(As recounted by Aurelio)
The old man rose from his chair and walked to the window. The afternoon light had shifted, casting long shadows across the floor. The clouds outside had thickened, turning the sky a bruised purple. The Scholar watched him, his quill poised, his eyes fixed on the weathered silhouette.
"Rome," Aurelio said, his back still turned. "The Eternal City. I had dreamed of it as a boy. I had imagined the Colosseum, the Forum, the temples of the old gods. I had imagined walking its streets, feeling the weight of history pressing down on me."
He turned, and his face was carved from grief.
"I did not imagine it would be a graveyard."
---
— Memory —
The gates of Rome loomed before them like the jaws of a beast.
They were massive, built of stone and iron, scarred by centuries of siege and war. But they were not closed. They stood open, gaping, as if inviting the world to enter and witness the horror within.
Aurelio reined in his horse, his hand going to his sword. The silence was absolute. No birds sang. No wind stirred. The city was holding its breath, waiting.
"This is a trap," Gerald said, his hand on his axe. His knuckles were white, his jaw tight.
"Of course it is a trap," Aurelio replied. "But we have no choice. We have to go in."
"We could go around. Find another entrance."
"There is no other entrance. Nero wants us to come through these gates. He wants us to see what he has done. He wants us to be afraid."
"Then let us not be afraid," Cecilia said. Her voice was calm, but her eyes were hard. "Let us show him that fear is a weapon we have learned to wield."
Elara clung to her hand, her small face pale, her eyes wide. The girl had not spoken in days, but her silence was not the silence of surrender. It was the silence of a survivor, of someone who had seen too much to be frightened by a city of the dead.
They rode through the gates into the city.
The streets were empty. The buildings were dark. The only sound was the clatter of their horses' hooves on the cobblestones, echoing off the walls like the footsteps of ghosts. The air was thick with the smell of smoke and something else. Something sweet. Something wrong.
"Where is everyone?" Riccio whispered. His voice trembled, but his bow was steady.
"Gone," Liam said. "Dead. Or hiding."
"Or waiting," Gerald added.
They rode through the streets, their eyes scanning the windows, the doorways, the shadows. The silence was oppressive, a weight that pressed down on them from all sides. It was the silence of a city that had given up, that had stopped fighting, that had accepted its fate.
And then they saw the bodies.
They hung from the lampposts, their faces frozen in expressions of terror. They lay in the gutters, their eyes open, their mouths gaping. They were everywhere, hundreds of them, thousands perhaps, arranged with a terrible precision.
"The Colosseum," Aurelio said, his voice hollow. "That is where he wants us."
---
They found the Colosseum as the sun began to set.
It loomed before them like a monument to madness, its massive arches dark against the bruised sky. The stones were stained with centuries of blood, and the air around it was thick with the smell of death.
"Wait here," Aurelio said, dismounting. "I will go alone."
"You will not," Cecilia said. "We are in this together."
"Together," Gerald agreed.
"Together," Liam said.
"Together," Elara whispered.
Aurelio looked at them, these people who had followed him through hell and back. He wanted to argue. He wanted to protect them. But he knew that he could not. They had earned the right to stand beside him.
"Together," he said.
They walked into the Colosseum.
The interior was a nightmare. The arena floor was covered in bodies, arranged in a spiral pattern that led to a central platform. On that platform stood a figure in white robes, his arms spread wide, his face tilted toward the sky. His silhouette was gaunt, almost skeletal, and his voice, when it came, was a soft, mocking whisper that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Godbrand.
But he was not alone. Beside him stood a figure in black armor, massive and silent, his face hidden behind a helm shaped like a wolf's skull. He carried no weapon, but his hands, bare and scarred, were clenched into fists that could crush stone.
"Welcome," Godbrand said, his voice echoing in the vast space. "I have been expecting you."
"Where is Nero?" Aurelio demanded. His hand was on his sword, his body coiled and ready.
"Nero is elsewhere. He is preparing for the final ceremony. The cleansing. The birth of the new world."
"You are mad."
"Perhaps. But madness is a gift. It allows me to see the truth that others cannot."
He gestured to the masked figure. "This is Vegis. He is the leader of the northern Vikings. He has come to join us."
Gerald's face went pale. "Vegis? The Butcher of the Fjords?"
"Ah, you have heard of him. Good. Then you know what he is capable of."
Gerald stepped forward, his axe in his hand. "Vegis! You betrayed your own people! You sold them to the Cabal for gold and promises!"
The masked figure did not move. Did not speak. He simply stood there, his eyes hidden behind the wolf's skull, watching.
"You are a fool," Gerald spat. "A puppet. A madman's puppet."
Still, the figure did not respond. He was a statue, a monument to silence and menace.
Godbrand laughed; a thin, reedy sound. "He does not speak to the dead. And you, Viking, are dead. You just do not know it yet."
Gerald charged, his axe raised, his voice a roar of fury.
Vegis met him head-on. He did not draw a weapon; he did not need one. He simply stepped into Gerald's charge and caught the axe with his bare hand.
The sound was sickening; a wet, grinding crunch of metal against bone. Gerald's axe blade had shattered against Vegis's palm, and the Viking chief had not flinched. He had not even moved.
Gerald stared, his eyes wide with shock. "That is impossible."
"Nothing is impossible," Vegis said, his voice a low, grinding rumble. "Not when the Cabal has given you their gift."
He backhanded Gerald across the face, sending him flying across the arena floor. The Viking landed in a heap, his axe in pieces beside him.
"Vegis was the first of us to receive the gift of the Shade," Godbrand said, his voice filled with a terrible pride. "He was given a new heart, a new soul, a new purpose. He cannot be killed. He cannot be beaten. He is the future."
Aurelio drew his sword. "We will see about that."
He lunged, his blade aimed at Vegis's throat. The Viking chief did not dodge. He simply raised his hand, and Aurelio's sword struck it with a sound like a bell.
"You are weak," Vegis said. "All of you are weak. You cling to your little lives, your little loves, your little hopes. But the world is ending. And only the strong will survive."
"I do not fight for survival," Aurelio said. "I fight for something better."
"Better?" Vegis laughed; a cold, empty sound. "There is no better. There is only the strong and the dead."
He swung his arm, and the force of the blow sent Aurelio staggering back. The Viking chief advanced, his hands reaching for him, his eyes burning with a cold, grey light.
And then, from the shadows, a voice spoke.
"Vegis."
It was a quiet voice, calm and steady. It was the voice of a man who had seen the worst and had not broken.
"Ivar," Vegis said, his voice filled with something that might have been surprise.
Ivar the Boneless stepped into the light. He was not a large man, not physically imposing. But there was something about him, a stillness, a quiet confidence, that commanded attention.
"You have strayed far from the path," Ivar said. "You have forgotten the old ways. The ways of honor. The ways of our people."
"The old ways are dead," Vegis replied. "The new ways are the only ways that matter."
"No." Ivar's voice was soft, but it carried weight. "The old ways are not dead. They are sleeping. And they are waiting to be awakened."
He drew a sword from his belt, a long, slender blade that glinted in the torchlight.
"Come, Vegis. Let us see if the Cabal's gift has made you invincible. Or if it has simply made you a slave."
The two Vikings faced each other, their blades raised. The air between them seemed to crackle with tension.
And then, with a roar that shook the rafters, Vegis charged.
---
— Present —
The old man leaned forward, his eyes burning with the intensity of the memory.
"They fought for an hour," he said. "Ivar and Vegis. The most skilled warriors of the North, locked in a battle that would determine the fate of their people."
He paused.
"In the end, Ivar won. Not because he was stronger. Because he was wiser. He let Vegis exhaust himself, and then he struck."
He looked at the Scholar.
"But Vegis did not die. The Cabal's magic was too strong. He fled into the shadows, swearing revenge. And we knew, with a certainty that sat in our bones like lead, that he would return."
He leaned back in his chair.