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The Son of Rome

“GO!” the Titan roared, as the phoenix of the caucuses savaged him with its talons-

“SEEK SAFER SHORES,” the Titan commanded, as the legions of Rome fell screaming up into the sky.

We raced down the mountain without a moment’s pause for the Storm That Never Ceased. Our steps were bounding, our energy overflowing. The tribulation hounds that pursued us in our descent were met with Griffon’s lightning limbs and the tip of my celestial spear. Our momentum was unstoppable, as much within as it was without. The Titan Flame’s golden ichor burned in my stomach, warming me to the tips of my fingers and toes and growing warmer every second.

My every step crushed the loose stones on Kaukoso Mons and caused the nearby veins of amethyst to flare indigo-bright, but in spite of that my heart felt lighter than it had in years. The weight on my shoulders was heavier than it had ever been, but I no longer doubted my ability to bear it up.

“STAND READY WHEN THE CAPTAIN CALLS.”

It was one thing to see the truth of something with your own eyes, to live through that experience for good and for ill. No matter how harrowing a thing might be, no matter how cruel or improbable, it was human nature to trust what your eyes told you if nothing else at all.

The secondhand conveyance of that lived experience was another thing entirely. No matter what the Greeks claimed, theirs was not the only way to cultivate – and further, it was not a perfect way forward. Even my mentor, one of their greatest thinkers, had acknowledged that much. Some things had to be seen firsthand. Some things could not be taken on faith alone.

When the imposter wearing Anastasia’s face had presented me with her living memory of Caesar’s Edict, my desire to believe her had been desperate. But some things were too outlandish to be taken on faith. I had never heard of a philosopher using their rhetoric to convey a lie of lived experience, but neither had I seen a titan of lightning wrath appear above my own legion as I had the men in her memory.

I had seen staggering wonders and horrors both during my time afield, but never had my eyes seen anything like that. I still didn’t fully trust the mad visions I had seen in the Orphic house. How, then, could I trust the story of an imposter?

The woman wearing Anastasia’s face had struck me with her memory like a club and vanished into the night before I could regain my senses. Then, tragedy of tragedies, Socrates had returned and declared the nectar spoiled.

I had wanted to believe in the truth of her lived experience. I had desired it so desperately that I could have spit blood. But I wasn’t that foolish anymore.

Then I’d laid eyes on the Titan Flame, and realized I knew even less of this world than I’d thought.

“KNOW THAT GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR’S WILL HAS CAST YOU OUT.”

There were calamities in this world that I had never even imagined beyond the boundaries of night fire stories. Buried beneath the earth and chained to unseen mountain peaks were answers to questions I had forgotten how to ask. I had been arrogant. I had dismissed the imposter’s memory not in spite of my desires, but because of them. I had grown so used to having no hope at all that its sudden arrival had felt like thrusting my frost-bitten heart into a roaring flame.

Who was I to doubt the General of the West, to question what he had been capable of in his final moments? Compared to what I had seen inside the Storm That Never Ceased, what was so impossible about Caesar’s final act? How could his Edict be any more outlandish than the enemy that had necessitated it – the legions of unnatural demons that I had seen with my own eyes? Killed with my own hands?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Griffon’s joy was dazzling as we burst out of the storm crown and inhaled the open air. I couldn’t have stifled my own smile if I’d tried.

I had been aimless the day I set foot in the city of Olympia. The wisdom of an old mentor had been the only thing left for me to cling to, along with the cold comfort of my resolve. I had arrived seeking a spark to light my own pyre, and what I’d found instead was something infinitely greater.

I had found hope.

Seek safer shores.

My city had fallen, but Rome was more than concrete and winding roads. I had failed Caesar, failed my legion, but the war was not yet over. I was not all that remained. It could no longer be enough for me to share a funeral flame with Carthage’s dogs, not when I was needed elsewhere.

Seek safer shores.

The legions of Rome were lost. Caesar’s hand had cast them out and only the General of the West knew where they’d been sent. Hundreds of thousands of Roman soldiers and provincial citizens of the Republic, gone as if they’d never been. They were lost.

But I could find them.

SEEK SAFER SHORES.

And I would. I would cover every coast on this earth with the print of my boot if that was what needed to be done.

We kept on running without pause, racing down the craggy mountain path towards the invisible line that turned Tyrant eyes away. Griffon caught my eye and clenched the fist he’d marked with Herakles’ blade.

“Enough of barking dogs,” he reminded me. As if I’d forget. I raised my own clenched fist and knocked it against his.

“Enough of higher powers.”

I’d do whatever it took to bring Roma’s lost legions home.

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And when the work was done, it would be my own hands that nailed their traitorous generals to the cross.

—

It had been early morning when we first set foot inside the storm crown, the rosy dawn a bright promise of the coming day. When Griffon and I came charging out we found the celestial glory descending swiftly into burning dusk. The final day before the month of mandatory training for the Olympic Games was nearly at its end.

In our absence, the Raging Heaven Cult had fallen into madness.