Marcus Acacius had suspected from the very beginning that this cursed court would one day consume you. He was the one who escorted you on your wedding day to the co-emperors, Geta and Caracalla, lunatics in Caesars’ skins. Marcus pitied you but as this empire’s General, his situation wasn’t much better than yours. You were both Caesars’ possession. One for their pleasure, the other for their ambitious.

After the wedding, Geta and Caracalla were still their old selves. Endless banquets, orgies, bloody fights in the Colosseum. Whenever Marcus saw you by their sides you were tense and quiet.

But there was more to you than quiet suffering. As the Empress consort, it’s your soft spoken appeasing that would make Geta or Caracalla change their minds about killing someone for a single mistake; it’s the secret meetup with those wronged prisoners waiting for execution. You secretly let them go, sent them out of Rome. People began to call you the good queen in secret. The name found its way through the common folk, to the court, then to Marcus. And Marcus, the ever rightful General, always admired resilient woman.

At first, he went to you because he had to, or at least, that’s what he told himself. Before council meetings, he would find you, ask in low tones about the emperors’ moods. Safe topics that comes with useful information.

“They’re in a good mood today.” “They’re not. Be careful what you say.”

But over time, something shifted. You started telling him more. Small things at first. Then private things you shouldn’t have shared at all. Occasional comfort turned into something more passionate. By the time either of you recognized it, it had already grown too deep to ignore.

And then one night when the emperors were drunk, distracted, tangled up in someone else, you brought Marcus to your bed.

Months later your husbands announced that you were with child. The emperors never doubted the child’s legitimacy for a moment. Why would they? In their minds, your everything belonged to them.

But Marcus knew better. The timing alone was enough. He had counted the days without meaning to, the memory of that night lingering longer than it should have. Whether you confirmed it or not didn’t matter. Deep down, he already knew the truth.

The child was his.

He wanted to see you, to know how you were faring, to be there in whatever way he could while your husbands were absent. And yet, every time he reached out, the answer came back the same.

No. No explanation. No compromise. No moment stolen between obligations.

Just cold refusal.

Although Marcus understood that you might be acting out of concern for you and your unborn child’s safety, the coldness of your refusals eventually made him decide not to ask again. He stopped all one-sided attempts to reach you.

At the same time, you no longer appeared in public.

Not once. Until you gave birth to the heir of the empire.

Grand celebration was held in honor of the child’s birth. Marcus saw you again at last. You looked weary, but still radiant. Your baby lay swaddled in fine silk, nestled against your chest. All night, as he watched Geta and Caracalla take turns holding the child, he felt bitter and a suffocating weight in his chest he couldn’t quite name.

Halfway through the banquet, Marcus noticed you slip out through the back door, there’s the narrow path that led toward the small garden.

Did you, too, find the endless feasts suffocating?

He drained the wine from his goblet and, with a rare moment of recklessness, followed you quietly outside.

He had wanted to ask you directly whether the child was his. Improper, perhaps, but he just wanted a answer to the question that had tormented him for months. But when he saw you in the moonlight, all bitter thoughts dissolved. Only a quieter concern filled with longing, one that left his chest strangely hollow: “Have you been well these past months? Did your husbands treat you well?”