Early in the morning, the pale golden sunlight of a Roman autumn filtered through the soaring arched windows of the Tullo villa, casting mottled beams across the Suburra marble floors. The thick Egyptian incense from the previous night had faded, yielding to the characteristic musty odor of the ancient estate and the scent of oil used by the servants to polish weapons.
Claudia sat before her carved ebony vanity. Her long, slender fingers let a horn comb slip gently onto the tabletop, but her reflection’s gaze was not fixed on her freshly smoothed, dark curly hair; instead, it stared blankly into the empty air.
Her entire mind remained anchored on those eyes.
Deep, black eyes, blazing with lethal intent and the cold precision of a predator down in the dungeon last night. That Kavanu captive carried not a single trace of the look belonging to a crude, broken slave or a blind soul awaiting execution. The way he sat upon the stone ledge—amidst black iron chains and streaks of blood trailing down his bronze skin—was the absolute aura of a man who held the power of life and death, an unshakeable posture that no shackles of Rome could ever truly cage.
"Mistress..."
The soft call of Lucrezia—the elderly servant who had served Claudia since her girlhood in the Marcellus family—sounded beside her. Carefully, she placed a dish of raspberries and a cup of warm goat's milk upon the table.
Claudia did not turn, her voice emerging calm and crystal clear, as if entirely unburdened: "Last night, the new batch of southern prisoners arrived in the dungeons... Did the kitchen slaves say anything?"
Lucrezia paused for a moment. Stealing a wary glance toward the slightly ajar bedchamber door, she leaned in close to Claudia, dropping her voice to a mere whisper meant only for the two of them:
"Mistress, you would do best not to ask about those men. The Senator is utterly ecstatic over them. But... the household slaves are whispering wildly among themselves."
"Whispering about what?" Claudia tilted her head, her brown eyes placid yet reflecting a hidden sharpness.
"The black man chained with a double layer of iron shackles in the corner cell..." Lucrezia hesitated, her gaze betraying a mixture of awe and dread. "He is no ordinary slave rounded up from the fields, mistress. The servants who chained him down last night say his name is Jabari—the supreme chieftain and most ruthless strategist of the Kavanu confederation."
The name echoed through the quiet room, carving itself deep into Claudia’s mind. Jabari.
Lucrezia whispered on, her voice trembling slightly: "At the battle of the Omo Valley three months ago, the Roman army led by General Lucius walked straight into his trap. Single-handedly, he orchestrated the flanking maneuvers that utterly annihilated two of our elite infantry cohorts. Rumors say he can read the shift of the wind and tracks upon stone to direct his forces like a god. Only after the Kavanu kingdom was betrayed from within, besieged for forty days and nights without food, was he finally brought down... Seven Roman soldiers lost their lives just to bind his hands."
A strategist. A leader who refused to bow.
Claudia lightly pressed her thin lips together. The proud wildness and overwhelming gaze Jabari had fixed upon her last night instantly found a flawless explanation. He was no beast merely baring its fangs in helpless desperation; he was a brilliant military mind, a man who had once stood at the absolute zenith of power in the southern lands before iron chains dragged him into the dirt.
And such a man—how could he ever resign himself to becoming mere bait for a pack of hyenas in one of Servius’s depraved games?
"A man like that..." Claudia murmured, her index finger lightly tracing the rim of her silver goblet, "...is about to be torn to pieces for mere amusement?"
"The Senator intends to use his death to terrorize all the southern slaves," Lucrezia sighed, her weathered face etched with fear. "Tonight, when the matches begin, the entire Senate will bear witness. He wishes to prove that no matter how fierce the grey wolf of the South may be, before Rome’s heel, they are nothing more than shattering flesh and bone."
Claudia rose. The folds of her purple silk stola cascaded down, concealing the bruises hidden across her body.
Patience. Endurance. Calculation.
A brutal, reckless, yet intensely alluring thought flashed through Claudia’s mind. Servius Tullo viewed Jabari as a bloody plaything to flaunt his power. But to her—a prisoner trapped inside a gilded cage, ground down day by day by that ancient authority—Jabari was no mere morsel for beasts.
He was a blade. A sharp, ruthless southern blade dripping with hatred. If she could wield that blade... she might tear this cage apart, or at the very least, drive it straight down the throat of the man who tormented her.
As the late afternoon sun began to bleed across the stone-arched rooftops of the Palatine Hill, the atmosphere around the Tullo villa grew hurried and suffocating. Servants bustled back and forth, hauling wooden barrels of wine, oil-soaked torches, and iron cages containing starved, caged hyenas from outside into the underground arena. The frantic, maddened roars of the chained beasts echoed through every corridor.
Claudia walked alone down the stone hallway leading to the dungeon.
She did not accompany Servius. Her elderly husband was at that moment carousing with several senators in the grand hall, downing cups of fine sour wine to steel himself for the night of slaughter.
Claudia’s steps were feather-light, her silk hem gliding over the stone floor without producing a single sound. Passing empty guard posts, she pressed onward toward the solid, cast-black iron gate.
The stench of mud, dried blood, and aged sweat slammed straight back into her senses.
The iron dungeon gate stood ajar. The torches inside had not yet been fully lit, leaving only sliver-thin beams of yellowish light leaking from the corridor through the iron bars to illuminate the damp, gloomy space.
Claudia stopped just outside the gate.
Through the narrow gap of the iron grating, her brown eyes stared fixedly into the deepest corner of the dungeon.
Jabari still sat there.
Amidst the heavy, suffocating darkness, the muscular frame of the Kavanu general remained an unmoving block of carved stone. His braided hair draped over broad shoulders, both arms pulled taut by iron hoops driven deep into the wall. Even though the threatening roars of hyenas echoed from the adjacent cages, even though bloody death was merely hours away, his breathing remained deep, steady, and terrifyingly calm.
He was not preparing for sacrifice. He was gathering his strength, waiting.
Claudia stood in silent observation. In the flickering, uncertain glow of a nearby tallow candle, her alabaster skin shone like a ghostly noblewoman amid a dark swamp. Her slender hand rested lightly against the cold iron latch, her fingers tightening slightly.
Curiosity? The shared empathy of prisoners? Or the instinct of an apex predator seeking an ally in the dark?
Amidst the stillness broken only by the whistling wind through the stone crevices, a sudden, icy shudder raced down Claudia’s spine.
Her posture, the sheer length of time she had lingered outside this dungeon door... had lasted far too long.
A haughty, obedient, and fragile noble matron of the Tullo house would never wander down to this foul-smelling dungeon alone. Much less would she stand rooted before iron bars, staring intently at a southern captive with a gaze as sharp and calculating as this for nearly a quarter of an hour.
If a jailer happened to pass by, or if Servius were to stumble upon this scene... every single layer of the obedient, submissive facade she had painstakingly built over the years would shatter instantly. Her paranoid, volatile husband would not hesitate to strip away her silks and fling her down into this very cell before the games even began.
A cold shiver raced down Claudia’s spine. Her brown eyes constricted with a single intake of breath.
She had just crossed her own safety boundary—all for a chained man sitting in the dark.
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