Season 4: Episode 3 – What Rome Brought

This series contains mature themes and is intended for adult listeners.

© 2026 Heather L. McMillan / Anturia LLC. All rights reserved. This episode is provided for personal reading only. Reproduction, redistribution, republication, or commercial use without permission is prohibited.

POV: Legate Caius Regillus

>Begin Porta Cor imprint.<

Are you recording my thoughts now?

>Confirmed. Your Porta Cor imprint is active.<

Good.

Today, I witnessed the most symmetrical woman in existence. Simply dressed, but she carries the nobility of a Senator.

During our training, she demonstrated a disciplined mind and a strong command of reason. She knew the answers even as she asked the questions.

She pulls my attention with an invisible line, and my thoughts falter in her presence.

She is dangerous to me and affects my ability to hold the line.

I stare out the window of my office in Facility One, and I see her across the training field working with Kylah Marie and her sister. She commands the attention of everyone around her.

A knock comes at my door, and I turn to face it. “Enter.”

My Primus Pilus, Lucius Varro, enters and closes the door behind him. “Caius,” he addresses me.

 ”Lucius,” I return and sit down in my chair.

He sits across from me. “Should I call Livius to see you?” he asks me.

“Why would Livius need to see me?” I ask.

His eyes settle on my face. “The rhythm of your march is broken. I am confirming your awareness of it.”

He sees it. Of course, he sees it. He has measured my pulse by the sound of my sandals on gravel for many years.

I lean back in my chair, and it creaks into the silence of my office. “My awareness is keen, Lucius. We no longer march the Appian Way. The ground here is unfamiliar, even with its knowledge forced upon our minds. I am learning a new cadence.”

Lucius remains unmoving.

I glance back out the window for a heartbeat, a betrayal I cannot help, before looking back at his weathered face.

“The woman with the fiery sun-colored hair sees through this new place that I am still mapping. It is not an infirmity of mind to pause and observe a superior strategy in motion.”

“A new cadence is well and good, Caius.” His voice drops into a low growl he uses when a line begins to buckle. “But even the best scout knows if you stare at the sun too long, you lose the ability to see the treachery of the shade.”

He calls her the sun. He leans forward, his hands resting on his knees like two blocks of stone. “Your men are not waiting for your eyes to clear.”

He is right. I am the Legate of the Ninth. He thinks I am dazzled and that my men will see me as faltering. I must show him I can acknowledge light without losing sight of steel.

“The sun is a necessary light, Lucius,” I reply as I stand up.

He stands with me, silent and stoic.

“We will see Ruso and make our rounds,” I say.

Together, we walk down the hallways of Facility One and then across the sidewalk to the training hall. The sound of boots striking in measured cadence against stone reaches me first, followed by commands. The line looks almost clean.

Ruso shouts a command, and one soldier moves before it finishes. Another soldier follows him instead of the call, and the error then moves down through the whole line, where timing has slipped by a fraction.

Ruso is already moving through the formation, and he steers the first man back into place with the flat of his arm. He stops the whole line with a single command. Everyone is silent.

“Again,” he commands quietly.

The men move back to their original positions and wait. My eyes focus on the one who stepped early. His posture is rigid.

Ruso’s command falls again, and this time the movement down the line happens together.

As Ruso moves down the line with his eyes forward, he corrects a shoulder here, a foot placement there. He does not usually engage in conversation beyond commands; he doesn’t need to.

At the other end of the training hall, watching the line opposite us, Marcellus stands. His gaze shifts to the point where the line failed. His sharp eyes saw the previous fault before anyone. He acknowledges Lucius and me with a brief nod before he returns his attention to the formation.

The line moves in rhythm again, and I watch Ruso take them through a full cycle. This time, no soldier anticipates the command.

Ruso walks down the line toward Lucius and me.

“Legate,” he acknowledges without stopping the formation or interrupting his corrections.

I incline my head back to him, and then I watch another full cycle. I notice slight fidgeting even if their movements are much better now.

“Adjust cadence and run reversals,” I order to Ruso.

Immediately he turns to the formation and yells, “Reversals.” His voice rings clearly through the training hall. The reversed rhythm is enough to unsettle them, and then Ruso delays his next command by a couple of seconds. The line shifts slightly. My eyes narrow.

I see one of the soldiers begin to move before the next command is complete. He manages to catch himself and force his body back into the line with the rest. However, Ruso is already there. He strikes the man’s shoulder with the flat of his hand.

“Hold,” he commands the line, and they all freeze.

“Again,” Ruso’s calm voice calls out.

The altered and less predictable cadence resumes, and they move together with no fracture.

Ruso’s presence as he moves down the formation is enough to keep the rhythm in place now, with no further corrections needed. The soldiers’ focus has improved considerably, especially given what we have all been through.

“Maintain it,” I say.

“Yes, Legate,” Ruso says without looking at me. “Again,” he commands the formation.

Lucius and I turn from the practice hall, and the sounds fade as we move back to the corridor. We are both silent as we walk.

After a moment, Lucius breaks the silence. “Do we know what we are being asked to win?”

I keep my eyes forward. “We know what we are required to do,” I answer, looking at men moving around the hallways.

“That was not my question,” he states in an even tone.

“We are still learning the ways here,” I say. “This ground is new.”

Lucius keeps pace beside me. “And who is our enemy?” he asks.

I do not answer immediately, because I am not certain at this point. It is a terrible thing for a Legate to admit. “The enemy is not yet defined,” I finally reply.

A loud exhale passes Lucius’ lips. “That will be a difficult war to fight.”

“It will be,” I agree.

We walk on through the corridors to the mess hall. My structure holds even if my purpose does not.

On Earth, I knew exactly what Rome expected of me. I knew how to achieve victory. I knew what glory meant.

Here, I command the Ninth without knowing who our enemy is, where we are going, and, more importantly, what we will become without Rome.

>End Porta Cor imprint.<

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