Markos awoke in a sweat, his breath shallow, heart thundering beneath the linen of his tunic. The scent of burning myrrh still lingered in his nostrils—though no brazier had been lit. In the dream, he had stood on a plain scorched black by fire, beneath skies painted red and gold. A woman with skin like onyx and eyes burning with sorrow had stepped forth from the abyss. Her voice, though melodic, trembled with unshed tears as she whispered, "You were mine before time turned traitor. You were my oath, my shield, my ruin, my beloved." Before he could speak, she had vanished into smoke, leaving only the echo of her name—Scelestus—etched into his bones.
Shaking off the vision, Markos rose from his straw mattress in the Varangian quarters within the Blachernae Palace district. A thin veil of dawn filtered through the latticed windows. He dressed in the armor of his station—a lamellar cuirass of iron plates laced with crimson cord, over a gambeson stained with sweat and time. Around him, his comrades—Scandinavians, Anglo-Saxons, even a few Slavs—prepared for the day's drills. The Varangian Guard, elite and foreign-born, were the emperor's personal shield. Markos, a Roman of mixed blood, was an anomaly among them, yet his discipline and ferocity with the spathion had earned their hard respect. Today, he was scheduled to inspect the outer walls and lead his dekarchia—a ten-man unit—on a patrol along the sea walls of the Golden Horn.
He descended through the stone corridors of the barracks and into the morning hum of Constantinople. The city was restless, as it had been for months. The Venetians and their Frankish allies, bearing the young pretender Alexios Angelos—son of the deposed Isaac II—had anchored outside the harbor. From the towers of Galata to the fortified harbor chains, the scent of war hung heavy. Emperor Alexios III, indecisive and cowardly, had offered little strategy beyond empty bravado. Markos had served under better men. He knew the pulse of a city preparing to be bled.
That evening, trumpet calls shattered the stagnant air. Torches flickered to life atop the ramparts as rumors raced faster than arrows: the enemy had made landfall at Galata, their siege engines assembling. Markos mounted the battlements of the Theodosian Walls, staring across the Bosporus at the flickering silhouettes of ships, tents, and siege towers rising like iron fungi from the earth. The dying light of the sun cast long shadows over the harbor, and in them, Markos thought he saw her again—the woman from his dream—standing atop a black chariot of flame, her hair whipping like banners in the wind, watching him with aching familiarity.
A war is about to unfold, and Markos could feel the pull of fate like a sword at his back. The city he had sworn to protect was no longer the same, and neither was he.
The sun rose like a blade over the Horn, bathing the waters in blood and bronze. From his post along the outer Theodosian Wall near the Gate of Charisius, Markos could see plumes of smoke curling from Galata across the straits. The enemy had moved fast under the cover of night, their war galleys docking with terrifying precision. Markos watched through a battered spyglass—gifted by a Venetian defector long before loyalties had hardened—his knuckles white around the bronze tube.
Galata, once a bustling district of warehouses and grain stores, now pulsed with chaos. The garrison there—mostly under-equipped archontopouloi and local militia—had been given token support, not because they were expendable, but because Alexios III had believed the Franks too hesitant to commit to a full assault. He was wrong. The moment the Latin knights disembarked, their banners—golden lions, black crosses, the winged lion of Venice—rushed forward like a tide, sweeping through the narrow alleys of Galata with shield walls and burning pitch.
From where he stood, Markos could do nothing.
His orders had come at dawn from a eunuch of the court, garbed in purple and silk: Hold the northern wall. Do not abandon your post. The command was sealed with the Emperor's own sigil. To disobey it meant more than dismissal—it meant treason. Still, watching the defenders of Galata butchered or driven into the sea twisted something deep within him. He could see fire leaping from rooftop to rooftop, the wooden granaries bursting into ash. Latin siege towers rolled through the outer barricades like juggernauts. A kentenarhos—a commander of a hundred—fled on a wounded horse, only to be pulled down and speared by a knight in full mail.
Markos turned from the wall in disgust. His men—stoic Varangians with axes strapped to their backs—said nothing. But they watched him. They saw the fury trembling in his shoulders, the restraint cracking behind his storm-grey eyes. He could feel their shared rage, even if none of them dared to speak it aloud. To abandon their post might let the enemy through a more vital gate—but to stand idle as Galata burned was a torment worthy of the Inferno.
As dusk fell, the Latins raised their standard over the remains of the Galata Tower. A crude black cross on a white field, torn by wind and ash. The Venetian galleys had already begun cutting at the great chain that barred the Golden Horn, and it would not hold for long. Markos leaned against the cold stone of the wall and let his eyes fall shut for just a moment.
And there she was again, standing upon a fractured bridge of obsidian, robes torn, staff crackling with crimson light. But beside her, out of the smoke and flame, rose Scelestus, smiling with a mouth too cruel for mortal comfort. "You swore to protect this city," she whispered, "But your fate lies not within these walls."
He opened his eyes. The sky had turned dark. Galata had fallen. And the siege was only beginning.