Two more Praetorians, followed by a very expensively dressed old woman, came into sight. Jupiter’s brass balls! That’s the Poisoner herself – the Dowager Empress Drucilla – in the flesh. Mothers in the Capital would use one of two frightening characters to get disobedient children back in line: Magor the Hun or Drucilla the Poisoner. As King Magor was dead but…
Bleda’s man made the first move, putting his victim in a choke hold. The victim grasped his assailant’s wrist and elbow, and I funneled power. The crowd gasped at the sound of the bone cracking. My champion – not that he knew he was my chosen champion – twisted the screaming victim to the ground….
Marcella was more the mother that you imagined – definitely not the mother I grew up with. My mother was the perfect mother for sons destined for military command. In the first Hun war, after my brothers had been killed and I had been subsequently commissioned into Sulla’s X Legion as a junior Tribune, my mother had sent a letter:…
My father had run into the Dwarf years ago in the private Imperial library and they had discussed the Dwarf’s battle-axe. What my father was doing wandering around in a library was almost as big a mystery as how a Dwarf (with a double-bladed battle axe strapped to his back) had gained access to the private Imperial library. Some things in life never do get…
As far as I could tell the transition from boy to man only meant that I now guarded our sheep at night instead of during the day. It was a cold and overcast night on the steppe – it was always too cold or too hot. The only good thing about the steppe was that…
I had been drafted as a healer – I was furious. All Anemoi have some ability in healing, and I was more talented than most, but I was also proficient with a bow and the fastest in the air out of all my sisters. My mother’s answer to my request to join the fighting was a stern…
‘Slaving away under some fat master for years while he takes credit for everything you do would be soul-crushing,’ Timo reasoned as he dropped silently next to us. How do you drop silently from six feet? Spending most nights prowling the dangerous rooftops of the Capital is how Timolen developed the skill. He also had an uncanny ability to disappear…
The job had been meticulously planned: The guards had been bribed, the servants evening meal drugged, and the rich Patrician family was out of the city. Our chief had tossed me a bag and chosen me as his partner. I did not question his choice – I was the low man on the crew and only entitled to one-tenth…
I leaned forward in my camp chair and contemplated the back of the hunched figure occupying the far side of my bed. She clutched a dagger – years of warfare let you recognize what that turn of shoulder likely meant. How old was this northern princess – sixteen, fifteen? By the gods, not only was I unsure of my…
