Marcia stood on her balcony, the cold morning wind whipping her hair across her face. Below, the streets of Rome were a river of iron.
The Praetorian Guard, five thousand strong, was forming up. Their armor gleamed dully in the early light, a forest of crimson crests and polished steel. It was a magnificent sight, the pinnacle of Roman military might. But to Marcia, it looked like a funeral procession.
She felt like a widow before the first arrow had even been loosed.
The heavy doors to her chamber opened. The zealot guards, usually immovable statues, stepped aside instantly. They sensed the shift in the air, the arrival of a power greater than their own fanaticism.
Marcus entered. He wore the full battle armor of an Imperator. The gold-inlaid breastplate, the purple cloak, the heavy gladius at his hip. He looked like a god of war. But his eyes were the eyes of a drowning man.
Marcia didn't turn around. She kept her gaze fixed on the assembling army below.
"I have to go," Marcus said. His voice was rough, stripped of all imperial pretense. "If I stay, we die here. Trapped in this palace while they close the noose. If I go… I might stop them."
"You made me a goddess, Marcus," she whispered to the wind. "You put me on a pedestal so high I can't breathe. And now you leave me alone on the altar."
She turned to face him. Her eyes were dry, but they held a depth of pain that cut him deeper than any blade. "Who will protect the Oracle when her god is gone?"
Marcus walked to her. He didn't try to touch her. He knew he had lost that right. He reached up and unclasped his cloak, letting it fall to the floor. He was just a man in armor now.
"I didn't do it to use you," he said, the words rushing out, desperate. "I did it because it was the only way to keep them from killing you. I'm not a god, Marcia. I never was. I'm just a man drowning in history, trying to keep your head above water."
He reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a heavy gold ring. It wasn't his signet ring. It was new. It bore the image of a phoenix rising from flames.
"I cannot leave a legion to protect you," he said, his voice steady. "I need every sword in the north. So I am leaving you the only army I have left."
He took her hand. She didn't pull away this time. He pressed the ring into her palm.
"This is the seal of the Regent," he said. "Use it."
He turned to the door and shouted, "Lycomedes!"
The giant zealot entered, his eyes downcast, humble before the Emperor's wrath.
"I go to fight the darkness in the north," Marcus announced, his voice booming so that every guard in the corridor could hear. "I leave the Oracle here as the light of Rome."
He pointed a finger at Lycomedes. "Hear me, and hear me well. Your cult is no longer a mob. It is no longer a movement. From this moment, it is her personal guard. The Praetorians answer to Titus. You answer only to her."
Lycomedes looked up, his eyes widening.
"If she bleeds, you bleed," Marcus commanded, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper. "If she falls, you die. If she dies, Rome burns. Do you understand?"
"We hear the divine will," Lycomedes breathed, falling to his knees. "We are her shield."
Marcus had effectively deputized a violent, fanatical street gang and given them state authority. It was a dangerous, desperate move. But it ensured that no senator, no assassin, and certainly no vengeful sister could touch her while he was gone.
Marcia looked at the kneeling zealot, then at the heavy gold ring in her hand. She wasn't just an Oracle anymore. She was a warlord. The Queen of Ashes.
Marcus mounted his horse in the courtyard. The trumpets sounded, a mournful, brassy cry that echoed off the seven hills.
"Forward!" he roared.
The army moved. The ground shook. Five thousand Praetorians and two thousand loyal urban cohorts marched out of the gates of Rome. The sun glinted off thousands of helmets, a river of steel flowing north to meet the storm.
The citizens lining the streets watched in silence. There were no cheers. No flowers. They knew what this was. This wasn't a campaign of conquest. It was a death march.
Marcus looked back at the palace one last time. He saw a small figure on a high balcony, watching him go. He had left his heart in a cage of fanatics and his sister in a dungeon. He was riding toward a genius who knew the future and a general who had never lost.
He turned his face to the north. The die was cast.
Three days later, they were deep in the Italian countryside. The army was moving fast, eating up the miles on the Via Flaminia.
It was night. Marcus sat in his command tent, the glow of the laptop screen illuminating his face in the darkness. He was reviewing the strategic map, a digital overlay of the terrain.
Suddenly, the screen flashed red.
ALERT, JARVIS's voice cut through the silence of his mind. ANOMALY DETECTED IN LEGION MOVEMENTS.
Marcus leaned in. "Show me."
The screen zoomed out. It showed the positions of the "loyal" legions Marcus had summoned to meet him in the north—the Fourth and the Tenth. They were supposed to be digging in, establishing a defensive line to hold Valerius until Marcus arrived.
But the dots on the screen were moving. And the math was wrong.
CALCULATING VELOCITY, JARVIS reported. THEY ARE MOVING AT FORCED MARCH SPEEDS. SOUTHBOUND.
Marcus felt a cold hand clutch his heart. "Southbound? They're retreating?"
NEGATIVE, the AI whispered. THEY ARE MOVING IN ATTACK FORMATION. INTERCEPT VECTORS CONFIRMED.
The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow. They weren't running away from Valerius. They were running towards Marcus.
"They aren't coming to join me," he whispered, horror dawning. "They're coming to crush me."
On the screen, the blue dots representing his allies flickered and turned a bright, angry red.
The trap hadn't been set in the mountains. It hadn't been waiting for him in the snow. The trap had been sprung the moment he left the safety of Rome's walls.
He wasn't marching an army to war. He was marching seven thousand men into a kill box set by forty thousand traitors. He was completely, utterly alone.
He stared at the glowing screen, the red tide closing in on his solitary position.
The trap didn't snap shut in the north, he thought, a terrible calm settling over him. It snapped shut the moment I left Rome.