Season 4: Episode 5 – The First Decision

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.

Imprint of Legate Caius Regillus

>Begin Porta Cor imprint.<

I watch Ruso run through formations in the outside field. Suddenly, he changes the cadence, but the line holds together.

Varro and Livius stand next to me, while Marcellus sits on the bleachers that are slightly elevated to the side of the field.

“The men are settling into a rhythm now. Ruso’s constant drills and the Tylwyth Teg trainings keep them adequately occupied. However, they desire a purpose beyond training,” Livius reports.

“I have received new intelligence from Bryn Tal regarding that purpose, and I am contemplating our answer to her,” I say.

Varro glances at me quickly before returning his gaze to the formations.

“When I make my final decision, I will update you on everything,” I add.

This is the time for me to make a major decision for the Ninth Hispana Legion.

As Legate, I’m the only one who can make it on behalf of more than five thousand lives.

We spend an hour reviewing formations, and then I leave the training field. I walk down the path to the garden between our facility and the other one on Baliya Island.

A few days ago, I discovered a bench in an alcove of roses and found the quiet there conducive to thought in a way Facility One is not.

I decide to go there today, as I have for the last few days since I found it.

As I move through the tropical flower-lined trails, the sounds of boots and commands are replaced by birdsong.

Last night, I met with Bryn Tal, Dahlfia Dewr, and Myr Seren. The three of them explained the threat posed by Emperor Daxingovan and his regime. They are the reason that the council grabbed us before death on Earth and brought us here.

She said all the Immortaleum had the choice to help their cause or go our own way in Landoris and find whatever peace we could.

The Council of the Wise, they said, does not and would not ever force others to follow them. What the Ninth does has to be a choice made willingly and with an understanding of the consequences.

I watch a butterfly soar over my head as I walk.

I respect Bryn Tal. She has many more lives at risk than I do. She’s made difficult decisions. I still wrestle with the thought that this is not our war. This is not Rome’s war. Or is it?

I turn the corner that leads to the alcove of roses, lost in these thoughts. Instantly, I come to an abrupt stop as I realize someone is on my preferred bench.

Recognition flashes from her strawberry-blonde hair, and I realize that it is her. Her eyes drift slowly from the yellow roses beside her to me. They are bright, large, and full of delight. They have gold centers with rings of green like a laurel.

“I’m sorry. I will go somewhere else,” I say quickly and start to turn.

“Wait,” she requests. “Were you wanting to sit here too?”

I look back at her. “Yes, but I can come back later. I don’t wish to disturb you.”

“You would not disturb me. I welcome your company if you don’t mind sharing a bench with me,” she offers and motions to the bench.

I am not sure I can manage the proximity with the grace and dignity befitting of a Roman Legate. I pause, and her eyes remain fixed on me.

“I do not mind at all,” I say.

She slides over on the bench to one side, giving me plenty of room to have proper space between us. I step over and sit.

She extends her hand to me, pale, slender, soft, with long fingers. “I’m Kerrih MacMillan, 1371 Scotland, but you can call me Kerrih.”

“Kerrih,” I whisper her name. She looks at me expectantly after I take her hand and release it.

“I am Legate Gaius Aemilius Regillus, 120 AD, Britannia, the might of Rome, Legio IX Hispana,” I tell her.

“Should I call you all of that?” She smiles playfully at me.

“No, Caius will be fine.”

“Caius,” she repeats my name the same way I repeated hers. “It is nice to meet you finally. I have seen you in a few of our trainings.

“Yes, I remember you as well. You have a sister.” My eyes do not leave her as we speak.

“Yes, Karrah. And two first cousins from my father’s side, Keelia and Kimbal.”

“Oh, the very tall male and female with deeper red hair,” I say to her. I remember them now.

“Yes. They’re quite wild, but very loyal. I am thankful they survived with Karrah and me.”

“Then you are lucky to have them,” I say.

“As Legate, you must have a lot of responsibility, Caius.”

I want to look anywhere else around me, at the roses, at anything, but I find that I cannot look away from her. “Yes, the lives of all my men depend on my decisions.”

Then she looks around at the roses. “I can see why you would want to come here to this bench. It’s a wonderful place to think about important decisions. I have made my own right here as well. Yesterday, in fact, it was a very large decision.”

I sit silently.

She turns back to me. “I decided to help Bryn Tal and her people against Emperor Daxingovan,” she says, with such clarity and certainty.

“You have?”

“Yes. You see, on Earth, I would be dead now if she had not pulled me. Dead at 18 years old! I come from a small village in the Highlands of Scotland. I was born the daughter of an upper-class merchant and granddaughter of a celebrated weaponsmith, and the only expectation anyone ever had of me was to marry well.”

“Here,” she says as she stands up suddenly and spins around in front of where I sit. “I am free to become absolutely anything that I wish. On Anturia, I can make a difference; I can help people in a way that I could not help people there. The Council has given me another chance to live when I should have died. I can create a future that I would never have had on Earth.”

She sits next to me again. “I don’t know what an 18-year-old female from 1371 Scotland can do on Anturia, but I want to find out. I believe in Bryn Tal. She told me about her mistakes, her complicity. She is earnest, learning, and wanting something special for her people. And now I will be one of her people, and I want that for all of us, too.”

She pulls out a small pair of scissors from her pocket, clips a yellow rose, and hands it to me. “I want to grow more of these, too. I love them.”

I take the rose from her. Her words give structure to an argument I had not yet considered.

“Will you come back tomorrow at the same time?” she asks me. “If you return, I will bring an extraordinary book I found in the Facility Two library and read it to you. It’s an Anturian myth about a tree that grows underneath the ground.”

“Yes,” I tell her before thinking my answer through. “I will return tomorrow at the same time.”

She stands up. “Well, I must leave now. My sister, Karah, is expecting me.” She curtsies to me and smiles. “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Caius.”

Quickly, she turns away from me and walks barefoot down the path. As she walks, she hums a soft tune to herself.

I sit there until the sound of her humming disappears.

After several moments, I rise from the bench and move along the path slowly back to Facility One. Now I have more thoughts to weigh than I did before.

A couple of hours later, I sit in my office with Ruso, Varro, Livius, and Marcellus in chairs across from my desk.

“As I mentioned, I have new information on Bryn Tal’s enemy, the one who calls himself Emperor Daxingovan. He is a tyrant who completely lacks any self-mastery. He cannot govern his own avarice, and according to their intelligence, his empire will not be content with occupying Tukdurin alone. The planet is his scale.”

Ruso’s face is hard. Marcellus, contemplative. Varro, intent. They know I have decided.

I lean back in my chair and clasp my fingers together lightly. “Whether we stand with the Council of the Wise or not, this enemy will come to us. If we wait, we gain no advantage; therefore, I have decided that we join now. On Earth, we would be dead along with Rome. Here on Anturia, we have a chance to bring our order and the might of Rome to bear before Emperor Daxingovan becomes too powerful to defeat.”

Varro’s eyes shift from me to the yellow rose that now sits in a glass of water on the windowsill. As his eyes settle back on me, he inclines his head briefly.

For a minute, I do not move, and they do not argue or ask questions. I dismiss them as I stand and leave Facility One. I walk down the path past the Porta Segreta and over to where Bryn Tal and Dahlfia Dewr stay on the island.

After I knock, Dahlfia Dewr opens the door. She motions for me to come inside the home and points me down a short hallway. “First door on the left,” Dahlfia says.

The first time I saw Dahlfia, I correctly identified her as Bryn’s guard, but now I understand that there is something more between them.

I step into Bryn’s office, and she looks up from where she sits at her desk. Her eyes meet mine as I straighten my shoulders and take a slow breath in.

“The Ninth stands with you,” I say without blinking.

She inclines her head to me in acknowledgment.

I turn and retrace my steps back outside, and as Dahlfia closes the door behind me, I notice Kerrih and her sister talking together near the platform of the Porta Segreta.

Through the palm trees above them, a beam of sunlight shines and catches Kerrih’s hair, while her sister stands beside her in Kerrih’s shadow.

With a laugh-like song, Kerrih looks up, and her eyes find me across the distance between us. With a smile that I don’t mean to give, I nod my head to her and walk back to Facility One.

She and I are now bound by the same oath to the same person.

>End Porta Cor imprint.<

Copyright Notice
© 2026 Heather L. McMillan / Anturia LLC. All rights reserved.

Anturia Diaries: Prequel Stories, including its text, characters, settings, terminology, storylines, and other original creative content, is protected by copyright. This material is provided on this website for personal, noncommercial reading only.

No portion of this work may be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, distributed, sold, adapted, or otherwise used, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from the copyright holder, except as permitted by applicable copyright law.

Free access to this material does not constitute permission or a license to reproduce, distribute, republish, or commercially exploit the work.