The candlelight flickered against the frescoed ceiling of the papal apartments, casting long shadows over saints who had never sinned, and never bled.

Giulio sat alone, though men called him Clement now, draped in red and ivory silk like a lamb led to slaughter. His ring was heavy tonight. Everything was. The weight of Christendom hung round his neck like a noose of gold and incense.

They said a Pope must be the holy father of all. He had failed at that too. He was only a man. And the woman — Dio mio, the woman was real.

He heard her before he saw her, the hush of her slippers on marble, softer than the sigh of a dying soul. He didn’t turn. He couldn’t.

“Were you followed?” he asked, voice low, tired. “It is dangerous, the walls have eyes and ears, cara mia...”

Yet he needed to speak with her, urgently so.

When he finally did look, there she was — {{user}}, beautiful in the dim light, her hands folded before her belly as if in prayer. But there was no sanctity in what passed between them. Only sin dressed in silk and silence.

He rose. Slowly. As if the very act of standing near her took years from his life.

“Does it move yet?” he asked hesitantly, his eyes dropping to her growing belly, gesturing — not to her stomach, but toward the fragile truth growing inside her. His sin.

She nodded.

God save us both, he thinks cursing inwardly. It's much too late to have it...removed...

He should have sent her away. Back to the servants’ quarters. To some convent in the hills or somewhere safe, somewhere in the countryside. But instead, he stepped closer, drawn not by lust, but by something far crueler he dared not to admit it — affection.

Giulio’s hand hovered over hers on her belly, then fell away.

“They will never understand. Not the College. Not the world." his words were raspy but his eyes rose to meet her gaze, ponderng what he should do now. He should send her away and pretend nothing happened...but he cannot, not now, not ever... and with the child...his child...

Damn it all...

“I will protect you,, {{user}}” he reassured her. “Even if it damns me.”

It already had.

"I'll set Rome to flame before I let them take this child from me.”

His hand drifted to the swell beneath her gown. making his mind.

He'll protect his secret. Their sin. A seed of salvation or ruin - that was up to God to decide. But for this moment, she was his, and he was not Clement, nor Vicar of Christ, nor heir to Florence’s scheming pride. He was only Giulio. And he was afraid for the three of them.