I came to my senses quickly enough, because Aurelius Titus's eldest offspring accompanied him. If Aurelius was as dutiful a husband as he was a son, his daughter should be around eleven, born exactly ten months after her parents' wedding.

She was nearly a bride herself now, and very aware of it. Unlike her father, the girl dressed to the nines to greet the guests. A pleated gown, a stole and a silver rope hang with amethysts around her neck. The same purple stones decorated her ears peeking from under a braided mass of hair. The only concession to girlhood I spotted were purple petals stuck to her nails. The rest—hair, composure, the way she assessed and dismissed me—was that of a woman. She reminded me of a very specific woman too, and so much so, that I suppressed a shiver.

Aurelius Titus visibly struggled to compose himself after discovering me on his doorstep. I doubted he heard a word of Rufius Fulgentius' excuses for our impromptu visit.

"I implore you to hear me out, illustrious Aurelius Titus," I said, before Aurelius could throw us out. "I wouldn't have come to you, if it wasn't of the utmost importance."

Aurelius Titus frowned for another moment, then sighed. "Very well."

"In private," I insisted, meeting his eyes. I kept my gaze as steady as I would in the arena. "It wouldn't take long."

It used to be that even the long winter nights weren't long enough for us... but Aurelius Titus also surrendered faster than in our youth. He apologized to Rufius Fulgentius that the lady of the house was indisposed, sent his daughter away—'we will finish the translation tomorrow'—and invited me to his library.

The library! My heart quivered. That was how the affair had started between us. Aurelius Titus would read a page to me, something unexpected. Then we talked. No matter what I said back then, even if it was ignorant, stupid or rushed, he listened. He made me feel cherished like nobody else in the world.

It didn't occur to me until much later that Aurelius Titus simply needed to talk things over when he worked, and that his veiled gaze was turned inward, listening to the thoughts that I sparked in his mind, rather than to me.

Which probably explained the withering glance his daughter shot me before her departure. Her sandals drummed furiously as she left, but her back was impeccably straight, her head held high. Chances are, Aurelius Titus kept his habits, and the girl was as oblivious as I used to be.

"Isn't she Alina born again!" I exclaimed in wonder.

"In her case, nurture was powerless before nature," Aurelius Titus said. His etched lips twisted in distaste.

"Do you still hate your sister?"

He harrumphed. "Did you really make the journey to ask this?"

"Believe me, I would have avoided coming to you if I could." Maybe my quest wasn't as hopeless as I had imagined. I wetted my lips and looked around to gather my thoughts.

Aurelius' library was vast, with rows of shelves to store books and scrolls. Marble busts of the philosophers stared at me from between the papers, but he didn't have a single bust of Marcus Caelius or Claudius Caesar. Three writing desks occupied the rest of the space, one of them piled with an ancient treatise. I sat down and leafed through it. Aurelius Titus' handwriting mixed with pages in less confident penmanship. "Your current work?"

"Yes," he replied and positioned himself by the window, arms crossed on his chest. "It will become the history of our age, if I am left in peace."

"Sorry," I said, "I'll be brief."

I tried. I really tried, but old habits die hard. Despite everything, I enjoyed talking with him; it put the jumbled mess of my thoughts in order. Plus, Victor and his fate, Claudius' victories, and Messalina's plotting naturally made for a very long tale.

"Barbarians' struggle is, perhaps, just," Aurelius Titus mused when I finally grabbed a drink to soothe my parched throat.

He didn't even blink when I confessed to fornicating with his sister. That was typical Aurelius. But his approval for Victor's rebellion surprised me. Even I, who was criminally infatuated with the Empire's enemy, and understood his reasons to do what he did, didn't dream of approving.

That Aurelius Titus did so, with his pedigree, was unthinkable to me. I sputtered watered wine in a fair imitation of Rufius Fulgentius. "This isn't something I expected to hear from a Senator's son."

He motioned to his manuscript. "I had thought of it endlessly, Maximus. Our forefathers had lost Rome when they fled Earth. The memory of their loss and fault taunted us, pushed us to do better. And when we couldn't possibly imagine the 'better', we copied. When we're burned to ashes, 'loyal' would be what's left of us."

"Yes, I concur," I rasped, as my pulse sped up. It was just like the old times.

"Copying is futile, Maximus! We can never outstrip Rome. Presumably, Pax Romana didn't stop expanding back on Earth because she lost mere three legions. We're not nearly as important as we'd like to imagine. What's revered history for us on Nanciscor, is a drop in the ocean for them on Earth."

"We survived for four generations by staying loyal."

"Survived? Is it survival to be bound to a pointless race or a protracted agony? We should have stopped suppressing works that acknowledge the fundamental truth after the first generation had died out."

"Which truth?" I sat perfectly still in anticipation of his answer. I had forgotten how much of a dissenter he had been with the ideals and intellectual constructs.

"There won't be another portal. We won't return to Earth. Ergo, staying to the old policies is pointless, most particularly in separating ourselves from the barbarians. We have to stop fearing Arminius and do things differently than the Romans."

I didn't repeat Victor's tale about how the barbarians came to this world through another portal to Aurelius Titus. There was no way of knowing if they also originated on Earth, long before us, in the Age of Heroes, but our Crossing wasn't unique. However, Aurelius Titus should find it for himself, if he was ready to mingle with the enemy, despite looking like he wanted to hold his nose every time he said a 'barbarian'. Dissenter he might have been, but still a son of a Fidelis Senator.

"With what I told you," I said, "you don't have to wait until your father dies to receive a seat in the Senate."

"Nobody prays more for my father's continuous health than I do."

"That's new. You couldn't say two words without starting a shouting match before."

"Oh, I hate him," Aurelius Titus picked one of his pens and tapped his lips. "That didn't change."

"You and your riddles..." I grumbled. "Regardless, it's not about your father. Claudius Caesar would elevate you for reporting your sister's treasonous intent. Her children will be saved and you would have power, introduce the reforms, push the cart on the right path—"

Why was he laughing? And so hard that tears glistened in his eyes? "Maximus, I could have become a Senator eight years ago, when my father-in-law died. I had respectfully declined his seat."

I gaped like a fish. "Why?"

"Because I hate the lot of them: my father, Messalina, Claudius, Fidelium and the Senate. Particularly the Senate! It's pointless to speak up. The boors haven't listened to reason for four generations. May Fortuna keep me from the necessity of showing my face before them!"

"You had no intention of helping me, did you?" I asked. "Then why did you agree to receive me?"

Aurelius Titus put the pen down and played with the belt of his tunic. "Call it curiosity. I couldn't believe the rumors about your return to the arena. First time you were young. But you are a man now. You've paid for your freedom by blood, your own and others'... and you gave it away again?"

I studied his face and saw nothing save for incredulity. He truly, sincerely didn't understand my sacrifice. Neither the first one, nor the second. For all his listening, he heard even less than I suspected.

"Have you ever loved me?" I asked like a forlorn fool.

"You broke my heart," Aurelius Titus said, "you broke it when you placed an impenetrable barrier between us. You did it by surrendering the man's one true treasure—his freedom—for something as trivial as love. I can only pity you."

Green is a warm color, but I had never seen eyes colder than his. At our last meeting, when I swore to never see him again, night obscured his features. It was for the best, because if I got the full blast of this green ice back when I was seventeen, I would have gone berserk.

Twelve years later, I merely staggered from my chair. "You can talk. You could always talk. You are wise hiding like a soft slug under a rock, because your words are stinging slime. someone might squish you for them if they hear you. But there is no need. You never lived at all."

"And you lived? You are a slave, Maximus. A Fidelis and a slave."

If only he knew that Victor shamed me for exactly the same thing, only his bite was worse. Strangely, I was better able to handle Aurelius Titus. "I am a slave, but you are worse. You are a patrician of Fidelium, an illustrious man, who missed his chance to be great."

"You don't know greatness from your prick. Actually, that's the only thing you listen to."

I could kill him right there and then, in his library, next to his magnum opus, and I didn't need a sword to do that. I could have broken his neck, strangled him, beat him... there were plenty of ways for me to murder this man. Knowing this brought me no joy, because he didn't place any value on the kind of victories that made me the Champion of Champions. He admired something different, and nothing but.

"Farewell, Aurelius Titus. I shouldn't keep you from your histories any longer or darken your threshold ever again. This time I mean it." With that, I stormed out of his library for good.

The marble, the frescoes and the precious wood of his wife's villa—it all bled around me, smothering the world with red, like it was raining blood. I had known for years that my first lover wasn't worth the sacrifice I had made, but the torrents of pain had never ripped the past out completely.

Now I stumbled drunkenly through his villa and I felt it. I was a slave, yes. By crows, I was a slave! But Aurelius Titus made it worse. His gaze reduced what mattered to me to insignificant.

Even Messalina Augusta regarded me with more warmth when she berated me through the years. Because she loved me. It was a twisted love for a possession, and it was stoked by her jealousies, not her heart, but it was a kind of love.

Aurelius Titus didn't love me. He just... didn't.

Messalina Augusta had told me that when she was only a slip of a girl and I was seventeen, fueled by love and bluster.

My world turned red because Aurelius Titus had told me that my sacrifices were pointless, both of them. I was a forlorn fool in his eyes. A boor, worse than the Senators, because I traded my freedom for love.

I was nobody to my lover. Nothing.

Rufius Fulgentius, the man I despised, had done more for me... he understood me more. What really turned my stomach was that I was realizing another horrid truth: the only person who could help me was someone for whom I was everything. That asking him to help would be the lowest thing yet.

And the world bled around me... red. Red.