None of them had ever imagined this.
The rebel lords had expected to ride through fire and smoke into glory, to drink victory from gold cups while the fields still smoldered behind them.
Instead, they had fled like shadows at dusk—thieves in the night, their banners torn, their triumph crumbling before it had ever begun. What was supposed to be their night of glory had turned into a shameful retreat beneath the sneering moonlight, their once-proud host dissolving before their eyes.
Now, they waited in the city of Agripisio.
For what only the gods knew.
It was an old city, proud in its past, but its walls felt like a cage for the men within who were only awaiting the blade's descent . The air inside the hall where they had gathered was thick with failure, the silence broken only by the occasional scrape of boots or the wet cough of a wounded man. No toasts. No laughter. Only the faint scent of ash
