Page 82 of This Monster of Mine

“We were only told an hour ago.”

The healer snorted. “Probably because everyone from the neighbors to their servants thought it served them right. Admia and her husband”—they cast a meaningful glance at the corpse at their feet—“weren’t well liked. I mean, you’d be lucky to get a crop out of her during a bad harvest. She ate well, even if it meant that the rest of Ur Dinyé didn’t.”

And she was paying the price now. With great difficulty, Sarai drew her eyes from Admia’s husband, mouth drawn open in a terrified wail.Just like Ennius.“Where’s Admia?”

“Haven’t found her.” The healer gripped the dead man’s rigid outstretched arms and dragged him to a pallet, uncaring of how his fleshsnagged against debris. “To think that with everything she got from the gods, she still didn’t have faith! It’s a wonder her home wasn’t struck earlier.”

Sarai bit her tongue before she said what she thought of that explanation. Circling the debris, she helped Kadra’s vigiles search for its owner. Eyes stinging from the smoke, she glimpsed the glint of metal.A scutum. Drawing closer, she stared. Admia’s fulgur scutum had burst open, molten steel trailing down the sides. Some sort of mass lay within the rod, sparks still sizzling within. She jerked away right as a sweat-drenched Gaius rounded the corner.

“And here’s the last one,” he muttered upon sighting the rod. “All four exploded. Great.” Lifting a thick fulgurite, he gingerly prodded the scutum with it, cursing at a shower of sparks. “Wrath and cursed Ruin, of all the places for a bolt to strike, why on the rods?”

“Lightning struck the scuta? Not the house?” She spotted a twisted scrap of iron that looked to be the remnants of a steeple. “Not even the steeple?”

“That’s what eyewitnesses are saying.” He indicated a cluster of spectators.

Going over, she found an exhausted vigile trying to prevent an elderly man from scavenging in the rubble. Promising the man an aureus for his information, she steered him away.

“Did you witness the strike?”

“Certo,” he quavered. “There was a flash. A few seconds later, her house exploded. Lord Fortune spoke loudly today. The bolt targeted her. Good riddance.”

“What did the flash look like? Did it hit her house?”

“No, struck all four scuta outside.” He looked incredulous. “What little faith did they have for not even one scutum to shield them?”

Why hadn’t lightning gone for the steeple? “Did you see Admia?”

He chuckled. “Certo. Screamed down the street to all and sundry that she was going to rip Helvus a new pair of holes.”

Her suspicions coalesced. Helvus, the scuta, and his comment the night he’d framed Jovian’s death as a suicide.Anything that threatens the scuta threatens us and threatens our clients.

Pressing an aureus into the old man’s hands, she returned to Admia’s scuta. Each one was warped, the rod’s flat heads burst open to reveal a powder within. It was one thing to melt under the heat, but these scuta had combusted.

The scutum before her tilted, thudding to the ground. She stilled as the powder spilled out. Reddish-brown, it sparked in the air, and her heart dropped.That’s iron dust. A full-body shiver reduced her legs to cotton wool. Almost everyone in Arsamea kept a little iron dust on hand when their wood got too damp or for celebratory bonfires. Because it was highly combustible.

The gods hadn’t been behind this strike. Helvus had.

More dust spilled from the fallen scutum, grains picked up by the wind. Sarai shrank back. If any of it hit the smallest ember, the whole domus would go up in flames again. She didn’t pause to think. Racing around the back, she pulled the cloth from her nose and mouth.

“Get out! You all need to leave!” she yelled, running to where Kadra was speaking with the healer. “You need to evacuate everyone,” she wheezed, the back of her throat raw. Her collar was a manacle, her robes too much in the oppressive heat. “This place might explode again.”

“Show me.”

“We don’t have time! There’s iron dust in the scuta! It could ignite any second!”

He didn’t miss a beat, voice cutting through the hubbub like an executioner’s axe. “Leave the area. I want everyone three domii away,” he ordered.

The healer snapped to attention, dragging Admia’s husband’s body toward the closest horse. Vigiles herded onlookers away, making a last sweep of the rubble.

Kadra turned to her, features pulling tight. “Sarai—”

“I need to get to Helvus,” she said without preamble. “Every scutum here was stuffed to the brim with iron dust. Everyone kept talking about faith and how Admia must’ve been taunting the gods to deserve this, but the scuta were faulty!” Even saying it knocked the breath from her lungs. “Helvus is in danger. Admia’s just lost her husband. That’s motive, and she’s had plenty of time for opportunity.”

“I can’t leave while there’s a hazard here. Helvus is likely dead.” He listed his head to one side, a sinister gleam in his eyes. “It’s better for you that he’s dead.”

The words multiplied a thousandfold in her head. For an ugly second, she thought of letting it go. Helvus was no loss to the world.

“It doesn’t matter.” Sweat trickled into her eyes. “If he dies, every evil he’s committed goes unknown and unpunished.”

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