The morning sun filtered through the eastern windows of the imperial palace like a benediction—soft gold light painting the marble walls, the columns, the banners of Romanus.
Julius sat alone in the imperial penthouse, his private high chamber, elevated above all others, giving him the highest view of the entire eternal city.
It was a space few ever saw—built not for power, but clarity.
From here, the Eternal City stretched far in every direction: domes of polished stone, smoke from the forges rising in thin columns, great roads spidering out toward every point of the empire.
And far beyond, imagined but known, the territories he had shaped—some by force, others by word, and now, by history itself.
He'd woken early, mind turning long before the bells could ring out.
Sleep had come in pieces.
Dreams had returned.
Not of battles.
Not of gods.
But of Yuri—of the young woman he had come to know in the years past, and of the weapon she had been turned into.
