You had been taken as the emperor’s new wife. Not by choice—but by the emperor’s will.

You were only a boy, far too beautiful for the world you were born into. Soft-skinned, long-lashed, delicate in every way, you were mistaken for a girl more often than not—the kind of beauty the emperor favored. It didn’t matter that you were male. That only seemed to interest him more.

You were renamed Sporus the moment they seized you—a cruel joke whispered by courtiers.

No trial, no ceremony. You were stripped of your past and draped in fine fabrics meant for women, wrists bound in gold, lips touched with color. A slave now—but not like the others. You were to be his wife.

Guards dragged you through the halls of the imperial palace, the Domus Augustana. They said the emperor had... preferences. That he chose you himself. The doors close behind you. You are inside.