NOW I AM RIGHT HERE, AND IT’S TIME, ‘CAUSE THIS IS REAL, THIS IS REAL AND IT’S ALL MINE*

**Chapter 4: The Shape of Fire** The city had begun to burn—quietly. Not in flames, not yet. But in whispers. In absences. In people who went missing and did not return. In soldiers who no longer saluted, but stared. Rome was splintering, and the splinters were turning inward. And in the center of it all was a man who should not have existed. Cassian, once slave, once scholar, now something stranger. A shadow with a voice. A name without a title. He had no rank, no property, no family. But when he spoke, the room quieted. That was power. And power never goes unnoticed for long. --- **Three nights after the graffiti, Volcatius sent a gift.** It arrived in silence. A wooden box, long and narrow, delivered by a boy with no tongue. Inside, wrapped in silk, was a stylus—its tip engraved with the insignia of the Senate. Tullia stared at it warily. “A bribe.” Cassian didn’t answer. She looked to him, almost pleading. “You can’t possibly believe he respects you.” “I don’t care if he respects me,” Cassian said. “I care that he fears what happens if he doesn’t.” “But if you accept this—” “I haven’t accepted anything.” He unrolled the accompanying note. A single line in fine handwriting: **“Even fire must be shaped before it burns the right house.”** --- **Later, in the secret chamber beneath the villa, Cassian met with Junius and Sergius.** The scrolls were spread across a table of cold stone. Maps. Ledgers. Letters intercepted from Volcatius’s estate. Sergius leaned in. “You know what this is, right?” “A test.” “He’s offering you legitimacy,” the old freedman muttered. “A place. A seat. And once you sit, you’re part of the system. You’re trapped.” Cassian nodded. “That’s why I won’t sit.” “But you’ll take the offer?” “I’ll make him think I did.” Junius looked between them. “Isn’t that dangerous?” Cassian finally smiled. “Of course it is. That’s the point.” --- **Elsewhere, at the edge of the Aventine, Decimus lay awake.** He had not spoken much since Cassian’s declaration before the council. The old nobleman had backed him publicly—but privately, something had changed. He stared at the ceiling, listening to the silence, and wondered not for the first time if he had loosed a wolf among his flock. Cassian had saved his life. Had advised him wisely. Had kept enemies at bay. But now… Cassian had enemies of his own. And Decimus, by proximity, had inherited them. His fingers trembled as he reached for wine. --- **That morning, a new slave arrived.** She was called **Lycia**, and she came from the East. Her accent was soft, her movements silent, her eyes sharp. Cassian recognized her at once. They had once stood together—on the same scaffold in Antioch, condemned for insurrection, only she had escaped before the sentence was passed. She did not acknowledge him at first. Only that night, when the others were asleep, did she enter his chamber and say softly: “You should be dead.” He rose from his bench, not startled. “I was.” She stepped closer. “So now what are you?” Cassian met her gaze. “A warning.” The sky over Rome was the color of iron. Heavy. Waiting. Lycia stood on the balcony of the upper slave quarters, watching the city shift like an animal turning in its sleep. She had not spoken again of Antioch. Not yet. But her presence was a question that would not vanish. Tullia watched her from below. She did not trust this new arrival—her silence, her beauty, her manner. Tullia had lived too long in the space between danger and devotion not to feel the threat behind Lycia’s stillness. Cassian had not explained. And that, more than anything, disturbed her. --- **In the Senate Library** Cassian met Volcatius in the quiet of parchment halls. It was an unscheduled meeting, orchestrated by anonymous messages and paid scribes. They stood amid scrolls worth kingdoms, surrounded by histories that no longer mattered. Volcatius offered no greeting. “I could have you arrested.” Cassian raised an eyebrow. “Why haven’t you?” “Because I want to see if you’re clever enough to avoid it.” He tossed a scroll onto the table. Cassian unrolled it. A list of names. Men Cassian had targeted. Senators who had lost favor. A web of influence collapsing under the pressure of anonymous accusations, most seeded by Cassian’s own agents. “This is your fire,” Volcatius said. “You’re burning from the outside.” “You’d prefer I burn from within?” “I prefer to keep my enemies where I can reach them.” Cassian met his gaze. “And I prefer to remain free.” Volcatius smiled thinly. “There is no freedom in Rome. Only masks. Choose yours wisely.” --- **Back at the Villa – That Night** Tullia sat by candlelight, examining a tiny bronze coin. The face had been scratched out. The other side bore the faint outline of a phoenix. “Where did you get this?” she asked Lycia. The new slave didn’t look up from her weaving. “It was a gift.” “From Cassian?” “No.” Tullia studied her. “You knew him before.” “Yes.” “Then why are you here?” Lycia’s hands stilled. “Because I was told he forgot who he was.” “And?” Lycia met her eyes. “I came to remind him.” --- **At the Arena of Domitian – Secret Gathering** The rebellion wasn’t dead. It had only changed clothes. Under the guise of a gladiator’s rehearsal, men and women from across the empire gathered in the empty arena pit—slaves, freedmen, merchants, scribes. Each carried a token: a coin, a feather, a piece of stained cloth. Cassian stood before them, not as a general, but as a speaker. “We are not soldiers. Not yet,” he said. “But we are memory. And memory is a weapon.” The crowd listened. He lifted a scroll. “This is a list of senators. Each has profited from the sale of war prisoners. Each has fed the fire that now consumes the provinces. We will not strike them with swords. We will strike them with truth.” One voice from the crowd: “That hasn’t worked before.” Cassian nodded. “Then we sharpen the truth. And we whisper it in the right ears.” He handed the scroll to a courier. “To Alexandria,” he said. “Let Egypt hear what Rome tries to forget.” --- **Decimus – Alone in the Temple of Jupiter** He prayed. Not for Rome. Not for the empire. Not even for himself. He prayed for Cassian. And that, perhaps, was the clearest sign he had begun to fear him. Here is **Section 3 of 5** of **Chapter 4: The Shape of Fire**, continuing the rising storm around Cassian’s ascent and unraveling loyalties. It began with a knife in the bread. Tullia found it during morning preparation—small, rusted, the kind used by city beggars. It was hidden beneath a heel of wheat loaf in the kitchens. The slaves swore they hadn’t seen it. Junius went pale. Sergius muttered curses to forgotten gods. Cassian took the blade and turned it over in his hand. “No note?” he asked. “No,” Tullia said. “Just metal.” “It’s a message.” Lycia, silent until then, said, “It’s a warning.” Cassian nodded. “No,” he said. “It’s an invitation.” --- **That Night – The Mausoleum of Augustus** Rome did not have shadows. Rome had memories, and they bled into the stones. Cassian stood in the old imperial mausoleum, its tombs long emptied, its corridors echoing with the footsteps of forgotten rulers. He waited beside the cracked statue of a dead emperor, listening. Volcatius appeared behind a column. “You chose the grave of an empire for a meeting,” he said. “How poetic.” “I chose a place where history speaks louder than men.” They walked, slow, measured. “You’ve made enemies,” Volcatius said. “I’ve made Rome remember itself.” “You think truth will save you?” Cassian stopped. “No. I think it will burn them first.” Volcatius turned toward him, the moonlight catching the silver in his beard. “I have an offer. One last time.” Cassian waited. “There’s a post in Africa. A governorship. Far from here. You’ll have autonomy, power. No Senate, no spies. You disappear, and they stop hunting you.” “And in return?” “Silence. You leave your list behind. You take no names, no letters, no maps. You become what they fear most—a man who walked away.” Cassian laughed softly. “You don’t understand me at all.” “No,” Volcatius said. “But I understand survival.” Cassian turned away, footsteps loud on old stone. “You should remember,” he said, “that I survived once already.” --- **Meanwhile – In the Villa Garden** Tullia and Lycia walked the gravel path in silence. “I know who you are,” Tullia said suddenly. Lycia didn’t look at her. “Do you?” “You were his second in Antioch. You organized the escape. You left him behind.” Lycia stopped. “I saved thirty-two lives that night. Cassian was not one of them.” “And now you’re back. Why?” “Because the fire I started then is still burning. And he’s building something that could either feed it… or extinguish it.” Tullia looked at her. “You think he’s changed?” Lycia finally looked at her. “I think we all have.” --- **Cassian’s Study – Hours Later** Cassian returned to find a sealed scroll on his desk. No name. Just a mark in red wax: a broken chain. He opened it. Inside: a list of names. Not his. Not Rome’s. Lycia’s. Names only she would know. Rebels from Antioch. Survivors. Family. And next to each one: a note. Captured. Dead. Imprisoned. All except one. The name was scratched into the botto

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