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“Do you like it?” Lucilla asks, keeping her voice purposely low. Lucius is so easily scared these days. So weak. Nothing like his father, and maybe it’s for the better. Had he been more like his father, had he been more like her, Macrinus would have realised who he was too soon, and Lucilla doesn’t want to think of what he would have done to her son had he known. What he did do to him is more than enough.
“Yes,” Lucius says. He’s no longer looking at the vase. Has made an attempt to touch it, to run his fingers over the painting on it, and he stopped himself.
Fearful.
Lucilla reminds herself she mustn’t hate him. It is not his fault he grew weak in the barbarian lands.
“Acacius gave it to me for our anniversary,” she says, in a desperate attempt to keep the conversation flowing. “Brought it to me from Gaul.”
She knows it’s a wrong thing to say before she even finishes saying it; he flinches at her husband’s name – he has still not learnt to be grateful Acacius brought him back home to her – and then he scowls at the mention of Gaul.
“One doesn’t even see the blood on it,” he says. Spits out, really, and then a shiver runs through him, violent enough that she can see it clearly. “I’m sorry, I-”
“Don’t apologise,” she tells him. You are the heir to the Empire. Do not fucking apologise.
“I didn’t mean to-”
“I know,” she says, interrupting him. If he calls her mistress again, she is going to vomit.
She misses her husband – Acacius handles Lucius in this state much better – but he isn’t here. All the sacrifices Lucilla had to bring, and yet, it is her husband, and not her blood, who wears the crown now.
“Go to your room,” she orders, and Lucius bows his head, still shivering, and she swallows the wish to slap him.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, staring at the ground, and she knows what Macrinus did to him when he dared to disagree.
Knows what Thraex did to him.
Knows what countless other men did.
Knows how badly he wants a mother. Knows how much he hates her, too.
“Just go,” she says, and he does.
Obedient in ways his father never was.
When he is gone, she leans against the wall. She only doesn’t break the vase because she doesn’t think she could handle hurting Acacius tonight, too.