CHAPTER 3: Unwelcome Coronation

The smoke had barely cleared from the ruins of the Latin quarter when the great bells of Hagia Sophia tolled again—not in alarm this time, but in heraldry. Rumor swept like wildfire: the young Alexios, son of the deposed Isaac II, had been placed upon the imperial throne with the backing of the Latins. Markos, standing among the remnants of the Varangian detachment at the Chalke Gate, felt the unease settle into his bones. The boy had entered the city with a foreign army behind him, banners with showing the crusader cross, and the banner of the winged lion waving with the wind, and a promise hanging over his head like a blade.

In the Palace of Blachernae, where the Angeloi had once held decadent feasts, now walked men who bore the crests of the Lion of St. Mark and the fleur-de-lis of French knights. Alexios IV was crowned as co-emperor alongside his blind father, Isaac II, in a ceremony that felt more like theater than triumph. Markos watched from the edge of the imperial hall, gripping the shaft of his sphathion as Frankish nobles whispered in Latin behind him. The Varangians, though still loyal in name, were ignored.

There was no joy in the streets. The people of Constantinople regarded the new regime with cold suspicion. The fire had left thousands homeless, and many blamed the Latins, whom Alexios had promised to pay for their support. He needed gold, and to get it, he had to impose heavier taxes, plunder the imperial treasuries, and even seize sacred vessels from the churches. Markos watched as priests protested, and icons were stripped from sanctuaries. It was desecration, wrapped in the pretense of stability.

Markos' detachment, a centarchia of hardened guardsmen from the northern provinces as the Varangians swore to the new emperor, he did not. As a result he was stationed in the Mese—the main street of the city—ostensibly to maintain peace despite of his loyal alleigance to Alexios III. But their presence did little to calm the riots. One afternoon, Markos had to split apart a mob attacking a Latin merchant's cart, the men spitting blood and rage as they shouted, "This is what your emperor brings us!" It was clear to him that Alexios IV' legitimacy rested not on divine right, but the edge of barbari or Frankish swords.

He began to hear whispers among the Varangians despite of their new oath to Alexios IV their grumbles of uncertainty, of resentment. Some called Alexios IV a puppet, others feared that the wrath of the people would soon be turned on the foreign-born Guard themselves. Markos held the line, commanding his men with calm resolve, but even he could not deny the creeping truth: they were now guardians of a throne bought by betrayal.

One night, in a small chapel behind the Hagia Eirene, Markos knelt to pray. He did not ask for victory, nor strength but he asked God for understanding. And there, in the flickering candlelight, he dreamed again. The woman with eyes like embered coals appeared, draped in black and red. "Your God won't save you from this doomed city... but I will." she whispered, voice curling like smoke over ash, "because no one else deserves you. Not even heaven." Her eyes gleamed, unblinking. "Empires don't fall from war—they fall when love is forgotten... and I won't let that happen again." And after that short nap from that nightmare, he wakes up.

As autumn approached, tensions worsened. Alexios IV, desperate to fulfill his promises to the Latins, began to alienate every faction within the city. Noble families withdrew support, military officers muttered of coups, and the people seethed under the weight of imposed debts. Markos now wore his helmet even in the barracks, knowing any night could erupt into bloodshed. He felt like a man defending a dying corpse, forced to hold position while vultures circled above.

In the final days of the year, Markos stood once more on the Theodosian Walls, watching the Crusader camp across the Golden Horn. What had begun as a hopeful restoration now teetered toward catastrophe. The fire had gutted their hearts, the foreign swords had broken their pride—and he, an officer sworn to protect Constantinople, could do little but wait. In the distance, the horns of Latin patrols echoed in the mist. And somewhere beyond the veil of mortal conflict, the shadow of a demon still watched him.

As the city festered under its new rulers and tension strangled Constantinople, Markos sat down near a campfire as he overlooked Constantinople and the Frankish camps from the walls, as he slowly drifted to sleep Markos found himself haunted by memories not born from dreams, but from blood and fire the memories of Thessalonica, 18 years before, when he was only four years old.

He remembered the pounding of war drums, distant at first, then echoing through the narrow streets like a gathering storm. David Komnenos, the doux of the city, had forbidden the garrison from attacking the Normans as they set up siege engines outside the eastern walls. "To provoke them would be madness," the officials had said. But the madness came anyway. Markos had watched from a cellar door as Norman sappers undermined the defenses, while men in purple and silk debated in the basilicas, their mouths full of fear and wine.

The defenders held out as long as they could, but their efforts were piecemeal, unsupported. The two relief forces sent—those of Theodore Choumnos and John Maurozomes—never coordinated their march. By the time they arrived, the eastern wall had been breached. Markos remembered the cracking stone, the choking smoke, and the screams of soldiers cut down at the gate. He had clutched a wooden icon of St. Demetrios as the Normans poured through like wolves.

The slaughter was unspeakable. Fires danced along the colonnades. Blood turned the flagstones slick. He had seen his father die an aging kontophoros who tried to rally a last stand near the Chalke gate, only to be split in two by a Norman broadsword. His mother was torn from him in the crowd. He never saw her again, and that's when he first saw the demon from his dreams, as he was spotted by the Normans he ran through the chaos of the streets. As he was cornered by the houses and the Normans a terrible gust of dark wind tore the Normans in half, Markos was terrified and trembling in fear as a woman hidden by a cloak held his hand as she guided him to a monk and disappeared like a wind. Bodies littered the alleys by morning seven to eight thousand, some said, butchered in the sack.

Markos survived only because a monk had pulled him into a hidden chamber beneath a ruined chapel. That monk, a quiet man from Mount Athos, later took Markos to the safety of the countryside. But before they fled, they passed through the burning atrium of the Church of Hagios Nikolaos, where a solemn, soot-streaked man tried to rally the terrified faithful. Eustathius of Thessalonica, the city's archbishop, stood unmoving amidst the chaos, chanting psalms to the dying and the damned. Markos, clutching the monk's robes, remembered the archbishop's words: "This city falls not for its sins, but because her guardians have no voice and no sword."

That memory never left him.

Now, almost two decades later, Markos saw it all again—not in Thessalonica, but in Constantinople. The faces were different. The walls taller. The flags older. But the death, the blindness of command, the betrayal of those in power—it was the same. Alexios IV, like David Komnenos, had neither will nor wisdom. The people bled while their emperor served foreign hands. And deep in his gut, Markos knew the Normans would not be the last devourers of cities.

As night fell over the Queen of Cities, Markos sat alone near the sea walls, staring into the Bosphorus. He saw no stars, only flame in the water's reflection. And for the first time since he took his oath, the idea crept into his mind like a whisper: perhaps the empire did not need a savior—but a reckoning. "I will fight my last here, may God guide me." After he said that, a violent wind went through him indicating that something or someone didn't liked that statement..