Lycomedes stood over the accused guard in a dark, stone cell beneath the palace. Geta was chained to the wall, his face a swollen, tear-streaked ruin. He had been questioned. Brutally.
"I am faithful," the man sobbed, the words bubbling through broken lips. "I swear it on my children. She lied. The Oracle lied."
Lycomedes's face was a mask of tormented conflict. He had built his life, his entire movement, on the foundation of the God-Emperor's divinity. The Oracle was the living proof of that divinity. To doubt her was to doubt everything. But Geta… he had been one of his first followers, a man whose loyalty was as solid as the stones of the Colosseum.
He turned and left the cell, the sounds of the man's weeping following him down the dark corridor. He needed guidance. He needed to make sense of this terrible, holy command.
He went to the one person in the palace he now believed was as devout as himself. The Lady Lucilla.
He found her in her chambers, lighting incense before a small, makeshift shrine to her brother. She looked up as he entered, her face a picture of serene piety.
Lycomedes did not hide his turmoil. "The Oracle spoke truly," he said, his voice a low, troubled rumble. "We questioned the man. We found a small knife, a stiletto, hidden in the lining of his bedding."
This was a lie. He had found no such thing. But his faith required it to be true. To admit the Oracle might be wrong was unthinkable. So he had invented the proof himself. He needed to believe.
Lucilla's eyes went wide with feigned, holy terror. She pressed a hand to her heart. "The gods protect the Emperor," she whispered. She saw her new path, a road to power paved with this zealot's blind faith. She could not control Marcia with threats. So she would control her through her "visions."
"Her sight is a gift from the heavens, Lycomedes," Lucilla said, her voice full of awe and a new, manufactured concern. "But it is a terrible burden. A storm of divine power in a mortal vessel. This… outburst… it must have weakened her terribly."
She glided closer, her expression one of profound sympathy. "We must protect her. Not just from assassins in our midst, but from the strain of her own power. A vision so powerful is like lightning. It can burn the one it touches."
Lycomedes listened, his tormented face rapt. This made sense. This explained the violence, the madness of the prophecy.
"The Oracle's words are divine truth," Lucilla continued, her voice a hypnotic whisper. "But they are raw power. They need to be… interpreted. Cradled. By someone wise to the corrupting nature of this court. Someone who can help shield her from the backlash of her own gift."
She had placed herself between Marcia and her followers. She would be the High Priestess. The official interpreter of the Oracle's will. She no longer needed to manipulate Marcia directly. She just needed to manipulate the meaning of her words.
She had turned Marcia's desperate, bloody gambit into an even more secure and gilded cage.
The air in the foothills of the Alps was thin and cold, a world away from the humid heat of Rome. Crixus's ghost army moved through the gathering twilight, not like soldiers, but like the predators they were. They were five hundred silent, deadly shadows, their footsteps muffled on the pine needles that carpeted the forest floor.
The mood was tense. This was their first night in enemy territory. Every snap of a twig, every hoot of an owl, could be a Roman patrol.
Crixus called a halt in a small, hidden ravine. He gathered his hand-picked captains.
"Narcissus," he said, his voice flat. "That pass up ahead. It's the most direct route. Too obvious. I suspect an outpost. I need you to scout it. Alone. See how many there are. Report back. Do not engage."
Narcissus beamed, his chest puffing out with pride at being given the most important task. "It will be done, Crixus!" He hefted his massive war axe and vanished into the gloom.
The moment he was gone, Crixus turned to Scaeva, the one-eyed veteran, and two other gladiators he trusted with his life. "We follow him," he said, his voice a low growl. "No noise."
It was a test. A brutal, simple test of loyalty.
They moved like wraiths through the undergrowth, shadowing the giant. They watched as Narcissus reached the narrow, rock-strewn pass. He crouched behind a boulder, observing.
A few minutes later, a figure emerged from the rocks on the other side of the pass. He wore the armor of a Roman legionary scout. He moved cautiously, scanning the shadows, before giving a low whistle.
Narcissus whistled back.
Crixus felt a cold, hard knot of certainty in his gut. The scout was from the Third Legion. His brother's legion. This was a meeting. A betrayal.
He and his men emerged from the trees, their blades drawn, cornering the two men in the pass.
The legionary scout spun around, his hand flying to the hilt of his sword. He saw Crixus and froze, his face a mask of panic. Narcissus stood between them, a giant caught in a trap, his face a storm of conflict.
Crixus didn't give an order. He didn't shout an accusation. He just stood there, his hand resting on the hilt of his own gladius, his eyes locked on Narcissus. The silent question hung in the cold mountain air, heavier than any stone.
Whose side are you on?
The legionary scout, seeing his ally hesitate, made a fatal decision. He drew his sword. "Traitor! You led us into a trap!" he yelled at Narcissus, hoping to bluff his way out.
It was the wrong thing to say.
Narcissus let out a roar. It was not a battle cry. It was a sound of pure, animal anguish and rage. He didn't draw his axe. He lunged forward, his massive hands closing around the legionary's helmeted head.
There was a single, sickening crunch of metal and bone.
Narcissus dropped the body and turned to face Crixus. His face was a mask of torment, his eyes wild with a pain that went deeper than any physical wound.
"The Emperor," he growled, his voice a ragged, broken thing. "He gave me my life. My life is his."
He had passed the test. But the act of killing his own brother's man, his own kinsman, had clearly cost him a piece of his soul. He was loyal. But he was also broken.
Marcus was alone in the war room. The maps and scrolls surrounded him, silent witnesses to his grand, failing strategies. He had just sent five hundred men on a suicide mission. A pirate king with a legendary name was strangling his supply lines.
And Marcia… he hadn't spoken a word to her since their fight. The memory of her furious, hurt eyes was a constant, dull ache in his chest.
He couldn't stand it anymore. He needed to see her. To explain. To try and fix the thing he had broken.
He strode through the now-quiet palace corridors to her chambers. Two of Lycomedes's fanatics stood guard at her door, their faces impassive stone. They blocked his path.
Before he could give an order, the door opened and Lycomedes himself stepped out.
"I would see the Lady Marcia," Marcus said, his voice tight.
Lycomedes bowed low, a gesture of profound respect that was also a denial. He did not move. "Forgive me, God-Emperor," he said, his voice a low, pious rumble. "The Oracle is resting. She had a… powerful vision earlier. It has left her frail."
Marcus felt a flicker of alarm. "What vision?"
"She exposed a traitor in our very midst," Lycomedes said with grim satisfaction. "A serpent hiding among the faithful." He gestured back into the room. "The Lady Lucilla herself is attending to her now. She was most insistent that the Oracle not be disturbed until her strength returns."
The words hit Marcus like a punch to the gut. Lucilla. Of course.
He, the Emperor of Rome, the God-Emperor himself, was being denied access to his own Oracle by his own fanatics, at the polite, pious, poisonous suggestion of his sister.
He saw the bars of the cage he had so brilliantly constructed. He was the most powerful man in the world, and he had been completely, utterly outmaneuvered in the one battle that truly mattered. He had won the court, but in doing so, he had lost the woman. He had given his enemies the perfect weapon to use against him: her.
Just then, a Praetorian guard came running down the corridor, his sandals slapping against the marble. He held a small, sealed scroll.
"Caesar! A message from Crixus, delivered by hawk from the Alps!"
Marcus broke the seal, his hands suddenly unsteady. The message, scrawled on a tiny piece of parchment, was short and brutal.
First pass blocked. First blood drawn. The serpent in our midst has been dealt with. The price was high. They know we are coming now.
Marcus crushed the scroll in his fist, the parchment crackling in the silence. A cold dread, colder than the mountain winds, washed over him.
He's talking about Narcissus, he thought. What did Crixus do? What have I done?