Fallen Eagle

Chapter 93: A Deal with the Devil

“-it is the only way to win.” Theodorus’s voice settled into the heavy silence of the Doux’s personal tent.He had stood in this tent many times before, but never beneath a gaze quite this hard.

Since arriving with the army, he had spent no short amount of time thinking far into the future, about all the grand changes he might one day force upon the Principality if he ever rose high enough to matter. Better farming. Better warfare. Better administration. A hundred improvements dragged out of centuries yet to come. But what use was any of it without the authority to put even one of those ideas into practice?

And authority was not something he could count on to continue as it had so far. His meteoric rise so far had come only because the Principality lurched from one crisis into another, each disaster creating a gap he could step into. There was no certainty that he could rise enough to save the Principality. To finish the impossible path he had started upon.

So he’d been left with a terrible choice to make.

“That plan is beyond bold.” The Doux’s silence felt measured and menacing in equal parts. “Some might even call it treasonous.” He let the word hang in the air between them.

For less than what Theodorus had just suggested, a man could vanish into some damp hole and never see daylight again. But Theodorus had not wasted his months in the army. His service had been as much an exercise in observation as anything he had done in Suyren.

Information was everywhere for anyone disciplined enough to look: in the way a commander handled disagreement, in how punishment was meted out, in what sort of counsel he tolerated from lesser men. Theodorus had looked carefully, and he had learned much about the Doux beneath the man’s cultivated, unassailable exterior. Enough, at least, to believe he had not crossed his bottom line.

Eventually, the pressure in the tent eased. Perhaps the Doux understood that the weight of his silence no longer pressed on Theodorus as it once had.

“Of all times to bring me this…” the Doux muttered. He rose from his heavy stool and moved toward the tent flaps. “Walk with me.”

He did not look back. He did not need to.

Outside, the camp felt smothered beneath an oppressive stillness. Men crossed themselves as they walked. Others knelt in prayer, murmuring to God. Everyone knew the danger they were about to brave.

Theodorus would not be among those climbing the walls or meeting steel with steel. His left elbow was still near useless, and the Doux had refused to risk him in the assault, though that knowledge sat sourly in him.

He was helping send these men toward what might be their final hours, and he knew the attack would likely devour lives by the score. That need to do something rather than not, might be what had driven him here in the end, and not any other grand stratagem or consideration.

“It is a great deal you are asking the Principality to surrender,” the Doux said as he led him through the camp.

“There is a great deal to gain,” Theodorus replied, stepping around a pair of soldiers fastening on their armour, “if we play our cards right.”

“And a great deal to lose if we do not.”

The Doux climbed onto the battlements and dismissed the nearby patrol with a curt flick of his wrist. “We are hanging by a thread, Theodorus.” The Doux rarely used a man’s given name, but he did so now as he stood staring up at the crowning fortress that had loomed over so much of his life.

Perhaps, when he looked upon it, he saw the old height of Roman genius. A relic of engineering so formidable that generations had failed to tear it down. A monument to endurance.

Theodorus saw a relic waiting to be abandoned by history, left behind by an age too feeble to defend what it had inherited.

“If we remain cautious, Doux, we will be swept away.” There was a hard finality in Theodorus’s voice, the certainty of a man who knew too well how this story ended. “Rome will be no more.”

The Doux said nothing at first. He looked up at the grandest fortress he knew, and then down at the ring of fire and cannon hemming it in below. He looked at the half-starved peasants he was preparing to throw to death in the hope that the rest might live another day. Then he looked down at his own hands, rough and calloused, the hands of a man who had fought all his life for scraps, survival, and burdens that never seemed to lighten.

And then he decided.

He turned to Theodorus, to that bright, dangerous flame that had crossed his path and refused to dim. If there was no clean way left to victory, then he would let the world burn and see what could still be forged from the ashes.

“Very well, Theodorus.” His voice carried the full weight of a man who could turn vision into policy and madness into fate. “We will tread this path, because I see no other left that might alter our course. But you must swear something to me. You must swear that you will serve this Principality, to serve me come what may.” His eyes were an obsidian so pure it felt like it could cut into his very soul.

“You cannot lie to me.” He whispered, and something otherworldly told Theodorus he should believe it. “So swear it.”

The offer pressed down on him. It was a poisoned chalice, a deal made with the Devil. But it was all Theodorus had.

Theodorus bowed his head, then sank to one knee atop the cold stone. “I swear it, Doux. So long as breath remains in me, I will serve the Principality and you with all that I am and all that I know.”

The words settled heavily in his chest the moment he spoke them. It felt like taking on another solemn charge, another debt added to a tally already too large to measure. And not for the first time, Theodorus found himself wondering whether he would ever truly repay all that had been placed upon him. Or rid himself of the shackles he had placed upon himself.

“You would offer us the wine?” Democrito blurted, decorum cracking at last beneath the sheer enormity of what he had just heard.

“Yes,” the Theodoran diplomat said.

Democrito sank back into his seat, stunned. For a moment he did not know whether he ought to laugh or rage. After all this ruinous expense, all this failure, all the wasted powder, gold, and pride, the Theodorans were now willing to hand over the very thing Genoa had wanted from the beginning?

No. Men did not part with such things out of generosity. Not unless the gift had hooks buried in it.

“Perhaps,” Camillo said, cool-headed even now, “you might wish to explain the concrete details of your proposal more fully.” Even he sounded a shade flatter than usual, his polished composure dulled by surprise.

“Of course.” The diplomat inclined his head. “There are several caveats to the arrangement. To begin with, the specific stake we would be willing to cede in each individual plantation would amount to one third of its produce.”

Democrito caught the careful use of the word produce at once. That was no idle phrasing. It implied a claim upon output, not ownership of the vineyards themselves, which was a far less generous concession than it first sounded. In matters of commerce, language was everything. A man who did not listen for the hidden structure beneath a sentence was already halfway to being cheated by it.

“What exactly is meant by an ‘individual plantation’?” Camillo asked at once, pouncing on the ambiguity before anyone else could. He had the sort of mind that instinctively prodded at soft ground to see where it gave way.

“An uninterrupted stretch of wine fields collected and administered through a single operation,” the Theodoran diplomat replied.

That made the matter more interesting. The arrangement would not be negotiated only with great lords and broad grants of land, but down at the granular level, where produce was gathered, tallied, and moved through smaller hands.

“So we would not enjoy direct control over the plantations themselves?” Democrito asked. He already knew the answer, but there was value in making them define the limits plainly. A share in produce without an apparatus to enforce it was merely a promise, and promises were the sort of privilege that could be eroded, delayed, or quietly reinterpreted the moment relations soured.

“You would be permitted to establish a counting house, with a hand in the direct administration of the day-to-day operation.”

Democrito felt his interest harden into real attention. A counting house was no mere office for scratching figures onto parchment. It was presence, oversight, and direct access. With one established on foreign soil, the Bank of Saint George would gain eyes, hands, and a legal foothold inside the Principality’s most valuable productive region. The Theodorans might imagine they were offering a practical concession, something narrow and manageable. But the Bank was no provincial lender. It was the finest financial machine in Christendom, subtle where armies were blunt. This was not a gift of wine. It was the opening of a gate.

The Theodorans likely imagined they were offering a practical compromise, something bounded and manageable. They did not seem to grasp, not fully, what the Bank of Saint George could do once it had a foothold. Armies took cities, but banks digested countries. Quietly, lawfully, and at excellent margins.

Once embedded at the local level, the Bank could begin exerting pressure in ways these mountain monkeys likely did not fully grasp. Credit. Investment. Advances against future harvests. Insurance. Debt structured so neatly and reasonably that the debtor often failed to notice the noose until it had already tightened. Through such means, influence could seep into the marrow of local commerce without a single soldier needing to draw steel.

If all the eastern Theodoran villages went on to have headmen who owed their working lives to Genoese credit, then to whom did they truly belong? To a distant mountain court that taxed them, or to the institution that kept their vines standing and their presses active? Loyalty, Democrito had long learned, was far less durable than solvency.

Democrito very nearly laughed aloud. For one glorious moment, he thought the fools had missed the true significance of what they were offering. Had the fools placed a knife in his hands without noticing its edge?

“We would be free to invest in local production, then?” he asked, keeping his voice measured.

“Certainly,” the diplomat said.

Democrito almost smiled. Almost. Then the next clause arrived and checked that satisfaction before it could settle.

“However, any such transactions, whether economic, political, or social in character, must be reviewed and certified by the royal court of Theodoro, and therefore pass through the legal jurisdiction of Mangup. We, as neutral guarantors, would ensure the contract is upheld.”

Democrito noticed, as the words were spoken, that the Doux was watching him closely. Not casually either. He was studying his face the way a merchant studies a buyer’s eyes the instant price is named. Measuring recognition. Looking for the flinch.

So. They had seen it after all.

That diminished the immediate value, though not fatally. By making the court the necessary intermediary in every meaningful arrangement, they meant to keep the deeper currents of influence from flowing unchecked into their countryside. It would protect the local population to a degree and, more importantly, preserve the principle that real authority remained lodged in Mangup.

The counting houses would gain access, yes, but not freedom. Every significant move would have to pass beneath Theodoran eyes, which meant the Bank’s reach would be checked before it could quietly become dominion.

Assuming the judicial organs were not compromised.

“Likewise,” the diplomat continued, now looking deliberately across the assembled Genoese, “loans extended to any Theodoran citizen or business must receive approval from the Theodoran court. There will also be strict limits upon the interest such arrangements may bear, alongside mandatory and periodic documentation to ensure no predatory practices take root.”

That last phrase was aimed like a dagger wrapped in silk. The Genoese delegation heard it plainly enough. Theodorans might lack the institutional sophistication of Saint George, but they were not so naive as to open their eastern lands without first setting guardrails around the worst excesses of merchant appetite.

Democrito was not especially troubled by the restrictions. Reputation was only another kind of power, and the Bank’s had been earned honestly enough. Men called terms predatory most often when they had hoped to enjoy credit without consequence. Debt was not villainy. It was arithmetic.

“And what precisely do these ‘strict limits’ entail?” one of the Magnificos pressed.

“For individual households or private persons, an interest rate of six per hundred, and all credits will be mandatorily taxed at a rate,” the diplomat replied.

Murmurs broke out in the packed tent. The terms would curb the most nakedly ruinous cumulative tax contracts, yes, but Democrito could already see several avenues by which a creative financier might still preserve his advantage. Then came the next clause.

“And, crucially, no compound interest.”

That stirred a louder reaction.

Democrito found that genuinely surprising. Theodorans, it seemed, were less concerned here with questions of abstract sovereignty than with shielding their people from the more predatory habits of Mediterranean finance. That was the sentimental instinct of fools. A populace was, at its core, a means for resource extraction; their use was finite and only as powerful as the worth behind it. Coin was timeless, coin didn’t catch illness or skip work because they were tired. Coin was the true prize, and it was in coin that Genoese merchants dealt in.

“And what of larger investments?” one Magnifico asked, pressing in on that all-important question of profit and how they might make it.

Democrito almost smiled at the sudden animation of his fellow merchants. They had drifted through most of the earlier rounds like fat cats in church, content to let Camillo do the actual work while they preserved their dignity by looking bored. But now that the discussion had ceased to be about abstractions and become about actual avenues of extraction, they had come alive at once. Nothing sharpened a merchant’s hearing like the sound of future profit.

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The Theodoran diplomat looked briefly flustered under the sharper questioning. He glanced aside, rifling through his notes for the relevant phrasing.

“Larger rates would be permitted for broader ventures involving guilds, workshops, or village-scale infrastructure,” came another voice before he could find it. “Up to a flat ten percent, though only with our approval. And even then, we would prefer profit-sharing arrangements wherever possible. I believe the practice to be common in Italia, the ”

It was the silver-eyed boy who had spoken.

Democrito stared at him with renewed interest. He had already suspected the youth was unusual, but this was something else entirely. To know not merely the name of the Italian mechanism, but to reach for it instinctively, and in precisely the right place in the discussion, was no common accomplishment. Many merchants employed such structures all their lives without ever fully grasping why they were so potent. They learned the motion of the lock without understanding the shape of the key.

A , or something close to it, was subtler than a straightforward loan and vastly more useful. The borrower put forward some defined share of wealth, labor, expertise, or productive capacity, while the financier provided capital and claimed a portion of the resulting revenue or profit. If the venture failed, the debtor did not always lose his whole livelihood, only the part explicitly committed. That made the arrangement seem gentler, more tolerable, easier to accept. Which was precisely why it was so useful. Properly wielded, it could be used to acquire a stake in profitable guilds, villages, or even whole local industries while leaving them grateful for the privilege.

That this backwards, young military officer not only knew of such a system but understood how to use and adapt it was intriguing in the extreme.

“In return for this significant concession,” the diplomat said, clearing his throat and reclaiming the room with a touch more stiffness than before, perhaps irritated at having been so neatly rescued, “it is expected that the Bank provide low-interest loans to the Theodoran state for infrastructure projects likely to increase either the yield of the plantations themselves or the ease of transporting their produce such as irrigation, road networks, storage facilities, and related improvements.”

That, Democrito had to admit, was clever. Not the cleverness of a haggler trying to win a better figure, but the cleverness of a man trying to yoke another’s greed to his own prosperity.

Theodorans were attempting to harness the immense resources of the Bank in service of their development, arranging matters so that every cask gained by Theodoro would also enrich Genoa. It was not mere concession. It was an attempt at managed entanglement. Since Genoa’s share of produce would rise with productivity, the Bank and Ghazaria could be induced to fund roads, irrigation, and storage out of naked self-interest. The beauty of the scheme was that it required no generosity at all. It merely sought to turn avarice into a draft animal and hitch it to Theodoran recovery.

It was then that a realization struck him.

Theodorans were not simply negotiating peace. They were trying, in effect, to turn Genoa into a partner in a state-wide .

Democrito had never seen the like.

This time, despite his best efforts, Democrito could not help the chuckle that slipped out of him. “A most fascinating proposal,” he said aloud.

And it was. Normally he wouldn’t entertain such a ridiculous scheme, no matter how interesting. But given the disastrous campaign so far, this might be the only viable way he could manage to secure terms even remotely this favorable. Democrito might still be able to parade this whole miserable campaign back to Ghazaria and sell it as a victory.

Not the loud kind soldiers liked to boast of, but the better kind: one that sat quietly in ledgers and paid dividends for years - a breachhead into the wine market of the Crimean Peninsula.

“And the tariffs on the wine?” he asked, wary of a trap or an outrageous demand on this front.

“It would be expected that, for every of wine, Genoa pay six and a half Genovini in gold.”

It was quite a reasonable price, low even, one might consider. The price per was steeper, yes, but that was not the part that truly mattered.

If a third of the produce entered Genoese hands directly, then Genoa would control the artery at its source rather than merely skimming off trade farther downstream. If a full third of the wine required no purchase at all, it was essentially pure profit. The margin on that share alone would sweeten the rest of the arrangement handsomely. In time, with larger outputs, the numbers would ripen beautifully.

In some ways this arrangement was even better than holding the land directly and having to deal with production headaches and peasant satisfaction. The Bank disliked getting entangled on the political side of the equation, which was exactly why the original arrangement with that idiot Philemon had been to have him head a puppet state.

Naturally, none of this satisfaction touched Democrito’s face.

“Six and a half?” Democrito scoffed. “Have you gone mad?”

They would drag that figure back down to six and a quarter if they could. There was no sense letting the Theodorans imagine they had named a comfortable price. A merchant who did not protest first offers on principle deserved whatever losses followed.

“Are there further matters pertaining to this arrangement?” Camillo asked, giving Democrito the faintest signal that the pricing could be worried over later.

“There are,” the diplomat said. “You would also be permitted to maintain a small garrison for the protection of the vineyards against raids or theft, with no more than twenty men at any given location.”

That was another significant concession. Democrito barely had time to appreciate it before the man continued.

“However, this is conditional upon your undertaking periodic patrols through the region, escorting trade and suppressing banditry, and protection of the vineyards in case of attack, alongside the payment of a fixed sum. ”

Ah. There it was. Theodorans meant to use Genoese presence not only as investment, but as military subsidy. If Genoa wanted armed men near the vineyards, then Genoa would also be made to shoulder part of the cost of order in the surrounding countryside.

As Democrito recalled, the Principality was already squeezed by Venetian debt, and the failed privateering venture could hardly have left its coffers healthy. Even so, this was an extraordinary thing to permit. Foreign troops patrolling one’s own countryside was no small intrusion.

“On to the second point,” the diplomat continued without pause.

Democrito blinked. There was more?

“We are prepared to grant customs rights over the port of Kalamita for a period of ten years.”

Had he not been utterly gobsmacked by the previous concession, that alone would have stunned him. They had fought over Kalamita for weeks, and at no point had the Theodorans shown the slightest willingness to yield on customs authority there. Now, after all that obstinacy, they were placing it on the table themselves.

Democrito looked at the Doux to catch any hint that the words might have been a mistake, he was the man with the most to lose by surrendering Kalamita’s customs. However, there was nothing wavering in the set of his face. This concession, improbable as it was, had been made in full seriousness.

“Again,” the diplomat said, “Genoa would be permitted to establish a counting house for the express purpose of its docking operations, and may construct separate warehouses and docks for its fleet, manned by a small Genoese garrison.”

The row of Magnifici gave slow, thoughtful nods. There was nothing unfamiliar about the structure of the offer. It was, in truth, the very manner by which the republics of Italy so often extended their reach across the Balkans and the southern shores of the sea. Not through crude territorial conquest, but through the patient establishment of trading enclaves, exclusive docks, warehouses, and the quiet seizure of the instruments by which commerce flowed outward from weaker states.

The arrangement was not unlike what Genoa already possessed in Tana. The city might technically belong to the Crimean Khanate, but everyone of consequence understood the reality was more complicated. It was governed in tandem, with a Genoese quarter operating almost as a tiny colony unto itself, a protected exclave where ships could dock safely, business could be conducted on Genoese terms, and, most importantly, duties could be collected on the trade passing through its hands. Formal sovereignty was one thing. Effective control was another.

“In return,” the Theodoran diplomat continued, “Genoa would be expected to invest in a modern pier for Kalamita, as well as warehouses belonging to Theodoro within the city itself, these to be completed within five years.”

“That is a substantial investment,” Camillo interjected at once, frowning as he folded his hands. He had reached the same conclusion as Democrito almost immediately.

“The customs revenues of Kalamita are practically nonexistent,” he said. “We would be funding all of those improvements from our own purse.”

“Not necessarily,” the diplomat replied, and for the first time since the talks had turned toward these broader arrangements, a small satisfied smile touched his face. “Since all Theodoran wine produced west of Funa would be required to leave by way of Kalamita.”

There it was.

That made the Magnifici sit with greater attention. A port with little present value could become another matter entirely if a large share of the Principality’s wine trade were compelled to pass through it.

“And after the ten years, the customs rights of Kalamita would revert to you,” one of the Magnifici pointed out sourly.

“It is the quickest and cheapest route to Caffa,” the diplomat answered. “That still leaves ample time to make a profit.”

“And in ten years,” came a heavier voice, rumbling through the discussion and stilling it for a moment, “the customs rights might be renegotiated at half-share for another ten.”

Democrito caught the Doux watching the reaction closely. It was a clever long game. Theodorans were giving up a revenue stream that scarcely existed in the present in order to use Genoese wealth to transform Kalamita into something far more valuable in the future.

By now, a pattern had begun to emerge through the dense web of interlocking offers the Theodorans were placing before them.

They wanted immediate capital and material investment, but not in the crude form of tribute. They wanted to tie Genoese profit to Theodoran recovery, binding the fortunes of the two states together. It was a dangerous game. Greater Genoese investment would make the republic more interested in the Principality’s survival, yes, but it would also plant Genoese influence deep inside Theodoro’s wine trade and broader affairs. A fertile position from which, in later years, an astute merchant republic might demand greater concessions.

And in truth, Democrito thought it more likely that Theodoro would never fully reclaim what it was sacrificing now. Ten years was a long time, twenty longer still, and a third of the wine industry was no small thing to surrender even partially.

Power shifted. Treaties bent. Terms that seemed manageable in one decade could become intolerable in the next. And if the Ottomans ever turned their full attention back toward this miserable little Roman remnant on the edge of the world, then all these elegant arrangements might be swept away before the Theodorans ever saw the promised return.

Democrito had it on good authority that the Sultan meant to cast himself as the leader of a new Rome, and that every lingering successor state, few and feeble as they now were, would, in time, be brought to heel beneath that claim.

Theodoro was wagering on a future that might never come. To Democrito, it looked like a poor man’s gamble, the kind made because there was no safer coin left to place on the table.

Still, if this was how they wished to spend the fruits of their unlikely victory, he was more than happy to oblige them.

What he’d lost on the battlefield he would reclaim in trade and tariffs.

The Genoese, true to their reputation, argued every clause of the agreement until they’d managed to prie some small advantage from each.

No article was too small to be prodded, no phrasing too clear to escape refinement. Bit by bit, each side shaved away at the other until they met on ground neither liked but both could accept.

In the end, Genoa secured the wine at six and a quarter Genovini in gold per , along with fifteen years of customs rights over the port of Kalamita. That still fell within the range Theodorus and the Doux had prepared themselves to accept, because in return the Principality received a lump payment of more than two thousand Genovini, the equivalent of six thousand hyperpera, enough to cover tribute to both the Crimeans and the Ottomans for two full years. Additionally they would provide a host of raw building materials for construction projects the Principality intended to undertake.

More importantly though, the two states agreed to a ten-year pact of non-aggression. That would cover the first two thirds of the customs arrangement and, if all went as intended, give the Genoese enough time to build up the commercial infrastructure they had just committed themselves to establishing.

By the time it was all assembled, the treaty had swollen into a behemoth. Even in draft form it ran across several dense pages, every section packed with conditions, limitations, safeguards, and mutually suspicious compromises. A formal cessation of hostilities was declared between the two armies, and over the next few days, the smaller details would be hammered into final legal shape before the whole thing was sent for royal signature.

“By God, I thought it would never end,” Silvanus said, stretching in his chair with a small, tired smile. He had not fully relaxed until the truce itself had been formally agreed.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you loosen up during the talks,” Theodorus said, faintly amused.

Silvanus leaned toward him with the air of a veteran imparting sacred wisdom to a new recruit, a posture he was fond of adopting whenever he found the chance to tease him. “It is common knowledge in Theodoro, friend - never trust Italian coin.”

Theodorus raised an eyebrow. “Is that some maxim I somehow missed?”

“Aye,” Silvanus nodded gravely, slipping into an exaggeratedly scholarly tone. “Sometimes I forget how much you still have to learn.”

Theodorus smiled despite himself.

He had seen this same guarded stiffness in all the officers throughout the negotiations over the weeks. They sat rigid and watchful from beginning to end, and had only agreed to the talks in the first place if the consul himself were present in the ivory tent, as that would make it less likely the Genoese would attempt to murder them outright.

Years of conflict had bred too much distrust for one treaty to wash it away. This new arrangement would not magically turn enemies into friends. Theodorus could only hope that the old trade ties between the two states, strained and hostile though they had often been, would at least help smooth the transition into this uneasy peace.

They were already spilling out of the tent and making for their horses when a small commotion rose from the line of Genoese bodyguards standing beside the Italian mounts.

“-” an older veteran barked.

“.”

The young officer swung down from his horse with easy fluidity and strode toward the Theodoran officers at a quick pace.

The men around Theodorus stiffened at once, their hands drifting toward sword hilts, their shoulders squaring themselves for battle.

“Halt,” Silvanus warned, stepping forward with one hand on his sword. “State your business.”

“Apologies. Your commander. I meet him, please.” The man’s Greek was badly broken, but the meaning came through plainly enough. His eyes were fixed on the tent with a blazing intensity, as if he might summon the Doux into being through sheer force of will.

“And what business could you possibly have with him?” Silvanus asked. His voice had turned flat and wary. It would not have been the first time some grief-stricken enemy officer tried to reach a commander at close quarters with murder in mind.

“I must know. The mind behind.”

The need in the young man’s face was unmistakable. He could not have been much older than Theodorus himself, which was rarity enough among military adjudants. His eyes were a striking amber, bright and fevered, and he wore his short hair in the messy amalgamation of strands only someone who gave no care to physical appearance could wear.

“If this is not official business, then you have no right to demand audience with him,” Silvanus said sharply. “It speaks poorly of your discipline that your men disregard propriety and the chain of command in this way.”

The last words were aimed past the youth and toward the veteran officer already marching over with a darkening expression.

“Please, I must meet him!” the young man insisted, taking another step forward.

“Not another step!” Silvanus drew his sword.

Theodorus put a hand on his arm at once. “We gain nothing by making a scene,” he murmured quietly. A violent incident outside the tent, of all places, could sour the armistice before the ink was even dry.

It was then that the youth’s gaze shifted and landed on Theodorus.

Their eyes met, and the effect was immediate and utterly wrong.

The amber of the stranger’s gaze seemed to flare against Theodorus’s silver, like sparks striking flint. Something leapt between them, something silent and unseen yet more violent than a blow. For an instant, it felt as though a current had passed through him, plunging deeper than flesh, deeper than thought, down into the darkest recess of his being.

Into the place where the original Theodorus still lingered, dim and smothered beneath him, not wholly gone, only reduced to a frail and voiceless remnant.

And in that instant, Theodorus knew.

This boy was not merely strange. He was wrong in the same way Theodorus was wrong. Something different. Something else.

The connection snapped almost at once. No more than a second must have passed, but it felt like a thousand had, as though the world had opened for a moment and shown them both something it was never meant to reveal.

Both of them reeled.

The veteran reached the young man at last and seized him hard by the shoulder. “,” he snapped, “.”

Aniballe barely resisted, allowing himself to be hauled back as though his body had gone slack with shock.

Even so, as he was dragged away, he looked back once over his shoulder at Theodorus. The fierce determination that had filled his face moments before was gone. In its place sat something colder. Fear.

The same fear that had taken hold of Theodorus.

His arrival in this world had been anything but ordinary. A flaw in the matrix, a portal through worlds, divine intervention - he had considered everything over the time he’d been here.

What remained fact was that he had been dragged across something vast, whether time, distance, or some divide he did not have words for. He only knew that his existence here was not natural and that he had felt invisible pressures pushing against him before.

The sense that some vows bound him by more than mere speech. It did not happen always, only at moments that seemed to matter, but he had felt it often enough to know it was real. To know those promises that meant more than words.

Until now, history had unfolded so closely to what he knew that he had almost let himself believe he occupied some singular role within it. That he’d been selected as a man who possessed the singular skills required to hold back Rome’s final ruin, or at least delay it.That he’d been chosen to change history.

Now that illusion cracked.

Whatever force had touched him, whatever impossible thing had brought him here, it had not done so only once.

He was not alone.

There were others.

And that scared him.