Sneak Peek Cassius Book Three
T rigger Warning
Ancient Rome was a harsh place to live… especially for slaves. There is a short but graphic account of torture in this book but not in this sneak peek. If this will offend or upset you, please don’t read this book.
C hapter One
Cassius
Pain sears through my skull, a relentless throbbing that drowns out all other sensations. Darkness surrounds me, pressing in from all sides. Am I dead? Is this the realm of Pluto, where shades wander for eternity? The thought comes unbidden, a fragment of knowledge I can’t place.
A voice pierces the fog—sharp, urgent. The words are incomprehensible, but the excitement in his tone is clear. More voices join the first, a cacophony of strange sounds like geese honking. It means nothing to me.
My eyelids flutter, struggling against an impossible weight. A sliver of light cuts through the darkness, growing brighter until it floods my vision. Blinking rapidly, the world slowly comes into focus. Unfamiliar faces hover above me, their expressions are unreadable because they wear masks. What level of Hades is this and what in Pluto’s name do they plan on doing to me?
I try to gather my strength to flee, but I’m weak as a newborn kitten. As panic floods my body, a woman speaks, her words as foreign as birdsong. But then, blessedly, a deep voice I understand: “Cassius , potes me audire ?” Can you hear me?
Cassius. Yes, that’s my name. The only thing I’m sure of in this sea of uncertainty.
“ Ita .” Yes, I croak, my voice barely a whisper. “ Ubi sum?” Where am I?
As my eyes focus, I see it’s… Varro. We were on the ship together when… we drowned. Do I remember dying?
Varro, tall and muscular, with intelligent brown eyes, exchanges a glance with the woman beside him. “ Tu in valetudinario es ,” he says slowly. You’re in a hospital. “ Memoria tua…?” Your memory…?
The question hangs in the air, and panic claws at my throat as I explore the vast emptiness where my memories should be. There’s nothing—no sense of self, no recollection of my life before my hellish time on the ship Fortuna , and nothing after I… drowned in the freezing sea.
“ Nihil memini ,” I manage, fear making my voice shake. I don’t remember anything.
The woman reaches for my hand. Though I don’t know her, I allow her gentle touch to ground me .
“ Purus erit. Laura nomen mihi est ,” she says softly. It will be okay. My name is Laura. But the worry in her eyes contradicts her reassuring words.
Struggling to sit up, the room spins, making my stomach heave so badly, I ease back onto the bed. Varro’s strong hand on my shoulder steadies me. “ Facile ,” he murmurs. Easy. He says I've been still for a long time and I will need time to adjust.
A long time? How long? Questions swirl in my mind, each one feeding my growing terror. But as I open my mouth to ask, exhaustion crashes over me like the sea waves that swallowed me right before I… died. My eyelids grow heavy, the effort to keep them open suddenly monumental.
“ Nunc quiesce ,” Laura says, her voice seeming to come from far away. Rest now. She promises to explain everything when I stronger.
As darkness creeps in again, one thought pierces through the fog: nothing makes sense. The world I’ve woken up to is alien, unfamiliar with its masks and bright lights that have no fire and the sickening sweet smell assaulting my nostrils. More terrifying is that the person I am—or was—is a complete mystery.
The last thing I hear before I slip into sleep is Varro’s voice, low and worried. I can’t understand the foreign words, but the tone is clear: uncertainty, maybe even fear.
Then there’s nothing, as the god Somnus eases me into the blessed oblivion of sleep, where the emptiness in my mind doesn’t matter. Where, for a little while at least, I can forget that I’ve forgotten everything.
Continue reading CASSIUS here.