No, this was the price of power.
I gritted my teeth, fists clenching against the stone floor. This wasn’t suffering. This wasn’t punishment.
This was a transformation.
The toll I had to pay to become the ruthless killer I was meant to be.
I forced my body to still, embracing the torment like an old friend.
One day, I would rise from this agony. Stronger. Unstoppable. A predator in my own right.
If, of course, I survived.
Chapter 2
Roman
Images of blood and death flooded my mind as I jolted awake, the echoes of battle ringing in my ears.
I opened my eyes. Had I died? Had I crossed into the afterlife? Or had I time traveled once more to some strange new world?
I prayed for the latter as I took in my surroundings. Everything was unfamiliar—shiny, noisy, unnatural. Objects I couldn’t name blinked and whirred, emitting soft hums and distant beeps.
Voices crackled from a box embedded in the wall.
I shouted at them. No response.
Music floated through the air, metallic and jarring—nothing like the orchestras I had once attended with my mother in the 18th century. Nor did it resemble the trumpeting fanfare of the tubicines, the blasts from a cornu, or the eerie hum of a water organ before a gladiator fight in Rome.
I clamped my hands over my ears to drown out the chaos.
Timepieces glowed in the dim light, displaying numbers and dates I recognized, yet couldn’t make sense of. Floor lamps with delicate white orbs cast an eerie golden glow, while a cone-shaped object protruded from the ceiling, radiating light from a large, unnatural globe.
And the music. It pounded beyond a closed door like an entire band was playing just out of sight.
The room spun. My vision warped, orbs of light dancing before my eyes.
I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
Then—darkness.
I slipped away, dragged back into the abyss.
The dream began sweetly. A small deer I had hunted hung over my shoulders, its antlers tapping gently against my arm as I made my way through the forest. My steps were eager—I could already see my wife’s smile and hear my children’s laughter.
I would lay the beast before my beloved, and she would kiss me in thanks before setting to work, her practiced hands gutting and skinning the animal with ease. Then, I would gather my children onto my knees, spinning their tales of the wild as the scent of roasting meat filled our home.
A perfect moment. A perfect memory.
But memories were fragile things. And soon, this one would splinter, too.
I quickened my pace, my heart thrumming with anticipation, the same way Tempestas, my horse, would quicken when he sensed home was near.
Tempestas… I no longer had that horse. That was another time. Another life.
The crisp scent of the coming snow hung in the air, mingling with the damp earth as my boots crunched over fallen leaves. This deer would keep us fed through winter, with the root vegetables stored in the cellar and the preserves my wife had put up in late summer. We would survive another cold season.
Then—smoke.
