17.

Julius reared his head, looking out at the sky as he trawled his memory. A silver crest of cloud tumbled by.

For months after his father executed the Claudius, Julius had covertly exhausted his resources as a fourteen-year-old to look for their son, his friend, and brother, who was also his rival, made to pit against him in every mock battle and game. 

He found nothing. 

In the day, he continued with the drilling to become the next Renanian General; at night, he huddled himself in his bed, sore, bone-weary, and mortified by his father's scathing remarks. He shuddered, not because he was sore, bone-weary, and mortified, but at the crept-in resignation that the friend who helped him laugh off the soreness, the weariness, and the mortification would never return. 

He crossed his arms, his gaze withdrawn from the window. Between the man on the floor and the boy he remembered stretched a membrane, gossamer yet impenetrable. The resemblance was there, but the Cato Claudius he knew died thirteen years ago, and this phantom was not him. 

The wind shrieked, scything through the wall flaps. Julius kept his eyes on the blond man while his squire stumbled inside and ushered in the envoy. Unkempt and brawny, the man looked nothing like a Renanian soldier. He produced a rough-hewn box from under his arm and thrust it at him. 

Premonition roiled, muddling his mind. For a brief few breaths, Julius felt as though the gods had gifted him with their vision to see through. While he knew all too well the blond man was right that the box was meant to provoke him, he had to open it. To prove wrong of his fear, and the gods laughing at it. He yanked off the lid. 

Grief gagged him at the same pulse the floor sundered as though a trap door under his feet. Falling freely into an abyss as he had feared, he banged his fist and fumbled to hold his weight. Consumed by rage, he slobbered, spitting the incomprehensible. His sword whizzed out the sheath as he wrenched at its hilt. Wheeling around to his squire, he snarled, "I'll sever the bloody scum! Gather the men now!" 

"General!" Loping to him, Moon Xeator held out both arms lengthwise as he blocked his way. "Ire may cease in time, but a state can never resume as it was once destroyed, nor the dead ever to life! You're the Commander General of the best Renanian legion! Your actions yield such consequences! Once you empty the men from your campsite, the Turisian armies can and will sneak in using the mountain routes they wouldn't otherwise dare!"

Julius shoved him aside. "What are you still waiting for?" He bellowed at the squire. "I said, gather the men!" 

"Julius Pompeius Gaius! You stop the madness right there!" The blond man bawled behind him. "Once you lose the higher ground as your defense, you lose your utmost advantage! Lorenzo has twice the men! Meeting them head-on, you put all your brothers and your wife in plight!"

Julius spun around and face him, clutching his throat as he bowled him over on the floor. "Who the fuck are you to harangue me, huh? None of it would have happened had it not been for you!" He choked on his scream; his scream settled in his bones. 

The blond man closed his eye. His teeth chattered with every draw of breath. "I've come this far in my vengeance, and none of it came close to how I thought it would make me feel," He mumbled, his voice quavering. "But what would you have me do if you were me, huh?" 

Julius gulped, shivering while he lurched to his feet. Swinging his sword at the leg of the mahogany table until it collapsed, he dropped to his knees, his hand over his eyes. 

Think! He ordered himself. 

Think! He must, for his wife, his unborn child, his brothers, their borders. 

Think! While he only wanted to scream. 

He got to his feet and turned to the blond man lying still on the floor. His sword clanked against the piece of wood beside him.

"I won't fight Lorenzo head-on," he husked. "But the scum Ahmed will suspect something if I do nothing."

"We can have a little extra into our old plan." The blond man snapped open his eye. "But you aren't going to like it."

Julius snorted. "Has it stopped you before?"

"No." 

Before he realized it, the blond man snatched at his wrist and wrung it outwards. He lost his grip. His sword slipped off his hand. In the same breath the blade clanged on the floor, the blond man caught its hilt with the other hand. Pivoting on his heel, he swung around and drew a fan across the air with the steel that swooshed and perforated the envoy's larynx. Blood spouted in streams. 

Impaled on the tip of the steel, the brawny gawked, his lips quivering. 

The blond man panted, his head low, his back heaving, ash blond locks flopping over his face. He wrenched the sword. The body wobbled before plunging to the knees. 

Julius gaped. "What the fuck did you do that for?" He snarled, his voice rending his throat. "He's a bloody envoy!"

Slowly turning to face him, the blond man returned his sword. "Look at him, General. What does the face tell you?" he asked, his eye flicking between him and the corpse. "Despite the Legidus' livery, he's not a Renanian soldier."

"So what?"Julius snapped, losing his mind. "Lorenzo can't send his sellsword as an envoy?" How he abhorred the man before him! How he shuddered at the infamy of his scheme! And how he loathed that he covertly agreed! It felt as though he was teetering on the brink of a precipice. On his tail, a pack of wolves, famished and drooling; before him, a vertiginous void, calling at him to take a leap. 

"So, why would Lorenzo send a sellsword that takes direct orders from the Turisian if the Turisian didn't send him?" He coughed; ragged breaths rattled. 

Before he could resume, however, Julius swung up his sword; gazing into his emerald eye was the sharp tip dripping in red. "I don't need your advice, you scum! And nothing you say will change the fact that you just killed the envoy, regardless of who sent him!" He gasped, shaking. "One word, and I will kill you!"

The blond man didn't flinch. Looking him dead in the eye, he gripped the blade and pointed its tip at his brow. "Go on then," he sneered while his eye dimmed. Blood, be it his or otherwise, seeped through his fingers. 

An orange glow of the setting sun poked once more through the wall flaps. The squire stumbled at the scene, "G, g-general," collecting himself as he stammered. "Tribune Valerius is here to see you! He…"

Sergius Valerius pushed him aside, dragging behind him two men in chains. Hurling them at the floor, he paid no heed to the corpse. "We've caught the assassins," he said in a heavy breath, steaming sweat haloing his head.

Julius glanced sidelong at Valerius. "And the Lady?" He asked with a tremor in his voice he hoped had gone unnoticed. 

"Safe and sound." Valerius bowed. 

A tug from the other end of the sword compelled him to return his eyes to the blond man. 

"Perfect timing," he said, tipping his head at the captives. "Kill the two, lop off their heads, along with the so-called envoy's, have them all wrapped in the livery, and catapulted to Lorenzo's camp during the seance as we've planned. Lorenzo didn't send any of them. The heads evince that Ahmed has been working against him on his back, a reason good enough to ditch him. And as for Ahmed's suspicion, well, you did react by returning his messenger's head. The rest shall fall into places."

Julius glared. Quirinus' smile kept popping in his head, warm and alive. He panted and closed his eyes. 

"Look," the blond man's voice continued, gruff but measured. "Even if he's an envoy, you didn't kill him! I did! And I'm nothing but your prisoner! It won't soil your honor, or that of your legion, alright? His blood is on me!" He wheezed, his hand shaking by the tip of the blade. "I've always been pitted against you. Let me fight alongside you for once. We can win this. You and I. Veni, vidi, vici, remember?" 

He popped open his eyes. 

About the tip of the steel, blood oozed through pale fingers held before a diamond-cut face. In the wispy shadow of those ash-blond locks, the corners of his blooded lips were hoisted with such an effort to smile, lending a manic touch to it. His emerald eye glinted, a tear rolling down his cheek, splashing on the cuirass. 

Boom.

The impenetrable membrane between now and the past shattered, and through a spectacular cloud of dust, Julius recognized the boy in the man. He reeled back a step. The sword slipped off his hand.