Chapter V
V
THE SPAN OF TEN YEARS could have been a lifetime.
Telemachus paused at the edge of the world, where the smooth, dark stones of the Roman road stretched behind him toward home.
The breath he drew in was tinged with the coolness borne of early winter and the stench of humanity rising from the pale city undulating with the hills.
Rome had fallen into steep disrepair since the emperor moved his palace to the safer and more easily defended city of Ravenna.
He hardly recognized it. And why should he?
He’d spent half his life in this city, imprisoned in a windowless monstrosity.
Last he’d set foot inside the city walls, he’d been a man newly freed.
Accosted on every side by strangers who knew him.
Who wanted to touch him, as if he were some mythical creature, some god who could grant wishes, make them popular by a single word, a grip of the hand—and maybe he could.
Granting, with a single touch, a story they would boast about at dinners for years.
So he had done it, gripping hands over and again while turning down invitations from innkeepers and cafe owners, and offers from more than one woman.
There had been a monster to defeat outside of Rome, and the sweet scent of revenge had drawn him to it like a siren’s call.
Rome would hold him captive for the rest of his days if he hesitated.
If he took his eye from the city gate and let it linger.
He didn’t know what made him certain of this. He’d only known he’d had to leave.
It was the same feeling now, the same knowing that brought him back, set his stomach in knots.
A bead of sweat sliced along the knobs of his spine as he stepped into the shadow of the gate.
A world that once knew him. Not as a man of God, but as the Battering Ram of the East. A man of fire and temper. Of blood and blades.
“Are you all right?” Gaius looked up at him, black eyes bent in the shape of compassion. As if his friend could sense the war inside that made Telemachus want to both rush into Rome like an invading army . . . and flee like a man pursued.
Telemachus lifted a hand to gesture at the vastness of the city, then gripped the top of his bald head. “Where do we even begin?”
“We follow the plan,” Gaius said in a tone more soothing than commanding. He rested a palm over the bag at his side that held the earthly wealth of dozens of desperate people. “Slave markets, then the brothels. Seediest first.”
The fire that lit in Telemachus’s chest at those words made him wonder if he had indeed left the battering ram part of him in the east after all. He was here for a fight. He knew this by the way his heart began to thrum, pulse rushing in anticipation.
A woman with a basket under one arm and a little boy in tow took one look at him and Gaius standing in the shadows of the city gate and moved to the other side of the street.
She lowered her chin, picked up her pace.
The little one stared, wide-eyed, head tilting back to take in Telemachus’s height.
He smiled and the boy looked away, suddenly shy.
Or terrified. Telemachus drew the hood of his cloak over his sunburned head.
Over the scars. Over the nightmares of another mother, another boy, another giant. He was not that man.
“I’m ready.” Telemachus allowed his foot to slide forward, from the Roman road to the streets of Rome. He let out a breath. They could do this. They would do this. Because if not them, then who?
Like a vein, the road led them straight to the heart of Rome, to an oblong monstrosity of stacked stone arches painted with the violent graffiti of half-clad fighters, urging passersby to come and see.
Telemachus turned away, strides lengthening, devouring the streets, lest Rome devour him. The mission was simple.
Find the captives. Set them free.