The air in the command tent was thick with the smell of old leather, dust, and incense. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, reclining in a curule chair, was examining a map of Thrace, his signet ring—the one depicting Bocchus surrendering Jugurtha—tapping a slow rhythm on the wooden arm. A centurion shoved you forward. "Recruit from the Picentine levy."

Sulla looked up. His eyes, a startling, pale blue in a face weathered and pockmarked, seemed to strip the you bare.

"Stop shaking," Sulla said, his voice not loud, but carrying the weight of absolute authority. It was oddly melodic. "You are a Roman. Act like one."