Chapter One

My voice sticks in my throat; and, as I dictate, sobs choke my utterance: the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken.

—Jerome, Letter CXXVII

Rome

August 24, 410 CE

G alla Placidia faced the sack of Rome alone.

In the throne room of the imperial palace, she paced, awaiting the inevitable. The smell of smoke filtered into the palace, and the war horns of the invading Goths sent a shiver down her spine. A single oil lamp burned on the floor next to her, its light paltry and flickering.

She'd known this night was coming. She could have fled, like her half-brother, the emperor Honorius, who'd been safely sequestered up north in Ravenna for months with his court.

Instead, Placidia was the only member of the imperial family to remain behind in Rome while the city starved and suffered under the year-long siege. She was the one who'd argued with the Senate about how best to manage the city's dwindling grain stores. She was the one who'd overseen a guard on the imperial palace's own supplies, to make sure no one took more than their fair share. She was the one who'd spent sleepless nights and hungry days trying to think of some way out of this mess, some way that didn't end with her city being sacked, burned, destroyed.

But she had failed to save Rome. The Goths, motivated by their own hunger after stripping the countryside bare, had somehow breached the gates an hour ago. The few servants that remained had fled, and the handful of faithful guards had ventured outside to mount one last defense.

The palace was silent, a stark contrast to the chaos raging just outside. But the chaos grew louder with every passing moment, and it was likely a matter of minutes before the Goths found their way behind the walls.

A huge crack sounded from elsewhere in the palace, and Placidia flinched. That would be the doors coming down. She waited for terror to overwhelm her, but none came. After weeks of constant stress, little sleep, and even less food, she felt unmoored, as if observing herself from the top of one of the painted columns that lined the room.

Footsteps pounded in the hallway, along with male voices in a language she didn't recognize.

A throng of Goths burst into the throne room. Placidia took an involuntary step back. Her strategic mind had run through many calculations of what this night could hold for her, and she'd always come out fairly certain that they wouldn't immediately cleave her head from her shoulders with one of their axes.

Fairly certain.

There were at least a dozen of them, several holding torches. They stopped short when they saw her, and fanned out to surround her in a circle, leaving two of them—their leaders?—in the middle with her. Blood dripped from axes and thick swords, gleaming on the marble floor in the light of the torches.

Placidia surveyed the two men before her. Surprisingly, they were just that—men. After all she'd heard of the Goths, she'd half-expected to find them sporting tails or horns or claws. But they were just men, albeit wearing strange clothing of pants, short tunics, and leather armor rather than chainmail.

The one in front she recognized from descriptions as Alaric, the King of the Goths. She had to tilt her chin up to look him in the eye, and his arms seemed as thick as her waist. His hair shone gold even through the stains of ash and blood. The ruddy skin of his face bore some lines, but his bearing was energetic and vigorous.

Her gaze shifted to the other man, standing at Alaric's shoulder. Perhaps ten years younger, this man's dark eyes flicked around the room, taking in every shadow and doorway, as if searching for hidden assassins. He stood a handspan shorter than Alaric, closer to Placidia's own height, but he was just as muscular as the king. Dark hair fell to just above his shoulders. A smear of blood marred his cheek, drawing attention to striking cheekbones and a finely sculpted jaw. His nose was sharply hooked, and his eyes bore the intensity of a hawk about to strike.

Placidia guessed this man was Athaulf, Alaric's kinsman and second-in-command. She had heard they were brothers, but their features and coloring bore no resemblance to each other.

Athaulf's eyes finished their scan of the room and met hers. A jolt passed through her. Something in the meeting of their gazes shattered her dreamlike state, and she found herself suddenly, viscerally present . For the first time in hours, she could feel the thin soles of her leather sandals beneath her feet, the brush of silk against her arms, the pearl-tipped hairpins on her scalp.

She tore her gaze away from his. The reality of her situation washed over her like a dunk in cold water. She was alone, helpless. No leverage to negotiate, not even so much as a dagger to defend herself.

She could imagine what she looked like to them—a small, solitary woman of only twenty years, her face pinched with hunger and eyes shadowed with stress, deluded enough to think she possessed the wherewithal to face down an invading army. At least she was dressed for the occasion, wearing a mantle of imperial purple over her embroidered dress, her finest golden jewelry adorning her ears, neck, fingers, and arms.

She had debated the wisdom of wearing her jewels tonight, knowing they would either be seized from her living body or stolen from her corpse. But the Goths would soon loot the palace top to bottom in any case, so the treasures would come into their possession one way or another.

If she was going to die tonight, she would die looking like an empress.

Alaric stepped toward her, his dark kinsman remaining close at his shoulder. "You are Galla Placidia?" He spoke impeccable Latin in a gravelly voice.

She gave a small nod.

He glanced around the opulent room. When he spoke next, it was in a low tone, almost to himself.

It took a moment for her exhausted brain to comprehend that he was speaking Greek—quoting Homer, no less. Troy has perished, the great city. Only the crimson flame lives there now. She couldn't even summon any shock at the fact that a barbarian spoke what seemed to be fluent Greek, in addition to Latin.

"For your sake, sir, I hope your wife has no access to a bathtub," she replied. If he was going to compare the sack of Rome to Troy, then that made him Agamemnon, famously murdered by his wife in a bath.

The skin around his gold-hazel eyes crinkled, and the Gothic king burst into a guffaw. "You're as clever as they say, princess."

Placidia allowed herself a small flare of pride at the thought that her competence was known even among the enemy.

"And I see that only one of the imperial siblings is worthy of their name," he continued.

A witty quip, though as much as he was right about Honorius's lack of honor in fleeing the city, he'd misinterpreted her overwhelmed exhaustion for calmness. But it was better for them to think her dignified than numb.

Alaric jerked his head at his kinsman. "Athaulf, take her back to camp. Keep her safe. She may be our most valuable plunder yet." Then, with a quick hand signal, he and the rest of his men left the throne room, no doubt on their way to loot the rest of the palace.

Athaulf approached her. She met his gaze, and again it was like the first shocking sip of something cold on a blistering day—washing her mind free of the haze that surrounded her. He said nothing, but reached to clasp her wrist in one large hand. She flinched, expecting violence, but his touch was neither rough nor gentle as he methodically unclasped her bracelets and slid the rings from her slender fingers. He repeated the same treatment to her other arm, then crossed behind her to unclasp the ornate gold and carnelian necklace that adorned her throat. His movements remained brisk, but the touch of his fingers on the back of her neck sparked a shiver nonetheless.

She removed her ruby earrings herself, and handed them to him. He stowed all of the jewels in a leather pouch at his hip. Placidia watched them disappear with a tug of melancholy, as most of those jewels had belonged to her mother, dead for almost fifteen years.

He still hadn't said a word. Perhaps he didn't speak Latin.

Athaulf removed a length of thin leather cord from somewhere on his person, and bound her wrists in front of her with a few efficient tugs. She gazed down at the cord against her olive skin, blinking a few times as if she could dispel the vision like a bad dream. But the image remained, and she knew there would be no waking up from this nightmare.

*

Athaulf gripped the thin leather cord that bound the princess's wrists as he led her from the throne room. He couldn't resist glancing at her as they moved through the hallways. Her dark, curly hair was bound in an incomprehensible arrangement of braids and twists, held in place by pearl-tipped pins. He realized he'd neglected to divest her of those along with the rest of her jewelry, but the thought of unbinding her hair made his skin prickle, and he discarded the idea. It wouldn't hurt to let her keep her hair pins.

He and Alaric had known that the emperor's half-sister remained in the city, and had hoped to take her alive, foreseeing a generous ransom. Athaulf had expected that they would find her cowering in a closet or hiding beneath a bed, begging for her life. Not holding court in the throne room, as regal and composed as if she were receiving foreign dignitaries. There was iron in her spine, matching the icy calmness in her amber gaze.

He couldn't believe that her half-brother, the emperor, had left his sister behind to survive a siege and invasion all by herself. It made him think of his own sister, Eurica. Athaulf would have to be dead before he abandoned her like that.

He paused at the fork of a corridor, unsure which way led to the exit. It had been a long time since he'd had a real roof over his head, and he was unused to buildings of this size and complexity.

Galla Placidia motioned to the left with her bound wrists. "The exit is that way."

"Thank you," he grunted in Latin, and led her down the leftmost hallway.

"You do talk," she said, sounding surprised.

It was only then that he realized he hadn't spoken a single word to her yet. "When required." He was nearly fluent in Latin, not as good as Alaric but better than anyone else among the men. Speaking the Romans' language, however, never failed to give him a headache.

As they reached the exit, Placidia faltered in the doorway. Her face paled beneath her tawny skin, and she swallowed hard. This would be her first glimpse of the carnage that raged outside the palace. The smell of smoke was oppressive out here, burning his throat and nostrils, and flames licked into the sky in several places, a livid red against the night. Bodies lay everywhere, some dismembered, others clearly trampled by horse hooves.

His hand closed over her shoulder to stabilize her if she fainted. "Steady, princess."

She drew in a shaky breath, then seemed to summon the same mantle of haughtiness she'd worn in the throne room. She shrugged off his hand, and he let it drop. "I'm fine."

A strange feeling uncurled in him—something between pity and admiration. He shoved it aside, and eyed the streets before them. Blood, mud, ash, and horse droppings coated the paving stones. The princess wore only a pair of thin sandals on her feet, no match for the grime they would have to traverse. "I could carry you. It may be easier."

She shook her head vehemently. "That will not be necessary." She looked out over the grim scene. "They will see me," she whispered. "They will remember that I left with dignity."

"I think your citizens have bigger things to worry about tonight, princess."

She shot him a sharp look, but said nothing as he led her into the chaos of the streets.

*

Placidia tried to keep her eyes on the broad expanse of Athaulf's leather-clad back, not letting herself look at the bodies they passed or the centuries-old buildings in flames.

She did, however, notice that the churches remained untouched. People crowded the stairs and huddled in the doorways, and Gothic warriors ran by without assailing them.

"The churches," she murmured. "They're not touching them."

Athaulf turned his head to glance back at her. "Alaric's orders. Any citizens taking shelter in a church will not be harmed. We are Christians like you, after all." He spoke in a deep, rumbly voice, his Latin accented but clear.

"I'm nothing like you," she said tartly, but the preservation of the churches was an unexpected mercy.

Eventually, they left the city and reached the Goths' camp outside the walls. Quiet reigned here, as nearly everyone must be enjoying the sport of sacking the city. Athaulf led her to a tent near what she thought was the center of the sprawling camp. Inside, he struck a flint to light a lantern, then untied the cord at her wrists. "I trust you're smart enough not to run. I cannot guarantee your safety outside of this tent. Not tonight."

She nodded with grim understanding. Besides, her body was too weak with months of hunger to survive being a fugitive.

She glanced around the small tent. A patterned rug covered most of the dirt floor, and two stools sat by a small table, laden with a painted ceramic pitcher and a blue-glass goblet. A surprisingly civilized, domestic arrangement. She had been told that the Goths lived like animals, but this organized camp and comfortable tent were not so different from Roman military quarters.

A padded bedroll was spread along one side of the tent, which brought to mind an ever-present worry. A mixture of distaste and fear curled in her stomach.

She still had her hairpins—a paltry defense, but better than nothing. She lifted a hand to her hair, as if to brush away a curl. As Athaulf turned away to unhook the short sword from his belt, she slipped one of the pins from her hair, concealing it in her fist.

First, she would try a strategic approach. "I expect Alaric wishes to ransom me."

"We are not in the habit of entertaining Roman princesses for the fun of it." He laid the leather pouch that now bulged with Placidia's jewelry atop a carved chest.

"You should know that my value to my brother lies entirely in my potential to make an advantageous marriage." It was why she remained unmarried at twenty, when other women were usually married with multiple children by now. Honorius, despite his incompetence, did understand the value of his sister's hand in marriage, and had been holding out for the best offer, the most useful alliance. "If he were to think that I had been…dishonored…he will not give Alaric a favorable price for my return."

Athaulf raised an eyebrow. "There's no need for this negotiation, princess. You heard Alaric's orders. You'll not be touched, by me or anyone else, while you're under my protection." He gave her closed fist a pointed stare. "You can put that away."

She flushed, unaware that he'd seen her sneaking the hairpin, but slid it back into her braids. This was a small relief, at least; though she had calculated that she was likely too valuable for the Goths to murder outright, she had feared torture and violation. Of course, she didn't entirely trust the Goths, but it seemed for the moment, she was safe.

She turned her mind to the next most pressing problem that was within her power to solve—the filth caking her feet from their walk through the ravaged city. Blood, mud, soot, and other substances she dared not consider made a mockery of her tooled leather sandals, sullying her feet up to the ankle. "Is there perhaps water to wash?"

Athaulf gave a short nod and handed her the ceramic pitcher from the table, along with some folded rags that seemed to be mostly clean. She murmured thanks, and sat cross-legged on the carpet-covered floor of the tent to scrub her feet clean.

While she did so, Athaulf unlaced the studded leather vest he wore as armor, and shrugged it off. Then, he pulled off his tunic, leaving his chest bare. Placidia blushed and looked away quickly, but he paid her no mind. He turned away from her to fetch something from within the carved trunk.

In the moments his back was turned, Placidia allowed her gaze to return to him. Muscles rippled over his back, though his ribs seemed just a bit too pronounced for his burly frame—further evidence of the hunger that had been plaguing Goths and Romans alike.

Her cheeks heated even further when she realized just how much she could see of him in the trousers that he wore. Roman men dressed much more decently in tunics that usually reached their feet. Occasionally, one glimpsed an ankle, or maybe a calf, but Placidia was unused to the sight of a man's legs outlined so starkly by close-fitted fabric.

It was indecent for a man to dress this way, a marker of how the Goths were different, wilder, less enlightened than the Romans. And yet she couldn't stop staring at his thighs, his…

He turned around, and she fumbled with the damp cloths in her hand, trying to hide the fact that she'd been staring.

He sat on one of the stools and leaned forward to pull off his boots. Placidia's gaze was once again drawn to his long arms, corded with muscle, the forearms furred with dark hair.

Her mind seized on something to distract herself from this inappropriate appreciation of his form. "You are Alaric's brother?" It still seemed unlikely, given the difference in their appearances. Placidia shared only one parent with Honorius, and yet they both had inherited their father's olive-toned skin and dark, curly hair.

He tossed one boot aside and shook his head. "Brother-in-law."

Ah, that made more sense. "He is your wife's brother?"

He did away with the other boot and stretched his legs in front of him. "Other way around. He is the oaf my sister has seen fit to marry." There was a good-natured lilt to the words. "She travels with us. Which is why I must ensure that my tent is at least thirty paces from Alaric's each night." He grimaced.

Placidia blushed furiously as she understood his prurient meaning. "I see."

"Have I offended your sensibilities, princess?" He rose from the stool and moved his boots to sit neatly against the wall of the tent.

"No," she lied. His movements drew her gaze, and she noticed a thin red line where neck met shoulder. "You're wounded?"

"What, this?" His hand went to the cut, and he chuckled. "I dropped a blade while shaving. Trust me, I'm more in danger from my own clumsiness than from your Roman swords."

Indignation rose in her, but she tamped it down. For centuries, the Roman army had been revered as the most powerful military force in the Mediterranean. But tonight, everything had changed.

Athaulf tossed her a thin blanket. "You may as well try to get some sleep, if you can." Then, he blew out the lantern, cloaking them in darkness.