Chapter Text
Aquila Otho Septimus had always known he was the product of rape.
Water is wet. Fire burns. The Sun sets every day. It was a shockingly simple fact to take in.
Xiuying Feng had been gifted to the emperor – as all concubines had been – by her father, her uncles, her brothers, and a lengthy list of males who could barely remember anything of her except for the fact that she possessed a womb. Aquila knew she had more than that in her, but he came later and was (thankfully) not part of the long list of males who had shipped her away from the East China Sea to the Mariana Trench in the hopes of having even a feeble string of power from her marriage. No, Aquila came in later in her story. First came her marriage to the emperor, then the following banquet in which all the concubines had glared at her youthful fishy face with envy and disgust, as if she had chosen to be there next to that fishman fifteen years her senior. The banquet was followed by her wedding night. There were no whispered love confessions, no pretty poetry about her purple-ish skin and luminous eyes, no everlasting promises of having a happy marriage. Xiuying Feng had been raped for the first time on red satin sheets, appropriately chosen to hide all the blood and the tears (but everybody said they were there for prosperity or some other lie like that). The next day she had gone back to her palace in the Harem Citadel and found a gutted shark on her bed. It had been the first of many.
For the following year she had remained the emperor’s favourite. A fate nobody would ever wish on their worst enemy. But, as fate would want it, that particular torture fell on her shoulders. For the first half of the year, Concubine Feng wished every day to simply die. An impossible feat in the Citadel where every single one of her moves was scrutinized by maids at the service of her family and every other family with enough money to corrupt them; where every step she took was done under the piercing gaze of thousands of eunuchs and soldiers who bowed to the monster at the head of their great empire. She had even considered willingly falling into the trap of one of the other concubines or simply present herself crawling at the presence of the empress to beg for poison in her tea. And yet, she had the distinct suspicion that they would let her live just so that they could enjoy her suffering. Nobody would ever know what would have happened if Xiuying Feng had simply bowed her head and asked for a clean death from her so-called enemies.
For the second half of the year, Concubine Feng had decided to take what little power she had in her hands and swing it around like the caged bird she was. The first thing she did was go to her room, where another gutted shark had been waiting for her. She had taken the carcass by the tail and dragged it across the Citadel towards Concubine Anand five o'clock meditation hour. That day she used the creature’s teeth to ruin the other’s beautiful visage, disfiguring her for eternity. One month later, Xiuying Feng drugged the emperor at dinner time and laid with him for an entire night. Aquila Otho Septimus was thus conceived. Of all that, what he hated the most was the fact that his father had enjoyed the very same treatment he reserved for all his concubines.
Thus, the monster had awarded him with the name of the bird of Rome – the very symbol of their power. He was also Otho, after every great male in his bloodline. A bloodline of tyrants, tortures, conquerors, barbarians, monsters. He was Septimus, for he was the seventh child of Cato IV Otho Secundo, Emperor of the Seven Seas. And Xiuying Feng – who was nowhere to be seen in that long title of useless names – loved him like one loves a diamond, or a particularly useful sword, but never as a child.
In the beginning he had been quite the vocal child, crying and making a fuss like babies are known to do. That is why, for the first year of his life, he had been put in another wing of Concubine Feng’s manor and looked after by nannies and housekeepers. She had not wanted to hear him, see him, or even acknowledge his existence. But she did it nevertheless once a month, just to check that her little diamond was healthy and ready to bring her to victory. How that victory was supposed to look like, Aquila never quite understood. One year after his birth, he had been presented to his mother by the army of nannies. He already knew how to walk and talk, or else he would not have been anywhere near her. She had asked him if he knew who she was. He had said ‘yes’ and parroted out her title. She had asked him if he knew who she was to him. He had said ‘no’ even though he knew. He had just wanted to see what she would do. She slapped him. Repeatedly. And he spent one week in the Cold Palace with no interaction and no food. He quite liked it there which is why he would make sure to go back every now and then, just find some peace and quiet. Once back, she asked him the same question and he answered correctly. She was his mother; he was her son. She hated him as a son but loved him as a tool; he hated her as a mother but was smart enough to acknowledge that were she a different woman, in a different place, married to a different man, she would have loved him. But, as circumstances had dictated, Aquila Otho Septimus would never have a mother – just a woman who had become a monster in order to survive another.
On his second year of life, another concubine had arrived from a Mediterranee household – the prime sea, the cradle of the empire. Concubine Lozano had become the new favourite and Concubine Feng hated her. His mother had looked at that young lady, now in the same position she had once been in and loathed her with every fibre of her being. She had hated her bluish skin and the bruises on her neck, her youthful body, and the way she limped pitifully around, her black eyes and the light slowly fading from them. She had looked at Concubine Lozano and hated her own reflection. They all did, from the empress to the lowliest concubine. By the end of the year, Aquila’s half-sibling was growing in the new woman’s womb. He did not know how to feel about that. He was aware that out there, in the other palaces behind their tall walls, there were others like him: children born out of caged birds and violence. But they were all kept apart in those first years of Cato IV’s reign, each one of them sitting at the feet of their mothers, listening to big plans of victory and poisonous words. In the end, he didn’t have to think all too much about Ottavio – he died one day after being born. One look at his mother’s satisfied face and everything became even clearer. The disgust he felt that day would never actually leave him, no matter how far away he went. One side of the Citadel, Concubine Lozano was burring her child, on the other Cato IV was putting another one inside of Aquila’s mother. Aquila, in his own private wing, away from the monsters, had lit a candle for Ottavio – he did so every evening for the rest of his life.
Nine months later, Aquila’s little sister was born. It was a tragedy for everyone but him. The monster had given her one look and withholden the Roman name which would have made her a favourite; he had forgotten all about his ninth child by the end of the day. Concubine Feng’s scorn was even worse. Aquila was loved because he was useful, but there was nothing useful in a princess born without functioning legs, therefore she was hated. Her name was Chinese, meaning that the fault for that disgrace laid solely on the mother’s shoulders, and it was Lei because the child was nothing but a pile of stones in her mother’s eyes. Still, she was a princess, and tradition would want her to be a Julia. And, in the entire world, the only one who loved Lei Julia Nona was her brother. The only reason she was not killed in her first year by her own mother, was Aquila sleeping on the floor in front of her crib every single night. She could harm the useless one, but not the useful one. It was her law – everybody's law actually. As if rewarding her son with a pet, one year later Aquila was told that no harm would come to his little sister as long as he behaved. He hated that word as much as he hated his parents, but he agreed in the end. His happiness was a small price to pay if it meant that Lei would survive.
At the age of five, Aquila Otho Septimus met his older siblings when he was finally introduced to the Arena. Once you are five, your ‘youth’ (if we even want to call it that) ends. If you are a princess, you start learning about running a palace, how to play the game with a smile on your face and a knife on your back, and how to be good wives who are subordinate to their husbands even if they do not wish to. If you are a prince, you start learning about running a battlefield, how to hit where it hurts and kill in the most effective way, and how to rule the only empire on Earth. One enters the Arena with their heads filled with the trash their mothers had put there: trust no one, even if they share your blood and your misfortune; kill before you get killed, even if they are just kids like you are; hate everyone but your dear mother, but never the emperor. Aquila entered that place loving his sister, holding hope for his siblings, hating his mother and his father, and just wishing to be anywhere but there. But he still marched on, because everyone was watching: the empress and concubines taking their tea under the shade of a pavilion, their mouths complimenting and smiling at each other as if they all didn’t loath each other; the soldiers looking from the high walls, placing their bets and waiting for blood to be spilled; the Head Eunuch who would report everything to the monster. His siblings. There they were - the only victims left in that hellhole. Antonia Julia Prima had been sitting with her half-sisters, the oldest one at fifteen, and had looked at him with a face of stone. For a moment, his hopes had wavered until, with her eyes, she had pointed at the spot he was supposed to occupy as to not a make a fool of himself. In that single second between them, Aquila had understood the difference between a tyrant and a good ruler. Introductions had followed, even though everyone already knew each other’s names by the fact that their mothers were always hatefully speaking about those children whose mere existence thwarted their dreams of victory. A long silence had followed but they were far away enough from the eyes to not feel uncomfortable in it. They needed that silence. They all understood what was required of them: backstabbing, killing, throwing each other in the shark’s mouth, hating on the only people who understood what hell it was to live their lives.
So, Aquila spoke with that very same apathy which would characterize his entire speech for life.
“I won’t hate you.” those were the words coming out of a five-year-old boy who was born with the unfortunate gift of being too gifted for his own good “I won’t hate you.” he said again in front of the surprised faces of his half-siblings. And he meant it, like every word he uttered. Aquila always meant it. That evening he dined with Lei (he always did), and she alone wished him happy birthday. Then she asked him to describe their half-siblings to her. Were they deformed as their mother claimed, or did they look like the princes and princesses in her fairytale’s books; were they cruel to him, or kind and understanding. “I’ll tell you, if you read me a story.” he asked instead “A silly one, with no purpose but to make one happy.” She accepted and pinkie promised. So, he told everything: of the serious Antonia and her little brother, Agrippa Otho Secundus, the children of the empress; of Verginia Terza and Virginia Quarta, twin daughters of Concubine Jakobsson who had come from freezing seas far in the North; of Jayesh Otho Quintus, whose face had been splashed with hot oil during one of his mother’s fits of rage over her own disfigurement – that Concubine Anand who had been their mother’s first victim. He was perfectly aware that he might never hate Jayesh, but the other had all reason to hate him. For last, he told her of shy and quiet Fabricius Otho Sexto whose mother had died giving birth to him, who was being therefore raised by the empress, and whom everyone considered already dead for the simple fact that he was alone. He did not mince his words to spare Lei because he needed her to know the truth, to carry it always with her, and to make sure she knew that if everybody lied to her, Aquila would never.
By the age of eight, Aquila Otho Septimus had gained six other half-siblings, lost three of them to murder (if he was even allowed to call it that) as well as sixteen others to stillbirths. It came to a point where he was supposed to forget the number, to stop counting. Aquila did neither of those things; it was his personal silent rebellion: to hate the mothers and the father; to love the children – even those he would never get the chance to meet. Xiuying Feng’s father was also given a ministry position in the capital, and Aquila had the unfortunate duty of making his acquaintance. Qiang Feng had not spared a single glance at his niece, and his hardened and intelligent had focused only on Aquila; later, after a long minute of silence looking at each other, Qiang Feng had announced to his daughter and the servants fawning after her the following words: “We have won.” Aquila had wanted to break his neck right there and there; instead, he had turned around, left the room with his sister, and joined the rest of his half-siblings for the Midsummer feast. They had sat in that big cold hall in proper order, each occupying their assigned places by rank and favour with the emperor. Antonia, Agrippa and Aquila had been placed all next to each other, at the centre of the u-shaped formation, on the red platform right under the great golden eagle that flew down from the ceiling; Lei sat at the end of the formation, right were the air currents came from the open doors, and were she was supposed to stay invisible and insignificant. Still, she had been all smiles as she was sat in the company of those her story books defined as family; she had raised her small hand and waved at Fabricius on the opposite side of the hall. The gesture had been met with absolute silence as every sibling held their breath, as Aquila debated whether to get up or not, as they watched the servant serving lamb to Lei raise her hand to strike the five-years old princess. She was stopped by Fabricius when he raised his own hand to wave at her like a man deeply unfamiliar with the gesture. Antonia had sent away all the servants after a while and, for the first time in their lives, they had enjoyed a meal together; they could not laugh for they knew the disgusting rats had their ears to the wall, hungry for even a tiny scoop to report to their masters. But they could look at each other and smile, sharing even a fraction of their youth as children should do. When the meal had been over, and the pale sun could no longer reach the bottom of the ocean, they got up and let the servants walk around them in haste, instructions, and venomous comments on their tongues, as they prepped them for the great encounter of their lives. In all that haste Lei Julia Nona was escorted back to her room, where they could all pretend she did not exist once more. Then came the Head Eunuch, looking them up and down with that disgusting look on his fat sweaty face, and – in a perfect single file of brocade, silk, pearls, and high crowns – they were led to the Heaven on Earth Pavillion.
They had filed in order of age: on their right officials in red, fat like the Head Eunuch or old enough to have one foot in the grave; on their left generals in blue, imposing and unbending, like the mountains under the ocean. Then they stopped in front of his throne, their head bowed because that is what protocol required. Each of them, from Antonia to Aquila (the seven eldest that, by some miracle, had survived), glared at the floor under them and their minds repeated a single sentence. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. When their name was called, they had to take a step forward and wait for him to bless them with a question, or some praise for their studies, or some comment laced with elegance about inelegant matters. One after the other. “I present to your Majesty, divine gracing upon us mortals, Cato IV Otho Secundo his son Aquila Otho Septimus.” Aquila took a step forward, his eyes staring at an undefined spot on the stairs ahead of him. Silence stretched for what felt like a lifetime. “Another step ahead.” his voice was low, like the slow movement of the icebergs in the water, and it gave nothing away. Three words and Aquila heard the breath the officials took in. He took a step forward and he already knew that such a simple move would reach the ears of every woman in the harem, from the Empress to the lowliest concubine; and Aquila knew that the monster was aware of it – he knew it when he was ordered to look up and their eyes met, and Aquila read in his father’s eyes all the perverse joy he took in throwing his son to the wolves. Because Aquila was the favourite – that additional step proved it – and that was the most dangerous position a prince could occupy. “Head Eunuch tells us that you excel in all your subjects.” Cato’s mouth stretched in a lazy smile, the very same that sometimes graced Aquila’s face. They looked like two drops of water. I hate you. “I am aware.” another breath was held behind his back, this time by the generals as well. It made Cato’s smile even more gleeful; his eyes though remained of the same dark nothingness. “We reward you.” he gave a lazy gesture and Aquila stepped back, once more with his head bowed beside his sisters and brothers. Head Eunuch gave him – and just him - a gift: more stupid brocade.
By the age of ten Aquila Otho Septimus had survived seven assassination attempts. Poison, strangulation, daggers to the back – how kind they were, these women that had forgotten how to be victims in favour of turning into perpetrators. In those two years the harem was blessed with six more children, as well as twenty stillbirths and two babies killed in their cribs. Aquila turned ten under the eyes of the entire harem city. Him in the sand, surrounded by open pavilions that shielded his half-siblings above five years old, the concubines, the servants, the eunuchs, the guards, the monster, from the distant forgettable sun. There was no moment more important for a prince. You cut yourself in front of them, like a lamb to the slaughter, and then you let the blood flow down. If you could harness it, push it back into your wound, then you deserved to live; if you could not grasp the power of the imperials then you were left to die, alone in the sand, like discarded garbage – this was the greatest humiliation for the family, to have their prized horse bleed out after ten years of work on them. Aquila cut his arm and the blood poured out. I hate you. It came down like a river of magma, burning hot. I hate you. He did not push it back but watched as it came out with apathetic eyes. I hate you. It would be very easy to die there, to just let it go and be free of it all. I hate you. But Aquila could not die; not yet. Not if Lei needed him – Antonia could not protect her forever, none of them could. I hate you. No, he would not die. Nor would he quietly go on his merry way. Instead, he looked up and made eye contact with the Empress, and the concubines that sat behind her. I hate you. And so, he grasped the blood in between his green hands. And he pushed himself. To send a message. I hate you. The scythe was big like half courtyard. He swung it and let the blade pierce the sand in front of the open pavilion. He dragged it back to him, back into his flesh, and closed the wound with a caress of his fingers. Aquila then bowed to them, as he should. Next time I will slam into your skull.
One win, one loss.
Aquila run back to the Feng palace. Thunder stroked the surface of the ocean hundreds of meters above them. The waters were imperious beyond the dome of air; there was probably a volcano erupting down south – the lava would kill thousands, but their precious emperor would not care. He never did. Aquila run, his eleven years old legs pushing him pass guards and palanquins, Antonia’s secretly delivered message still branded in his brain. He pushed pass the red doors of his mother’s palace and run beyond the courtyards, the tiny bridges, the plum trees. Aquila came to a silent stop. He looked up and stared. He knew that behind him there were doors opening, people coming to stand by their mistress’ side – as if they could not bear to step away from her filthy shadow. Aquila stared: at the tiny feet covered in small pink shoes, the greying skin, the frozen hands, the broken neck surrounded by the tight noose. Concubine Feng was saying something. Who cares what. Aquila stared at the tear stricken greying face of his little sister, her vitreous eyes still staring her murderers. He knew not whom he was as he dragged a ladder towards the branch of the cherry tree; he knew not his hands as he freed Lei’s small neck the white cloth; he knew not his name as he wrapped her small body in her favourite blanket; he knew not his feet as he walked out of the palace with his sister’s body in his arms; he knew not his voice as he exited the harem citadel, voices calling after him. He climbed the stairs on the side of the Blessed Mountain in silence, the Infinite City stretching under him with thousands of lit windows and bustling roads Lei had always wished to see. He passed by the temple, ignoring the voices of priests and their empty bows, and entered the Silent Woods. He walked under the dark ocean, whales and fishes passing above his head as he walked so close to the dome’s surface, until he found a spot that looked towards the vast ocean. He dug the grave with his own hands for he refused to let Lei rest amongst monsters in the mausoleum; she would sleep there, on the borders of freedom, where nobody could touch her anymore. He laid her to rest and covered her with dirt. That night, as he kneeled with his head to the ground on her grave, Aquila Otho Septimus wept for the last time.
The next morning, he returned to the Feng palace. The ladder was gone; the broken wheelchair had also disappeared. He found just a piece of the white noose on the ground, which he took silently. “She was reaching her tenth year.” spoke Concubine Feng behind him “We could not let her humiliate us by failing.” more words. Aquila’s head slowly turned and her mouth shut with a click. Xiuying Feng took a step back, her hands trembling under her long sleeves. She looked in her son’s eyes and saw another monster in them; and, without any doubt, she knew he loathed her. She saw in his eyes a hatred deeper than the veins of the world, and she knew her father had been wrong: they had not won. Aquila would make sure they never did. And Aquila knew what monster she was seeing in him – it made him sick. It was like getting a burning dagger shoved in the throat: Aquila’s face was Cato’s; Aquila’s talent was Cato’s; Aquila’s anger was Cato’s. His father was a monster, and Aquila was his brightest diamond. Aquila left and never again did he sleep under Concubine Feng’s roof.
By the age of thirteen Aquila Otho Septimus had five other siblings. No baby had died in their cribs; no one dared to. Not with Aquila always watching their every move. And there was Cassian Otho Tertius Decimus – quick-witted, starry-eyed, full of jokes – running after him every time he grasped the shadow of Aquila walking in the pavilions, on the bridges that connected the palaces, on the battlements; and he tried hard to make Aquila laugh – for Agrippa and Fabricius told him that Aquila had the best smile under the Seven Oceans – but his big brother just patted his head, and sent him on his way with some candy. Aquila could not bear to smile at another child that risked dying – he could protect them, teach them, spoil them, but his half of him was buried on the Blessed Mountain.
Then came Concubine Yoshimi. Young, good blood, enthusiastic; she knew how to play the game better than the other women, the ones that had entered the palace trembling and, on their way to die inside. Concubine Yoshimi became a favourite of the monster, and she never went around without a smile on her pretty face; she could have been dying under all that beautiful silk, but she never showed it. Aquila did not know whether to feel pity for her or applaud her strength. If he could even call that strength. She entered the city and, with patience never shown by her kind, understood all she needed to. There was the Empress with half of the harem in her hand, steadfast on her throne with three children under her and the blood of the Mediterranee in her veins. On the opposite side there was Concubine Feng, vicious and cold, with the favourite by her side. There was no doubt about it. He was the one that trained under the right arm of the emperor; he was the one with the best grasp of the power; he was the smartest; he was the one that the servants no longer touched; he was the one she had found sitting in the dark in the nursery when she had visited. She could still feel his eyes burning on her, daring her. Concubine Yoshimi was smart: she knew the difference between a killer whale and a piranha. He was a killer whale. She had bowed gracefully and walked away without looking back. Still, there were things to do. She had Cato’s ear, his bed, his attention; and she needed a spot, a powerful one.
At the beginning of Aquila’s fourteenth year, Concubine Feng was accused of treason. Aquila was summoned to the Heaven on Earth Pavillion. He passed by the kneeling figure of his mother, her beautiful purple dress like carpet to be trembled upon, her figure smaller than before as she kneeled in front of the doors, at the centre of the huge square. She did not look up as Aquila walked by. Aquila did meet the eyes of Concubine Yoshimi as the woman exited the Palace; all she saw in his eyes was coldness – she could not bear to hold his stare and walked away. “Concubine Feng has tarnished her reputation.” announced Head Eunuch as Aquila stood in front of his throne, generals, and officials behind him “What says you?” Aquila stared right ahead at the same spot on the stairs he always had in front of him. “I am aware.” Cato laughed on his throne, his head thrown back as he clapped gleefully “Will you not try to bargain for her life? For you, we just might do an exception.” he said once his laugh had died down, his eyes almost adoring as he looked down at his favourite diamond. I hate you. “Perhaps Minister of Rites Feng has more to say than me.” Cato’s smile was feral as he made eye-contact with his favourite son. Aquila left the Pavillon as his grandfather was dragged by the horns to kneel in front of the emperor. None of the other officials nor the generals met his eyes.
One week later, Aquila sat down in front of his mother. The Cold Palace was empty except for the two of them. Her servants had already been buried, their bodies food for the magots; her father had his head dangling from the outer walls, and their ancestral home in the heart of underwater China had been emptied of people and riches. Most of these last ones had been delivered to Aquila who, in turn, had shoved them in a room and locked the door. Concubine Feng sat on the sparsely decorated bed with bloodshot eyes, her clothes simple and white – the perfect colour to die in. “Did you fight for me?” she asked. Aquila told her the truth: no. She nodded, accepting. “Then why are you here?” Aquila stared at the cup of wine on the bedside; the one filled with poison that Concubine Yoshimi had delivered with curtesy of the emperor. The message was clear: drink it and free us of your existence. Aquila looked at it as he spoke “A gift.” He took out of his robes a dagger: simple, without any gemstones on it. He put it next to the cup. “He took everything from you. The least I can give you is a death of your choosing.” Finally, their eyes met. “I was not always like this, you know?” she said with tears streaking her cheeks “There...there was a field behind our house. Of corals and sponges – it went on and on; you could never see its end. I wanted to have children and take them there, to look for crabs and starfish in the rocks. I would have been a good mother- But- But, not like this. Not with him.” she cried in her hands, and Aquila looked without tears. Just infinite pity. “He rapes the good out of you and leaves you with just what he likes: the ugly, the shadows.” she said while taking the dagger in her hand (steady, as if her hands knew that she was on the cusp of freedom). She stared at her distorted reflection on the blade before looking once more at Aquila. “When you kill him, I will be down there, waiting. His eternity will be marked with pain, I promise you this.” Aquila gifted one of his rare genuine smiles and, in the last moments of her life, Xiuying Feng saw her son as he could have been. In another world, in another time, they were in that field with little Lei, and they were happy. “One day you will be free too, my son.” she said as she slit her throat. “Goodbye, mother.”
That same year Antonia Julia Prima was engaged Manaaki, Lord of the South Pacific Ocean. His people were judged as barbarians by the people of the other Seas – savages, cruel, warmongers, there was no small number of insults for them in the city. Since the first emperor had seized the throne, they had rebelled six times; they did not bow; they did not send women for the harem; they did not have a voice near the emperor; they hated the empire. Aquila could not help but like them – that's it, before Antonia was promised to their leader. It is easy to say aloud that you do not listen to the rumours; it is an entirely different thing to not believe them. Aquila could have said that he did not, and perhaps it was true. But he had seen enough of how the world treated women to learn better. So, there they sat. On a room to the side of the great pavilion where the envoys were toasting in the company of a man they loathed; loud cheers and laugh came from the closed doors. In the room, the oldest seven sat in silence in semi-darkness. Antonia at the centre, like they liked it, with her hands properly folded and her back straight; Agrippa next to her glaring at the doors, his hands toying with an empty cup of wine. Fabricius - whose health would never put him on the same level as the others – sat in silence, his brilliant mind working where the rest of his body could not. Verginia and Virginia sat in deadly silence, knowing that soon enough would be their turn; Jayesh had his back to the floor and stared at the ceiling as if hoping that it would collapse on them all. Aquila looked out of the window the entire time before speaking. “Say the word and I can make it look like an accident.” It was enough to break the tension and let laughter spill from their lips. Aquila simply smiled behind his cup. Antonia would not let him do it, he already knew – she was too righteous for her own good, too dutybound – but it was enough to let her smile. It was enough. Manaaki came to them afterwards to offer his greetings to the seven stars of the crown; he bowed with his big body and gave the usual speech every foreign ambassador was supposed to. When he raised his head and made eye contact with them, he understood immediately that Antonia’s younger siblings would tear him apart if he turned out to be like their father. It was enough. Antonia left the citadel after Aquila turned fifteen years old. She hugged him for last. “Take care of them for me.” she whispered with her arms around her baby brother “Take care of yourself for me.” he whispered back. When the delegation had disappeared in the horizon and the six of them were left alone on the walls, Aquila put a hand on Fabricius’ shoulder and left with a simple order “Start working on it.”
Six months later Aquila was leaving the city with the monster. A prize for his favourite diamond. They travelled for two full months before reaching their destination. Cato IV ordered his guards and servants to stay behind, and for his stallion of a son to follow him. They climbed a promontory in silence - the entire journey had passed by like that: Cato talking to everyone but his son, and Aquila talking to nobody but himself. When they reached the summit Cato made them stop to take in the view: Rome. Dragged to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea by the first emperor, the cradle of their power, the sacred city that only ghosts inhabited. A pearl forever preserved by its own dome, silent and undisturbed – the only place where emperors were allowed to be crowned. “One day you will become emperor right there.” I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. Aquila Otho Septimus looked at his father without emotions on his face. “One day I will kill you.”
Silence.
Cato grinned.
“We would like to see you try.”
On his sixteenth birthday Aquila was sent to the battlefield. The humans still survived like stubborn weeds impossible to uproot. They lived on islands, tiny specks of the great continents of antiquity, and they fought tooth and nail to keep that land for themselves. Aquila Otho Septimus learned the cruelty of war at just sixteen: he saw the mutilated bodies, the fires, the crops bathed in blood, the children whipped for fun, the desperation of the innocents. He could not even register that the sun was touching him for the first time, nor could he feel the wind on his face for the first time, nor the cries of the birds on the trees. He felt old – far older than his body was. He wanted to rest (to let some human cut his head off), but if he weren’t perfect than someone else would have to take his place and they would not be as good as him at surviving. He had to keep on going so that his half-siblings were not condemned as he was. He won that war – a war on tired, hungry, desperate people. He went back to the city and his brothers run to him. Virginia Quarta had been given away. To one of the monster’s generals, one of his worst ones, cruel just as he was. The man had won a battle and requested a princess in exchange, and he would rape her, beat her, destroy her just like Cato had done to their mothers. They kneeled in a row in front of his palace for two days and two nights, silent behind Verginia who had been there for two days already. He did not acknowledge them. As a reward for his feats against the humans Aquila asked that he would be the one to arrange Verginia’s union when the time came; Cato smile and waved him away. Aquila would never let her marry – she had begged him not to when, at the end of the year, news came that Virginia had hanged herself when she had discovered that she was to give birth to her husband’s product of violence.
At seventeen Aquila was the seventh of forty-five children and, besides keeping his siblings safe from the intrigues of the palace, he had also to learn how to keep them safe from one another. Each of them had their own mothers whispering in their ears, each of them was the result of unspeakable acts, each of them just wanted to survive. That is what Aquila had to repeat to himself each time a concubine or one of their relatives tried to turn their tiny daggers towards their eldest siblings. It was what he had to tell himself when Iulius Otho Quartus Decimus stabbed him on the side, as Aquila slid down the wall and held on his good side the crying trembling teen, shushing him and cleaning his face. It was what he repeatedly told himself as he cleaned the blood dirty floor where Cassian had been hit on the back of his head by Octavius, as he made it all disappear before servants arrived and had a chance to point their fingers at either of the kids; it was he told them as they stared at him, each one on the corner of a room, trembling and vomiting, and Aquila tried to make understand that just because they were sons of monsters than it didn’t mean they had to turn into them. Each day he woke up and he, Agrippa, Jayesh, or any of them had to run to stop tragedies from happening. And at night he retired to his silent palace where nobody awaited him but the ever-lit candles and the weight of his damned existence.
Aquila.
He started to hear that voice sporadically when he turned eighteen and the air started to tense up around the city. He would hear during drills, or when he cleaned up spilled blood, or in the deep of the night when the cries of the dead became too loud. They would come and whisper his name to his ear, and unconsciousness would take him. It would be easy to stop, become a statue, and let himself be dragged by those visions and those whispers. But he could not. Not yet. As Agrippa, Jayesh, and Aquila kept the stares on them – the attention of an entire empire above them – Fabricius worked like no one expected him to. Because it was easy to forget the weak one, as well as the poor females. That year the Empress died and none of her children wept for her. Concubine Yoshimi smiled at them as she passed by to give her regards – she would still her tongue and she would quietly take a step back and watch. When the Empress casket passed under Aquila’s seat, he stared at her cold corpse and felt nothing for the woman who had tried to kill him so many times. She too had been a victim, the first of them. But she had died a monster, covered in gold and pearls, enjoying tiny private shows of dancing naked human slaves. She died without any of them even saying her name aloud – she would die nameless, forgotten like dust thrown at the wind. And as their eyes followed the procession, they finally laid on the figure at the head of it. And each of them trembled in barely contained bloodlust. One more monster to go.
When he turned nineteen, the South Pacific Ocean rebelled once more. And as much as Cato IV tried to squish them under their boots, the rebellion managed to turn into a civil war. And the Indian Ocean stretched out a hand and took that of Manaaki; they were followed by the Antarctic and the South Atlantic. Cato raged in his palace while the half-siblings toasted, Aquila with his hand on Fabricius’ genius head. Agrippa and Jayesh were sent to the battlefield were news of them stopped coming; they now rode behind Antonia Julia Prima’s army, side by side with her husband. Cassian was sent next, with a message from Aquila to Antonia telling her to treat him right. All the sons above fifteen were sent, none came back; only Aquila and Fabricius remained, the unreplaceable favourite and the useless weakest. They sat with Verginia in her palace most days; the youngest princesses running around, enjoying the silence of a city emptied of all noises but those of war meetings, raging monsters, crying concubines. “They will be here in two days.” said Fabricius reading one of Antonia’s secret dispatches. Aquila hummed “Tomorrow take the girls to the temple on the Mountain. If we do not come for you take the southern path and join the Southern Army.” Fabricius sighed but nodded. Verginia would not go, and Aquila would not ask her to.
When they came, the city was dead silent. The people had either run away or holed themselves in their homes, armed with what they could find. The drums resounded under the dome like a single heartbeat. Aquila was alone in his pavilion: legs crossed, hands on his knees, eyes closed.
Aquila Otho Septimus had always known that day would come.
Water is wet. Fire burns. The Sun sets every day. It was a shockingly simple fact to take in.
If it had not been their doing, then someone else would have done it. They were pushed to be the best; they were stretched until they were perfect. They had been discarded at the slightest error, punished for being children. They were all just children. And yet they had been beaten, tortured, insulted, disfigured, raped, killed – and now they were angry. They hated him. They hated all of them. And it was better to burn it all to the ground instead of waiting for it to get better. The ones hording all that power – greedy wrinkly hands deep in the wine, the rice, the life hood of an entire world – they would never share it. They would never open the palms of their hands and risk losing even the tiniest bit of it. There was no need to beg, cry, ask for something better; it was useless to hope that one day they would suddenly turn around and be better. Sometimes the only solution was prying that power from their cold dead fingers. So, when the time came, the doors opened from within, and they marched on. And the high pavilions were given to the flames, and the concubines were taken prisoner, and they were made to kneel as their children passed by them without a pitying look. And blood poured from the walls into the roads of the harem citadel; it dirtied the curated lawns and the plum blossoms. And Verginia Julia Terza stabbed a thousand times the general that had raped her sister as Agrippa paved the way for her. And Jayesh Otho Quintus was rage and burning flames as he came from above onto the guards that had laughed at him as his mother destroyed his fame.
Aquila Otho Septimus entered the great square in which they all had kneeled at one moment in their lives. He closed the heavy doors behind him, letting the fires and fighting beyond the walls that surrounded the centre of the citadel. Cato IV Otho Secundo stood at the top of the stairs, in front of great archway of the Heaven on Earth Pavillion, in a simple golden robe with that damn eagle on his painted on his back. His face was halfway between joyful and wrathful, as if he was conflicted between being proud of his favourite diamond and hating him for what he had done to his glorious empire.
“If you die here, we will go after all your pathetic siblings.”
“If I die here, you will come with me.”
They attacked. His scythe was glorious as it split the air in half. Cato’s double-edged spear was the same. The drums and screams outside were thwarted by the clash of their blades of blood. One was older, more knowledgeable in the art of killing; the other was younger, more bloodthirsty as he stood in front of the monster responsible for the suffering of an entire world. Aquila brought down the scythe, and the pavilion of horrors was split in half; wood and gold flew around. Cato’s throne was nothing but a forgotten leftover of an age that ended that day. Their blood rained down on them, making the heart of the empire as crimson as its rotten soul. From the walls the others watched, their breaths stuck in their throats as they waited for the hurricane of father and son to stop, to finally see who the winner was. The fought until their muscles sored and their weapons were bigger than the heavens, thirsty things for death; their drapes were in tatters, they armour pieces on the bloody grounds; one fought with glee, the other with hatred. Then they crashed on the half-split stairs of the destroyed palace. Cato’s horn was in Aquila’s hand, the young man standing behind him with the under blade of scythe on his father’s throat. Cato looked up, for the first time, with fear in his eyes. For many waited for him in the depths of hell, and his torture would never end just as his name would be trampled upon by the living. He was to die by the very will of the one that was supposed to succeed him. His greatest creation turned against him.
“I have won.”
Aquila slit his throat. He did not let go of the head and, under the fretful eyes of the father, he brought his mouth to the wound.
“Your power dies with me.”
Aquila drunk all the blood until the other was nothing but a rotten fruit. He dropped the body in the middle of all that carnage and, with heavy breathing, looked up at the moving waves. He closed his eyes and let the weight slip from his shoulders. He felt as big as the entire ocean at that moment. He was the whales migrating down south, he was the tiniest of prawns walking on the sand bed, he was the algae dancing along with the northern currents – he was an entire Earth of life, infinite and magnificent. Raw power as ancient as the bones of the world flowed in his veins, scorching hot and unthinkable for the human mind.
The army parted for him as he walked drenched in blood, his torn pants the only thing still hanging on to his body. He accepted no help, no word, nothing. He walked until his siblings came into view and they parted too for him. “Kneel.” was all he said. And then, under everyone’s stares, he bent his knees in front of Antonia. One after the other, like a retreating sea, the people behind him kneeled in front of the austere form of their first female empress.
On the cusp of twenty Aquila Otho Septimus left his pavilion one last time. His siblings followed at a distance, too afraid to get closer, too loving to stay away. He walked the streets towards the edge of the dome, the empress right behind her. He turned to them and gave them a parting smile, tiny and timid. “I would try the Greek way, you know?” Antonia smiled like she had done during her engagement “Democracy instead of imperial power?” she asked with Fabricius already smiling cryptic by her side “Maybe with some constitutional monarchy in between.” added Verginia, the new Head Guard of the city. “And where will you go?” asked Cassian with tears in his eyes. Aquila looked at the dark ocean beyond the dome, at the tiny white light in the deep of it, whispering and calling to his soul. He could almost taste it, a world where he was nothing but his soul, where the shadows of the palace were just in his memories. “I do not know.” he smiled at his oldest sister “Isn’t it nice?” she smiled back. She would take care of the empire in its last days, she would dismantle it with Fabricius; Jayesh and Agrippa would keep the youngest ones safe, and Verginia would bring about retribution onto the world of men. And, eventually, they would retire all together in a place all their own, and they would take their dead siblings with them so that they could all enjoy freedom away from that wretched city. And Aquila would go, walk towards undiscovered lands.
They watched him until he fused himself with the tiny bright dot.
Then he was no more.