Page 45 of Kingdom of Darkness and Dragons
She finally turned to look at us, and I was struck by how young she seemed in the firelight. Sometimes I forgot that despite everything she'd been through, despite the strength and skill that had kept her alive in the arena, she was still barely past twenty five. Still just a girl who'd been forced to grow up too fast in a world that seemed determined to break her.
"I don't know what to do," she whispered, and the vulnerability in her voice made my chest tight. "When the fighting starts, I mean. How can I raise my sword against people who are just defending their homes? But how can I not, when refusing means death for all of us?"
It was the question that had been haunting all of us, though none of us had voiced it so directly. What did you do when every choice was a betrayal of something you held dear?
"You do what you have to do to survive," I said gently. "And you trust that we'll find a way through this together."
"But what if there is no way through?" The pain in her voice was almost unbearable. "What if this whole thing is just... hopeless?"
Antonius leaned forward, his expression fierce. "Then we make our own hope. The way we always have."
"He's right," I added. "We've survived impossible odds before. The ludus, the escape, building new lives in the capital—none of that should have been possible either. But we did it, because we had each other."
"And we still have each other," Antonius continued. "Whatever happens in this war, whatever choices we have to make, we face them together."
I saw some of the tension leave her shoulders at our words. It wasn't a solution to the impossible situation we found ourselves in, but it was a reminder that she wasn't facing it alone.
"What about Jalend?" she asked quietly.
The question hung in the air between us, heavy with all the complications of her feelings for the man who was now leading us into war. I thought about what I'd overheard, about the doubt and anguish in his voice when he'd questioned the righteousness of their cause.
"He's a good man," I said finally. "I'm more certain of that than ever."
"How can you say that?" The hurt in her voice was raw, immediate. "He accepted the promotion, Marcus. He's leading us into battle against innocent people."
"Because he loves you," Antonius said simply. "And because sometimes good men are forced into impossible positions."
I nodded, thinking of my own experience with Imperial service. "I served the Empire for fifteen years, Liv. I followed orders I knew were wrong, fought battles I didn't believe in, because the alternative was death or worse. It doesn't make you evil—it makes you human."
"But this is different," she protested. "This is genocide. This is—"
"This is exactly the kind of situation that breaks good people," I interrupted gently. "The kind where there are no clean choices, no perfect solutions. Just survival and compromise and the hope that somehow, some way, you can make a difference from within the system."
"You think that's what he's doing?"
I considered the question carefully. "I think he's trying to protect you the only way he knows how. And I think he's carrying secrets that are eating him alive." I reached out and squeezed her hand. "The man I've watched these past months, the one who looks at you like you're his whole world—that's not someone who's chosen the Empire over love. That's someone who's trying to find a way to have both."
"And if he can't?"
The question hung in the air, unanswered and perhaps unanswerable. But I saw something shift in her expression—not hope, exactly, but a willingness to consider that the situation might be more complex than it appeared.
"Then we trust that when the moment comes, he'll make the right choice," Antonius said quietly. "The way we're all going to have to."
We sat together in the firelight, three people bound by shared history and mutual love, trying to find courage for the trials ahead. Around us, the great machine of Imperial warfare prepared for battle, but for this moment, we had each other. And sometimes, that had to be enough.
As the night deepened, Livia finally ate the food we pressed on her and even managed a few hours of sleep curled against Sirrax's warm side. But I remained awake, staring up at the stars and wondering if Tarshi and Septimus were looking at the same sky somewhere out there in the darkness.
Tomorrow we would march deeper into Talfen territory. Tomorrow the killing would begin. But tonight, my family was safe and together, and I would hold onto that for as long as I could.
Because I had a feeling it might be the last peaceful moment any of us would know for a very long time.
17
The morning we crossed into Talfen territory, I felt something shift in the very air around us. It wasn't just the landscape changing—though the rolling hills and dense forests were markedly different from the Imperial borderlands—it was something deeper, more fundamental. As if the land itself was holding its breath, waiting for the violence it knew was coming.
Sirrax shifted uneasily beneath me, a low rumble vibrating through his chest into mine. I rested a hand on his neck, the scales warm and familiar, but I could offer no comfort. This was his people’s land. Every ancient tree, every shadowed hollow, was part of a home he’d been stolen from, and we were the invaders.
The usual sounds of an army on the march—the jingle of harnesses, the tramp of thousands of feet—seemed swallowed by the immense, watchful silence of the woods. The soldiers below me felt it too. Their jokes died on their lips, their eyes scanning the dense undergrowth with a new, nervous energy. They held their spears a little tighter, their parade-ground confidence draining away with every step we took into enemy soil.
