive résumé,” I admitted.