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The sun set slowly over Temple Hill in New Rome. Reyna had come up here everyday since Jason’s disappearance, hoping for good news. It never came. A small fire burned inside the Temple of Jupiter, in which a teenage boy was tossing dismembered pieces of various stuffed animals. If he heard Reyna approach, he didn’t show it. Reyna had stopped just behind him when he finally snapped and let out a frustrated yell. His knife came up and slashed across an old stuffed bear, but ended up clattered across the table before him. Reyna stepped closer as he slid to the floor sobbing.
“He’s not coming back.”
He shook his head. Reyna kneeled beside him and wrapped her arm around him.
“Reyna, there’s nothing. Nothing. Jason’s just not important enough for the gods to care about.”
Reyna sighed.
“Octavian…”
“He’s not coming back.”
There was silence in the temple. Octavian was still crying, but silently. Reyna shifted so she was sitting next to him. He let his head fall onto her shoulder. It was quite, mournful silence. The sun dipped below the sky and the stars glittered above them. Reyna missed Jason. She missed the three of them being together. She missed coming back to the praetoria after training to Octavian and Jason waiting for her, she missed the three of them squished on a couch in the rec room watching a dumb movie that she had no choice in (you’re outvoted again we’re watching Mean Girls!). Most of all she missed peace. Not fighting with Octavian everyday, disagreeing but always having someone there to mediate, someone to make them see common ground, someone who believed they could make a this fucked up relationship work. But Jason was gone. For now.
“We don’t know for sure that he’s not coming back, we just need to have-”
“Faith? Where has that gotten us, huh? We’re waiting for someone who is probably dead to return, there’s no gods to guide us, no prophecies, no hope. Reyna, give up.”
Octavian stood up after his outburst and faced away from Reyna.
“You don’t understand.”
He whispered. Reyna held her tongue, and instead of yelling at him that, sure, she didn’t, what did she know? It wasn’t like she was his partner, the other praetor, his girlfriend. Like it wasn’t hard enough trying to believe he was alive when every damn day Octavian was telling her how she’d fail on her own, how she needed, the legion needed, two praetors in order to function properly, why should they wait for the elections? She just stood up, stayed in the same spot, and said, “What don’t I understand?”
Apparently, this was still the wrong thing to say. Ocatiavin whipped around and yelled,
“You don’t see the things I do! You don’t know the future, you can’t read omens! There’s nothing there, don’t you understand what that means? He’s gone. He’s gone, or not important enough to care about. I don’t know which is worse.”
Reyna stood up taller.
“Maybe you’re just not doing your job right.”
Octavian stepped back in surprise, before putting his guard back up and sneering at her.
“I’m not doing my job right? Reyna, tell me, what is the role of a praetor? To keep their legion together? You’re doing an awfully fabulous job as of right now.”
“Jason is not the legion!”
Reyna snapped back.
“So you don’t care about him?”
Octavian turned back to face away from her. He sounded calm, not like he had been crying just moments before. HIs expression was one of victory.
“I didn’t say that! Octavian, you know very well what I mean!”
Reyna’s hand fell to her sword, and she wasn’t sure if it was intentional or accidental. It scared her. Instead of continuing the argument, or trying to solve it, she stormed out of the temple. At the doorway, she stopped, and looked back. Octavian had picked up his knife again and was standing at the altar, holding a new stuffed bear in his hand. He looked over his shoulder.
‘Oh, and Reyna? Try not to be too upset. Jason never really cared about you, did he?”
Reyna’s eyes filled with tears, He was wrong, he was wrong, Jason cared. It was Jason. He couldn’t not care. It still stung, coming from Octavian. She lifted her head up, remaining every bit the leader she was, and turned out of the temple. She didn’t hear the voice whispering “good, good” to Octavian from the ground, and didn’t see the green mist swirl into the temple and cloud the floor. By then, it was too late.