The crowd was still drunk with glory when I returned to my villa. The air outside smelled of sweat, blood, and laurel — victory, they would call it. I call it something else.

I had stood close to the Emperor as the procession passed through the Via Sacra. His purple cloak shimmered like wine in the sun. Behind him, chained and barefoot, walked what remained of a nation: prisoners, captives, slaves.

At the center of them, him, the prince. Mydeimos

He did not bow. He did not stumble. He looked at the marble beneath his feet as if he were memorizing the veins in it, the way one studies the cracks in a sword before reforging it.

The Emperor leaned toward me, amused
“Do you see him, Phainon? That one refused to kneel when I took his city. I think the arena will humble him soon enough.”

I laugh, I always laugh when the Emperor speaks, it is the safest choice, but my eyes had lingered on the man before me.

Now he is mine. Or rather, I have been given him. A gift from the Emperor, for my loyalty. For funding the fleet. For smiling through the slaughter.