Chapter 7 When Fire Becomes a Name

The fire at the Temple of Vesta didn't die with the smoke.

It spread in whispers. In chants. In blades drawn at midnight.

Across the capital, masked figures began carving a thorned laurel into wood, stone, flesh. Slaves slipped poisons into senator's goblets. Bakers burned imperial bread in silent protest. Merchants undercut noble taxes and redirected funds to shadowed allies.

One name returned again and again.

Thorn.

To the empire, it was treason.

To the people, it was hope.

Titus didn't like it.

"This is becoming bigger than you," he warned, watching the crowds in the square chant her name. "You started a fire, Cassia. Now they want to see what you'll burn next."

Cassia stood among them, cloaked and unnoticed, staring at the statue of her father-a noble carved in white stone, once beloved, now forgotten.

"They don't want me," she said quietly.

"They want revenge."

Selene joined them, grinning. "Lucky us, then. That's what we do best."

That night, Marcus issued a decree:

Any who speak the name Thorn will be tried as traitors.

Any who bear the mark of the laurel will be executed.

The fire ends, or the city burns.

Cassia read it in silence.

Selene scoffed. "He's scared."

Cassia folded the parchment slowly. "He remembers."

Elsewhere, in the imperial villa, Marcus stood before the empress.

Livia paced, furious. "She's a myth."

"No," Marcus said. "She was a girl I loved. And we betrayed her."

Livia turned, sharp and cold. "Then finish it."

"I will," he said.

And in his eyes-sorrow, old and buried, rose again.

Cassia spent that night alone in the catacombs, standing before a mural of the old gods. Her runes pulsed faintly in the dark.

Velarion's voice, like smoke and silk:

"He still loves you."

Cassia didn't flinch. "Then he'll die with that love in his mouth."