The wine in my patera was the color of a fresh bruise.
I watched it tremble. My hand would not stop shaking.
"Fortuna has spat on us!" I slammed my palm against the table. Wine leapt from the rim—a crimson wave spreading across the cedar like blood into linen. "Luck is for the beloved of the gods! What use is coin? What use is silk? Mother, we cannot eat gold!"
Across from me, she did not move.
She sat like an empress on a throne of bones. Coan silk draped her frame, so fine I could see the candleflame through it. Gold cuffs weighted her wrists, each stamped with the leering face of Priapus. Emeralds strangled her throat—gems that could feed the Subura's poor for a year.
And she watched me.
Grey eyes. Cold as the winter Tiber. They held no love—only appraisal. The same look she gave a new girl on the auction block.
"Really?" Her voice was a serpent uncoiling in the stillness. "Coin means nothing? Then why do I scrape and scheme to keep you fed? Dress you? House you?" She leaned forward. "Without me, you'd be begging in the Forum, selling your body for crusts. Life is suffering, Aurelia. No one is spared."
"Father made us happy! Father loved us!" The words tore from my throat. "That doesn't mean you sell Livia! And Aelia! And Carla to the flesh-traders!"
A small hand clutched my stola from behind. Flavia. My youngest sister. Eleven years old. Her fingers trembled against the fabric.
I shook her off.
Please, Aurelia. Her lips moved. No sound came.
"What are we to you? Cattle?" My voice broke. "You raise us, fatten us with pretty words—then sell us to the highest bidder. You trade your own blood!"
She laughed. A low, awful sound, like a dagger dragged across marble.
"You think I don't know sacrifice?" She stood. "Livia fetched fifty denarii. Aelia, sixty." Her lips curled. "And Carla? She was sold before the auctioneer finished his chant."
The numbers hung in the air like smoke from a funeral pyre.
"You, Aurelia..." She tilted her head, studying me like prime stock. Her fingers caught my chin, forcing me still. "These eyes—violet as Tyrian dye. Rare. Exquisite. That's why I saved you for last."
The room swayed.
"The slaver returns at dawn." She released me, turning away. "Run if you wish. The streets will chew you up. The vigiles will drag you back by your hair. And I?" She glanced over her shoulder. "I will count his coin and forget your name."
Flavia sobbed behind me. A tiny, broken sound.
I did not turn.
If I saw her tears, I would crumble to dust.
My fingers found the fruit knife. Small. Meant for peeling apples.
I lunged.
The blade flashed toward her throat—
She caught my wrist. Her fingers closed like iron.
Flavia's arms wrapped around my waist. Her tears soaked through my stola.
Then the slap came.
My head snapped sideways. Blood flooded my mouth. I was on the floor before I knew I had fallen. Mosaic tiles pressed into my cheek. The knife skittered across the marble, a sound like a dying bird.
I could not move.
A thin red line marred her perfect cheek. She touched it. Studied the blood on her fingertips. Then she looked down at me.
For a heartbeat, something flickered in her eyes. Not love. Not regret. Something worse.
Recognition.
"I should kill you for that," she murmured. "But you're worth too much alive."
She crouched, her lips near my ear. "Dawn comes, daughter. And so does he."
Then she was gone.
Flavia collapsed beside me. Her small body wracked with silent sobs.
I lay on the cold floor, staring at the cracked ceiling fresco—a forgotten goddess, her face split in two by a fault in the plaster. One eye wept. The other stared blankly at nothing.
There has to be a way.
The thought was a spark in the dark.
There has to.
---
The moon crawled across the barred window. When Flavia's voice came, it was fragile as a bird's bone.
"Aurelia... we can escape."
"To where? The slaver owns this quarter. He pays the vigiles to look the other way. This place is not a home—it is a wolf's den. A fornix where men pay to spit on the memory of what we were."
"Who cares what they call it?" Her fingers found mine. "We are different."
She was right. My sister was too smart. She could read a scroll once and recite it verbatim. Our tutor called her "Minerva born anew." She was our father's morning star.
"Aurelia." Her voice snapped me from the abyss. "I have a plan."
"Titus," she said.
The name hit me like a blade.
The man who swore his life to me when he was a scrawny youth being kicked half to death in the Forum. I stepped in. Used Father's name. Saved him. He vowed: "My life is yours, domina. Always."
"He promised he would do anything for you," Flavia whispered. "I know he... holds certain thoughts when he looks at you. But he can be useful."
"Useful how?"
"He has a horse. He knows the roads outside the city. The back ways. The shepherd's tracks."
Escape. A real word. Not a dream. A path.
"You are eighteen," she pressed. "Mother plans to sell you. And I am eleven. If I am left alone with her, she will beat me for your defiance. And when my monthly bleeding starts, she will sell me too. This is our only path."
I could not deny it.
"The slaver comes at dawn. How can we meet Titus in time?"
She met my eyes. "Then you should have considered that before you tried to carve open our mother's throat."
Before I could recoil, she continued: "I sent him a letter last week. Through old Linus, the baker's boy. He replied." She paused. "He said—'I am yours to command, domina. I wait at the Porta Capena at first light.'"
My breath caught.
I am yours to command.
Not a hero's boast. A debt repaid.
"The Porta Capena," I breathed. "But if we are caught—"
She would not look away. "We will not be caught."
Silence descended, heavy with all that was at stake. Outside, a dog barked in the distance. The world kept turning, indifferent.
I pulled Flavia against me. Her small body fit into the hollow of my side. Her heartbeat was a tiny drum against my ribs.
Dawn was coming. I could see it bleeding at the edges of the night.
I held my sister tighter.
Titus.
---
To be continued...