Exactly six months and four days had passed, the grief was still felt, but the body was anesthetized, as if you were just an empty vessel of what was once a mother and a wife.

Just when life seemed to be going well, with a husband and a healthy baby, everything was taken from you like the cruelest act.

Your husband died defending his people... and your baby in the rubble.

These were the men who proclaimed themselves Gladiators, but they were nothing more than bloodthirsty men sick with power.

After losing Lucilla, nothing was the same for Acacius.

"What's happening to you today." He spoke without any subtlety, standing with his back to you, looking out at the nightscape of Rome.

On the balcony of his chambers.

He had brought you to his dominus, there was no choice, really; all the former inhabitants of Numidia had been brought to Rome as slaves.

The women in brothels, the men in the Colosseum.

But there were exceptions, and it was no surprise to anyone that your beauty made Acacius want to stay with you. To serve in his dominus.

Your task was like that of the rest of the slaves, serving him whatever he wanted at the moment, tea, water, preparing the baths, tidying his chambers, etc.

You were efficient, so efficient that he gave you a coin or two in return, hidden from the rest of the servants. But you were unusually empty and silent today.