In Rome, military service was both duty and a currency.
For plebians, it was survival—or a ladder out of obscurity.
For the nobility, it was performance: a rite, a stage, proof that their bloodlines still bled for the Roman Republic, now the Roman Empire.
Sons of gentes, consuls and senators were expected to serve, often beginning as tribuni militum (military tribunes) posted to the fringes of the known world to earn their scars and their stories.
And the plebians? They started as a foot soldiers or miles gregarius.
A Roman legion was its own city of war—five to six thousand men, split into cohorts and centuries.
At the top stood the legatus legionis, a senator by rank, an emperor's man by appointment.
Below him: six tribunes, drawn from both noble and equestrian stock; the praefectus castrorum, a hardened veteran who ran the camp like a machine.
And the centurions—grizzled, brutal, relentless—who ruled their men with iron fists and vine staffs.
But not all soldiers marched under the same banners—as the Roman legion soldiers.
The Praetorian guards were a different creature.
Fewer in number, greater in privilege.
They were Rome's shadow—the emperor's shield, knife, and ear.
Handpicked, cloaked in prestige, and stationed close to power.
Their camp, Castra Praetoria, stood just outside the city walls.
Their loyalty was not to Rome, but to the man who ruled it.
Whomever ruled it.
Where the legions bled in the provinces, praetorians dined behind marble walls.
Lepidus knew the difference well.
He had served—not as a praetorian—but as a legionary tribune.
A boy sent to the mud and frost of the frontier.
A half-named son fighting for a full-blooded father's approval.
By 28 AD, even far from the capital, he could feel it: the Roman Empire's pulse quickening.
In Rome, the air grew thick with whispers.
Delatores—informers—flourished like rot in dark corners: in the senate, in the streets, among slaves, among friends.
The crime was maiestas—treason against the emperor—and the price of accusation was often death.
But for the accuser? Wealth, favor, and elevation.
Behind it all loomed Sejanus, prefect of the praetorian guard.
Tiberius trusted him—or seemed to.
Sejanus had slowly coiled himself around the imperial court like a patient snake, his influence stretching from the palace halls to the provinces.
Through spies, through letters, through whispers in torchlight, he orchestrated purges.
In this Rome, it wasn't enough to be loyal.
One had to be invisible.
Silent.
Disposable.
Then came the Frisians.
They called it a minor revolt.
A border flare-up.
The Frisians—tribesmen beyond the Rhine—rose against a new tax and bled Roman forts dry.
They slaughtered soldiers, seized standards, left legions burning in the mud.
Some boys in the camp joked they'd reach Rome.
They didn't.
They stayed where they were—feral and free in the north.
But Lepidus remembered.
Not fighting. No.
Waiting.
Until the Senate called it "contained."
Tiberius sent no reinforcements.
Didn't sent them—the legions.
Instead, Sejanus marched to the north with his praetorians.
And succeeded.
The legions posted there when the revolt happened and had survived were quietly pulled back, dismissed early for the season.
It was, officially, nothing.
And yet—Lepidus never forgot the way the commander looked at them after.
Like assets spent. Like threats avoided.
He had served four years by then.
His military service took him far from Italy.
He served in Britannia, where the damp cold seeped into his bones, and the endless green hills echoed the emptiness within him.
He learned to fight, to endure.
He had watched boys turn into ash and men into beasts.
He had survived—not out of glory, but out of defiance.
He did what was asked.
He bled where he was told.
Now, he was going home..
**
The room was too quiet.
The kind of silence that made every memory louder.
Lepidus sat at the edge of his cot, fists pressed into his knees.
He could feel the roughness of his palms against his skin—calluses earned from years of drills, from clumsy boat-building, from holding on too tightly to things he couldn't keep.
Beside him lay a crumpled scrap of scroll, forgotten but not discarded.
A boy's face looked up from the folds—heart-shaped, mouth curved in a faint smile, eyes soft with mischief.
Unmistakably Caligula.
He hadn't meant to draw him again.
And yet—
"Idiot," he muttered, his voice dry and cracking.
Caligula was gone.
Just—gone.
It had been five painful years.
Plucked from Rome like a stray feather and cast into the wind.
Capri.
Out of reach. Out of voice. Out of life.
His gaze dropped back to the scroll.
His eyes traced Caligula's face again.
Lingering on the soft curve of his lips.
The shadow under his cheekbones.
He reached for it. The papyrus.
Exhaling.
Then, Lepidus closed his eyes and summoned the real thing from memory.
'The last time I saw him, this was the expression that stayed with me most.'
One day, he was there.
He whistled to him from outside his window.
The stars were the only witness and the moon their light.
They were talking like old friends, telling each other their dreams.
Caligula opened up to him. To Lepidus.
Then the next night, he vanished—taken like a cargo on a tide he couldn't follow.
And after Lepidus—arrogant, naive—had even promised to protect him.
Unable to even say goodbye.
And it had been the worst.
He'd been a ghost, going through the motions, the world a muted canvas of browns and grays.
Sleep offered no escape; his dreams were filled with Caligula's laughter, the vibrant blue of his eyes, the ghost of his touch.
It felt as though something had ripped his soul out by the roots, leaving him hollow, unfinished.
His fingers moved, tracing the drawn lines as if they could somehow lead him back.
The lips.
The smile.
It haunts him.
It had lit up something inside Lepidus that he hadn't known was waiting.
And then, it disappeared.
'What now, then?' he asked himself.
Just how many more times does he need to blame himself for not acting sooner?
For not attempting to talk to Caligula all those years?
'I wasted those years, beating around the bush.' he clenched his teeth. 'Because I'm a coward.'
'I was too busy self pitying my social status.'
Will there ever come a day where he can see Caligula again?
To hear him breathe.
Laugh.
And tell Lepidus all of his deepest secrets and wishes?
A knock came—soft, familiar. Not urgent. Not gentle either.
He didn't move. Not yet.
Lucius pushed open the door and stepped inside, still lanky and freckled, though his arms and his shoulders had grown into the shape of a soldier's.
He grinned—he always did, that boyish smile fighting against time.
"Lucius the Great is here! The finest soldier ever to live!"
Lepidus didn't answer.
He could laugh. He used to.
But he didn't.
It had been five years since he last laughed like that.
Lucius' grin faltered, as it always did—guilt, then sadness, then quiet understanding flickering behind his eyes.
"We should get going," Lucius said, voice softer now.
"We leave for Rome today."
Green emerald eyes were trained on Lucius.
Lepidus tied his long, dark raven hair.
He stood. Taller than the boy he once was.
His skin now becoming prominent—the hue of warm milk mixed with chocolate.
The tunica militaris clung to him like a second skin, its fabric stretched taut over developed muscles.
He rolled the scroll in his hands, his fingers tightening around it as though it could anchor him to something more than the past.
Without a word, he grabbed his saccus and stepped into the morning light, leaving the military camp where he'd spent four long years of his life.
**
The ride home felt foreign.
As he passed the familiar olive groves, memories flickered like dying embers.
His father's stern face.
His mother's quiet sadness.
And always, Caligula.
Five years had passed since Caligula—his Caligula—was taken to Capri.
Lepidus had been fifteen then, his heart cracked open and exposed like a scab someone wouldn't stop picking.
A year after that, his father had sent him away too—not to an island, but to the front.
To the legions. To the edges of the empire.
"Service will harden you," his father had said, voice like marble.
But Lepidus knew the truth.
His father had no other sons.
And the Aemilii family, proud and patrician, could not afford whispers about not sending a son as their noble obligation to Rome.
With no full-blooded son, his father had no choice but to use him—to uphold the family's noble dignity.
He doesn't want people to look down on his Aemilii family.
And his status as a consul.
It's more for honor and power than obligation.
"Return as a man," his father had said, "and I will make you my son in law and name."
"It is not a request," Aemilius' gaze was firm. "It is your obligation."
'What bollocks. It's yours not mine.' Lepidus scoffed.
"And," his father paused. "If you distinguish yourself, if you rise through the ranks, then..."
He'd hesitated as if swallowing something bitter, "... then, we shall see about formally recognizing you, fully, as my son."
Lepidus stilled.
If he had heard those words before meeting Caligula, he might've kissed his father's feet.
But now?
Now, he had no use for that name.
He remembered the shore.
He remembered sketching impossible diagrams for boats that would never float.
The island was Tiberius's domain, and Lepidus was nothing—half a slave, half a noble.
He had no coin, no allies, no way onto Tiberius' private island.
No friend could console him.
Not even Marcus, who tried.
Not even Lucius, who brought figs and wine and silence.
Capri might as well have been the moon.
And so, instead, he built things—ugly, crooked things that crashed into waves and splintered in shame.
He would gather driftwood like it mattered.
Spent afternoons hammering in secret.
One time, he even tried to paddle out with an oar and a washing basin.
The sea laughed and spat him back out.
Each failed attempt had ended in splinters and frustration, mirroring the shattering of his hopes.
Then a year came. He was sixteen.
Orders.
Armor.
A nameplate that barely belonged to him.
They sent him to Pannonia first.
Then Moesia.
And after that was history.
Cold. Mud. Blood.
He saw men cry. Saw boys die.
He rose in rank—not from ambition, but because he refused to die.
Now twenty, he returned to his father's estate.
They called it a "vacation."
A "reward."
He scoffed.
He called it what it was: a pause.
He had done what was asked.
He had survived.
He had even succeeded.
His father had promised: "Win honor, and I will also erase your mother's shadow."
And maybe—just maybe—that shadow had faded.
But none of it mattered.
Because the only thing that kept him alive through it all… was Caligula.
The Caligula he longed for.
And now, for the first time in years, Capri was close.
This time, he had a coin.
He had rank.
He had a name.
Almost.
'Wait for me, mea Dea.'
**
INDEX:
Pannonia- frontier Roman province along the Danube; cold, militarized, rebellious
Moesia- Balkan province near the Black Sea; another harsh, active military zone
Mea Dea- "My goddess" in Latin
**
AN//
Roman Legion Ranks (Highest to Lowest)
1 Legatus Augusti pro praetore
2 Legatus Legionis (Legate)
3 Tribuni militum (Military Tribunes) – six per legion, drawn from the aristocracy. One was the senior Tribunus Laticlavius, a senatorial officer and second-in-command to the legate. The other five were Tribuni Angusticlavii, equestrians.
(Lepidus, after four years of service, had risen from Tesserarius (eighth in rank) to a Tribunus Angusticlavus—through merit, battlefield experience, and his father's quiet influence even though he wasn't an equestrian, pure noble nor pure slave and also not a plebian).
4 Praefectus Castrorum (Camp Prefect)
5 Primus Pilus (First Spear Centurion)
6 Centuriones (Centurions)
7 Optio – the centurion's second-in-command, responsible for discipline and daily operations.
(Lucius had earned this post—Optio—four years into service, rising from the ranks of a simple Miles Gregarius (regular legionary-last ranked) through grit and obedience rather than birthright)
8 Tesserarius
9 Decanus / Decurio
10 Miles Gregarius (Legionary Soldier) - foot soldiers
**
Additional AN//
A note on the timeline: In this novel, I've taken some liberties with the historical timeline for dramatic purposes. The date of Caligula's departure for Capri has been adjusted to [23 AD] to better serve the narrative flow. I acknowledge that the historically accurate date is 26 AD.