Dario, his face twisted in panic, raised his hands to the heavens, struggling to regain control.
—In the name of God, I command you—!
But his voice was drowned out by Segismundo de Lariano, whose youthful tone cut through the air like a blade.
—Enough, Dario!— The young monk stepped forward, his robe stained with dust but his gaze unyielding.—How many times have you used that name to hide your crimes?
The crowd held its breath.
Segismundo did not shout. He didn't need to. He spoke with the precision of a scholar and the fury of a man who no longer feared.
—Rapes disguised as exorcisms.
—Pyres to silence those who opposed you.
—Missing girls whose names no one dared remember.
Each accusation landed like a hammer blow. For the first time, the words could not be denied. Not with Lucia's broken bones still smoldering on the stake. Not with the guards' corpses drowning in their own blood.
Dario, trembling, played his final card.
—All of you are excommunicated!— he spat, pointing at the rebel priests.—Your souls will burn—!
The sound was obscene.
A wet, metallic schlik.
Marco Hernico Caese had moved his gladius with a surgeon's precision. The blade slid in just below the sternum, avoiding lungs and heart but tearing deep veins.
Dario looked down, disbelieving. Blood welled—first a ruby thread, then in waves. Fatal, but slow.
—For Lucia,— Marco murmured, twisting the blade just slightly.—For Marcela. For all of them.
The tyrant fell to his knees, hands clutching his belly as if he could hold in the life leaking out of him.
And then, at last, the people spoke.
Not with shouts.
Not with cheers.
But with a sacred silence as they watched the man who had ruled them through terror drown in his own blood.
Justice, in the end, had not come from the heavens.
It had risen from the earth.
From their hands.
From their wrath.
Dust and smoke clung to his chainmail as Hrodric knelt in the village square, his empty hands trembling on his thighs. The scent of burnt grass brought back memories of Scardona, of the golden fields by the Titius where he had first learned to wield a sickle before a sword.
They had arrived as escorts of papal authority, sent to investigate mere rumors of paganism in these mountains. But Priest Dario had turned the mission into a nightmare. Hrodric bitterly recalled how it had all unraveled: the first day, when he'd knocked aside a comrade's spear as it threatened an old man over a family amulet; the night he'd shared his bread ration with children weeping outside the church-turned-prison; the moment he'd taken a punch from his captain for stepping between him and a young mother.
Now, as the villagers rose in arms and cries for freedom echoed off the stone houses, Hrodric did not lift his head. Not out of fear, but shame. He had tried to soften the occupation, yes—but he had still been part of it. Every blow he hadn't struck, every cruel order he'd carried out with deliberate slowness, hadn't been enough.
Pain burned like live coals in his ribs as the villagers dragged him through the dirt, their calloused hands wrenching the red hair he'd once taken pride in. Hrodric spat blood and mud, glimpsing through swollen eyelids the hooded hunters watching from rooftops, their recurve bows taut as deadly lute strings.
It had been a mistake to think his compassion would save him.
He remembered with bitter clarity the betrayal in the eyes of the woman he'd protected days earlier, now shoving him with the same hatred as the others. The children he'd fed threw stones. The old man whose amulet he'd saved spat on his stained chainmail.
A kick to his kidneys sent him rolling to the square's center, where Mayor Marco Hernico Caese waited, his war-axe gleaming under the sun. The mountain leader's face was as impassive as the valley's rocks, but his eyes burned with ancestral fury.
—What says the wolf in sheep's clothing?— asked the mayor, crushing Hrodric's broken shield beneath his boot, the runes of Tyr splintering.
Hrodric tried to rise, but a massive hand—Antonio the shepherd's—slammed him back down. The stench of barley and sweat filled his nostrils as the giant whispered in his ear: —Pray to your god, outsider. This land does not forgive.—
Amid the circle of vengeance-hungry faces, Hrodric saw the monk Segismundo watching him with green eyes full of sorrow. An instant connection formed between them: two men trapped between conflicting loyalties.
The air in the square grew taut as a bowstring. Segismundo de Lariano, his robe dust-stained and noble features etched with anguish, had tried to intervene. His words—laced with compassion and reason—had briefly resonated before drowning in the crowd's hostile murmurs. Then Septimio Alcarino Felicior, the young tribune in black armor and gem-green eyes, stepped forward with the gravity of a divine verdict.
—I understand,— said Septimio, his voice slicing the air like his sword's edge,—that these men were under your command, Segismundo, not directly under your ecclesiastical superior. Is that so?
Segismundo, pale, nodded. He had failed as a leader, and he knew it.
With a solemn motion, Septimio drew Caladhel, the healing sword of light. Its translucent blade flashed once before he drove it into the mud, leaving it upright as a symbol of judgment.
—By Roman law,— he continued, eyeing the fifty kneeling soldiers,—when a legion disobeys its commander, it must be decimated. That teaches loyalty.
A murmur of horror rippled through the square. The villagers, thirsty for vengeance, held their breath. Hrodric, still bleeding on the ground, lifted his gaze to the young tribune, unsure whether what came next would be mercy or massacre.
—However,— Septimio raised a gloved hand,—I offer an alternative. Five of you will die voluntarily… and spare the remaining forty-five.
The silence that followed was thick, broken only by torch crackles. Some villagers protested:
—Letting these wolves go free!— a woman shouted, her trembling finger jabbing at the soldiers.
But Mayor Marco Hernico raised a hand for silence. His stone-cold eyes studied Septimio with ancestral respect.
—Let it be,— he ordered.—We are about to witness the power of Roman gods in action.
Among the soldiers, some trembled. Others exchanged desperate glances. Hrodric, from the ground, watched as five men—one by one—stood. Not the bravest or strongest, but those with nothing left to lose: a hollow-eyed veteran, a boy who'd enlisted to escape hunger, a father whose son had died in the revolt, and two others whose names no one would remember.
Septimio wrenched Caladhel from the mud. The blade glowed verdant as he sliced his palm, letting his blood coat the sacred steel.
—Justice is not always death,— he murmured,—but today, it must be.
Then, to everyone's awe, the five volunteers dropped to their knees—not by the sword's edge, but by their own consent. Caladhel did not touch them, yet its light enveloped them, snuffing out their lives like a sigh. They died in peace, faces relaxed, as if finally at rest.
The remaining forty-five soldiers, Hrodric among them, watched with tear-filled eyes. This was not forgiveness, nor absolution—but it was justice. And in this merciless world, perhaps the closest to mercy they'd ever get.
The mayor nodded, satisfied. Septimio gestured for the survivors to rise.
—Leave,— he said,—and remember this day.
Hrodric, swaying, picked up his shattered shield. The runes of Tyr, god of war and justice, seemed to mock him. He had survived—but something within him had died in that square.
And perhaps, he thought as he limped away, it was what he deserved.
A piercing scream split the air as Lucia collapsed, her body convulsing as if fire ants marched through her veins. First her fingers twisted with dry cracks, shattered bones reassembling inside her flesh, pressing against bruised skin. Caladhel's magic was not gentle: it tore away dead tissue like a vulture stripping bones, leaving new muscles pulsing in the open before translucent skin veiled them, darkening on contact with air.
The sound was the worst.
Like grinding bones inside a wet leather sack. Each rib, each vertebra, each shard of her shattered ankle snapped into place with audible clicks, punctuated by Lucia's choked screams as she bit through a leather strap. Her spine straightened with a crack that made even veteran soldiers flinch. The tendons in her feet coiled like serpents before tightening with wet snaps.
When it ended, she lay in a pool of bodily fluids: sweat, old blood, and strange humors expelled by the magic. Her newborn-perfect skin grotesquely contrasted the necrotic flesh scraps littering the ground like discarded husks.
Septimio watched, squinting, as the sword drained not just blood from his palm, but something deeper. Each life taken to fuel this miracle left an echo: the metallic taste of a soldier dreaming of home, the sour fear of one who'd never killed, the last sigh of a man who just wanted the pain to end. Five souls ground into aurea magic's mill, their essence fuel for this unnatural act.
—The scales do not lie,— Septimio murmured, cleaning Caladhel's now-dull blade.—Take five, return one. And it's no trade—just... borrowing.
The mayor understood the true cost. This wasn't healing—it was transaction. The magic that had restored his daughter carried the bitter aftertaste of debt. When Septimio demanded payment—the villa, supplies, recruits—he wasn't negotiating. He was collecting interest on power that should never have been invoked.
Lucia, now physically whole but glassy-eyed from trauma, clung to her father. Touching her, Marco felt her skin too cold, as if part of her warmth had left with those five condemned men.
On the rooftops, crows began to caw. Not at the blood on the ground, but at what all sensed: tonight, when Lucia closed her eyes, she'd dream of five strangers whispering from the shadows... reminding her that her life was no longer entirely her own.
Silence spread like a heavy shroud after Septimio's words. Mayor Marco Hernico didn't blink, but his knuckles whitened around his axe.
—My daughter?— he repeated, each word ice-edged.
Lucia, still trembling from regeneration's agony, looked up at Septimio. Her new skin glowed under the sun, but her eyes reflected the brutal truth of what had been unleashed.
Septimio didn't flinch. —Her life is bound to mine now. When I die, she dies. When the sword breaks, her soul fades.— He spun Caladhel, light dancing on its pommel gem.—But she will live in that villa—my ancestors' home—with honors worthy of her blood... and mine.
The mayor searched his daughter's face for refusal. But Lucia, with eerie calm, nodded slightly. She'd seen the magic's price. She'd felt five souls sacrificed for hers.
—The supplies,— Septimio continued, pointing to the mountains,—are not a request, but acknowledgment. I know you control the passes from this valley to Ravenna. Merchants pay tolls for your hidden paths. I need provisions for three legions... and safe passage.
The mayor snorted. —And if I refuse?
Septimio smiled, teeth white and sharp as a young wolf's. —The gods have already charged you, Marco Hernico. Five lives for one. But consider this: my lord, Octavio Petilio Ceriales Duces, legate of the Ninth Hispania... and Rome's next dictator, will remember your hospitality.
The name thundered. Even the eldest villagers, who'd seen centuries of tyrants and emperors, held their breath.
The mayor studied Septimio, then his daughter, finally the sword that had restored life at such terrible cost. When he spoke, his voice was rough as mountain stone:
—Take what you need. But my daughter rules that villa—she is no prisoner. And when your lord rises... he will remember: mountains do not submit. They negotiate.
Septimio inclined his head, sealing the pact. Far away, a crow cawed. Lucia shivered as Caladhel's gem pulsed in sync with her heartbeat.
The game had begun. And all of them—willing or not—were now pieces on a board whose rules only the gods fully understood.