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bitter—and just as powerless.
How many empty echoing years stretched out before her? Sabina had no notion, but the dread of it raked at the back of her eyes like hot claws.
    The atrium had emptied, the court trailing off whispering of the men who had died, wondering if more men were to die and what their names would be. Sabina had been left alone with only a few slaves and pages, maintaining their posts at the walls and barely hiding, through lowered lids, their curiosity.
    Sabina didn’t know how long she stood there, hands folded uselessly over her purple silks, but at last she heard boots on the mosaics behind her. She schooled her face, turning to face Vix because she’d know those footsteps anywhere. He had been almost friendly earlier that morning—his gray eyes had grinned at her in their old way, as he’d used to grin at her when he was a cocky boy. But she turned now and saw him grimmer than he’d ever looked in his life; a scarred soldier with no pity left in him. He had his
gladius
in one hand, unsheathed, and a sack in the other.
    Both dripped blood.
    Sabina’s hand went to her mouth. A ripple went through the watching pages and slaves, and she heard a faint moan. Someone bleating idiotically, “Is that—”
    Vix whipped around at the voice. “What do you think it is?”
    Sabina swallowed hard on the well of nausea in her throat, unable to take her eyes from the bulging of the sack. “He will be hated for this,” she heard herself whisper.
    Vix’s voice had a harsh grate like iron on stone. “Do you think he cares?”
    She gave another hard swallow. A drop of blood collected at the bottom of the sack in Vix’s fist, fell with a thick
plop
to the mosaics.
    “The two consuls begged,” Vix said. “The governor of Dacia knelt for me—tried to be brave. The commander—Hell’s gates. I used to
serve
under him in Parthia—”
    “Stop.” Sabina cut his words off with a sweep of her hand. They were drawing eyes, she saw—the Empress and the Praetorian speaking so vehemently—and she lowered her voice. “They’re dead, Vix. Gods know I pity them, but they had no chance for mercy. At least Titus isn’t among them.”
    “I may still have to kill him.” Vix’s eyes were like pits. “Tomorrow. Next year. Who knows? Your husband made me into his killer, and God knows he loves to kill things. I wonder how long he’ll stare into this sack here, when I lay it at his feet.”
    Sabina met his gaze. “I’m sorry it had to be you.”
    “I don’t want your pity.”
    “We used to be friends—”
    “I can’t afford friends. And you spent the last year ignoring me.”
    A secret could be a heavy thing; Sabina had discovered that during the past year. It could hang in the pit of the stomach like a burning stone. “You have no idea why—”
    He pushed past her, his armored shoulder brushing her bare arm. His footsteps went on without slowing in the direction the Emperor had taken. Sabina closed her eyes a moment, summoning a face like marble. She wanted a basin to vomit into, a pillow to rage into, a shoulder to cry into, and she would have none of those things. Because an Empress was never alone.
    All hail the Empress
, she thought savagely.
Vibia Sabina, Empress of the seven hills, mistress of Rome, lady of the Eternal City.



C HAPTER 2
    ANNIA
    A.D. 122, Spring
Rome
    Annia Galeria Faustina never meant to cause trouble. Trouble just happened.
    “I won’t do it again,” she promised every time she did something wrong, and meant it. She tried to follow the rules. It wasn’t her fault she kept finding cracks between them.
    “Just be gentler,” the housekeeper scolded. “Girls should be gentle!”
    “Gentle is boring.” Annia liked to play hard, and guests took her for a boy sometimes, approving of her scabbed knees and the ferocious scowl she wore when she sent the
trigon
ball flying clear up to the roof of the villa. “That boy will conquer us a new province someday,” the guests would