The Great Library of the Athenaeum Imperialis. Rome, 1000 AD.

  My name is Aelius Tacitus.

  I write these lines with a hand weakened by age, seated beneath the steady glow of electric lamps in Rome’s highest tower. Around me lie maps of a world now wholly subject to a single law and a single Emperor.

  If I look out from the tall windows, I can see steam powered airships drifting slowly above the Colosseum. Iron trains thunder along the Via Ferrea, carrying gold from Atlantica and silk from Serica, binding the world in an unbroken web of order and prosperity. We live in an age many believe eternal. An era in which the Pax Romana is no longer merely a poet’s dream, but a reality sustaining hundreds of millions of lives.

  Yet as Custos Tabularum Imperii, keeper of the Imperial Archives for more than half a century, I know a truth rarely spoken.

  Great trees do not fall only in old age. Many are nearly cut down when they are still fragile saplings.

  In this age, Romulus Augustus, founder of the Imperial Dynasty, is revered as a figure beyond humanity. His statues in the Forum depict him as a towering warrior, muscles carved like marble cliffs, lightning in one hand and a sword in the other. Popular legend claims he was born clutching a wolf, and that fire burned within his eyes even as an infant.

  All of this is false.

  Beneath the Vatican, in chambers sealed by both stone and fear, I have spent the final decades of my life reading what was never meant to be read. I studied the blood stained diary of Spurius Maecenas, later remembered as Praefectus Palatii to the founder of the dynasty. I translated the tactical logs of Vitus, Magister Militum, recovered from the ruins of a command post long buried. I examined the sealed medical scrolls of the imperial archiater, and the sworn testimonies of men and women who survived those nights of rain and terror.

  From these fragments, I assembled a truth far more disturbing than any myth.

  The savior of our world was not a god of war.

  He was a boy.

  Fifteen years of age. Thin. Frightened. Weeping.

  A child whose world collapsed in a single night, and who was forced to choose, without counsel and without mercy, between becoming prey or becoming something far worse.

  The story of how our world endured does not begin with triumph. It begins with mud, with rain, and with the sound of a father’s heart coming to a halt.

  Let us turn back the clock five centuries.

  To the year 476.

  The year the world nearly ended.

  Placentia, Northern Italy. August, 476 AD.

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  The sky above Italy no longer resembled the vaulted roof of the world praised by poets. It hung low and torn, like a soiled burial shroud stretched from horizon to horizon. Rain had fallen without mercy for three days. It did not cleanse the earth. It drowned it, turning the ancient Roman roads into a slurry of mud eager to swallow the exhausted.

  Through this mire rode Flavius Orestes, Magister Militum of the Western Empire and the true master of its remaining armies.

  His hand trembled as he pulled the reins of his horse.

  The air smelled of rusted iron and rotting leaves. There was no birdsong. There were no cheers of victory. The only sounds accompanying this bleak journey were the clinking of weak armor metal and the heavy breathing of thousands of soldiers trudging behind him. They were no longer world-conquering legions. They were merely thin ghosts walking in their sleep dragging their feet toward an inevitable defeat.

  Orestes felt his chest tighten.

  In our current age of enlightenment medical experts at the University of Salerno name this silent killer Cordis Constrictio or sudden heart failure. A fatal biological consequence when the human body is forced to bear a burden of stress beyond its limits. But for the people of the year 476 this was a nameless death.

  At first it was only like a small prick but in an instant the pain turned into a giant squeeze. It was as if an invisible hand had reached inside his chest cavity and crushed his heart with full force.

  His breath hitched. His vision began to blur and was replaced by black spots dancing wildly.

  "Dominus?"

  The voice sounded distant as if coming from the end of a long tunnel. Spurius, his trusted lieutenant, spurred his horse closer. The old soldier's face was wet with rain his eyes hollow from lack of sleep and hidden fear.

  "We must not stop, Dominus," urged Spurius with a tone of suppressed panic. "Odoacer's dogs have already scented our trail. They are no more than half a day's journey behind."

  Orestes wanted to answer. He wanted to order his troops to form up. He wanted to scream that Rome would not bow to that barbarian traitor. But his tongue felt stiff as lead. The words were stuck in his throat choked by the pain now spreading to his left arm.

  The world tilted.

  The body of the commander who had supported the weight of the entire empire on his shoulders finally surrendered to gravity. He was thrown from his saddle. His body hit the muddy ground with a pathetic thud. Cold mud immediately assaulted his face entering his mouth and nose.

  "Orestes!"

  Spurius's shout sounded broken. The legs of the horses around him moved in panic. Several soldiers ran closer but Orestes could no longer feel their hands trying to lift him.

  He lay on his back. Rain battered his face which was starting to pale.

  His mind drifted leaving his dying body flying far to the east across the misty marshes toward the fortress city of Ravenna.

  Romulus... his mind cried out in pain.

  His son's face appeared in his mind. A fifteen year old boy thin and awkward. A boy who preferred feeding chickens to holding a sword. Orestes remembered how he had placed the oversized golden crown on his son's head months ago. He thought the crown would provide protection and authority.

  He was wrong. How foolish he was. The crown was merely a target.

  He did not give his son a kingdom. He only gave his son a death sentence. He left the little lamb alone in the pen while the wolf was breaking down the door.

  "Forgive me Son..." he whispered weakly. His voice was lost swallowed by the rumble of thunder.

  Pink bloody froth escaped the corner of his lips. His last tear fell and merged with the dirty mud beneath his head.

  Be strong, his final prayer echoed in the silence of his fading brain. This world will not pity you. You must become a monster or they will eat you alive.

  Flavius Orestes's heartbeat stopped. The eyes of the last protector stared blankly toward the endless gray sky.

  In the distance lightning struck illuminating the muddy road where the father's corpse lay stiff. The storm had arrived and there was no one left standing between Odoacer and the young Emperor in Ravenna.