Well, I hope you forgive me for this, the final chapter.


Pete, infuriatingly, reads the whole letter in his head before he begins to read it aloud. You watch his brow furrow more and more deeply as he approaches the bottom of the page.

"Come on, man!" you finally exclaim.

Pete scowls at you a little, but he clears his throat:

Hello my friends,

I hope to be back here before you arrive, but if you're reading this, then either you fled more quickly than I expected, or my last errand is taking longer than I am hoping it will. Please know that whichever of these is true, I am working as hard as I can to return as quickly as possible.

However, my final errand is not without risk. There is a chance that I may be caught up, and it may take me too long to return to you. Or I may not be able to return at all.

With that in mind, I ask you not to wait too long for me. A day, maybe two, at most. You must take advantage of the chaos surrounding the events at the Colosseum. My father will be too busy to come after you, and you must be far away by the time he is free to make the chase if he is so inclined.

I must also tell you that this is where my plan ends. I hope that when we meet here again, we can decide, together, where to go next.

I don't know for certain who you are, but if you found this place and are reading this note, one of you is most likely the brother of my heart and another is the keeper of it. Keep yourselves safe, I beg you. I can't bear the thought of you suffering any more on my account than you already have.

With love,

Your patron

Your heart pounds in your chest with a ferocity that echoes like a war-drum in your ear. Your throat runs dry, and you struggle to swallow to wet it again.

"I won't leave without her," you say.

Leena grips your hand tighter. You had forgotten she was holding it. "If you must, you will," she says.

You shake your head and then stop, wincing; one hand comes up to fight the slight throbbing that still chases you.

"You will," Leena repeats, "if you have to. She would want you to."

You know you won't. You can't endure another beloved unknown loose in the world. You can't tolerate the idea of not knowing if she's ill or well, alive or dead, happy or suffering. Your traitorous subconscious conjures an image of a sickly Myka confronting illness alone.

No. You will not allow that to happen.

"Well," Steve says, breaking the strained quiet, "I'm starving. Let's see what we can do about making some food?"

"Food!" Pete says, a little too loudly. "I could definitely go for some food right now. Yes. Food."

/

It's the first time in weeks you've broken bread in company, and it isn't until now, sitting around the small fire, that you realize how you'd missed it.

(You and Pete had a brief discussion about the fire and agreed that given your distance from the road and the likelihood that the countryside was probably dotted by the campfires of travellers headed to Rome, you would probably be safe.)

Before dinner, you took Steve into the woods to set snares to hopefully get a rabbit or two for the following day's meals, but you brought the bow just in case. Sure enough, you stumbled across a small flock of wild partridge. You only managed to get one—a small portion to share between four people—but still, it was fresh meat to accompany the salted foods you brought from the ludus. And tomorrow, there will hopefully be rabbit.

Pete found green and dry wood and a tree weeping enough pitch to make two torches for the night.

You share the meal in comfortable silence. As you sit together afterward, enjoying the fire as the night cools, Steve is the one to finally speak.

"So… What's our plan?" he asks softly, running his hands up and down his shins where he sits on the ground.

Pete and Leena give their responses. You can hear all of their voices talking. You focus on none of them. You want to hear nothing of what they have to say.

You will not leave here without Myka.

/

The four of you agree, without speaking, that you need to keep a rotating overnight watch, in part for Myka but more for search parties seeking bounty for recovering escaped slaves.

You offer to keep the first shift. You won't sleep, anyway.

Leena says she'll gladly take the second if you wake her when the time comes.

Steve and Pete share one tent, and you and Leena will share the other. It feels oddly strange not to share sleeping space with Pete, given how accustomed you've become to his snoring and how many nights you have already shared a fur. But Steve and Leena barely know each other, so you need no encouragement to spare them that awkwardness.

There is a third tent you could pitch, and Sam's shelter stands ready for use, but by unspoken agreement, none of you wishes to sleep alone.

Over the dying embers of the fire, you hear the calls of the night-birds and gaze up at Orion, his club and shield raised against the charging bull.

/

You wake from light and fitful sleep to the sound of fire and the smell of meat.

"I went and checked your snares when the sun came up," Leena says, when you crawl out of the tent. "Good job in placing those!"

Pete crawls out of his tent shortly after you do. "Smells like meat!" he says, smacking his lips a little. Steve, with a little shake of his head, crawls out after him.

This holding pattern, you soon learn, is unpleasant only insofar as it makes things difficult to plan. After breakfast, you all decide to bathe. You and Leena go first; you follow the creek upstream until you find a pool deep enough. You scour your skin with fine sand from the riverbed and work the knots from your hair with your fingers.

When you return to camp, Steve and Pete have pulled all of the supplies from one of the tents and are taking stock of what they've found.

"If it ends up being the four of us and two horses, we may not be able to carry all of this," Pete says. He avoids your gaze. "We need to think about what we'll take and what we'll leave if… if it comes to that."

You set your jaw and bite the inside of your lip.

"We were both thinking we should leave in the morning," Steve says. "Head north."

Your gaze flits from him to a nodding Leena, and then away, into blue sky. You walk to the other tent and pick up the bow and arrows resting there, as well as one of the daggers and an empty sack.

"I'm going to go see what I can find that's edible," you say.

You cross the creek and wander as deep into the woods as you dare. Eventually, you find what you're actually seeking: a long, straight branch, about an inch and a half in diameter. You use the dagger to cut it off the tree and strip it of its smaller off-shoots, and then trim it to stand slightly taller than you.

You find a small gap between some trees and drop your tools on its edge. One tree, tall, majestic, faces you.

You tilt your head to it, once, in recognition, and begin to tackle it with your staff, stepping through the practiced motions your father taught you when you were a girl. The tree hits back in the resounding echoes of your staff hitting its trunk, vibrations rattling through your palms, vibrating through you.

You will not leave without Myka.

Minutes pass, an hour, maybe more. Sweat drips down your spine, off your chin, between your breasts. Your palms and fingers will be blistered the next day, you can feel it.

You notice, absently, that your head does not spin. Maybe it's finally close to healed. Maybe.

When you pick up your gear again to begin your hunt in earnest, you bring the staff with you. You like its weight, and if you strip it of its bark and find a way to create a blade for it, you could turn it into a usable spear.

When you return to camp, sometime later, you have bathed again and are carrying two more partridges and a bag full of edible greens. The supplies have been sorted into two piles—one to take and one to leave, you surmise. For a fleeting moment, you contemplate investigating their decisions, seeing if you agree with them.

But like most fleeting moments, it flees.

/

As darkness approaches again, you stretch out alongside Leena in the furs of your tent. Steve has taken the first watch outside, and you can already hear Pete asleep in the next tent.

"She wouldn't want you to put yourself in danger," Leena says, quietly.

She's right, you know. But for once, maybe, this can be about what you want.

/

The most surprising thing, at first, about being awoken by Steve is the fact that you somehow fell asleep at all.

"Leena, Helena," he whispers. "Come out here. I'm going to get Pete." He drops the tent flap.

It takes a few seconds for you to rub your eyes into wakefulness before you realize what his actions must mean.

"Leena," you whisper, even as she is already sitting up alongside you.

"I know," she murmurs. "Let's go."

You have kept the bow and arrows in the tent and you grab them, stomach knotting in mixed terror and hope, as you crawl out of the tent.

The embers of your dinner fire still glow faintly, so you can't have been asleep long. You glance around the clearing but see nothing out of the ordinary.

"Look. There." Steve has reappeared beside you, Pete on the far side of him. He points in the direction of the pathway that leads back to the road. "Keep watching," he says.

You do, and for many long seconds, you see nothing. And then—

Light.

Someone is coming up the path with a torch.

"We need a torch of our own," Pete says, "I'll go get—"

"No," you say, more harshly than you intended.

Pete's head whips toward you. "Look," he says, "If that light isn't a friendly, then we need our space lit so we can figure out how to face them."

"If that light isn't a 'friendly,' as you say, we'll be able to tell by the way it moves up that path in the dark," you whisper. "Only Myka knows the way. And if it isn't friendly, then we're better off with the advantage of darkness."

"Sounds reasonable to me," Steve says.

"I agree." Leena.

Pete sighs. "Okay." He shifts a little, foot to foot. When you look over at him you realize he's clutching a dagger. You glance to your right. Leena has one, too.

You take an arrow, nest it against your bowstring, and wait.

/

For awhile, the light comes in and out of sight behind trees.

After some minutes, it steadies as it approaches.

Once it steadies, it remains even, growing as it approaches you, bold as a wishing star.

"It's Myka," you say breathlessly, a grin splitting your face. "It's Myka." You drop the bow and arrow by your feet and begin to walk, then jog, then run across the clearing.

You stop in the center of the grass just as Myka emerges from the darkness, on foot, holding a torch in one hand and leading a large grey horse with the other.

"They're here, Claud!" Myka exclaims. "They're here!"

You want to run to her, to leap into her arms and wrap your legs around her waist like a child, to cling to her with everything you have, but your feet feel like lead weights and your body trembles with such ferocity you fear you'll trip over yourself if you move. So you stand, and you wait, and you smile as Myka leads her grey into the clearing and a second horse emerges from the woods behind her, a smiling redhead perched proudly on its back.

"H.G!" Claudia exclaims, raising a hand to wave at you. "H.G., we have, umm—"

She twists a little to look behind her, and you notice she's got something tied around her waist. You can hear her speaking, but her voice is quiet and muffled, turned away from you.

Myka has almost reached you now, but for some reason—some unexplainable, visceral reason—you can't tear your gaze from Claudia.

That's when you realize that there's nothing tied around her waist. Those are hands, small hands, clinging to the fabric of her tunic, and—

It can't be.

It can't be.

You are sprinting before you know you're moving. You don't feel the ground underfoot, you don't see the stars above. You reach the side of Claudia's horse as Claudia twists, just a little, and reaches behind herself to help deliver your daughter off the back of the horse and into your outstretched arms.

As soon as you've got her you crumble to your knees, clutching her to your chest, rocking her, unable to calm your racing heart.

"Mummy?" she says quietly, in your language. She seems uncertain, like she isn't sure if that's the right thing to call you anymore, or if you're even still that person.

You pull back just enough to look at her, at her perfect face, to run your hand over her black hair, longer than it used to be. "Of course, my darling," you say softly. "I'm here."

She sniffs twice then she bursts into tears—the sobs of a five-year-old who is confused and relieved and frightened and so very, very tired. You cling to her, resting her weight on your bent knees and cradling her head in the hollow of your neck. Her fingers burrow into your clothing and her tears trail hotly down your shoulder and chest as you rock her, murmuring soothing nothings. Claudia and Myka had bundled her in a blanket and you reach behind her to pick it up where it fell into the grass; you tuck it around her, cocooning her into you. Your heart has melted in your chest, it flows out into your fingers and pulses into your toes and you waver between nausea and giddiness and the desire to burst into tears yourself, held in check only because you know it would frighten her more than she already is.

Somewhere behind you, Claudia is launching herself at Leena and Steve and Pete is lifting Myka into a hug that spins her around. The two new horses are being brought to stand with Athena and Artemis where you moved them earlier that day, in an area of tall grass where they can feed. You see none of it.

For the moment, your universe is held tight within the circle of your arms. Nothing else exists.

/

You stay there with Christina until she cries herself out, sobs giving way to gentler whimpers and then to hiccups. Your lips, resting gently against her forehead, hum tuneless melodies, whisper meaningless sounds of comfort. When she quiets fully, you wipe the tears from her cheeks with your thumb.

"Shall we go to sleep, now, my darling?" you ask softly. She nods wordlessly against your chest.

You rest her head on your shoulder and wrap her legs around your waist, blanket still wrapped over her shoulders.

"Hold on to me, love," you say, and she grips the back of your neck. You stand carefully and begin to pick your way across the grass.

Myka and Steve sit on the ground near the fire pit, which has gone cold, now. Pete, Leena, and Claudia are nowhere to be seen: you assume they have gone to sleep. Claudia, you surmise, must have taken your spot in the tent with Leena.

Steve catches your eye as you walk by, then quickly looks away. Myka catches your eye, too, but you can't process that—can't process her—right now, not when your daughter is in your arms, breath puffing against your neck as she dozes.

You step to Sam's shelter and crawl inside it, wrapping Christina snugly in the blanket before laying her down on the soft grass.

"Mummy," she says sleepily, in Latin this time, as you tuck her in, "Can we go home tomorrow?"

You smile down at her. "We're going to make a new home, my baby. A better one."

"Mmm," is all she replies, drowsily, before she rolls onto her side, presses her thumb into her mouth, and surrenders completely to sleep.

You kneel there, watching the gentle rise and fall of her breathing. You should go and get a fur for yourself, to sleep here with her, you know. You should, gods, you should go and greet Myka. But you can't bring yourself to move, to have your daughter out of your sight, even for a moment.

So you kneel over her until your knees begin to ache a little, until the bumps of the dirt begin to press sharply into the soft flesh below your kneecaps, until you see her face begin to twitch a little in dreams.

"Knock, knock."

You startle fiercely, whipping your head around while dropping a protective hand to Christina's ankle.

It's only Myka, of course, crouched by the opening of the tent, a pile of furs clutched to her chest.

"It's chilly," she says, "I thought you might want these." She crawls into the shelter on three limbs, clutching the furs with one arm, until she can come to kneel beside you, just a little bit off to the side, without touching.

"I… yes. Thank you," you say, eyes resting on the pile of warm blankets she has placed on the floor between you.

Silence floods your space. You have so many things to say to her. A mountain of truths so tall, you can't figure out where to begin to scale it.

Myka rescues you, yet again, by speaking first.

"I hope you can forgive me for what I let MacPherson do to you in the villa," she says softly.

You can't tear your eyes from your daughter but you feel your eyebrows crawl up your forehead—really? That, of all things, is what she wants to bring up?

"I was so close to finding Christina," Myka continues, shaking her head. "I knew the trader had sold her to a small textile manufacturer on the south side of the city, but I had to go there and see if they still had her. And I was terrified of upsetting that balance, of doing something that would expose my true loyalties to James or to my father and would keep me from finishing the task—"

You have kept yourself together until now, until this very moment, when your melted heart heaves itself up inside your chest and bursts free in the form of a wrenching, wracking, soundless sob that doubles you over in this cramped space.

"Helena," Myka murmurs, reaching a hand out to you.

Your face drips with tears and your nose is running but you don't care, you grasp her outstretched hand in both of yours and press your lips to her open palm, long and gentle, against the calluses.

"Myka," you whisper shakily against her skin, "I would endure that afternoon in the villa and all the nights in the cell a hundred times over for what you have given me." You drop your forehead to the place your lips have just left and you are bowing low to her, bending to her hand, you realize this but you don't care.

"I could live a thousand lifetimes in service to you and never repay you for this," you say, and you see your tears leaving dark marks on the cloth of her dress, over her knees.

You hear a small, sad laugh escape above you and you look up, cradling her hand against your cheek. Her mouth moves soundlessly, like she can't find her words. "No more servitude, Helena," she murmurs, eventually. "Isn't that what all of this has been about?"

Her eyes are wide and glistening and you feel her thumb stroke your cheekbone where the bruise has faded to pale yellow-green. You know your tears must be working their way into the creases of her fingers.

She smiles at you, wetly, and you surge up to her, dropping her hand to capture her face between your palms so you can kiss her, long and firm but chaste with your daughter a foot away. She can taste your tears and more, you're certain, but her hands cup your jaw, cradling you close.

When your lips finally part, you drop your head to her shoulder, clutching her upper arms.

"You must be exhausted," you murmur.

She laughs softly into your hair. "More than I've ever been."

You sit up and begin to unfold the furs she has brought. You lay one out on the floor and gently shift Christina so that she lies along one edge of it. Then you crawl on, alongside her, and hold a hand out for Myka, who follows you, pulling the other blanket with her and draping it over the three of you.

When Somnus visits you that night, he leaves your lips pressed to Christina's hair and Myka's body wrapped around your back, the fingers of your free hand tangled with hers below your breast, in short reach of your beating heart.

/

You wake up to the feeling of a five-year-old burrowing into your side.

"Good morning, darling," you whisper. On your other side, Myka has rolled onto her back. You can hear her breathing still even and deep with sleep.

"'Morning," Christina whispers back. She sniffs, then: "I have to pee."

You chuckle a little, as quietly as you can, as you squeeze her closer and drop a small kiss to the top of her head. "Of course, dearest. Let's go."

Heavy blankets are pushed back and she untangles herself from the lighter blanket wrapped around her underneath. You try your best to avoid disturbing Myka, but as you turn to gather Christina you see your love blinking up at you, sleepily, fondly. You smile back at her, pausing to reach down and cup her cheek.

You have never seen her like this, raw and tender, newly awake and not yet put-together, wiping sand from her eyes.

For the briefest moment, you fantasize about a hundred other ways you hope to watch her wake up. You blink those thoughts away.

"We'll be back," you murmur, "the little one needs the latrine. Or a patch of moss behind a tree, as the situation requires."

She smiles back at you, sleepily, and turns her head to kiss your palm. "Go."

You lead Christina into the trees and help her to balance while she goes. A quick once-over reveals blessedly few marks of abuse on her body. Her fingertips are callused, and someone has clearly seen fit to take a switch to her behind once or twice (rage bubbles up when you see the faint marks, but you swallow it down—she's here, now, with you, and you will die before you let anyone hurt her again). You have seen much worse on slave children her age.

You notice, also, that she can wiggle two of her teeth with her tongue, and something about the sight makes warmth bloom through your stomach.

Christina clings to your hand and walks close to your leg as you venture back to the campsite. Pete is awake and stacking wood in the fire pit, and Myka stands next to him, twisting her body from side to side and then stretching her neck one way, then the other.

"I've never slept on the ground before." Myka smiles at you, as you approach. She presses her fingers into her shoulder muscles. "It's… wow. Different."

"It does take some getting used to," you say.

Myka looks down at Christina, who is looking wide-eyed up at her from where she's pressed against your leg.

"Good morning, Christina," Myka says, with a soft smile.

"Hi," Christina says quietly, through her fingers.

Pete has set the tinder alight and he stands up now, wiping his hands against one another. "Well," he says, turning to you and smiling down at Christina, "Do I get to meet the little miss?" He crouches down to her level.

Christina steps shyly behind your leg, one hand gripping yours, fingers of the other hand caught between her teeth as she peeks around your body.

"Christina, this is Pete," you say. "Pete is a very dear friend. Can you say hello?"

She burrows her face into the back of your hip.

"Come now, surely you can just say hello for me?" You crouch down and coax her out from behind you. She releases the fingers from her teeth and waves quickly in Pete's direction before hiding her face in your neck.

Pete lets out a loud guffaw and waves back, and you laugh with him. "Shy," you say. "She didn't used to be, but…" you shrug as nonchalantly as you can manage.

You'll never know what she's been through in these past months, not really.

Your interior monologue breaks when Claudia crawls out of her tent. Christina immediately drops your hand and dashes to her, arms outstretched.

"Hey, you little monkey!" Claudia smiles and scoops her up, spinning her around once before bringing her to rest on her hip. "Sleep well?"

"Yeah," Christina giggles and then throws her arms around Claudia's neck.

"I've got to tell you, H.G., your kid is kind of ridiculously adorable," she says, as she walks toward the fire. "Heavy, though. You're a little too big to be carried around like this, kiddo."

"What's Claudia got that I ain't got?" Pete asks, crossing his arms with an exaggerated frown.

Myka steps closer to you and slips her arm around your waist. You press close to her, side-to-side, and let your head drop onto her shoulder. Claudia is trying to introduce Christina to Leena, who receives the same shy response that Pete did.

"Claud was amazing with her yesterday," Myka says quietly. "I'm so glad she was with me."

In this moment, as the fire begins to burn in earnest and Steve appears from the woods carrying two rabbits from your snares, you might be the happiest you have ever been in all your years on this earth.

/

Once you have eaten, you're the one who brings up the point you all know you need to discuss.

"So," you say quietly, one eye on Christina who has found a butterfly to chase through the grass. "What is our plan from here?

Quiet settles over the group of you, hovering above the fire.

"You're the mastermind, Mykes," Pete says. "Got any ideas?"

Myka shakes her head and shrugs. "Only that we need to move. My father may not bother to chase us—you are all replaceable as slaves, and I've been more trouble than anything for years as far as he's concerned. But to be sure, we need to be long gone by the time the games end and he's got time to think about it."

"Okay, so that means we can't just stay here, which was my first thought," Steve says.

Leena shakes her head. "Even if it weren't too close to the city, we'd drive each other nuts in a few weeks with nobody else to talk to."

"What about travelling to another city?" Claudia asks. "A smaller one, maybe. Saying we're Roman and starting over as small-scale merchants or something."

Myka shakes her head at that. "You, and Pete and Steve and I could maybe get away with that. But Leena and Helena both have foreign accents and—forgive me—parts of your appearance that people will notice, between Leena's complexion and Helena's scars. Nobody will believe they aren't slaves unless they have manumission paperwork to show for it."

"Well," Pete offers, "but if they lived in houses the rest of us owned, people would just assume they were ours, and—"

In the corner of your eye you see Leena stiffen in indignation and feel your eyebrows climb, incredulous. Myka's arm slips around you.

"No," Myka says. "Not an option."

"There's no difference between living like a slave and living as one," you say. "I won't do that and I will not put my daughter through it, especially after all Myka and Claudia have done to-"

"Helena," Myka says quietly, squeezing your hip. You look at her and she tips her chin toward your daughter, who has stopped playing in the grass to look at you.

You swallow hard. "Everything's fine, darling. Look, there's another pretty butterfly for you to chase, there."

She furrows her brow at you, then sighs and begins to run after the butterfly, arms outstretched and flapping like wings.

After a long moment, Claudia speaks up again.

"I might—I mean, this is kind of crazy, so I don't really know about—it's probably silly, but—it might be something—it's not like we have a lot of options, so—"

"Spit it out, Claudia," Steve says softly. "It can't be worse than the ideas we've had so far."

The girl lets out a long breath. "Well, you—have you heard of Joshua Donovan?"

Myka stiffens against you, and you see Pete sit up a little straighter across the fire.

"The Gaulish warlord?" Pete asks carefully.

Claudia rolls her eyes. "If by 'warlord' you mean 'military leader who has managed to protect his people and fight off advances by Romans after he lost most of his family,' then yeah, he's totally a warlord."

"I've heard of him," Leena says, "and if I've heard of him even though I've been basically stuck in the ludus for years, then I'm sure everyone here has heard of him."

You nod, and you see Steve nod, too.

Claudia inhales sharply and looks down. "He's my brother."

"Your brother," Myka echoes.

Claudia nods.

Steve shakes his head. "Are you suggesting that we—"

"Leave the Empire? Track him down? Settle in his village in Gaul? Yeah, all of those things." Claudia's shoulders slump. "I told you it was a crazy idea."

"Do we know where he is?" you ask.

Claudia shrugs. "Kind of? He's… north?"

Pete clears his throat. "He's been settled near the sea far to the north for awhile now. The Empire's not really interested in expanding up there anymore and I hear he's not too far from the border, just hanging out with his people, raising livestock and stuff." He sighs. "Sorry I called your brother a warlord, Claudia."

Claudia shrugs. "It's OK." She takes another breath and squares her shoulders. "I mean, sure, it would be great for me to have my brother back, but this could be good for a lot of us. Like, for Steve and HG and—and Myka—" the name rushes out through Claudia's quirked lips, and you realize that she's thrilling at the freedom to use Myka's given name. As a house servant she had always been bound to titles, in the past. "For Steve and HG and Myka, you could all live like you want to, you know? My people are okay with that."

The sea to the north is a long way away, you know. And none of you save Claudia speaks the language of that area of Gaul.

Leena sits up straighter and runs her fingers through her hair. "I say we go for it," she says, firmly.

Myka's fingers tighten again on your hip. "Me, too."

You turn toward her. "It will be a hard adjustment," you say, quietly. "Life outside Rome is very different from life inside it. There are no bathhouses, or aqueducts, or villas with atria and exedra and sleeping rooms apart from living rooms. And you will have to learn a new language, and you won't have slaves to tend to you."

Myka licks her lips once and swallows hard. "I know," she says. "Will—will you help me learn? Can you be patient with me?"

You smile. "Of course, darling."

She bites her lip and smiles at your endearment. "I don't think I was built to be a Roman anyway. I say we go for it."

"All right," you say, "me too."

"I'm in," Steve says.

All gazes turn to Pete, now, who shakes his head, looks down, and back up again. "If my mother could see me now," he says. "Let's start packing."

/

Once all your supplies are packed up, the horses are too overloaded to carry any passengers save Christina, who clings happily to a tuft of Artemis' mane as you lead the mare down the road.

You have concocted a cover story, should you need to tell one: Pete and Myka are a Roman couple and Christina is their daughter. The rest of you are their slaves. Leena is Pete's handservant—it's unusual, but not unheard of, for men to take female body slaves—and Claudia is Myka's. You are responsible for Christina, and Steve is responsible for the horses and the equipment.

Myka has spent most of her coin preparing for this journey. It wasn't much to begin with, limited to allowances given her by her father. But she has brought a small bag of jewelry and tokens she can sell. Leena and Claudia have some money saved from gifts and tokens they've received over the years.

You notice, when you're packing, that Myka doesn't have her sword.

"Where is it?" you ask her.

"I traded it," she says.

"Oh," you respond. "I'm… I'm sorry to hear that. I know you loved it."

"It was Sam's," Myka says softly. Her gaze drifts up, to where Christina sits over your shoulder. "I think he would have approved of the trade, though," she adds, and smiles.

/

Myka insists that you camp your first night outside Cosa. The following morning, she and Claudia venture back into the city and return mid-afternoon with a cart and a mule.

Pete greets her wide-eyed when she arrives. "How did you-?"

"My sister," Myka says. "Now we can load our supplies in the cart and ride the horses."

You shake your head. "She's given you a cart to use to flee the Empire?" you ask, incredulous.

Myka smiles a little. "Some things transcend class prejudices, I guess." She shrugs. "She has a daughter."

/

For a long time, you can't bring yourself to be out of sight of your daughter, even for a moment, even as she becomes comfortable with the rest of your motley family.

It's with great trepidation, three weeks into your trip, that you ask Leena if she'll watch Christina for you for an hour while you go to set snares. Leena smiles, and squeezes your hand, and tells you that, yes, of course she will.

Two weeks after that, Claudia asks in faux-spontaneity if Christina would like to camp out with her and Leena that night.

"Yes, Mummy, can I?" Christina asks, delighted.

Claudia winks at you, and you shake your head, smiling.

"Yes, darling, as long as you promise to listen to everything they say."

"Yay! I will!" She throws herself into Claudia's arms.

In your tent, that night, Myka loves you slowly with gentle fingers and soft lips and firm tongue. She spins invisible threads from all of your limbs and winds you tight, tighter, until you are gasping and begging for her, until you have given yourself over completely to her touch, until you have nothing, feel nothing, are nothing but your desire for her. In that long moment you will give her all of you, you will become whatever she needs, you will do whatever she asks. And when finally, finally, she gives you release, her fingers deep inside you, she muffles your cries with lips wet and sweet with the taste of you.

Languidly she kisses you in the aftermath, and you realize she has made you not her slave but her goddess, that she has not owned you but worshipped you.

When she begins to slip her hand free, you stop her.

"What did I ever do to feel this?" you murmur. Your body pulls on hers and her eyes flutter closed. "What did I do to deserve you?" you breathe.

"I—I don't—"

You silence her with your lips and turn her onto her back, only then freeing her hand to push it and its mate above her head. And then you don't make her beg, you don't make her wait. You press her up to and over the glorious edge again and again, with your tongue and your lips and your fingers and your thighs, until she grasps you by the shoulders and lifts you away, gasping, her body glistening in the moonlight that filters through the seam between the tent flaps.

"You have me," she whispers breathlessly, "you have all of me."

/

You are weeks into a journey that will take months.

Moment by moment, the future slips into the past. Dreams become memories. Bruises fade, and happiness begins to dilute the pain that fills the barrel of your past. You have changed the rule of the game, flooded the board with your polished stones.

"Mummy," Christina says one morning as you and Myka are rolling up your tent. "What are you thinking about?"

"Hmm? Nothing in particular, darling. Why?"

Myka grins and bites her cheek at you as she picks up her end of the tent. "You're smiling to yourself," she says.

You grin wider at that. Yes, you suppose, you are.


Given the Bering/Wells fans' fondness for angst, pain, and misery, I'm half expecting hate mail that says "How could you do this to me? I HATE happy endings!" So, uh, sorry?

There will be an epilogue.

Incidentally, my cursory Wikipedia-level research indicated that some ancient Gaulish communities, especially Celtic Gaulish communities (which I've tried to imply is Claudia's background, since she and Helena can understand each other's languages) were all about sex between men. That probably didn't translate to committed same-sex relationships, and I couldn't find anything about sex between women, but hey. Poetic license, again.

A million thanks to the people who have taken a minute to review this story or PM me about it along the way. This thing has kind of eaten my soul, in both the good and bad ways, for a couple of months now, so it's meant a lot to me to hear about what has and hasn't worked for everyone, and that people have become invested in the story.