To walk the streets on summer days listening to the towers babble was sweet. Returning from a Signoria meeting, Sofia reflected on the year that had passed since the Wave. The bridges between the towers were permanent now, and neighbors spent hours on them, gossiping and arguing and watching the world go by for the pleasure of criticizing it. The pale flecks of cotton, blown in on a temperate breeze from the Rasenna contato, floated indolently through the streets, and the sun poured down until the cobblestones rippled like water. She often imagined that she walked in the heart of old Rasenna with her grandfather and father proudly watching over her.
Nobody guessed it at the time, but the siege inaugurated the third contest between Rasenna and Concord: the final and most terrible war. There was more than a year’s respite before Concord regrouped, time enough for Rasenna to rebuild broken walls and grow still stronger.
Rasenna had withstood the most powerful weapon Concord had. It was predictable that the cities of Etruria would believe that it had engineers equal to Concord’s; they neither understood Natural Philosophy nor believed that anything could be stronger. Still, it was true that a miracle had come to pass, and the cities of Etruria lost no time forming a new Southern League for collective security, the chance of revenge, and, most of all, a stake in the Empire’s assets when it collapsed.
This was premature.
Though the First and Second Apprentices had perished, leaving a mere boy in charge of an Empire that would never again be seen as invincible, much remained unchanged. The Guild still ruled Concord, and Concord still ruled northern Etruria. The Twelfth Legion was lost, but eleven other legions continued to fight and win the war in Europa. At best, Rasenna had been given an opportunity; whether it used that opportunity wisely or squandered it as before depended on the men and women who led it.
Under Pedro Vanzetti, Rasenna’s Engineers’ Guild expanded as rapidly as Concord’s had more than three decades ago—but there was no question of Rasenneisi engineers abandoning their names.
Family banners hung proudly from family towers, no longer cause for contention or rivalry; the only banner that would be carried into future battles was the city’s, as both a weapon for her bandieratori and a Standard for her knights.
The men of the Hawk’s Company, tired of scratching a living in a country that could no longer afford condottieri, petitioned to stay in Rasenna, and Colonel Levi was nominated podesta. Vowing never to become too respectable, he accepted the honor.
Sofia crossed the bridge and stopped at the gap to watch the river. Though she had thrown off her rank, she was still conspicuous among the crowds. Stall owners whispered to civilians that this was the Contessa Scaligeri—the noblewoman who had returned to Rasenna with an army; she might have seized power, but in giving up her birthright, she had instead slain the serpent of faction forever.
There were certain bandieratori and certain towers that urged her to reconsider, but the Contessa—Sofia—insisted there would be no return to aristocracy in Rasenna; the chain was broken. Her only ambition was to sit in the Signoria as one respected voice among many and to support Gonfaloniere Bombelli.
She turned away from the river and walked back to the workshop. In the months after the second Wave she’d struggled to come to terms with a grief that existed without death, though she knew that Isabella was right: Giovanni was not really gone. He was with her forever, as the Irenicon was one with Rasenna.
The Scaligeri banner had found a new home on what once had been called Tower Bardini. The Doc had been faithful to her, so she in turn kept his workshop alive, and it was as thronged with students as ever. Now she briefly conferred with Uggeri before climbing up to the tower roof.
Up here, she felt as if she could call upon the Doctor’s ghost for counsel. She peeled an orange as she looked down on the bridge and pondered the questions still unanswered since that terrible, wonderful day: the Reverend Mother and her own visions had spoken of a choice she would have to make, yet it was Giovanni who had sacrificed everything.
Why had the Apprentices been so intent on destroying Rasenna instead of simply reconquering it?
What were they so afraid of?
She still felt that a terrible ghost was loose in the world and a wonderful promise. Her recurring nightmare always started the same way:
At night, with wind and rain howling through the ruin of the Molè’s great hall. Indifferent to Nature’s agony, the charred angel looked down at the circle of torch-bearing engineers standing around the repaired glass column. In the center, the Third Apprentice, now First, now wearing the red, looked balefully up at the statue.
“This is a great honor,” the boy said nervously. “We are but vessels.”
“We are vessels,” came the engineers’ response.
“Although changed I shall arise the same,” he intoned as he approached the waiting coffin with faltering steps.
When the door hissed closed and there was no one to hear, he whispered, “Madonna, preserve me. I am afraid.”
The star dropped into darkness. A storm that had been incubating for centuries attacked the dark white city, with bolt after bolt striking the lantern at the Molè’s summit. The charges shot through the triple dome and lit up the great hall as they hit the angel’s upraised sword. The engineers fell back in fear as their torches were snuffed out.
In the underworld, a moment later, the charge shot from the second angel’s sword through the void of the pit and into the lake.
The water’s surface boiled with buio in agony.
When the coffin rose from the filthy black water, the boy inside was no longer crying.
The thunder that followed was the sound of Heaven cracking open.
Sofia awoke. It was just before dawn, and she realized she was not alone. The air was humid, as if an imperceptible mist hung in the air, and on her skin were droplets like morning dew.
The buio stood at the window, waiting for the morning light.
“Is it you?” she asked.
The sun came up over Rasenna and swept into the room. The light swam over Sofia, and she understood the responsibility offered.
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” she said, and felt at once the quickening.