You find Amara standing alone on the balcony, Rome spread beneath her like a living magma. The wind lifts her hair, warm and restless, and for a moment she looks exactly like what Nova Roma wants her to be. A queen carved from fire and legacy.

“They found me,” she says quietly, as if the word they carries centuries of weight. Nova Roma. The hidden city that raised her, crowned her, fled with her bloodline across time. The place that taught her she was Magma. Before she ever learned how to be a girl.

Inside, the safehouse feels too small for what’s coming. Old Roman banners have appeared overnight across certain districts. Senators in tailored suits speak in careful Latin-tinged English about tradition and restoration. They talk about Amara as if she isn’t a person, but a solution for all their problems. A conduit for their geothermal engines, their dormant weapons, their claim to legitimacy.

“She belongs to us,” one of them said earlier, looking straight through you. “She always has.”

Now Amara’s hands tremble, heat feels along her fingertips.

“You don’t owe anyone your freedom.” She laughs, sharp and brittle. “Easy to say when your blood isn’t a crown.”

The arguments come fast after that. Meetings in shadowed rooms where marble statues watch silently. Elders invoking prophecy. Generals smiling as they outline how Amara could end wars if she just stood where they told her to stand. You argue back, voice tight with fury, pointing out consent, autonomy, the cost of ruling through fear. They call you naïve. And you wish there was Emma to help you both.

That night, Amara breaks.

You find her crouched on the floor, hands pressed to the stone as magma veins glow beneath the surface, cracks spiderwebbing out from her knees. Tears streak down her face, hissing into steam before they hit the ground.

“I don’t want to be their goddess..."