Free Mark of the Thief by Jennifer A. Nielsen Page B

of her powers. What do you think about that?”
    It wasn’t up to me to believe or doubt him. Nor could I see how it mattered. Caesar had been dead for almost three hundred years. Unless … unless he had become a god, one of the immortals. Unless he was alive enough to whisper warnings from inside a sealed cave. I had not stolen the bulla from Radulf. I had stolen it from Caesar.
    I nodded and forced out the words that sat like a lump in my throat. “Yes, I believe that.”
    “Good, because it’s true. Venus is the mother of all Romans. She smiled upon Caesar more favorably than any other Roman before or since. And even when he was young, she gave him a way to draw upon the powers of the gods.”
    My fingers wrapped around the bulla. I was barely able to comprehend the full meaning of what he was saying. “This came from the gods?”
    “Straight from Venus’s mighty hand to his. When Caesar was alive, this bulla gave him wealth, brought him military victories, and provided him with the power to unify Rome and become the strongest emperor the world has ever known. But he began to believe too much in himself, rather than in Venus’s power. His journals boast of his own abilities, not hers. In his arrogance, he removed the bulla and it became lost. Without the bulla, Venus’s protections gradually abandoned him. Soon after, he was murdered by his own senators.”
    “My mother told me about that, sir. Only a few months after the assassination, a comet appeared in the skies for seven full days, bright enough it could even be seen in daylight. The people said it was Caesar’s soul, rising to join the other gods.”
    “They called it the Divine Star. But its journey did not end with Caesar’s death.” Felix pointed to my shoulder. “That is the mark on your back.”
    I leaned forward, certain I had heard him wrong. Was he saying that Caesar himself had marked me? Why?
    Felix rested his arms on his legs and looked directly at me. “When I held that bulla, I felt nothing. But your hand is rarely an inch from it, and even now, you can’t let it go. Tell me, is there any magic left in the bulla?”
    My heart pounded. I wanted to lie to him. A convincing lie would allow me to eat the rest of his food in peace, and then go back to Caela’s side. The right lie would end this conversation and any special interest in me. The problem was that I had more questions than ever before, and only the truth would get me any answers.
    So I nodded. “There’s some magic left, but not much. I can feel it, but that’s all. Maybe when Caesar put the bulla aside, Venus’s power left it.”
    “Or maybe the gods have waited three hundred years for someone else to pick it up. Someone with Caesar’s mark on his back perhaps. You got that mark from the griffin? She is a creature of the heavens, you know. Only something born of the gods could give you their magic. The magic is stronger than when you first felt it, correct?”
    I couldn’t deny that. But stronger wasn’t necessarily a good thing. I hadn’t told Felix about the whispers in the cave, warning of the curse that came with this bulla.
    Felix clasped his hands and said, “You come to Rome at a dangerous time. The foundations of our empire are crumbling, and we are so large that if we collapse, the entire world may fall with it. For centuries, the barbarians have run in fear, but now they gaze at our walls and see cracks have formed. We are not as strong as we once were.”
    I pressed my brows together and tried to absorb everything he was saying. Having seen the greatness of Rome, it seemed impossible that it could ever fall. If it did, I couldn’t imagine anything but darkness would replace it.
    Felix continued, “Emperor Tacitus can see the cracks in the empire, but he doesn’t know how to fix them. If only the gods would help him, but they have been silent. If he had a touch of their power perhaps …”
    Felix’s voice drifted off as his eyes fell to the bulla. I