Despite Tiberius wishing otherwise, he knew that his dear wife was right on every single account.
He was without friends.
He was without gold.
And he was without much of a plan, either.
Guilty on all counts, a far heavier burden than he cared to carry all in one bundle. His earlier self-contempt had been spot on: what he was doing was no grand campaign of treason. It was a toddler throwing a tantrum at the edge of a cliff.
Would Julian find it amusing? Tiberius wondered for a brief second. Perhaps he'd view it as a harmless bout of mischief and spare my neck. Who takes a son's head over a bit of rebellion?
Except, of course, he was not Julian's son, and this was no simple mischief.
Mischief was dropping rat dung into a someone's boots, not attempting to unravel a web of empire-shattering intrigue the old man had labored over for decades. It was sheer, desperate wishful thinking to believe he might survive his own failure.
