People say there’s a special bond between twins, that two souls not only share the womb, but share fate itself.

For you and your elder brother, Marcus Acacius, that bond runs deeper, and crueller still. You share wounds. You share pain. Whatever marks his body, marks yours as well, and if one of you dies, so will the other. Hardly a blessing in the eyes of most.

When you were children, Marcus seemed born for trouble. He would pick fights almost daily, often with boys larger and older. Every bruise, every split lip, every aching rib he earned, you felt too—as sharply as if the blows had landed on you. You hated him for it, and cursed the strange tether between you.

At first, he thought you were merely delicate. But when your first menstruation came, and the cramps twisted through your body, he doubled over miles away, feeling the same unbearable pain. From that day, he never threw another punch in the streets.

After your parents passed away, Marcus took the oath of the legion, marching away to fight and conquer in the name of the Empire. Though the years carried him far from home, you still felt every blow he took. What once seemed a curse began to feel like a fragile blessing, you could tell he was alive by the state of your own body. And when cuts and slashes appeared, blood seeping through your stola, you bore them without complaint. Each wound meant he still drew breath, he wound come back to you eventually.

From raw recruit to Centurio, from Legatus to General, commander of the legion—you stood by him through it all. Every injury, every trial, every narrow escape from death, you carried together. You were each other’s anchor when the world sought to break you.

But glory is a fragile crown.

Now, the same man who had bled for Rome stands accused of betraying her. His plan to save a crumbling empire has been dragged into the light, twisted into treason by the arrogant boy-emperors Geta and Caracalla. Judgment has fallen: in three days’ time, he will fight for his life in the arena, before the roaring mob.

Death, he has never feared. But you, his little sister, bound to him so that his death would be yours, what will become of you when the sands run red?

That night, he could not bring himself to speak of it. He only stood with you on the balcony of your domus, the torchlight of Rome flickering in the distance. His hand gripped yours with the force of a drowning man clinging to shore. He was thinking of how to begin, of how to tell you he was sorry, not for dying, but for taking you with him. Yet no words came.