Inhaltsangabe
A powerful and fierce reimagining of the founding of the Roman empire and the legend of Romulus and Remus—and the mother whose sacrifice made it all possible.
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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor
LAUREN J. A. BEAR was born in Boston and raised in Long Beach. After studying English at UCLA and education at LMU, she taught middle-school humanities for over a decade—and survived! She is a teaching fellow for the Holocaust Center for Humanity and lives in Seattle with her husband and three young children. She likes crossword puzzles and being on or near the water without getting wet.
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PROLOGUE
THE GODS WHISPER a girl s name; she curses them all.
On the night Rhea Silvia, Princess of Latium and favorite daughter, took her vows, five other women encircled her in the House of the Vestals, in its secret round room, enclosing the girl in a double loop of white robes and whiter stone. Rhea felt the heady mix of incense and energies those of the women, the building, Vesta herself some joined in accord and others at odds. Celebration, excitement, sisterhood. But also distrust and a bitterness bordering on enmity. Following the hallowed steps to the sacred hearth, she held all their empathies and judgments upon her young shoulders, obliging their ritual with the shallow reverence of an unwilling participant.
She kept her chin down but walked like a queen even barefoot, even at her age. She had carried far greater weights than these.
When Rhea knelt before the fire, she imagined the unholy glee of her enemies, those who had killed and connived to bring her here, how they might revel in perverse satisfaction at Numitor s lofty daughter brought so low. She heard their giddy hate across the city, in all the cities, and inside the minds of some women present.
No queendom for her! No wedding night!
No wealthy prince!
No jewels or servants or golden cups!
Someone must pay the price for Numitor s mistakes and losses, his wild queen.
Embrace this future, penitent!
Even the fire cackled.
But then Prisca, the eldest and ranking priestess, stepped forward, breaking the perfect symmetry of their circular order. Hail, holy Vesta, living flame, center of our world! she began. You, holy Vesta of the Perpetual Fire, you stand on perpetual guard, your light protecting our city, our people, and banishing the darkness.
Rhea s fists clenched; what did these sheltered fools know of darkness? Any belief she d once held in Vesta s protection had long since shattered. The goddess was either dormant or indifferent. Vesta had not intervened in any of the tragedies that had befallen Rhea s family. Vesta had done nothing to protect the land they d ruled for sixteen centuries.
And the Silvian line, descended from Aeneas of Troy, had been pious enough, certainly. Had made the sacrifices and honored the flames only to be brought here: the end of the direct line. Fourteen generations of legend gelded.
But Rhea would not lay blame at Vesta s altar. Focus your hatred, she reminded herself. Hone it. Keep it sharp and precise. Her subjugation wasn t the goddess s fault. Nor was it Prisca s. Rhea was here, humbled on hands and knees in the ash, future burned, by the machinations of one man.
The taste of his disgusting kiss still lingered in her mouth. Bile rose in the back of her throat, and Rhea Silvia tasted rage.
She might choke on it, maybe suffocate.
This room was suddenly too small. And there were no windows, save for the smoke hole in the ceiling. And she knew she wasn t supposed to look up. From now on, she must keep her eyes low, honor the hallowed.
Obey.
The ceremonial chanting commenced. Prisca called and the other four responded, surrounding Rhea. Their voices targeted her from every angle: voices ranging from alto to highest soprano, voices that ordinarily giggled and inflected, soared and speared, all homogenized by ritual.
A drone of wasps.
Vesta, you dwell in our hearth so we may be one with your eternal power. Recast us in the shadow of your radiant blaze!
Hail the illuminating virgin.
Shine true in darkness that of time and heart!
Hail the incorruptible virgin.
One unmistakable voice cut through the rest, howev
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