The hours before dawn stretched like a blade against my throat.
Flavia slept curled against me, her breath soft, her fingers still clutching the hem of my tunic even in sleep. She had planned our escape while I had raged. She had written letters without my consent. She was braver than I had ever been.
And I?
I had done nothing but fail.
The frescoed goddess on the ceiling watched us with her split face—one side smiling, one side weeping. Which did she see when she looked at me? The daughter who ran? Or the one who stayed too long?
Somewhere in the lupanar, a woman laughed—a sound like breaking glass. Somewhere else, a man groaned. The rhythm of this place never changed: pleasure by night, silence by dawn.
I closed my eyes. Breathed. Tried to be the unfeeling stone Flavia needed.
Then—
Footsteps.
Not the shuffle of slaves. Not the drunken stumble of clients. These were measured. Precise. A soldier's stride.
They stopped outside our door.
Flavia stirred. "Aurelia—"
"Quiet."
My hand found the knife beneath my pillow. Small. Sharp enough to slit a throat.
The door did not open.
Instead, a scrap of parchment slid beneath it, whispering across the floor until it touched my bare foot.
I stared at it.
Flavia was awake now, her eyes wide in the gloom. "Is it—?"
I snatched it up. The writing was crude, the letters uneven, as if carved by a hand more used to gripping a sword than a stylus.
The Capena Gate. First light. I will be there.
—T.
Flavia's fingers dug into my arm. "He came for us."
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to feel the hope that lit her voice.
But all I could hear was Mother's parting words: "The streets will chew you up. The vigiles will drag you back by your hair."
"What if it is a trap?" I whispered.
Flavia's grip tightened. "What if it is not?"
---
The Capena Gate loomed ahead, its ancient stones stained with centuries of sun and blood. Dawn painted the old bricks the color of rust and copper.
And there, leaning against the moss-streaked pillar as if he had been waiting for an eternity—
Titus.
The boy I had saved was gone. In his place stood a man with a soldier's stance and a face that had learned to hide its thoughts. His shoulders were broader. His jaw was harder. The softness of youth had been scraped away by years of war.
But his eyes—his eyes were the same. Dark. Earnest. When they found me, something in them softened.
Remembered.
"Aurelia."
He said my name like a prayer. Like I was something sacred.
I was not sacred. I was a girl with a knife and a sister to protect.
"You came," I said. My voice was stripped of gratitude. I would not owe him before I knew the price.
He did not flinch. "I keep my promises."
His gaze flicked to Flavia, then back to me. A shadow passed across his face.
"You have changed."
"Suffering does that."
Flavia pressed against my side, her fingers icy in mine. I felt her trembling. Or perhaps it was me.
Titus studied me for a breath too long. His eyes lingered on the bruise blooming across my cheekbone, on the raw marks around my wrists where the chains had bitten.
Then he nodded toward the gate.
"Horses are waiting. There is a path through the marshes—the guards do not watch it. We will be in the hills by midday."
A path. A horse. A plan.
I should have felt relief.
Instead, I felt the weight of Mother's shadow stretching behind me, long and hungry. I felt Flavia's small hand trembling in mine. I felt the eyes of the city watchmen who had not glanced our way—not because they did not see us, but because they had been paid not to.
"Will we be safe?"
The question tasted childish on my tongue. I was eighteen. I had watched my sisters sold. I had tried to slit my mother's throat. I had no right to ask for safety.
Titus met my eyes. For a heartbeat, I saw the boy I had dragged from the gutter—bloody, broken, but with fire in his gaze.
"I will keep you safe," he vowed.
It was not an answer. It was a soldier's oath.
And it was all I had.
---
The horses stood just beyond the gate. One was a dusty white, the other the deep brown of freshly turned earth. Their breath plumed in the cold morning air.
"Can you ride?" Titus asked.
I laughed—a sharp, brittle sound—and swung onto the mare with the ease of a girl who had learned to ride before she could walk. The saddle was worn. The leather smelled of sweat and travel.
"Just because you have grown taller does not mean you are stronger, legionary."
A ghost of my old arrogance. Flavia clambered up behind me, her scholar's hands clutching my waist. She weighed nothing. She felt like a bird in my arms.
Titus mounted his gelding with the grace of a man who had spent years in the saddle. His movements were economical. Precise. A soldier's economy.
"Try not to fall," he said. His smile was edged like a blade.
I kicked the mare forward.
The city walls shrank behind us. The guards at the gate had not even glanced our way—just another soldier escorting two girls. They did not know we were the daughters of Rome's most infamous lupa.
The road ahead was narrow. The marshes exhaled damp and decay. Reeds swayed in the grey light like fingers reaching for us. Flavia shivered against my back.
"Not much farther," Titus called over his shoulder. "The hills by midday."
I did not answer.
My eyes were fixed on the horizon. The sun was rising, pale and cold, a coin tossed into a leaden sky.
I am free.
The thought should have filled me with joy.
Instead, another slithered beneath it, cold as the marshes:
She will come.
She always does.
I tightened my grip on the reins. Flavia's arms tightened around my waist.
I followed Titus into the rising sun.
-----------------
To be continued...