Blood on the Ledger
The Strategy Hall did not fill for lessons.
It filled for events.
Ezio felt the difference the moment the bronze doors parted and the breath of the room spilled over him—warm air layered with perfume, ink, old stone, and something sharper beneath it. Not incense. Not dust.
Expectation.
It clung to the back of his throat the way stage smoke did in cheap theaters, the way the city's fog clung to alleyways where men traded secrets like bread.
The hall was built like a court and an arena had made a child.
Tiered stone seats rose in a wide crescent around the Machiavelli Board, each row carved higher, sharper, more privileged. Tonight, nearly all of them were occupied. Sect heirs in robes that cost more than a year of a commoner's life. Finance students with clean hands and dead eyes. War tacticians who never smiled. Couriers and scribes pressed into the shadows along the walls, ready to turn whispers into records.
Ezio walked in and felt hundreds of gazes land on him at once.
Not admiration.
Not yet.
He felt the crowd the way he now felt weather—through pressure changes in emotion.
Contempt, crisp and perfumed.Curiosity, wet and hungry.Fear, hiding behind mockery like a knife behind a sleeve.
The Casanova Ring warmed around his heart, translating the room into a living map. Each person became a pulse, each pulse a desire, each desire a handle.
Lucifer's voice slid into his thoughts, pleased.
"Kiddo… you can smell them, can't you? They came to watch you bleed. Make them watch you sell."
Ezio did not rush. Rushing was the gait of someone who asked for permission.
He crossed the black marble floor toward the Board, and the whispers rose around him like birds startled from rafters.
"That's him."
"The Pavilion stray."
"He made a king betray an ally with one woman."
"That was luck."
"It wasn't luck."
A laugh—soft, deliberate—came from the second tier, where the wealthiest sat close enough to pretend they were humble.
One of them, a tall young man with a merchant dynasty crest stitched into his sleeve, leaned toward his friends and spoke loudly enough to be heard.
"So," he said, voice honeyed with cruelty, "the seduction cultivator returns. Will he win tonight with kisses?"
A few people chuckled.
Not because it was funny.
Because laughter was how the privileged tested whether a man would flinch.
Ezio didn't look up.
He could feel the boy's emotional scent: insecurity lacquered into arrogance. A weak animal wearing a lion's skin.
Rosa's voice cut through the room.
"Speak again," she said, calm as winter water, "and you will watch from outside the doors. You may keep your tongue. You will simply lose the privilege of using it here."
Silence fell so quickly it felt physical.
Ezio lifted his eyes then—not to the boy, but to Rosa.
She stood on the highest tier like a judge who did not believe in innocence. Her posture was relaxed, almost lazy, but her presence was a blade laid across the room, reminding everyone that she could cut whenever she wanted.
Her gaze met Ezio's, and for a moment he felt it: that familiar cold assessment, the way she looked at him as if he were a number that had started behaving unpredictably.
"You're late," she said.
Ezio's mouth moved without a smile. "I'm early enough to be hated."
A flicker of something crossed her expression—approval? amusement? caution?
"Activate the Board," Rosa said.
The Machiavelli Board lit up.
Not gently.
Violently.
Light surged through its rivers and roads like nerves firing. Cities bloomed like lanterns in fog. Trade routes ignited in thin threads. Overhead, crystal lenses hummed, projecting layers of data into the air—grain yields, iron supply, militia readiness, rumor volatility, debt pressure, faith stability.
The world was not shown as a place of mountains and sunsets.
It was shown as a system.
And systems did not care how good a man's heart was.
Ezio felt yesterday's scar still glowing on the northern provinces—the war he had shifted, the treaty he had cracked. The Board carried it like a bruise that refused to heal. Students glanced at it the way they glanced at an execution platform: half fascinated, half relieved it wasn't them.
Rosa's voice came again, sharper now, for the crowd.
"Tonight," she said, "Ezio will not use currency."
A ripple moved through the seats.
You could almost hear the room deciding how to interpret it—handicap, humiliation, test.
"No market manipulation," Rosa continued. "No debt traps. No supply sabotage. No arson. No hired knives. No rumor-buys."
She let that sink in.
Then she looked down at Ezio as if she were placing him into a cage.
"Only influence," she said.
A pause.
"Only people."
The elegant girl from before—silver earrings, eyes like polished glass—tilted her head.
"So he's allowed to flirt empires into submission," she said sweetly.
A few laughs.
Ezio didn't give them the satisfaction of irritation.
He stepped closer to the Board and placed his hand above it, palm hovering, as if he were about to bless the world or curse it.
His Casanova Ring pulsed.
The room's emotional field shifted subtly. Some students straightened without knowing why. A few women on the upper tiers drew a shallow breath and then hated themselves for it. A war planner frowned, suddenly aware that this "seduction cultivator" did not move like someone seeking permission.
Lucifer whispered.
"They're already buying you, kiddo. They just don't know they're paying."
Rosa's eyes narrowed.
"Choose," she said. "Show them where you think the world is weakest."
Ezio didn't choose the obvious war.
He went looking for the place where the world bled quietly.
His awareness slid across the map, past stable provinces with fat trade lines, past sect capitals ringed by bright defenses. Past the orderly glow of imperial centers, where power was clean and cruelty was hidden behind law.
He found it in the south.
A region that barely glowed at all.
Not because nothing was there.
Because everything there had been drained.
When Ezio touched it, the Board responded like a wound touched too hard.
The southern provinces flared dark red.
The projection shifted: labor camps, chain caravans, mines where men died slowly, gladiator pits where entertainment was made from pain. The Board fed the hall raw data the way a butcher tossed meat to dogs.
Crucified rebels.Suppressed riots.Slave quotas met ahead of schedule.Grain stolen from villages to feed imperial garrisons.
A murmur swelled into the air.
Ezio lifted his hand and the hall quieted again, not because they respected him, but because they were beginning to feel that something was happening.
"This," Ezio said, voice calm enough to be terrifying, "is blood in the streets."
The words fell into the room like a coin dropped into a well—simple, absolute, and deep.
He pointed at the central node.
The name burned like a brand.
SPARTACUS.
Whispers scattered like sparks:
"Slave-sect territory…"
"They've been crushed three times this decade…"
"That's Caesar's supply spine…"
"Why choose a dying region?"
Ezio didn't answer the whispers.
He answered the principle.
"Most of you," he said, turning slightly so his voice carried across every tier, "run when the numbers turn red."
He paused.
"And that's why you'll always be followers."
He felt the crowd tense.
Good.
He continued, softly.
"When there is blood in the streets… you don't run."
His fingers traced a slow circle above the southern nodes, not touching, as if he were drawing a halo.
"You buy."
The hall stirred. Not laughter now.
Alarm.
Because everyone in this room understood what he was implying.
Not romance.
Not influence.
Profit from collapse.
Rosa's gaze sharpened. "Without currency," she said.
Ezio looked up at her.
A faint smile touched his mouth, not warm—sharp.
"Who said anything about paying with money?" he asked.
The Board pulsed under his palm.
Spartacus's region flickered like a heart under stress.
And Ezio, standing in the center of a room full of predators, felt the moment shift—felt the crowd stop watching him like entertainment and start watching him like a threat.
He was not begging for a seat at their table anymore.
He was about to flip the table over and sell them the pieces.
Lucifer whispered, delighted.
"That's it, kiddo. Now open your mouth and make them believe the future belongs to you."
Ezio inhaled once.
And opened a private line.
Not in secret.
Not in shame.
In front of everyone.
Because this wasn't a mission.
This was a sale.
Selling Destiny
The moment the resonance channel opened, the temperature in the Strategy Hall shifted.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Ezio felt it through the Casanova Ring—the subtle intake of breath from the women in the upper tiers, the sharpening curiosity of the men, the way even Rosa's attention narrowed, like a blade aligning itself with a single point.
Vesper's presence slid into the channel.
Not her face.
Not her body.
Her attention.
A velvet-dark awareness brushed against Ezio's, smooth and dangerous.
"Well," her voice purred through the crystal amplifiers, echoing around the hall, "this feels intimate."
A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd.
Ezio didn't smile.
"I wanted witnesses," he said. "History always behaves better when someone is watching."
Vesper chuckled. "You're dramatic."
"I'm honest," Ezio replied.
He let the Casanova Ring pulse, syncing their emotional frequencies. The effect was immediate. The crowd couldn't hear it—but they could feel it. The room tilted just a little, like the beginning of a slow dance.
"Why call me here?" Vesper asked. "You usually prefer to whisper."
Ezio gestured toward the burning southern provinces.
"Because I'm not whispering tonight," he said. "I'm making an offer."
Her attention sharpened.
"Oh?" she said softly.
Ezio projected the Spartacus region into their shared space—not just data, but the emotional texture of it: rage like old fire, despair like rusted iron, pride beaten thin but not yet broken.
"This is a man who has been turned into a symbol by suffering," Ezio said. "The empire thinks it made him weak."
Vesper inhaled slowly.
"I think it made him hungry."
Ezio smiled faintly. "Exactly."
He let her feel Spartacus's emotional signature—every humiliation, every chain, every scream swallowed so he wouldn't give his captors the satisfaction.
"He's not looking for orders," Ezio continued. "He's looking for permission to become something terrible."
The hall was silent now.
Even the most cynical students were leaning forward.
"And you think I can give him that?" Vesper asked.
Ezio stepped closer to the Board, voice lowering.
"You don't seduce men," he said. "You seduce their future."
Lucifer whispered, amused:
"Kiddo's about to sell her a crown."
"You'll show him what he could be," Ezio said. "Not free. Not safe. But remembered."
Vesper's emotional field flared.
"And what do I get?" she asked.
Ezio didn't hesitate.
"You get to be the woman who made a slave king kneel—not to power… but to possibility."
A sharp breath escaped her.
The Casanova Ring drank her desire, not lust, but ambition so hot it almost burned.
"You're dangerous," Vesper whispered.
Ezio met her unseen gaze.
"So is the future."
A pause stretched between them, thick and electric.
The crowd held its breath.
"Show me," Vesper said.
Ezio placed her sigil over Spartacus's node.
The Board shuddered.
And somewhere in the world, a man with chains on his soul felt the first whisper of something that might become a crown.
The Machiavelli Board did not tremble.
It screamed.
A surge of crimson light ripped through the southern provinces as Spartacus's sigil flared so violently that the crystal beneath Ezio's feet cracked with a sound like splitting ice. Shockwaves of probability rolled outward, and half the projection above the Board collapsed into a storm of collapsing trade lines, burning cities, and screaming numbers.
The Strategy Hall exploded into noise.
"What did he do?!"
"That node just went supercritical!"
"Those are Caesar's grain routes—!"
Ezio didn't move.
He stood in the center of it, calm as a statue while the world fell apart around him.
Through the Casanova Ring, he felt Vesper's voice inside Spartacus's mind—soft, intoxicating, absolute.
You were never meant to kneel.You were meant to take.
Spartacus's rage ignited.
On the Board, slave camps vanished.
Gladiator pits turned black.
Rebel banners erupted across three provinces at once.
The markets didn't fall.
They collapsed.
Grain prices went insane.
Iron spiked.
Weapon stocks went vertical.
Slave syndicates imploded so hard their sigils cracked.
Students leapt to their feet.
"No—no—those contracts—!"
"Who's buying?!"
Ezio's hands were already moving.
He didn't scramble.
He didn't panic.
He executed.
He bought grain at the bottom while the empire starved.
He bought iron while Caesar's forges burned.
He bought weapons while rebellion screamed for steel.
Every trade was perfect.
Not because he was lucky.
Because he was early.
Lucifer's laughter filled his skull.
"Kiddo… you just became rich off a revolution."
A rival lunged forward, slamming his palm onto the Board. "You're manipulating the markets illegally—!"
Rosa's voice cut like thunder. "Sit."
The man froze.
Rosa was standing now.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like someone realizing the animal they had been training was no longer tame.
Spartacus's forces surged.
A city fell.
Then another.
The Board painted it all in blood-red light.
Ezio turned.
He faced the crowd for the first time.
Hundreds of eyes stared at him.
Fear.
Awe.
Hatred.
Desire.
"You came to watch me fail," Ezio said softly.
His voice carried without effort.
"You came to see the Pavilion stray bleed."
The markets howled.
Numbers climbed.
Screams echoed from the Board.
"But instead," Ezio continued, spreading his hands slightly, as if presenting the chaos, "you watched me buy a kingdom while it burned."
Silence.
Then Ezio smiled.
"Are you not entertained?"
The Strategy Hall erupted.
Rosa stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time.
And deep inside Ezio's chest, something cold and perfect tightened into place.
The Machiavelli Ring had begun to close.