Chapter 6 The Capital of Ash and Gold

The heart of the empire pulsed with wealth and rot.

Gold rooftops shimmered under the sun, but beneath them, children starved and nobles drank from cups carved from conquered bones. The capital was a city of masks-laughter covering decay, opulence shadowing blood.

Cassia moved through it unseen, slipping between markets and mansions, gathering intel, sewing chaos thread by thread.

But everything changed when she returned to the Temple District.

What once was sacred now stood defiled. The great Temple of Vesta-where she had once tended the eternal flame-was a gilded ruin, its hearth extinguished, its halls desecrated.

She stepped inside alone.

Ash lined the marble floor. The altar where she had first kissed Marcus was now a wine table for senators. Statues of gods stared blind and broken.

She knelt before them, not in prayer-but in judgment.

"I gave you everything," she whispered. "And you gave me fire."

She lit a match.

The shrine ignited like dry kindling.

By dawn, the temple blazed-a warning written in flame.

The empire responded.

Senators panicked. Guards flooded the streets. Whispers of rebellion grew into roars. Livia Corvus called for martial law. Marcus stood silent in every council, his fists clenched, his jaw set in stone.

"She's back," he said at last, in a voice that made the chamber fall still.

"Who?" the empress asked.

He looked out the window toward the city below.

"The ghost you made."

In the rebel hideout, Titus found Cassia washing soot from her hands.

"They're calling it arson," he said. "Terrorism."

"They should call it truth."

He stared at her. "You keep walking this path, there's no coming back."

Cassia looked at her reflection in a shattered mirror. Her face wore no crown, only scars.

"I don't want to go back," she said.

"I want to finish what they started.