Based on the work of Robyn Bee, In 7 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Connected.
An Empress' Guard Remembers.
Then, as sudden as the crash after lightning, the weight was gone.
I didn't immediately react. My mind was a storm of pounding fury, my breath ragged in my ears and my body frozen and tense.
After a few heartbeats of nothing, my soldier's instincts forced me into motion. I lowered my shield, becoming suddenly aware of my shrieking muscles.
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I groaned, swayed, and would have fallen over had another body not leaned into me.
Helena. My shield mate.
Her eyes were glazed and her breath was the uneven, gasping hitch of a body pushed beyond all limits.
But she was alive.
She was here beside me, and together, we steadied each other enough to stand on our own. I blinked my vision into focus and raised my head.
We were in a charnel house.
Dozens lay dead before us, a carpet of blood and pale bodies that stretched from our feet to the splintered entrance. They'd been gutted and cut open, their insides spilled onto the surrounding stones.
And the stench.
It was shit and misery and death; a miasma of horror worse than any sort of butcher's yard. Beside me, Helena coughed, staggered to the side, and retched. I just swayed in place, breathing through my mouth.
"They ran away," a voice rasped. "They all ran away."
It was the Empress. She was just a handful of steps behind us, leaning heavily onto the haft of her spear. Her limbs shook with exhaustion.
"Augusta," I croaked. "Are you hurt?"
Blood stained the sweat-darkened purple of her dress. Thick droplets of it that were splattered along her chest and shoulders. It oozed from between her fingers, trickling down from the splintered tip of her spear.
"Ah," she said, seeming to notice herself for the first time. "No. I, I don't believe any of this is mine. And you?"
She reached a hand up to push at the strip of purple that held back her hair, leaving a streak of red behind on her forehead.
I didn't answer, refusing to look down and examine myself. I wasn't ready to see, so I forced myself to stare down the hallway, distracting myself with thoughts of survival.
And indeed, it appeared as if the Empress was correct. Nothing moved within the corridor, and I could hear nothing in the room beyond the shattered portal. The invaders had fled, and not a moment too soon, as I finally noticed that we'd been pushed most of the way back to Theodora's sitting room.
Not far away, Helena groaned. She managed to push herself upright, leaning heavily against the wall, her face wan.
"Helena," I said. "Are you,”
I coughed, feeling a wave of bile rise through me. The smell was horrific, made so much worse by the thick summer air and the windless confines of this tunnel. My stomach writhed, but I clamped down on it ruthlessly.
Not yet.
Helena was covered in blood. Her chest, legs, and sword arm were caked in death, her face and neck splattered with it. I staggered over to her, conscious of the gumminess between my own fingers.
"I'm fine," she said, trying to smile. "I'm fine. It's just, how,”
She turned and threw up once again. It was a hacking, heaving sort of retch; the kind that left you shaking. I came to stand beside her, pressing my hip to her side, all I could do without dropping my sword and shield. She leaned some of her weight into me.
"Leontius," the Empress said, moving to join us. She lay a hand on the unarmored part of Helena's hip, providing what comfort she could. "Is it safe to move?"
I blinked, stirred, and shook my head. "Not yet. We still don't know what's going on in the rest of the palace. This is still the safest place for us."
Theodora nodded, turning her head to gaze down the length of the passageway. An ocean of red dotted with pale islands of green and blue.
"It seems remarkable," she said. "That we survived against so many."
"These weren't soldiers, Augusta," I said, exhaling. "They were potters, blacksmiths, dockworkers, They were drunk, pushed onto our swords by those further back. They were badly led, unarmored and most didn't even have any weapons. They were just,”
"People," Theodora finished for me. "Dead because they believed in something strongly enough to fight for it."
I shifted, my gaze going back to Helena. She was still bent into the wall, her eyes screwed tightly shut and her frame vibrating with repressed feeling. She'd just gone through her first battle, and every single thought and feeling that she'd pushed aside while in the midst of it was tearing into her.
My own soul felt raw, overused, and stretched near to the point of snapping. I could feel my own crash coming, though experience let me push it away. For a time, at least.
"We believe as well, Augusta," I said. "In you."
The Empress smiled, though it was one that I'd yet to see wear. It was an expression of unyielding certainty, of iron-hard conviction; the whole of it framed by a profound sense of grief. It was the smile of the lonely farmer taking his axe to the rabid skull of his favorite dog.
She stepped forward to kiss my cheek. "I'll be back with a bucket of water."
The Empress slipped into her private chambers a few moments later, leaving Helena and me alone. My shield mate had managed to straighten herself, though her body still shook. I watched as she breathed deeply, the lines of her face growing looser with every exhalation.
She was eventually able to open her eyes and meet my gaze. I felt something crack within me, like the first axe blow that had split the door.
It was still her.
Though tears traced the lines of her cheeks, and something had changed within the cypress of her eyes, nothing had been lost. I still recognized her. She was still the woman I,
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Helena, I, what?"
"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I'm here weeping like a child. But I'll get stronger, Leo."
I blinked.
"I promise," she said, looking away. "I won't hold you back for long. I just, I promise I'll be stronger."
Then, despite the blood coating my limbs and the charnel house stink of the hallway, I laughed. I laughed, and I laughed and I felt myself draw back from the edge.
Helena's face went scarlet. "Fuck you," she hissed, turning to march away.
"No!" I gasped, lurching to step in front of her. "I'm sorry. It's not that! It's,”
I devolved into another peel of laughter. And though Helena's face burned a shade brighter, she didn't move away.
When I finally mastered myself, I stepped a bit nearer to her. I looked into her eyes, my face relaxing into a smile. "Helena, you wonderful, amazing, beautiful, and hopelessly blind woman. You're the strongest person I've ever known."
She snorted, though I saw something shine within her eyes. "You weren't the one crying and puking."
"No," I agreed. "Not yet."
"It's coming?"
I nodded.
She made a small sound, moving nearer to me. "Then, I'll be here when it does."
The Empress returned a few minutes later with a bucket of water and several strips of clean, white cloth.
We dropped our weapons, washing the worst of the blood and sweat from our hands and faces. Helena and I discovered that we'd each suffered a myriad of cuts, and to my horror, the Empress proceeded to tend to our injuries.
"Leontius, enough!" She snapped, as I tried to squirm away. She looked ferocious in her still bloody dress, her hands clamping down on me. "You risked your lives for me, the least I can do is clean and wrap your wounds."
"Augusta," I tried.
"Stop," she said, taking up a clean rag. "I'll be quick. I have some experience if that reassures you."
I frowned, glancing over to Helena.
"At the brothel," she said. "When the men were too rough; Theodora would patch us up."
"You didn't have a guard?" I asked. "Or a bouncer?"
"Not until Helena grew a little older," the Empress said, pulling over a clean strip of cloth. "Your arm now, Leontius."
"Augusta, I can handle,” Her glare silenced me, and I meekly held my forearm out for her to inspect.
"Thank you." She took my arm, her fingers strong and sure. "Please don't keep fighting me on this. I'm having difficulty sitting still, to tell you the truth. I keep, well, no matter."
I relaxed, submitting myself to her care. The Empress fell silent, unwilling to explain further. But she didn't have to, the stiffness in her limbs and the tension at the corners of her eyes mirrored my own.
Our day wasn't yet done.
The Empress was most of the way through checking over Helena when I heard the sound of boots on stone. The two women heard it with me, and we moved as one. Helena and I had our shields strapped on in moments, the Empress having collected our swords for us in the meantime.
We jogged towards the shattered entrance, my limbs stiff and my heart beating faster.
"Mary's tits!" A voice loudly swore. "It fucking reeks here. Are you sure we're going the right way, Serg?"
"I thought you'd be used to the smell of your own sack by now, Grat?"
"Oh, they stink, do they? How about you come lick them clean for me, Niketas?"
Helena and I slowed, exchanging incredulous looks. We stopped before reaching the first body, my eyebrows high in disbelief.
"Shut your hole, Grat," I heard Sergius growl. "You too Nik. Shields up, lads, we don't know what we're going to find here."
"Why have we stopped?" The Empress said. She'd picked up her broken spear haft. "Are these our men?"
"They're Leo's friends," Helena said with a wide grin. "From his legion days. Since when have they been in the palace?"
The tension rushed from me in a wave, leaving my body light and trembling. I sucked in a deep breath.
"I'll give 'em a few licks too, Grat!" I roared. "I'm tired of breathing them in!"
I heard a series of startled curses, while behind me, the Empress laughed. There was a stampede of pounding boots and then a squad of armored soldiers appeared in the shattered doorway.
"Centenarius!" Sergius laughed. "You're alive! The Empress?"
"She's here as well!" I called back.
The men whooped, cheering and thanking God as Sergius turned back to them. "We found them, boys! Maurice, run back and tell the General. You three, watch the hall."
The two women and I moved back as Sergius led his men in towards us. What followed was coarse laughter, back-slapping, wide-eyed realization, and a whole mess of clumsy bows as the Empress stepped out to introduce herself.
Theodora smiled through the men's stammering apologies. She thanked them each in turn, her voice shifting from a high, courtly accent to the less polished version she'd have grown up with. It was the language these soldiers knew, and the Empress left blushing cheeks and sheepish smiles in her wake.
The gates, we were happy to learn, had been sealed. Though, as of yet, nobody knew who had let the rioters in. The mob still rampaged through parts of the palace, though they'd been beaten back from the outer wall. Belisarius was in command of the palace's fighting men, coordinating squads like Sergius' that were sweeping through the halls.
"And my husband?" The Empress asked.
"Safe, Augusta," Sergius answered. "Last I heard, at any rate. The General was with him when the enemy broke in."
"Thank you, soldier," she said, laying a palm on his forearm.
"A, Augusta!" Sergius stammered, and I grinned to see the grizzled old veteran flush.
"Well then, gentlemen," Theodora said. "I believe that I will leave you here. I've got to wash the stink of Gratian's balls from my skin."
A few of the men snorted, trying to choke down on their laughter. Grat, for his part, looked positively horrified. He mangled a few words, his entire face blazing a scarlet. He hadn't produced anything more than a gargle before the Empress slipped away with a wink and a small laugh.
"Grat," Sergius said in the moment of silence after her departure. "You're a fucking idiot."
"It wasn't me!" Gratian exclaimed, his eyes wide with panic. "Serg, I, Nik, and, the Empress! She,”
"Dumber than a sackful of rocks," Serg said, shaking his head. "Start piling these bodies outside, and the rest of you grinning monkeys can help."
"Oh, don't be too hard on him," Helena said. "I was worried that he'd start talking about his phallus again."
Gratian fled, followed by the laughter of his squad mates. Sergius shook his head again, but I saw a smile part the hairs of his worn face.
"Aye, well, we can thank the Lord for that." The old soldier's gaze shifted to the doors to Theodora's salon. "The Empress, she really fought with you?"
My face twisted into a grimace. "I tried talking her out of it, but I didn't have time."
"What a woman," Sergius said, amazed. "And you, Helena, not a lot of stratiotai could have held back so many."
"Leo did most of the work," she said.
Both Sergius and I snorted.
"I'm an old soldier, lass. I know what it would have taken to do this." Sergius suddenly stiffened, saluting her with a fist over his heart. "Stratiotai!"
Helena saluted back, her face flushing. I grinned, sure that she was about to squirm with suppressed pride.
"Come on," I said. "Let's go help the monkeys."
, ,
Sergius, however, categorically refused our help.
They'd barely fought, he said. And itching to do something after three long days stationed in the palace. This was the least that they could do.
Neither Helena nor I had had the energy to argue, and so we'd taken off our helmets, unstrapped our shields, and sat back against the far wall.
"I guess that now it's official," Helena said.
"Hmm?" I answered.
We were seated near enough for our legs to touch, my body throbbing with pain and heavy with exhaustion.
"After today, we're officially shield mates."
I tilted my head towards her. "We've been shield mates for longer than that."
"Sure, but now we've fought together. I held my place at your side." And despite the horror of what we'd had to do, I heard the fierce pride in Helena's voice.
"I knew you would. I've trusted you for a long time."
"Oh yeah?" She said, shifting to rest her sweat-darkened head against mine. "Since when?"
I leaned more of my weight into her, resting my shield hand on her thigh. I could feel the eyes of the others drifting towards us as they worked, and could picture their knowing grins.
But I didn't care. I was with her.
"Remember the first day we trained together? How difficult you were being?"
"Difficult? Is that what it's called when your gender makes everyone treat you differently?"
"Hmm," I said. "That, or simple laziness."
She swatted me with the back of her hand, swearing as her knuckles rapped on my breastplate. I laughed, squeezing her thigh.
"When you swallowed your pride and your anger," I said. "When you decided to set all that aside and let me train you. That's when I knew."
She snorted, shaking out her sore knuckles. "Well, all I remember from that day is how much you enjoyed hitting me."
"You don't remember when I said the words, 'you're my shield mate'?"
"No," she said. "You must have done something mean to make me forget."
I laughed. She brought her hand down atop mine, and I turned it so our fingers intertwined. Her thumb drew a swirling pattern along my skin, and I let myself get lost in the hypnotic motion.
With her here, it felt like I could accomplish anything. Like I might pull myself forward as she had. What might I do, with this woman at my side? Where might I go? What might I build, with her hands working alongside my own?
A little tavern by the sea, perhaps.
"Helena," I said.
I shifted my hand in hers, and in doing so, my thumb came to rest atop hers, stopping the circle she was making and pulling my vision back into focus.
"Leo," she answered, and I heard the soft smile in her voice.
"I,” But my words were cut short, pressed back into me by a sudden weight. Blood, there was blood beneath my nails.
I was suddenly reminded of where I was, of what I had done. The charnel stink of the hallway, and the emotions I'd tucked away flooded back into me. I started to shake; my lungs squeezed tight.
I couldn't take my eyes off the blood that still crusted my hand.
"Leo?" Helena said, shifting so that she could look at me. "Are you ok?"
I didn't answer, freeing her hand from my filthy grip. I shifted from her, pulled away by a crushing weight against my side. I clawed at the pocket beneath my armor, ripping something free.
My mother's letter.
I opened it with unsteady hands, revealing a single slip of yellowed parchment and my mother's blocky letters.
My little lion, it said. Come home.
I stared at the page, blinking stupidly. Five little words, was that all? I turned the folded parchment over, my fingers smudging its surface.
That was it.
I felt the mad urge to laugh. Come home? Was I some lost, weeping child who needed the comfort of my mother's arms?
I grit my teeth, reading those words again and again. I ached to tear into the offending letter; to rage and scream and damn my mother to hell.
I'd been expecting something like this but, What the fuck did this mean?
I was happy. For the first time in my fucking life, I was happy. I was the Empress' guard, sitting beside a woman who was nothing but good. With her, I had a vision of a future where I wouldn't have to kill anymore.
I wasn't fucking lost.
"Leo?" Helena whispered.
She was beside me, she'd red the letter too. She once again wrapped my trembling hand in one of hers, murmuring warm words. My eyes were again drawn to the shape of that hand, to the clean flesh of her fingers.
I wasn't lost.
"I'm here," Helena said, still low enough that I could pretend I didn't hear. "Your mother,”
She tightened her grip, her fingers warm against mine. They should be filthy, I thought. Her hands should be black with the stain of all she'd done. She'd been a whore. She'd given her body to so many, spreading her legs for anyone with a handful of coins.
Today, she'd killed. Her hands should be like mine, but they weren't. Helena's hands were clean.
How were they so clean?
My heart beat faster, and I parted my lips to let my breath pass. Was I lost? Why were Helena's hands so clean? I felt myself unravel; a spool of yarn tumbling down a mountain.
Come home.
Was that the answer? No, it didn't make sense. I wasn't supposed to come home. Not yet. My father never had.
"Leo," Helena said. "Talk to me, I'm here."
I shifted my gaze to hers but didn't really see. "My father,”
"Yes?" She said. "What about him? He was a soldier, right?"
"Come home, my father never came home."
"He died?" Helena asked.
I managed a nod. "A long time ago."
He'd died not long after my fifth birthday. He'd left on campaign one spring morning and had never come back.
From then on, it had just been my mother and I. And she had never stopped speaking of my father. He'd been larger than life, she'd said. He'd been loud, as much when he laughed as when he roared his anger. He'd been strong, diligent, and the person my mother had loved the most in the world.
Her lion, she'd said, golden and proud.
And you'll be just like him one day, my little lion. You'll be so strong and so good and you'll make him so, so proud.
I'd heard that line nearly every night when I was a child. She'd say it while we had dinner, and then again when she'd tuck me into bed with a hand stroking my hair.
Helena was still speaking, but her words washed over me. I looked back at my hands. Had my father's been so filthy? I thought that they must've been; he'd been stratiotai. He'd killed.
Come home.
He'd never gone back. He'd done his duty. Had sacrificed all of the love, happiness, and comfort that he'd had in the world for it. He'd supported my mother and me with his soldier's pay.
And when he'd given up his life for that money, my mother had done the same.
She'd nearly killed herself in those first few years after his death. I remembered how she'd begged and worked long hours for whoever would pay her. I remembered her smiling through hollow cheeks, watching me eat the only little bit of bread we had.
Life got a little better once she'd managed to scrape enough together to open a little shop. She was a gifted seamstress, and it wasn't long before Rhodos' wealthiest ladies became regulars in our little store. But even then, I remembered the nights she'd work with a rag close by, ready for the moment her fingers would start to bleed.
The hunger was worth it, she'd always say, watching me train with sword and shield. No pain was too much, to see her little lion take the shape of his father.
The day I'd joined the legions had been the happiest day of her life.
I pushed myself to my feet. Helena rose with me, but I hardly noticed.
My parents had done so much for me. They had suffered and had given everything of themselves to put me on this path. And now I wanted to quit for a fucking tavern? Is that how I'd repay my parent's love?
How could my hands ever be clean?
"Leo!" Helena said, her fingers tugging at mine. "Please, tell me what's wrong. I can help."
I let out a long breath and pulled myself free. I was no longer shaking.
"I'm fine," I said, inhaling the stench of death. "I just remembered where I'm supposed to be."
"Where you're supposed to be? You're worrying me, Leo."
"I'm fine," I repeated, pulling my hands free.
"You're not fine! I'm your shield mate, Leo. Talk to me!"
"No," I said. "You're not."
Her body stiffened. "What?"
"You're a woman," I said. I folded up my mother's letter, slipping it back into my pocket. "You're a whore, not a soldier. This isn't your place."
Shock rippled across Helena's face. Disbelief. Her breath caught as her expression deepened into one of pain. I saw my words stab into her, a knife plunging through the barest chink in her armor.
Nausea twisted through me.
Her eyes were so wide, raw with the depths of her hurt. But I clamped down on it, turning away, pulled from her by a weight that was so much heavier than my mother's letter.
These past few months had been a lie. Happiness? Love? Comfort? I didn't have a right to any of it. Not until I repaid everything that I owed my parents.
I was stratiotai, like my father and his father before him. I was the soldier my mother dreamed I would be. As I moved back towards my place amongst the blood and bodies, I felt myself walk back along the path of my life. Back to that fork where I'd once chosen a new direction.
My mother was right; it was time I returned home.
The Empress's body heals.
I hadn't even taken a step, however, when something jerked me around. It was Helena, her face alive with fury.
"Is this who you are, then?" she spat. "Was everything a lie?"
I tried to hold her gaze but couldn't. "This is who I've always been."
"What a crock of horseshit. I know you, Leo. You're choosing this, and all it took was two fucking words from your mother."
I didn't answer, trying to draw away. But Helena wouldn't let go.
"Look at me."
"Helena, I,”
"Look at me! Look me in the fucking eyes and tell me it was all a lie."
I forced myself to look up. I took in her wide, cypress eyes, her auburn hair, and the warm bronze of her skin. I saw the feelings of betrayal, anger, and pain that streamed as tears down the lines of her face.
"Say it. Tell me that you don't want me, that I have no place beside you."
I was trapped there, at the fork of my life. My foot was raised, ready to step along the path that I'd always been meant to follow. But I couldn't move, not while Helena held me back.
"Let me go," I said.
"Say it."
"Let go of me!"
"Then fucking say it! Say it and I'll let you go."
Our voices echoed through the passage. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words wouldn't come. Instead, I tried to yank my arm free, but Helena's grip was iron.
"Let me go, Helena. Please."
She screwed her eyes shut as tears still spilled from behind her eyelids. A sob gathered within her; she inhaled deeply, and it seemed to be on the edge of breaking through her. But it didn't, held back by the strength and will that had pushed her from the brothel.
"No," she said, exhaling. She opened eyes that no longer cried. "I'm not going to."
"Helena,”
"Side by side against the future," she said. "That's what we swore. I don't know what you're going through, Leo, but I'm not letting you face this alone."
"There's nothing to face!" I shouted. "Let go of me!"
"No! I'm holding you to your fucking oath, shield-mate!"
She tried to haul me back towards her, but I resisted. For a few moments, we just pulled back and forth against each other, neither willing to give ground, neither able to let go.
"Grat!" Helena yelled. "Sergius! Get over here!"
The men had been listening to us, of course. It would have been impossible not to. Sergius's voice, when it came, was hesitant.
"Lass, I don't know if we should,”
"Shut up!" Helena snarled, still fighting me. "Your centenarius's head is so deep in his own ass that he can't see past his shit!" I growled, wrenching my arm to the side. But Helena didn't let go. She didn't even turn to me, still speaking to my friends. "You told me that you owe him your life. Well, I'm telling you, as the one who fought beside him, that he's about to throw his life away. Help me with him!"
Sergius didn't speak for a few heartbeats. His eyes flicked to me, searching my face. When he spoke again, his voice was firm. "Alright. What do you need?"
"Come grab his arm," Helena said. "We're bringing him to the Empress. Grat!?"
"Lovers' quarrel?" My other friend said, sauntering over.
"Shut your fucking hole," Helena barked. "Come on."
"Let go of me!" I shouted, struggling against their grip.
"Can't do that, Centenarius," Sergius said. "This will be good for you."
"Yeah," Gratian said gripping my other side. "And maybe the Empress will give me a kiss this time."
We found the Empress in her salon, not far from the door I was pulled in through. She was still in her torn and bloodied dress, though she'd kicked off her ruined sandals. She paced back and forth while two of her maids filled a tub with heated water. The curving metal bathtub had been dragged here from deeper within her quarters.
"What's wrong?" the Empress demanded, moving towards us. "Are we under attack?"
I saw in her the same sort of tension that I'd seen before. She was still clamped around herself, always moving, unwilling, or unable, to relax.
"No," Helena said. "It's Leo."
"His wounds?" the Empress asked, checking my bandages. "Is he hurt?"
"I'm fine," I said.
"He's hurt in his head," Helena said, speaking over me. "It's like some lever was flipped. He's changed completely, saying a bunch of things, Here." So saying, she plucked the folded letter from my hand.
"It's from his mother," she said, handing it over. "He red it, and it's like, I don't know."
"I'm fine!" I said again, trying to free myself. "Let me go!"
"Be silent, Leontius," the Empress ordered, taking the papyrus from Helena. She scanned its contents, raising her eyes to consider me. She stared at me for a long time, recognizing something, I thought, within my gaze. Finally, she let out a long breath and folded the letter back up.
"I don't know if there's anything wrong with him, Helena. It seems to me like he's simply made a choice."
"He hasn't!" Helena exclaimed. "Not yet. Or, not really. I don't know, but it doesn't, Can you just try talking to him?"
"This is his choice to make," she said, as gently as she could.
"Please," Helena said. "Just, please."
The Empress looked between us for another few moments, before nodding slowly. "Very well, I will stay with him a while. But, Helena, you might not like,”
"I don't care," she interrupted. "I don't care what you do. I just, I need,”
Helena's own emotions cut her off. I tried to ignore the twist within me at seeing her in such pain. The Empress moved to her, touching her arm and murmuring a few words into her ear.
Sergius growled something, and on my other side, I felt Gratian's grip tighten. "Leo, you prick."
"Very well," Theodora said, stepping back towards me. "Gentlemen, thank you for bringing our Leontius to me. You may release him."
"Err, your pardon, Augusta," Sergius said. "Won't he just run off?"
"He will not. Isn't that right, my soldier?"
"Augusta," I said. "My place is outside."
She arched an eyebrow. "Your place is wherever I say it is."
"Empress,”
"No!" Theodora snapped. "Enough! I am your Empress and I will have your obedience."
I stiffened, my spine pulled to attention by the whip crack of her voice.
"Good," she said. "Thank you, gentlemen."
Sergius and Gratian released me, bowed as smoothly as they were able, and retreated. Helena lingered a moment, her eyes on me. "Fix him," she said. "Bring him back to me."
The Empress smiled softly, and soon, it was just us and the maids standing by the ready bath.
She drifted over to it, leaving me where I stood, stiff and silent. She trailed a hand through the steaming water, making a small sound of appreciation.
"Thank you," she said to the servants. "You may leave us."
Both women bowed, retreating deeper into the Empress's suite of rooms and leaving us truly alone. Theodora stared into the ripples of water for several long heartbeats before turning back to me.
"Come here," she ordered.
I obeyed, though somewhat hesitatingly. As I approached, the Empress reached up and freed her hair from the sweat and blood-crusted strip of purple that had held it back. She shook loose walnut and gold tresses, watching me all the while.
"Give me your arm," she said when I was before her.
Again, I obeyed.
I thought she wanted to check my bandages, but to my surprise, her fingers worked at the straps of my armored bracer. She had it off within moments, letting it drop to the floor before reaching for the other.
I was determined not to speak, staring ahead woodenly. I could still hear the screaming of the mob from out beyond the Empress's wide balcony. I thought I could hear the distant sound of fighting as well, though I couldn't be sure. I tried to focus on it, but Theodora moved nearer to me, her fingers tugging on the straps of my breastplate.
I was breathing in her scent, her sweat, and the smell of her hair. Her odor was sharp, thick, and powerfully feminine, a heady, lavender-tinged cloud that smothered any sort of concentration I tried to muster. But I was determined not to speak.
That determination lasted until she pulled my breastplate free from my body with a grunt. "Augusta," I said. "Forgive me, but I don't understand."
She tottered a few steps away, setting my bloody armor down on the stone floor. I was in my sweat-soaked tunica now, my heated skin crying out in relief at the cooler air of Theodora's salon.
She turned back to me, still too tightly wound, moving with a bare shadow of her usual dancer's grace. "It's very simple, Leontius."
I waited, but she didn't elaborate. Instead, she surprised me again by kneeling at my feet and reaching for the straps of my greaves.
"Augusta," I shifted to step away but was brought up short by the lightning crack of her voice.
"Stay still!"
I once again stiffened into obedience. I was confused, distracted by the feel of her hands on my calves. She set my greaves down one at a time and then unlaced my heavy boots and pulled them off my feet.
"Your tunica," she said. She'd settled back onto her heels, her eyes calm, expectant. I hesitated, then obeyed when I saw them start to harden.
"Aren't we going to talk?" I asked, now naked save for my loincloth.
She didn't immediately answer, still looking up at me, her face, a bare arm's length from the bulge between my legs.
My face was burning. I was naked, defenseless, and completely off-balance. In this unexpected silence, I felt myself once again begin to unravel. I was swamped by a flood of emotions, losing my way, searching for my earlier certainty.
But it was fading away, eroded by her touch and the sharp scent of her sweat.
"No," she said, and I nearly leaped out of my skin when she raised both hands to touch my hips. "We're not going to talk."
She held my gaze with hers, hooking her fingers into my final layer of clothing. I felt my crotch stiffen. My mother sobbed into my head, another note roaring through me.
It was all too much.
A storm raged within me, a thousand doubts, fears, hopes, and emotions crashing into each other. I couldn't think, couldn't feel, couldn't do more than stare into the eyes of the woman at my feet.
And those brown eyes gazed back at me, endless in their depth.
I was frozen at the crossroads of my life. I tried to come down on myself, to force myself to step away from her and put an end to whatever this was about to be. That was all I had to do, my mother urged me, nothing was holding me back.
The Empress waited, eternal in her patience.
Refusing her now would put me back on the path my parents had made for me. I'd be gone from here, from her, from Helena. I just had to take this first, irrevocable step, and I'd be on my way home.
Move, my mother screamed.
But I couldn't.
Something shifted in the Empress's eyes, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. She pulled my wrapping away, freeing me.
Fire tore through my body, staining my flesh. Theodora made a sound low in her throat, breathing in the naked stink of my growing erection.
"Neither of us are in a place to talk," she said.
Her eyes finally left my face, tracing the lines of my chest and stomach on their way down to my phallus. Her lips parted.
"I'm all locked up," she said. "I keep thinking about the battle, and it's like I'm still there."
I groaned, as the Empress's palm wrapped around my twitching shaft. She slowly worked her hand up and down my phallus, gently stroking.
"In my head," she continued, "there's this sea of boiling emotion: fear, anger, doubt. It's tearing through me, and I can't seem to move past it."
She rolled the skin down from around my tip, leaning in and inhaling deeply. She moaned, and I saw her eyelids flutter. Heat curled beneath her dark skin. "God, Nina was right."
My blood roared in my ears, loud enough that I could barely hear as she continued to speak.
"I see that same storm in you, my Leontius." Her voice was low, edged with something desperate. "And so, you're going to fuck me."
Her tongue darted out, flicking over my swollen head and taking the barest taste of me back into her. I jolted as her tongue, cool and wet, sent lightning through me.
"You're going to fuck me so we both forget," she murmured, her breath ticking me. "You're going to pump that storm into me, and smother the ocean boiling within me."
Her tongue slithered once more from between her lips, wrapping around the burning tip of my spear. Then, she bobbed forward, taking all of me into her mouth. My entire body went rigid as I lost myself in her damp heat. I grabbed her hair, my fist closing around strands of golden wire, holding on like a man lost at sea.
The Empress worked my phallus with her tongue and throat, taking the time to taste every inch of me. After a few more moments, she pulled away. She spat onto the floor, working in the saliva she'd left on my manhood with her hand.
Augus,” I started, but swallowed my words just as she plunged back onto me. She swallowed me, pressing her nose into my pubic hair. Her throat flexed around my tip, her tongue, a pillow of silken moisture. My hand was limp in her hair, but she held herself there for one heartbeat and then another.
Finally, she gagged, sliding back, hacking up spit and my fluids with tears streaming down her face.
Her lips, however, were curled into a contented smile. "What a taste."
Theodora pushed herself to her feet, smoother this time, though it was hard to tell through the slitted blur of my vision.
"You're going to fuck me, my Leontius." She lifted the ruined hem of her dress, revealing a flash of pale silk that was wrapped snuggly around her sex. "You're going to fuck me with none of the gentleness you show Helena."
She pulled that slip of silk down, stepping out of it an instant later and pressing the sliver of fabric into one of my hands. It was soaked through.
Without thinking, I brought the Empress's loincloth up towards my face. She watched me sniff the wetness-stained fabric, her eyes burning.
I groaned, my knees buckling. Her scent stabbed into me; a powerfully feminine blend of her sex and sweat, it burned down to the tip of my manhood like a river of fire. I inhaled more deeply, losing myself in a fog of her liquid arousal. Then, I felt her hand reach up and pull my arm down. I blinked, and it was all I could do to focus my eyes on her.
"You're going to fuck me, my soldier."
Theodora stepped into me, tilting her face up to mine. Her arms snaked around my neck, the swell of her chest pressing into mine.
"You're going to break me free," her voice, a breath through parted lips. "Then, we can talk."
I surged into her.
Our lips met, crushing into each other. It was a hard, desperate kiss, our tongues bursting out to attack the other. My arms wrapped around her body, hers tight around my neck. We kissed, and after a few pounding beats of my heart, I threw her loincloth away, looped my hands beneath her ass, and lifted.
The Empress gasped as her feet left the ground, and moaned into my mouth when I spun us around and pressed her into a nearby column. Our lips parted as she wrapped her bare legs around me, her breath scalding my throat.
She reached down below where I held onto her hips, grasping my phallus and pumping me furiously. I growled into the cloud of her breath, pushing her hard against the pillar. I let go of her hips, shoving the ragged layers of her dress up past her waist.
My hands slapped down to grip her naked ass. Theodora gasped and bucked against me, forcing her body lower. She guided my manhood to the nectar-drenched petals of her center, parting her lush heat with the aching tip of my phallus.
I groaned, pressing harder into her. I longed to plunge wholly into her, but the Empress held herself there. She kept pumping my shaft, sliding my head along the ready wetness of her silken cunt.
I pulled her ass cheeks apart, unfurling her, letting more of her spill from that divine font.
We breathed raggedly into the space we shared, the heat from our flesh like waves between us.
"Leontius," the Empress panted. "Fuck me. Fuck me like this."
I growled, wordlessly. Then, I jerked her down and impaled her on my burning spear.
The Empress mewled, arching her back. I thrust into her dew-soaked depths, my head skipping along her silken shape. She ground her wetness into me, shoving her shoulders back against the stone column.
I slipped my hands up to her waist, gripping the bones of her hips, keeping my phallus buried in her liquid cunt. I shifted her up and down, slowly at first, grinding her navel into mine. My already-abused muscles screamed, but they were easy to ignore, as were my bandaged wounds. The storm in my mind faded as well, evaporating beneath the fire this woman had ignited in me. There was only her: the slide of her moisture-slick triangle of pubic hair, the smotheringly warm tightness of her insides, and the frantic need I saw burning within her lust-slitted eyes.
I shoved her back against the pillar, her sweat-reddened legs shifting their grip on me. Her hands clawed at my shoulders, and I used mine to pin her hips against the stone. Then, I flexed my hips back and thrust into her. She moaned, wrapping her arms around my neck, holding on as I crashed into her again and again.
I moved faster, pounding her, burying my phallus into her again and again. I pulled her hips towards me with every thrust, and soon, the slap of our meeting flesh filled the room.
"Harder," she panted in my ear. "Harder!"
I growled low in my throat, redoubling my effort. But her fucking dress was in the way, the fabric coarse against my naked chest. So, I ground Theodora into the pillar, pinned her with my hips, and used my hands to rip the dress from her body.
I tore through most of it in that first, savage pull, ripping it from her neckline to where the purple fabric bunched at her waist.
"Oh fuck," she gasped, undulating her hips. "Oh yes."
I took a beat to watch the flex of her now naked stomach, the way her muscles rippled and played. The heavy, golden cross was stuck to the sweat of her abdomen, glinting at the end of its long chain. She arched her body, pushing her exposed breasts high. They were perfect, as lithe and dark as the rest of her. I watched them quiver, her deep-rose, lust-stiffened nipples pointing to heaven.
I slid my hands along the smooth flesh of her side, closing around her hips. The Empress moaned low in her throat, grinding harder into me, her eyes fever-bright through her sweat-darkened locks of walnut and gold hair.
I pulled back, driving my phallus into her wet-heat. I watched her tits bounce with every thundering thrust, the golden chain skipping about her sweat-slickened flesh.
She pushed herself off the column, clinging to me, sinking her teeth into my shoulder as I hammered my body into hers.
Then, after a few endless moments, she let go of me, unwrapping her legs and sliding off my manhood. It gleamed, coated with the nectar of her arousal, red from the fire that still coursed through me.
"Lie down," she said, her breath ragged. "On the floor."
I obeyed, hardly feeling the cool stone on my naked back. My eyes never left the Empress, watching the quiver of her limbs and the sweat dripping down her body. She stood beside my feet, taking a moment to stretch, feline in her grace. Her lips curled in pleasure as my eyes roved her body.
"Do you remember the day we met, my soldier?" My heart was the crash of a chariot's wheel in my chest, my mouth flooding with anticipation. "Because I remember it very well."
She swept her hair back from her face, her breasts shifting with the motion. She took the first languid step towards my head. "I remember how you tasted me. The hunger in your eyes when you looked at me."
A growl rumbled through my chest. I wanted to look at her now, to gaze upon her every luscious fold and curve. But I'd only managed to rip the dress down to about her belly button, leaving the rest of her covered by the hem that fluttered around her knees.
"Mmm," she purred through a bitten lip. "Just like that." She was level with my waist now and stepped over to straddle me. She paused, her eyes on me, as she slowly tied a knot in her hair. "Don't look away," she said. Then, she brought her hands down to the end of the tear I'd made, and with a flex of her muscles, ripped the purple silk away.
My breath caught, somehow unprepared for the glory of her naked, heat-flushed body. The dress still hung like a cloak from where it looped around her shoulders, though it no longer hid anything from me. I jerked upward, reaching for her. She laughed, planting a naked foot into my chest, and pressing me back. "Not yet."
When she was sure I'd submitted, she flowed forward, liquid in her grace. Within moments, she stood above my head. My eyes were locked on her flesh, the air furnace-hot in my lungs.
"That hunger," she said, her voice an airy little breath swirling down the length of her body. "Keep it leashed for me, my Leontius." Then, as she had on the day we met, she folded her legs and lowered herself towards my face. I groaned, afire with the sight of her.
Her hole was already soaked through, stretched by the shape of my phallus. Her inner folds were stained red, swollen into lush ripeness. Her cuneus was a liquid garden, crowned by a triangle of pubic hair matted with her own wetness. "Keep watching me," she said, holding herself just above my wide eyes. She wove the fingers of one hand into my hair, holding me down. "Fuck, breathe me in."
Her scent washed over me. Her heat, sweat, and arousal thickened the air around me. She moaned a soft, breathy little sound. My eyes flicked up, past the dangling, golden cross and the heaving curve of her naked breasts to meet her gaze. And there, I found a hunger, a fiery need that matched my own.
One that was far from sated.
"Not yet," she murmured. "Keep watching me."
With her free hand, she traced a line down the slope of her stomach and over the mound of her navel. One finger drifted through her trail of steaming pubic hair to ghost along the edge of her silken seam.
"Do you remember how I taste?" My blood thundered through me, my entire being focused on the playful caresses of that single finger. She explored herself with agonizing slowness, running that finger through every over-ripe fold and dew-soaked petal.
And when she slipped that digit into herself with a throaty gasp, I thought I'd burst.
"I remember how you lapped at me. How you worshiped me."
Her breath was coming faster. She dug that finger into herself, letting out another soft moan as she started to roll her hips. I groaned, watching her ready cunny sway back and forth a few fingerbreadths from my thirst-maddened tongue.
"You lost yourself in me," she said, as she slid in a second finger beside the first. She reached deep into herself, her hips rolling and fingers dancing. "And I see it, fuck. Mmm, oh yes. You want another taste, don't you, my Leontius?"
My breath was the foundry's roar of heat. I ran my hands up the naked muscles of her legs, moments from pulling her into me, burning beyond the ability to continue relinquishing control.
"Helena told me what she calls you. A lion. Her lion." She suddenly ceased her hypnotic sway, drawing her fingers out from herself. Her swollen folds didn't want to let go, clinging to the warm flesh of her digits. They emerged gleaming with her arousal, coated in her silken nectar.
Another growl rumbled from my chest, my muscles bunching.
"But perhaps," she said, her eyes wickedly hot. "A part of you is mine as well."
Then, she lowered her fingers to my lips. "Drink from me, my lion."
I exploded into motion, whipping my tongue along her soaked fingers, lapping at her wetness. Her taste burst through me, making me burn hotter. I was desperate for more. And so, barely a heartbeat later, I pulled her down onto me.
I felt her gasp thrum through her body, her tongue-cleaned fingers curling into my hair with her other hand. I drank deeply of the Empress as she ground herself into my face, smothering me in her luscious flesh. She slid herself along me, back and forth, riding my whole face.
I pressed down on her hips, keeping her tight against me, taking all I could from her. Her taste was sweet, different from the sour flavor of the woman I truly longed for.
Theodora rode me until I shoved her away. I sucked in huge lungs full of air, watching as stood, stepped back, and squatted above my aching phallus. She dug her hands into my chest, steadying herself while she lowered her hips to impale herself on my stiffness. My phallus was swallowed by her silken heat. She got on her knees and I lifted my hands to grip her waist as she started riding me.
I let her take me like that for several moments, pushing my torso against her palms. She gazed down at me through slitted eyes as she rode me, her tits shivering with every undulating stir of her stomach and hips.
But I couldn't hold back for long. I wrapped that golden chain in one fist, yanking her down towards me. I devoured her lips with mine, taking in more of her taste while my hips started to pound into her.
She mewled, held in place by the chain at her throat, my phallus spearing into her again and again. She sunk her teeth into one shoulder once again, writhing atop me, screaming into me as I hammered my body into hers.
Our flesh was slick with sweat. I dug the fingers of my other hand into the gold and walnut strands of her hair, keeping her head tight against me. She gnawed and licked at the length of my neck. I felt her cunny clench tightly around me, an orgasm ripping through her as she cried out to God in my ear. She went limp against me, but I didn't stop venting all of me into the willing wetness of her body.
When she started to react again, I once more shoved her off of me. I leaped to my feet, hauling her up after me. I drove her towards the stone column, still holding onto the golden links at her throat. Her back was to me, and she leaned forward to grip the pillar.
I ripped what was left of the purple dress from her back, drawing a moan from her. She was panting with hunger, her pleasure-glazed eyes peering back at me through falling strands of hair. "Please," she begged. She reached back, pulling aside one ass cheek, stretching her dripping hole for me. She held it open while I positioned myself behind her. "Fuck me,” A gasp of desperate need. "Please."
I thrust into her in one quick lunge, her ass rippling from the force. She threw her head back and screamed. She rammed back into me, clinging to the stone lest she be swept away. I drove back into her, again and again, lost in the rippling bounce of her ass.
She was so tight against my phallus, her cunny gripping me, pulling me into her no matter how far back I drew myself. I felt the fire within me rage even hotter, an inferno of gathering fury. I pounded into her faster and faster, holding tightly onto the chain, knowing I was close.
Theodora's back arched. Her moans and cries of ecstasy became low and raspy as the golden links dug into her throat. I shoved her face and chest into the stone pillar, and her body loosened as another orgasm screamed through her. I leaned my head down towards hers as my hips slammed my final few blows into the cushion of her ass.
I bit down on her shoulder. My entire frame shook when my own orgasm exploded out of me and I emptied myself in the silken cunt of the Empress.
Afterward, as I staggered backward, thick, milky globs of my seed spilled from her. She slid down to the floor, her legs quivering, her flesh red and breath ragged.
I collapsed as well, suddenly drained, a raw void within me. And then, I wept.
My body shook with great, heaving gasps. Everything was too much: the battle, the blood, the letter, Helena, It was all too, too much.
There I was, frozen at that same damned crossroads, weeping, with no idea how to go on.
Not far from me, I felt the Empress move. Through the haze of my tears, I saw her body tremble. She crawled towards me, but I could do nothing but curl up around myself and sob. Theodora lay her warm hands upon me, lowering herself onto the stone floor at my side. I wept, and she gathered me to her naked chest.
"Thank you," she said, choking on her own tears. "Thank you for fighting. Thank you for saving my life."
The Empress's Name.
I don't remember the last time I had cried so, though the tears felt good, in a way.
If the sex had stripped me bare, then the tears helped soothe what was now raw and exposed. Like winter rain after a sun-scorched summer, the water readied me for what was to come: for the growth that was the mark of spring.
Eventually, the Empress and I fell silent. Neither of us had anything left to give.
I was the first to move, rolling onto my back. Theodora shifted with me, our flesh stinking and sticky with sweat. She lay her head on my chest, slid a palm onto my shoulder, and entwined her legs with mine.
I hugged her close, too beyond everything to worry about propriety. My breath slowed to match hers, or perhaps hers was the one that adjusted to mine; it didn't matter. We breathed together, trusting each other with our vulnerability and taking comfort in the simple presence of each other's bodies.
After what felt like an eternity, though was probably only a few minutes, the Empress shifted her head. She slid her palm from my shoulder to the strip of purple cloth she'd tied above my bicep. She picked at it with her fingers, while I wondered how I'd been able to forget its existence so completely.
"Purple is a heavy color is it not?"
I cleared my throat. "You wear it well, Augusta."
"No," she shifted against me. "Not here. Until we get off this floor we're just Dora and Leo."
"Alright."
"Say it," she said.
"What?"
"My name, Leo, say it."
"Theodora," I said, after a moment's hesitation. "Dora."
"Good."
She let out a breath, relaxing back into me. I loosened my grip on her, tracing patterns on her flesh that made her skin prickle.
"I knew death before I met my husband," she said. "I knew poverty, I knew pain and hopelessness. But it was only after wearing purple that I learned to kill." She paused, but I didn't speak. I kept my chest rising and falling beneath Dora's head, still tracing soft circles along her back.
"My husband and I have sent the legions out to war. We've changed laws and have punished those who break them. Millions of lives are affected by my every decision, Leo. God only knows how many have died because of me."
Dora's fingers stroked the ragged strip of purple silk, a few strands of gold still gleaming in her hair. "I don't know whether or not the good I try to put into the world will be enough to balance the weight of all that death. But I've made my peace with that, and when it is my turn before God, I won't hide from what I've done. And yet, for all that, for all that I've clawed and fought to get here, today was the first time I killed with my own hands."
My hand fell still on Dora's back. I closed my eyes, hesitating a moment before speaking into the darkness that now surrounded me. "It's easy, isn't it?"
She let out another long breath. "Easier than I ever imagined."
"I hate it," I said. "I hate everything about it."
"And yet you became a soldier."
I laughed, low and bitter. "I did."
"Tell me," Dora said, her voice as warm as the feel of her beside me. "Start from the beginning."
And so, opening my eyes once more to the light of day, I did. I began with the moment I'd tottered into my home to find my mother weeping over the news of my father's death. I told her about my childhood, how we'd worked and suffered, and how brittle my mother's smile looked set within hunger-hollowed cheeks. I'd been pushed to train, I told Dora, molded in my father's image.
Unburdened, the words flowed out of me. I was not a very good storyteller, though she was a great listener. She stayed silent, her cheek not leaving my chest, urging me on with gentle squeezes of her fingers.
I spoke to her of my time in the legions, of the horrors of war, and the first time I stained my hands with another's blood. Then, I told her about my time here. I spoke of her and of Antonina, of the doubts and prejudices I'd had, and how I'd grown to admire their strength and wisdom. But most of all, I spoke of Helena, of everything she meant to me and inspired within me.
Lastly, I spoke about the fork in my path, my paralysis, and the hope for my future that I feared was undoing me.
"You're changing, Leo," Dora said. "Not coming apart."
"But I can't let myself change. Not in this."
"Why not? To change is to be alive."
"Not in this," I insisted. "My parents,”
"Your parents," she interrupted, "did a lot for you."
For the first time since we lay down together, Dora raised her head. She held herself up with a forearm against my chest, her eyes firm. Her cheek was red, I noticed, lined from the time it had been pressed against me.
"You owe your mother a lot," she said, reaching to cup my bearded cheek. "You owe her your love and support. But your happiness, my Leontius, and the direction of your life, those things are yours. You are your own man, and you have to choose." Then she leaned down and kissed my lips. It was a soft, lingering kiss, one that took nothing but promised to give all that was asked for.
"And whatever you decide," she said with a smile. "You'll have the weight of an Empress behind you."
She pushed herself to her feet, groaning at the quiver of her muscles. I got up as well, my body stiff enough to be near debilitating. Theodora took my hand, pulling me to a table beside the bath that held fresh linen and a bucket of water. There, she washed my chest, back, and arms, checking my bandages and changing the ones I'd bled through.
We didn't speak while she tended to me. Her hands were soft, touching me with gentle care, like a gardener coaxing their charges into bloom.
Finally, she tightened the purple around my arm before pressing a palm to my cheek and turning to slip into the warm water of her bath with a happy sigh.
I pulled on my tunica, feeling new. My mind returned to the crossroads I faced.
At that moment, a scream tore through the Empress's door. I whipped my head towards it, hearing a sudden storm of screaming, cursing, and the crashing of iron. We were under attack.
I heard the splashing of water and looked back to find the Empress sitting up, her eyes on me.
"Stay there," I told her, scooping up my sword.
I sprinted to the entrance, running without knowing towards which path I would step: duty, obligation, or a chance at something different. And though this certainly wasn't the time, I was determined to finally take that step.
And so, when I burst into the hallway, I did.
Based on the works of Robyn Bee, for Literotica.
