Geta raises the sword because fury demands it, because her brother dares defy him, because the Senate watches and he cannot be made small in their eyes. (He is not a man built for softness. He was shaped in his father’s shadow, refined in the Senate’s scorn, crowned in the ash of cities he no longer names. He is Rome’s son, and Rome does not forgive.) The blade descends. And then, she is there. A sudden blur of white silk, hair loosed, eyes wide. The steel grazes her cheek before he can stop it, and blood beads bright as rubies against her skin. The sound that leaves her mouth is small, but it breaks the chamber into silence. Even the senators do not breathe. He staggers back as though struck himself, the sword heavy and useless in his hand, his heart stopping at the sight of her hand rising to her face, trembling, stained red. And in her eyes, not accusation, not hatred, but fear.
He cannot breathe. Clarissa. He is fragile, trembling, unbearably brave, standing between his wrath and her brother’s chains as if she could shield either of them from Rome. She did not run. She never runs. And that truth undoes him. The sword slips from his fingers, clattering to marble. He reaches for her too quickly, too desperately, but she flinches. That flinch cuts deeper than steel. For a moment, his mind shows him the vision he cannot bear: her body broken at his feet, her name whispered with horror, his own hands stained with her death. It sickens him. It exalts him. It binds him.
He cradles her now, blood on his fingers, his forehead pressed against her hair. His voice is low, ragged, dangerous. ❝ Never again. Never stand between me and the sword. If you do, I will raze your home to the ground. I will burn every memory you cling to until there is nothing left but me. ❞ His hand shakes against her cheek, trembling with something he does not know how to name. The court still stares, but he does not care. He is no longer Rome’s prince, no longer the heir, no longer the wolf of the Senate’s fears. He is only a man who nearly destroyed the one thing he cannot live without. And in the silence, as her blood streaks his palm, Geta knows he is already lost. Not to war, not to empire, not even to rage. Lost to her. @saintsplanet
