Page 92 of Empire of Wrath and Ruin
Through our bond, I felt Livia's steady presence beside me, her resolve like steel wrapped in silk. She walked with the confident stride of someone who had claimed this place as her own, transformed it from a site of trauma into a battlefield where she would write her own ending.
I looked over at Livia, for the first time really and truly realising who she was and where she had come from. She stood there, her leather skirt barely reaching mid-thigh, the battered breastplate ill fitting, and her dark hair escaping from the bronze helmet, and felt surge and surge of love and pride in my mate.
She had survived this. Had endured years of this hell and emerged not broken but forged into something magnificent. The woman beside me had walked this sand as a slave and now returned as a conqueror. My Aeveth was truly magnificent.
The Imperial box loomed above us, its marble columns gleaming white in the afternoon sun. At its centre sat a man in purple robes I assumed must be the Emperor. Darkness surged inside me at my sudden rage. It would be so easy to send them out, to wrap them around his body and crush every bone.
No, I told myself firmly, forcing the shadows back beneath my skin. Not yet. Not like this. The Emperor's presence pulled at the darkness in my soul like a lodestone, but I couldn't afford to lose control now. Not when thousands of lives hung in the balance.
Beside me, Jalend had gone rigid, his jaw clenched so tight I could hear his teeth grinding. Following his gaze upward, I saw what had captured his attention— the figure rising from the central throne, arms spread wide to embrace the crowd's adulation.
Emperor Valerius looked smaller than I'd expected. Not physically—he was tall enough, broad-shouldered in the way of men who had once been warriors—but there was something diminished about him. Perhaps it was the distance, or perhaps it was simply that monsters always looked more human when you finally saw them in daylight.
"Citizens of the Empire!" His voice carried across the arena, amplified by the perfect acoustics and the sudden hush that fell over sixty thousand spectators. "Today you witness the final chapter of a rebellion that has plagued our borders for too long!"
The cheering that followed made my stomach turn. These people had come here expecting entertainment, and they were about to witness mass murder. I could feel their bloodlust like a physical weight pressing down on the arena, feeding the shadows that writhed beneath my skin.
Beside me, Marcus muttered something under his breath that sounded like a prayer. Antonius had gone pale, his knuckles white where they gripped his sword hilt. Even Sirrax looked shaken by the sheer scale of what we were witnessing.
But it was the sound from the cages that nearly broke my resolve entirely—a low, keening wail that rose from thousands of throats at once. Mothers calling out to children, families trying to reach each other through the bars, the elderly and the young alike understanding that death was coming for them.
“Behold!" the Emperor continued. "The savage Talfen who would poison our children, corrupt our way of life, and drag our glorious Empire into barbarism! See how they cower before the might of our dragons!"
A roar went up from the crowd as the circling dragons descended lower, their wings casting shadows across the caged prisoners. The crowd's roar intensified, a wall of sound that pressed against my eardrums. I could taste their hunger for violence, their need to see suffering that wasn't their own. It made the shadows writhe beneath my skin, responding to the collective bloodlust with eager anticipation. Then the tone changed.
To my right, Jalend moved forward until he was standing in front of the Imperial box. The Emperor hesitated just for a moment, glancing down at the lone figure that stood before him. A moment was all Jalend needed. He reached up and removed the helm he wore and the sound that rose from sixty thousand throats was unlike anything I'd ever heard.
Gasps. Sharp intakes of breath that seemed to suck the very air from the arena. Then silence—a silence so complete it felt like the world itself had stopped breathing.
The prince stood revealed in the centre of the sand, sunlight catching the gold in his hair, and even from where I stood, I could see the shock rippling through the crowd like a physical wave. They knew that face. Every citizen of the Empire knew the face of their dead prince, the heir who had supposedly perished in the northern campaign.
"I am Jalius Aurelius," his voice rang out, clear and strong, carrying to every corner of the vast arena. "Son of Emperor Lucius Aurelius. You were told I was dead."
He paused, letting the words sink in, letting the crowd absorb the impossible sight of their supposedly deceased prince standing before them in gladiator's armour.
"That was a lie."
The murmur that rose from the stands was like the sound of a distant storm—uncertain, shifting, dangerous. I felt Livia tense beside me, her hand moving instinctively toward her sword. But Jalend wasn't finished.
"We stand before you not as rebels," he continued, his voice growing stronger, more passionate with each word. "Not as enemies of the Empire, but as its sons and daughters. We are here because we love this realm, because we believe it can be better than what it has become."
He gestured toward the cages that surrounded us, his voice breaking slightly as he took in the faces pressed against the bars. "Look around you. Look at what passes for entertainment in our great capital. These are not enemy soldiers. These are not hardened warriors who chose to take up arms against us."
His voice rose, carrying across the arena with the force of absolute conviction. "These are farmers. Merchants. Children who have never held a weapon in their lives. They are guilty ofnothing more than being born on the wrong side of a border that our armies crossed in conquest."
I felt something stir in my chest—not the whispers, but something cleaner. Hope, maybe. Or recognition. This was why I'd followed him, why I'd believed his cause was worth the risk of damnation. Because he saw people where others saw only resources to be consumed.
"You cheer for their deaths," Jalend said, and now there was pain in his voice, raw and undisguised. "You applaud as families are torn apart, as children watch their parents burn. But I ask you—what glory is there in the slaughter of the innocent? What honour in the murder of the helpless?"
The crowd was shifting now, uneasily. Some sections still cheered, caught up in the spectacle, but others had fallen silent. I could see faces in the stands—ordinary people beginning to look at the cages with new eyes, beginning to see the humanity they'd been trained to ignore.
"This is not strength," the prince continued, his voice building toward something that felt like prophecy. "This is not the glory of an Empire made manifest. This is cowardice dressed in ceremony. This is fear wearing the mask of celebration."
He spread his arms wide, encompassing not just the arena but the entire Empire beyond its walls. "We have grown so afraid of appearing weak that we have forgotten what true strength looks like. True strength protects the vulnerable. True strength builds rather than destroys. True strength has mercy."
The word rang out across the sand like a bell, and I felt tears burning at the corners of my eyes. Mercy. When had I last heard anyone speak of mercy as a virtue rather than a weakness?
"I stand before you as your prince," Jalend said, and now his voice carried the full weight of his royal blood, the authority of someone born to command. "As someone who has seen what our armies do in the name of glory, who has watched our soldiersbecome monsters in service to a dream that died somewhere in the blood and mud of foreign fields."
