her. But Wanjala intercepts her. Pulling a dagger from his tunic, he holds it beneath Rochelle’s ribs. ‘Don’t try it. I won’t hesitate to kill you.’
Ethan takes one look at Rochelle in trouble and uses his skill to animate objects. Cushions, broken bits of furniture, platters, and even food, start whirling towards Wanjala’s head. Using this distraction, Ethan pushes Julia roughly out of the way, then drags Rochelle out from Wanjala’s grasp. ‘You’re not going to die here in the past! Do you understand?’
As the debris starts to settle, and slaves stop screaming, I finish assessing Octavius and Tiberius’s wounds. Both of them are critically ill, having received massive injuries. Suddenly Wanjala towers over the back of me. I look up, expecting to see him wearing a look of smug satisfaction. But he’s not. He stares at the man and child sprawled below him, his mouth drifting open as his eyes rest on the boy. He sees me looking at him and pulls away. Without saying a word, he takes Julia’s hand, and the Order’s two soldiers run from the room.
Rochelle, still caught tight in Ethan’s hold, snarls and hisses in frustration. ‘Let me go!’
‘No. You’re needed here. Help stem this blood flow.’
Livia looks from her husband to her son and moans hysterically. She must think she’s about to lose them both.
But the decision of who lives and who dies right now is unbelievably up to me. I have the power to heal, but only one at a time. And looking at Tiberius my heart skitters uncontrollably. The only reason this child is lying here on the verge of death is because of me. If I hadn’t healed him of his chest infection this morning, he would still have been in bed. He wouldn’t have opened the lid not meant to be touched by his hand. With these thoughts thundering through my brain, I bend over him, running my fingers over his blood-stained head, searching for internal injuries, and looking for a point to begin healing.
But Ethan grabs my arm and drags me backwards. ‘No!’
I look up, hardly seeing him through my rapidly blurring vision. I know what he’s saying, but I can’t accept it. ‘I have to heal the boy! He’s dying,’ I whisper.
He swallows deeply. ‘You have to save Caesar first. He’s dying too. That’s what we came for.’
‘But the boy,’ I try to tell him, even though I know he knows. ‘He will be an Emperor too.’
‘Gaius Julius Caesar Octavius will be the first, the famous Augustus Caesar and his changes will be the ones that will shape our modern world. You have to heal him first. And you have to hurry. He’s losing a lot of blood.’
Livia wails, pulling her son into her arms. Meanwhile Rochelle tries to stop the blood flowing from a deep wound to the base of Octavius’s skull. ‘Hurry!’ she calls.
I move to Octavius. He’s in a bad way. Other than the head wound, he has severe internal injuries and a badly damaged arm. I work at stopping the rapid blood loss, repairing burst blood vessels and scarred and damaged organs. Then I work on repairing torn ligaments, muscles and bone.
I’m hardly finished when Livia screams a woeful sound, a sound that lets us know we have lost the child. My heart clenches, my breathing tightening unbearably. What have I done?
I force myself not to look, to keep working on Octavius, but can’t help one brief glance. What I see will remain with me for the rest of my life – a grieving mother rocking her lifeless son in her arms.
Once healed, Octavius sits up, stunned at the massive destruction around him. ‘What happened here?’ He crawls over to where his wife grieves, the dead child in her arms.
‘Is there nothing you can do?’ Rochelle asks softly.
‘I can’t bring back the dead. His injuries were too severe. He wouldn’t have recovered without immediate healing.’
Ethan grabs our arms, yanking us both up. ‘We have to get out of here. Caesar is going to want answers. And we can’t give them to him.’
Understanding this, the three of us back out of the room. Finding an isolated corner, Ethan calls Mr Carter’s name. In seconds I feel the imminent pull of transportation taking hold. I can’t stop thinking how miserably we failed. How miserably I failed. Then an image comes to me. The image of Wanjala’s face as he stared at the destruction of human life before him. A flash of recognition hits my senses,