The thunder of hooves shook the frozen ground as Roman and Germanian cavalry charged towards each other. Their goal was not territory. It was not glory. It was a single, wounded bird fluttering weakly in the sky between them.
It was not a disciplined battle. It was a brutal, chaotic scramble. A swirling melee of horse and steel under a vast, empty sky. The Romans, outnumbered but fighting with the fury of men defending their home, formed a desperate, moving circle, trying to protect the area where the hawk was spiraling down. The Germanian riders, swift and deadly, harried their flanks, trying to break through for a final shot.
The hawk, its strength finally gone, faltered. It landed in a small, snow-dusted clearing a hundred yards from the main fight.
A single Germanian rider, seeing his chance, broke free from the melee. He was a champion, a giant of a man on a black warhorse, and he galloped toward the downed bird, his bow raised.
A Roman Centurion, his face a mask of bloody determination, saw him. With a roar, he spurred his own horse, intercepting the Germanian's path. The two men crashed into each other in a tangle of screaming horseflesh and ringing steel. They both leaped from their falling mounts, their blades drawn before their feet even hit the ground.
The Germanian was faster, his short sword darting in like a snake's tongue. The Centurion took a deep cut to his side, grunting in pain, but he did not falter. He brought his own gladius up in a classic, brutal, legionary thrust that took the Germanian full in the throat.
The Centurion stood over the body, swaying, his lifeblood pouring out onto the snow. He staggered to the wounded hawk, gently freeing the silver tube from its leg. He looked back at the battle, saw his men beginning to push the raiders back. He had won.
His second-in-command, a young Decurion, galloped up, his face grim. "Marcus! We've driven them off!"
The Centurion, Marcus, collapsed to one knee, holding out the message tube. His breath came in ragged, bloody gasps. "Get this to the Emperor," he choked out, his voice a death rattle. "Tell him… tell him the wolves are at the door. Nothing else matters."
He collapsed into the snow, his duty done.
The palace was about to have its own civil war.
Marcus, a storm of cold, imperial fury, marched through the corridors. Behind him, the heavy, rhythmic tramp of a hundred Praetorian guards in full battle armor was a sound of impending violence. Servants and senators alike flattened themselves against the walls, their faces pale with terror. This was not the thoughtful, merciful Emperor they had come to know. This was Commodus, the god of wrath, come to life.
He reached Marcia's wing. Lycomedes and a dozen of his most massive fanatics stood shoulder-to-shoulder, blocking the way. They were a wall of muscle and faith.
"God-Emperor," Lycomedes said, his voice a low rumble. He did not bow. "The Oracle must not be disturbed."
Marcus stopped a few feet from them. The air crackled with tension. Behind him, a hundred Praetorian hands rested on the hilts of their swords.
"Lycomedes," Marcus said, his voice a low, deadly growl. "I made you. I can unmake you. I gave you a purpose. I can take it away, and your life with it. Step aside, or I will walk through you."
Before Lycomedes could answer, before the first blade could be drawn, Lucilla appeared in the doorway behind them. She was a vision of calm and serenity in the midst of a brewing storm.
"Brother," she said, her voice laced with a sad, gentle disappointment. "Such anger. Such passion. It is not good for your humors. You will make yourself unwell."
She had him. She had laid the perfect trap. If he used force now, against the holy guardians of his own Oracle, he was the tyrant. The madman she had always claimed him to be. If he backed down, he was a weakling, an Emperor who could not command his own palace. He was politically checkmated.
Just as the standoff reached its absolute breaking point, a new sound echoed down the hall. The frantic, desperate slap of sandals on marble.
A rider, still wearing the dust and blood of the road, burst into their midst. He was a Decurion from the northern outpost. He had ridden his horse to death to get here. He fell to his knees before Marcus, ignoring the Praetorians, the fanatics, and the Empress-in-waiting.
He held up a small, blood-stained silver message tube.
"From the Alps, Caesar!" he gasped, his voice raw with exhaustion and grief. "An urgent dispatch! Our Centurion… he died to get this to you."
Marcus took the tube. His hands were steady. The fury in his eyes was replaced by a cold, absolute focus.
In front of Lucilla, in front of Lycomedes, in front of the two armies ready to tear each other apart, he unrolled the tiny, blood-smeared scrap of parchment.
He read Crixus's desperate warning aloud, his voice clear and cold.
"Civil War. Legions in the north have turned. Trust no one."
The news was a bombshell. A wave of shock and horror rippled through the Praetorians. This was not a barbarian invasion. This was the ultimate betrayal.
But Lucilla did not look shocked. She did not look surprised. She looked… vindicated. A slow, sad, knowing smile touched her lips. She turned to Lycomedes, her voice ringing with the clarity of a prophetess who had just seen her darkest fears confirmed.
"You see?" she cried. "The Oracle's vision was true! A serpent in our very midst, poisoning the heart of the Empire from within!" She was twisting the news, masterfully using the national crisis to validate Marcia's (and by extension, her own) power.
At that exact moment, another figure appeared in the doorway behind Lucilla.
It was Marcia.
She looked pale, frail, but her eyes were clear and full of a terrible, newfound certainty. In her hand, hidden in the folds of her robes, she clutched the tiny, secret note from Orestes. A note that had contained only three words.
Sextus Pompey. Lucilla.
The connection, the final piece of the puzzle, had clicked into place with horrifying clarity. The civil war in the north. The pirate king in the south. They weren't two separate crises. They were two fronts in the same war. Her war.
Marcia's voice, though quiet, cut through the tension like a sharpened blade. It was not the voice of a frail patient. It was not the voice of a divine Oracle. It was the voice of a witness delivering a final, damning testimony.
"The Oracle," she said, her gaze locked not on Marcus, but on the suddenly still form of Lucilla, "has had another vision."
She took a step forward. "The great serpent in the north… it has a sister here in Rome. A sister who has promised our Egyptian grain fleets to the pirate Sextus Pompey. An offering, in exchange for his help when she makes her own bid for the throne in the coming war."
A stunned, absolute silence fell over the corridor.
Marcus turned, slowly, to look at his sister. The raw, hot fury in his eyes was gone. It had been burned away, replaced by something new. Something cold, and quiet, and utterly, murderously final.
He finally saw the true shape of the enemy he had been fighting all along.