Status Updates From Fallen City

Slowly, my eyes trailed to the empty seat of Magistrate Matius, where Luca should be sitting now. If he'd taken his uncle's place, like we'd planned, the balance of the Forum would have already been tipped. But everything changed the day Vitrasian died.

The insignia of the New Legion had been painted in red, black, and gold across the pale stone.The symbol stretched at least thirty feet high, like a flag that couldn't fall.Couldn't burn.Couldn't be shot down.The depiction was of a soldier on his knees, bloodied short sword hanging from his hand as he looked up toward the sky.A gilded halo encircled his head, and every time I looked at it, I couldn't help cringing.

Luca.
The moment his name wormed through my mind, heat flooded my chest, making it difficult for my lungs to draw a breath. I found the soft skin at the crook of my arm beneath the sleeves of my robes and pinched, trying to ward away the lump that came up into my throat. It was the same feeling I had every time I cast my eyes across the river.

For my whole life, I'd dreamed of wearing the robes so that I could do the exact opposite of my mother and the Magistrates who'd driven our city to rebellion. I'd had a plan. A carefully wrought one that had cost me everything. But the day my mother cast her vote to execute the Philosopher Vitrasian was the day that plan fell apart.

The seats in the Forum were now half empty. And it was only a matter of time until I saw Maris Casperia hanging from one of those ropes. And when that happened, it wouldn't just be the end of me. It would be the end of everything.

It had been almost six months since the gods had marked me, placing a faint circlet of light over my head. It wasn't as visible in the glare of the sun, but in dim, shadowed light like this, it glimmered just enough to catch the eye.

I love Adrienne Young, but I am bored out of my miinnndddd

Now I had to read until their first meeting in the present, and I can confirm doomed love. My heart already hurts for those two!

I also love how Young weaves brief flashbacks into the present without explaining the context, so that I have to figure out for myself what happened. I much prefer showing over telling in stories—when nothing is explained and you have to form your own picture of the story as you read it.