Chapter Four: A Crown of Thorns

Snow fell upon the blood of summer.

In the hills beyond the vale, winter had arrived early, cloaking the earth in silence. The old villa, now mended with wood and patched stone, stood like a sentinel against time, its towers rebuilt not in splendor, but in purpose. Where once it had crumbled in decay, now it bore the scars of battle like a crown.

Inside, Cassian awoke before dawn.

He sat at the edge of the chamber where he and Selene now resided, a high chamber with tall windows, half repaired. The cold slipped through the cracks, but he welcomed it. It reminded him he was still alive.

He rose and poured water from a basin, washing the blood from his hands, not from war this time, but from work. These days, his sword rested more than it sang. And yet, restlessness haunted him like a shadow.

Selene stirred in the blankets behind him.

"Is it morning already?" she asked, her voice low with sleep.

"It is," Cassian replied. "And the council meets at first bell."

She sat up, dark hair tumbling over her shoulders. Her beauty had not dimmed with hardship; rather, it had grown keener, forged like tempered glass.

"Will they listen today?" she asked.

Cassian shrugged. "They will speak. Whether they listen is another matter."

The villa had become a court.

A strange, fragile alliance now held within its walls refugees from both Rome and Elyria, former nobles, soldiers-turned-settlers, scribes and scholars, and even thieves turned guardians. Together, they tried to forge something new from the ashes.

But unity was fickle.

In the great hall, beneath a patched mosaic of Mars and Minerva, the council gathered. Fifteen voices, equal in title if not in weight, circled a table that had once been a marble altar.

Varian sat at the head, his presence calm but commanding. Across from him, a former Roman magistrate, Lucius Corvinus, sat stiff in his new woolen cloak. Between them, Cassian and Selene took their places.

"We cannot wait," Lucius said, his voice sharp. "Rome will not forget this humiliation."

"No," said Varian, "but she may hesitate to strike again. Decimus left defeated."

"For now."

A woman in Elyrian robes raised her hand. "Perhaps it is time we crown a leader. A sovereign. Someone both sides can rally behind."

Murmurs followed.

Cassian's eyes narrowed. "A king?"

"Or queen," Selene said softly.

Varian raised a brow. "Titles are dangerous. They breed fear or ambition."

"But we are already feared," Selene said. "And if we don't give the people a symbol to believe in, others will rise who do not deserve it."

The room fell quiet.

Then Lucius looked to Cassian. "Then perhaps you should wear the crown."

Cassian stood slowly.

"I am no king," he said. "And I will not become what I once fought."

"But you are the reason this place still stands," said the Elyrian woman. "And she," she gestured to Selene, "has the blood of queens."

Cassian looked at Selene, his voice quiet. "We wanted to build peace. Not reign."

Selene met his gaze. "Then let us wear the crown not as rulers but as guardians."

That night, beneath the stars, the decision weighed heavy on them both.

They stood upon the villa's parapet, where the wind carried the scent of pine and old snow. Far below, fires flickered in the village that had begun to form beyond the walls.

Selene leaned on the stone.

"Would you hate me," she said, "if I said I wanted it?"

He stepped beside her. "No. I would only fear what it will cost."

"We can guide them," she said. "Not rule with iron but shield them with grace."

Cassian closed his eyes.

Then, he reached into his cloak and pulled out something wrapped in cloth.

He unwrapped it.

It was a circlet simple, unadorned. A band of iron, shaped from a Roman officer's helm and gilded with Elyrian silver. Half war, half peace.

"I forged it the night we drove Decimus back," he said. "I didn't know if I'd ever give it to you."

Selene took it in trembling hands.

"I accept," she said. "But only if you stand with me."

"Always."

She raised the crown.

And dawn broke over the valley.

The coronation was unlike any Rome had ever known.

There were no golden arches, no parades of chained captives, and no legions marching in perfect rhythm. Instead, beneath a canopy of cedar boughs and snowfall, the people gathered in the courtyard of the old villa Romans and Elyrians alike. Farmers stood beside veterans. Former slaves clasped hands with old patricians. Children born of both bloods watched with wide eyes.

Cassian wore no armor.

He stood in a plain tunic, the white of peace, its hem still dusted with the soil of the morning's work. He had spent the sunrise helping raise a granary wall. He had driven nails with blistered hands. Today, he would be named a symbol, but he refused to be made a statue.

Selene stood beside him, robed in deep blue, a laurel branch woven into her braid.

Varian stepped forward, holding the iron circlet.

"Before these witnesses, do you swear to protect this land not with tyranny, but with justice?"

"I do," Selene said.

"And do you swear to lead not for glory, but for the peace you bled for?"

"I do."

Varian turned to Cassian. "And you?"

"I swear it," Cassian said. "By my sword, by my name, and by the love I carry."

Varian placed the circlet upon Selene's brow.

And then unexpectedly Selene turned and took it from her head, lifting it to Cassian.

The crowd gasped.

And Cassian shook his head.

But she pressed it to his chest. "Not as king. As a shield."

He knelt.

She placed the circlet upon his shoulders not to crown him, but to anoint him.

And thus, they were not crowned monarchs but named custodes populi, guardians of the people.

That night, fires lit the hillside in celebration.

Drums pounded. Songs, Elyrian and Roman alike, rose into the cold sky. Cassian wandered the edge of the festivities, not as ruler, but as man. He was met not with bows or chants, but with handshakes, warm nods, and even tears.

A woman approached him old, wrapped in layers of worn fabric. She offered him a bundle of herbs.

"For your wounds," she said.

"I have none."

"You will."

He smiled faintly. "Then I thank you early."

Later, Selene found him seated alone beneath the old olive tree, half-dead, half-alive, like the world they now tended.

She curled beside him, resting her head against his shoulder.

"Do you regret it?" she asked.

He turned to her. "Do you?"

She didn't answer.

For a long time, only the crackle of distant firewood filled the silence.

Then she said, "My mother once told me that power was a poison. That even in drops, it leaves a bitterness no sweetness can hide."

"And do you feel it?"

"I do."

He nodded. "Then we must never grow used to it."

She took his hand. "Promise me something."

"Anything."

"When the day comes that we must choose between the people and each other… choose them."

He looked at her, eyes fierce.

"No," he said. "We'll find a way to choose both."

But not far beyond the hills, a rider crossed the river under moonlight.

He wore neither Roman red nor Elyrian blue but the black-and-gold of the eastern provinces. He bore a message sealed with obsidian wax. And he rode not for peace, but for conquest.

Across the mountains, another kingdom stirred.

One that had watched, waited, and now moved.

And the laurel and the blade would soon face a storm no oath could hold back.

The storm did not announce itself with thunder.

It came quietly in trade routes gone silent, in merchant caravans that vanished, and in whispers carried by traveling monks and exiled scribes. The name that returned again and again was one not spoken in Rome or Elyria for nearly a generation:

Soranus.

Once a minor eastern province under the shadow of the old empire, Soranos had been forgotten during Rome's civil struggles. But in its absence, it had festered. And now, it had crowned a warlord who called himself Imperator Dei, the Emperor of the Godless. A name both mocking and terrifying.

He sent no declaration.

Only scouts.

And then, assassins.

It was near midnight when the blade came for Selene.

She had fallen asleep in the garden, as she sometimes did beneath the old cypress tree, wrapped in her cloak, her head nestled in the crook of her arm. The moonlight silvered her skin, and the villa was quiet.

The assassin moved like smoke.

Silent.

Precise.

He stepped over the stones, dagger drawn, eyes fixed on her throat.

But he never reached her.

Cassian was faster.

He came from the shadows in a blur of steel and fury. His gladius caught the assassin mid-stride; the blow was parried, but not without sound. The clash rang out.

Selene woke with a start to find Cassian locked in combat.

The assassin was skilled. He moved with trained grace, wielding two short blades, aiming for Cassian's joints and exposed ribs. But Cassian fought not with finesse; he fought with purpose.

He fought to protect her.

One blade sank into his shoulder.

Cassian roared, caught the man by the throat, and drove his knee into his ribs.

Bones cracked.

The assassin collapsed.

Cassian stood over him, bleeding, chest heaving. "Who sent you?"

The assassin smiled, bloody teeth gleaming.

"The godless rise."

Then he bit into something in his mouth.

Poison.

He convulsed. Then went still.

Selene pressed a cloth to Cassian's wound, her fingers shaking.

"Fools," she whispered. "They think if they kill us, this place will fall."

"It nearly did," Cassian muttered, gritting his teeth.

Varian arrived moments later, flanked by guards. His face, usually calm, was hard with fury.

"We caught another at the southern gate. He carried this."

He handed Selene a scroll.

It bore no crest, only a black sun etched in wax.

Selene opened it.

Her hands trembled.

Cassian read over her shoulder.

It was no declaration.

It was a prophecy.

"Where the laurel grows and the blade rests, fire shall come. The false peace shall burn, and from the ashes, one empire shall rise. Soranos does not kneel. Soranos devours."

Selene looked to Cassian.

"What does it mean?"

"It means," he said grimly, "they're coming."

They called the council at first light.

Gone was the air of celebration. The warmth of victory had faded. Now, all eyes turned to preparation.

"The eastern road must be closed," said Lucius. "Soranos will not ask permission."

"We have no wall," said Varian. "And barely enough iron to arm the men."

Cassian stood.

"Then we train more. Dig deeper. Build faster."

Selene rose beside him. "And we send envoys not to Rome or Elyria, but to the north. The hill tribes. The coastal lords. Anyone who will stand against the godless."

"And if they won't?" asked the Elyrian woman.

Cassian's voice was iron.

"Then we stand alone."

Later, as the frost began to melt under the midday sun, Cassian and Selene stood atop the eastern watchtower.

Far in the distance, a black plume of smoke rose beyond the trees.

A burned outpost.

The first.

She took his hand.

"We built this place for peace," she said softly.

"We still can," he replied. "But now we must fight for it again."

And far below them, in the forge, old weapons were pulled from the fire.

The guardians of the laurel and the blade had returned to war.

It began with embers.

The first villages near the eastern ridge were found in ruin, homes blackened, fields salted, and survivors whispering of ghostly soldiers clad in dark mail, their faces hidden behind iron masks shaped like skulls. The army of Soranos did not march with banners or trumpets. It moved like a sickness. Quiet. Spreading.

Cassian rode out within days.

He took with him a band of fifty men and women trained in the new militia, half of them unblooded, their armor mismatched, their blades borrowed from older wars. Yet their eyes burned with a fire he knew well: the fire of something worth protecting.

Varian stayed behind, tasked with fortifying the villa.

Selene remained too, but not idle. She began gathering the broken remnants of Elyria's noble houses. Those who had once scorned her now bent the knee, not for power but for survival. She reminded them that no bloodline would survive the black tide alone.

At night, she stood on the walls with a bow on her back.

Waiting.

Praying.

Cassian's patrol found the remains of the village of Venterra by the third dusk.

The smoke had long faded, but the rot lingered. Bodies lay where they fell, some with throats slit cleanly, others mangled, left as warnings. Strange symbols were carved into the wooden posts at the edge of the road: circles with crosses, eyes with thorns, and a word in the old Eastern tongue, Astarta.

"What does it mean?" asked one of the younger guards, Marcus.

Cassian stared at the carving. "It's not a name," he said. "It's a vow."

He ordered the bodies buried and the houses burned completely.

"We leave nothing for them."

He stood at the edge of the pyres as flames rose again, this time in defiance, not death. The light danced on his face, still young, still grim.

And then he felt it.

A presence behind him.

He turned and found a child.

Barefoot. Silent.

She looked no older than ten. Her eyes were pale blue, almost colorless, and she held a single iron coin in her palm.

Cassian knelt.

"Where are your parents?"

She said nothing.

Then she lifted the coin.

Cassian recognized it at once.

It bore the face of an old Roman general long dead, executed during the last civil purge. But his followers had fled east.

To Soranos.

Cassian reached for the coin, but before he could touch it, the girl dropped it and ran into the forest.

His men gave chase.

But she vanished like a shadow.

And when Cassian picked up the coin, he found it warm.

Too warm.

They returned to the villa before the week's end.

The eastern ridge was abandoned; there was no use holding it. Instead, they focused on drawing the enemy inward, forcing them into terrain they could control.

Cassian met Selene on the walls.

"You were right," he said. "They don't want conquest. They want erasure."

She nodded.

"Then let them come. We'll give them a memory they can't destroy."

That night, they sat together in the old war room, poring over maps, drawing new battle lines. Yet amidst the grimness, there was a flicker of something else.

Cassian looked up at her across the table.

"You could have been queen of any realm," he said quietly. "You had the birthright."

"I wanted more than a throne," she said.

"What, then?"

She reached across the table and touched his scarred hand.

"I wanted you."

He closed his fingers around hers.

"Then whatever comes, we'll face it together."

But even as they held the line…

Beyond the mountains, Soranos gathered its full strength.

Not merely an army.

But a cult.

A creed.

And it marched not only to conquer lands but to consume hearts.

Soon, it would reach them.

And the laurel and the blade would stand as the final promise of what love, defiance, and unity could withstand.