"Too much sanity may be madness..."—Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
(Content Warning—This chapter contains graphic violence and gore. The reader's discretion is advised.)
**
Everything had ended even before the climax.
Lucius didn't see the traitor who had struck him, ending his life.
He and Sestius fell together.
Their bodies were a tangled mess of blood and flesh.
He just lay there, gasping for breath, like a fish out of the water.
'This is… pathetic…'
No other thoughts.
No flashback of the wonderful life he had lived for years.
There was only one thing on his mind—
'Did I do good?'
He tried to seek his master's gaze through the dim light of the tunnel, his vision already fading.
He wanted to see if he'd be proud of him, if all his bruises and wounds—the badge of his honor—were enough.
A recognition for all of his efforts.
But…
'—?'
He was only met with a cold, hard glance.
'Ah… so that's what it is…' he bitterly smiled.
Then his eyes went to his last comrade.
'My brother… protect our master…' he wanted to rasp, his dying last wish.
But it got caught in his throat.
There was a dagger in Aegillius' hands, fresh blood still dripping.
Before he could register what it meant—
He gasped for more air.
And then—
Just darkness...
His body trembled once as he breathed his last.
Now—
Only four people remain.
Two on each side.
Three Praetorian guards and one—a figure of unearthly beauty—stood amidst the carnage.
Arrogance etched itself across the beautiful man's face as he watched the guard's last breaths bubble through the spreading sea of blood.
He sneered.
It was already a given that they should die for him.
He was their master after all.
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.
'I am their God.'
So, he viewed his guard's life as one that had served its purpose.
His crimson robe that covered his slim but toned form was now a tattered testament from the ambush earlier.
His long, milky, delicate-looking legs were marked with small scratches.
Red painted them in jagged, ugly trails.
His stumbling feet were clad in elegant leather sandals, polished to a warm sheen.
The golden diadem, its emeralds and rubies flashing in the dim torchlight, sat askew on his matted, blond-curled hair.
A symbol of his status—his Imperial power.
His luminous eyes, which others described as the color of a clear blue sky—usually distant and imperious—now blazed with raw, animalistic fury.
Small thin lips now curled in disgust.
Even the air he breathed reeked of filth.
Even the sweet myrrh he once favored had turned rancid in the stench of death.
It was now suffocating him.
SPLOTCH SQUELCHED
SWISH SWISH
He stumbled backward.
The rough stone bit into his sandals.
Soggy.
Nasty.
Offensive.
It warmed his feet.
"Hah haa-ahh ugh!"
Suddenly, the guard before him—the one he believed was his remaining protector—turned and grabbed him roughly.
A knife with fresh blood, still dripping, now dangled from his waist.
Without a word, he bound him with a coarse rope.
Confused and dizzy, he shook uncontrollably.
He swayed like a drunkard, unable to stay upright.
His Praetorian guards—sworn to obey, yet now moving with minds of their own—were turning their blades against him.
'Their Emperor!'
The one they served.
The one who owned their lives!
'How dare they?!'
His eyes narrowed.
'How dare they do this to me?!'
Still delusional.
His mind clouded.
He still didn't see them as people—only tools to be used.
"This is blasphemy!" he screamed.
SWISH—SPLAT!
A guard forced him to his knees.
The cold, jagged stones scraped his skin, sending a jolt of excruciating pain through his body.
'This humiliation!' he seethed.
Raw anger burned a coal in his chest.
'I'll give this back to you all tenfold!'
A dark promise of revenge.
The orange light from the torch struggled to penetrate the tunnel's murk, but the glint of steel was unmistakable as more and more figures emerged from the shadows.
Finally—
It was time for them to reveal themselves!
The real orchestrators.
The masterminds behind it all.
One, two… ten.
Blood squelched under their feet as they moved towards him with purpose.
He thrashed wildly.
His bonds chewed into his skin.
He looked around for someone or anyone to free him.
But all he could see were his fallen guards.
'Useless!'
He looked up and stared at the blurry faces of the three backstabbing guards now standing beside him.
'Traitors!'
They held him in place.
"Struggling is of no use…"
A voice he knew so well—the head of his guards, Marcus Arrecinus Clemens—broke the choking silence.
He was a known coward who hid in the darkness, yet he had still chosen to appoint him.
To bully him.
A fatal mistake.
Clemens' voice was flat.
Emotionless.
Like what he was doing was just one of his daily chores and not an assassination.
"Untie me this instant!" he demanded.
But his command fell on deaf ears.
"Obey me!" he screeched.
Normally, a tantrum like this would have his guards scrambling to their feet and fulfilling his wishes.
But instead, he was met with a cold, emotionless question.
"Why would he?" said another voice.
It was…
"... Cassius Charea..."
A senior tribune of the Praetorians.
The Emperor faltered.
He wasn't used to this kind of treatment.
"I AM YOUR EMPEROR!"
His bound hands clenched into trembling fists, nails digging into his palms.
"I AM YOUR GOD!" he continued to scream.
The guards remained silent, treating his yells like the buzzing of a fly.
"Down here…" Clemens muttered quietly, almost to himself.
"... you are nothing."
The words tightened around his neck like a noose.
Then came the echo of a distant dozen footsteps above.
A thunderous cheer followed—mocking him.
"A god? Listen to the people above you… they are celebrating their god's downfall—" Chaerea taunted.
His voice held a trace of cruel amusement.
"I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU!!!"
The Emperor screamed.
He couldn't stop the sudden outburst.
Veins throbbed, blemishing his smooth temple, as if they were threatening to pop.
But he was unable to do anything.
He had never felt this powerless in his entire reign.
Helpless.
Pathetic.
"I'LL DESTROY YOU!"
SPLASH SPLASH—SWOOSH—
"I'LL DESTROY Y—!"
A man wearing a toga, a senator, cut off his bellow.
"This is for your madness!"
The first blade plunged into his side, then twisted.
"Hoc age!" (Take that!)
"Ahhhh!"
A searing pain tore another scream from him, it shot through his whole being, as if a hot iron had been thrust into his flesh.
This pain was unlike the shallow cuts he'd received earlier.
Deeper.
Personal.
"You forced our children to prostitute themselves in the Palatium!"
Then, another blade, this time in his stomach.
A noble—from one of the ten great gentes that he didn't recognize.
'Nonsense!'
He tried to speak, but blood bubbled from his lips.
"Blegh... Urk…" he choked.
"You slaughtered our families, you demon!"
A dagger pierced his right shoulder.
"Accipe ratum!" (So be it!)
This time, it was a man whose voice he knew too well.
One of his advisors, his childhood friend.
'Even you?' he wanted to answer.
The litany of accusations continued.
"Repete!" (And again!)
Each blade was a record of his supposed cruelty.
Then, the final blow—from Chaerea himself, his voice came as a quiet-harsh whisper…
"This one…"
He could hear the senior tribune's crunching teeth.
"... is for every time..."
Warm, foul breath hit his face as Charea's spittle sprayed across his cheek.
"... for every time you call me... effimate."
The man spat every word.
Then, without ceremony, he shoved him to the ground after sticking his own knife.
SPLAT!
'Ah, of course.'
His consciousness was already fading away, unravelling like a thread.
'Ughh.'
"The tyrant bleeds like any other man…"
Someone commented, followed by a snicker.
SQUELCHED SQUELCHED
He tried to crawl.
A macabre trail of sticky blood followed him—
Until a sandal-clad foot stopped him from moving forward.
He weakly craned his neck, looking up, trying to make out the face above the sandal.
Blood blurred his vision, but through the haze, he saw him—
'So... colorful...'
Warm honey-toned skin.
Long dark raven hair—tied loosely on his back.
Straight nose.
Strong well-defined jaw.
And those expressive green eyes full of something…
'... unreadable…'
Recognition struck him like lightning.
It was…
'... Lepidus.'
The lover he thought had died many months ago.
"Y-you—!" he coughed, a surge of warm blood filled his mouth, unable to say more.
As an endless abyss drew a final curtain across his eyes, there was only one thought left in his mind...
'How?'
**
INDEX:
gentes(plural)/gens(singular)—noble families/noble family
**
CREDITS:
Hoc age! Accipe ratum! Repete!—Take that! So be it! And again!
(According to the historian Suetonius, these were the cries of the men who killed Emperor Caligula)