Alex's whispered words struck Lucilla with the force of a physical blow. For a moment, the world seemed to stop. The gentle splashing of the nearby fountain, the distant laughter of her society friends, the warm afternoon sun on her face—it all vanished, replaced by a roaring silence in her ears.
Capua. The Greek physician. The one no one is supposed to know about.
It was impossible. The secret was buried, locked away in the deepest, most shame-filled vault of her memory. Only two other people in the entire world knew the truth of that discreet, desperate trip last spring: the physician himself, who had been paid a king's ransom for his services and his silence, and her lover, the ambitious Senator Pertinax, a man whose own political survival depended on the secret remaining one. How could he know? How could this brutish, simple-minded brother of hers, who had been hundreds of miles away on the grim Danubian frontier, possibly know the one thing she had guarded more closely than her life?
The blood drained from her face. The carefully constructed mask of serene, untouchable confidence she wore like a second skin shattered into a thousand pieces. Her friends, lingering a short distance away, saw the change. They saw the Augusta, the most powerful woman in Rome, falter. They saw her perfect poise crumble, her hand flying to her throat as if to ward off a choking miasma. She looked at Alex, and for the first time, she saw him not with condescending suspicion or clinical curiosity, but with raw, primal fear.
Her mind, usually so sharp and analytical, could find no logical explanation. It had to be witchcraft. A demon whispering in his ear. The rumors she herself had started about him being a hollow, possessed thing suddenly felt terrifyingly, prophetically true.
With a monumental effort of will, she regained a sliver of her composure. Her voice, when she spoke, was a choked, ragged thing she barely recognized as her own. "The… the gardens have grown tiresome," she announced to her confused friends. "My brother and I require a more private setting to discuss matters of state."
She turned and practically fled, leading Alex not towards the main palace, but towards a small, secluded marble pavilion set amidst a grove of cypress trees, a place she knew would be deserted. The moment the cool, shadowy interior enveloped them, the moment they were alone, her terror erupted into pure, unrestrained rage.
"You!" she hissed, whirling on him, her eyes blazing with a venomous fire. "You loathsome little ghoul! How? How could you possibly know that? Who told you? Did you have my physician followed? Tortured?"
Alex remained unnervingly calm, which only infuriated her more. He walked to a marble bench and sat, looking at her as a scholar might observe a fascinating, if dangerous, new species of insect. "My sources are my own, sister," he said, his voice flat. "Let's just say the gods have been… generous with their whispers lately. They seem to disapprove of hypocrisy."
His calm, his use of the supernatural explanation she herself had propagated, was a masterful psychological blow. It confirmed her deepest fears. He wasn't just a changed man; he was an unholy one, armed with impossible knowledge.
"You are not my brother!" she finally screamed, the words she had thought for months now finally spoken aloud. The accusation echoed in the small pavilion. "My brother was a fool! A vain, muscle-headed brute who cared for nothing beyond his own reflection! He was an embarrassment, but he was… alive! He had fire! You…" She gestured at him with a trembling hand, her expression one of utter revulsion. "You are a cold, calculating thing wearing his skin. You move like him, you sound like him, but you are an abomination!"
For the first time since their confrontation began, Alex's own anger flared. Her words, her utter contempt for the brother who had actually existed, struck a nerve. "And you are a traitor who sent thirty assassins to my bedroom while I slept!" he shot back, his voice rising to match hers. "Did you think I was just going to let you kill me? Did you think I would simply lie down and die so you and your corrupt friends could carve up the empire like a roasted pig?"
"It would have been a mercy!" she cried. "To the empire, and to the memory of our father! He died of a broken heart, knowing he was leaving Rome in the hands of a decadent simpleton! We would have been saving his legacy from the stain of your name!"
"You speak of my father's legacy?" Alex laughed, a harsh, humorless sound. "You, who plotted with the very men who despised his stoic virtues? You, who schemed to undo every good thing he ever stood for, just so you could host more parties and buy more jewels? You have no right to speak his name!" He stood up, taking a step towards her, his height and physical presence suddenly imposing. "Everything I have done since I returned—every edict, every reform—has been to save this empire from the rot that you and your kind represent. I have been doing what is necessary to survive the vipers in my own house, sister."
The word was an insult, a reminder of the bond she had so casually betrayed. The raw, undiluted hatred between them filled the small space, a palpable force. They stood glaring at each other, two mortal enemies who happened to share the same blood. All the masks were gone. All the pretense had been burned away in the heat of their rage. He was the thing that wore her brother's face, and she was the woman who had tried to murder him. This was the only truth that mattered now.
The shouting match subsided, leaving a tense, hateful silence in its wake. They were both breathing heavily, their chests heaving. The stalemate was absolute. He held a secret that could destroy her life, shatter her honor, and exile her from the society she prized above all else. And she, in her heart, held the terrible knowledge that he was not who he said he was, a truth so outlandish she could never prove it, but one she could use to sow endless chaos and doubt. They were two scorpions trapped in a bottle, each with a lethal sting poised to strike.
Lucilla was the first to speak, her voice now devoid of its earlier rage, replaced by a chilling, pragmatic coldness. Her mask of terror was gone, replaced by the grim face of a player who has just had her queen taken off the board but knows the game is not yet over.
"So," she said, her voice flat. "This is what it has come to. A stalemate. You hold a dagger to my reputation, and I hold one to your very… nature." She looked at him, her eyes narrowed. "What happens now, 'brother'?"
Alex met her gaze, his own expression equally cold. The time for anger was over. The time for emotion was over. Now, there was only the grim calculus of power.
"Now," he said, his voice hard and final, "we negotiate the terms of our mutual survival."