CHAPTER 68: THE SANCTUARY’S KEEPER

When dawn spread its pale light over Constantinople, it crept quietly through the slits in the palace shutters, finding Constantine already awake. He lay in silence, feeling the soft warmth of another body curled beside him, the taste of last night’s passion lingering in his blood and on his skin. The room was cool, and the city outside was still, the usual racket of labor and commerce not yet begun. For a few breaths, he allowed himself the indulgence of stillness, letting the ache of desire and fulfillment settle in his chest, heavier than any crown.

He rose carefully, not disturbing the woman sleeping at his side. His footsteps were soft as he crossed to the window, where a fine mist drifted above the new streets. Constantinople-his city-looked clean and sharp, as if the storm had scoured away every trace of the past. Marble gleamed, cranes swung above the rooftops, and the faint clatter of distant workers reminded him that this empire, like the body he had just left, was only ever his for a little while. Everything required tending. Everything demanded vigilance.

He dressed in silence, wrapping himself in the plain tunic of a man who expected challenge rather than ceremony. Below, his closest advisors were already gathering. He left the sleeping woman behind, her breath still soft and deep in the hush of dawn.

Down the stairs, in a corridor bathed in thin sunlight, Valerius, Valentinus, Marcus, and a handful of others stood waiting. Their expressions were hard, their eyes shadowed by the long night and the greater shadows that dogged every imperial order. Ambition burned in the air, as raw and insistent as any bodily hunger. Constantine greeted them with a nod-no words wasted.

"Report," he commanded.

Valerius stepped forward, voice low and precise. "The city remains calm. Our movement out of the palace was unnoticed, and the trail toward the Anatolian hills is well hidden. Valentinus has translated more of the inscriptions. There are references to a guardian-possibly not a man at all."

Constantine absorbed the news without reaction. "We move deeper today. If the sanctuary exists, I want it found before any word leaks back to the court. No priest, no senator, no one from the old guard is to interfere. Make that clear, and enforce it."

Marcus handed him a sealed letter. "A dispatch from Rome. The Senate is anxious. They fear your reforms will end their remaining privileges."

Constantine didn’t bother to break the seal. "Let them worry. Their world is already dust."

Valentinus, pale and blinking, hesitated. His eyes dropped to Constantine’s wrist, where a faint mark from the relic glimmered under the skin. "Augustus-after last night, did you notice anything strange?"

Constantine remembered dreams that felt like visions: streets twisting to his will, voices speaking in strange harmonies, the memory of being more than himself. But he kept his face unreadable. "Nothing that concerns the work," he said. "Prepare your notes. We leave in an hour."

The company rode out under a sky still streaked with the remnants of night. Their path twisted through pine woods, over ruined Roman roads, across lands where old gods were worshipped in secret. The countryside changed as they moved east: farmsteads grew rare, the world turned wilder, and every turn seemed to carry the weight of forgotten things. They moved without standards or fanfare, the armor under their cloaks the only sign of rank.

The road ended at the foot of the mountains. From there, they followed goat tracks into valleys tangled with bramble and pine. By noon, the sky was clearing; the sun glinted off damp rock. The group dismounted, tying their horses where the brush grew thick, and advanced on foot to the mouth of a great cavern-its entrance shaped by centuries of wind and rain, almost hidden behind a curtain of wild roses and thorn.

Constantine led the way. He lit a torch, the flame flaring in the cool, close air, then held the relics close beneath his tunic. The group entered, boots scraping on the cave floor. As they pressed on, painted glyphs appeared on the walls, each one a puzzle. Valentinus paused to copy several, working with trembling fingers, while Valerius and Marcus scanned the dark for threats.

"Stay close," Constantine ordered, his voice steady and without warmth. "No one falls behind."

The way narrowed and twisted, opening sometimes into small chambers filled with broken pots, piles of old bones, and scraps of fabric. Sometimes, in the darkness, a gleam of gold caught the torchlight-a coin lost centuries before, a ring no living finger would wear again.

After what felt like hours, the cave opened abruptly into a vast chamber. Columns of stone rose from floor to ceiling, carved by water and centuries, shaped by human hands in ages no record recalled. In the center stood a pool, its water so clear it seemed bottomless, reflecting the torchlight in shifting, fractured patterns.

Beyond the pool, at the far edge of the chamber, a shape waited. It was a woman-at least in form-clad in white robes, her hair falling straight and dark to her waist. Her face was ageless, neither young nor old, and her eyes, when they met Constantine’s, were as cold and unyielding as the stone around them.

She spoke, and the words fell into the silence like pebbles in a well. "You have come seeking what you cannot understand."

Constantine approached, every movement deliberate. "I come seeking what is necessary," he answered. "Knowledge. Power. The truth behind your sanctuary."

She moved closer, each step light and soundless on the stone. Her presence filled the air with a tension that made Valerius’s grip tighten on his blade. "Many have come. Most left with less than they brought."

Constantine met her gaze. "What do you demand in exchange for your knowledge?"

The woman studied him, then gestured toward the pool. "A ritual. A trade. You must give something of yourself-a memory, a fear, a truth no one else has ever heard."

He did not hesitate. "I accept."

She gestured for him to kneel beside the pool. Constantine knelt, feeling the chill of the stone press through his tunic. The guardian placed a hand on his brow, her palm cool as ice. For a moment, the world seemed to spin. He saw the past flash before him-his youth in a broken world, the battles he had fought, the son he had lost by his own hand. He saw the city he was building, gleaming and fragile. He felt shame, rage, loss, and the cold weight of all he had sacrificed.

A single tear slipped down his cheek. The woman’s eyes softened, just for a heartbeat. "You are ready. You may enter."

A passage, hidden until that moment, appeared in the rock behind her. It glowed with a faint light, runes etched along its length.

Constantine stood, reclaiming his relics. He turned to his companions. "We go on. No more doubts."

Valentinus was pale but resolute. Valerius moved like a man expecting betrayal from every shadow. Marcus checked his sword and nodded once.

The company entered the new passage, each step taking them further from the world they knew. The light grew brighter, the air sharper, filled with a scent like metal and old incense. As they advanced, Constantine realized he felt lighter-somehow changed. The burden of his secrets, for one brief moment, felt bearable.

The corridor opened into another chamber, this one round and lined with tablets, jars, and strange devices-none quite Roman, none quite Greek. In the center, an old monk waited, hands folded, face unreadable.

"Welcome to Aegis," the monk said. "Here, you will learn, and pay for every lesson."

Constantine looked around, feeling the centuries watching. "Then let us begin," he said, his voice hard and eager all at once.

For hours, the men of Rome listened and watched. The monks spoke of harmonics, of mathematics older than Euclid, of the way words and symbols could bend the world’s rules. Valentinus scribbled furiously, recording everything. Valerius listened, eyes narrowing with each secret revealed. Marcus, less sure, kept his hand near his blade, ready for betrayal.

Constantine drank it in, hungrier than he had ever been for anything. He learned of metals that would not rust, of equations that could heal or kill, of forces sleeping in stone and blood. He saw visions in the pool: future wars, towers of glass and steel, cities rising and falling on tides of knowledge.

The monks warned him, over and over, that every answer carried a cost. Some who learned too much were driven mad. Some became monsters. Some vanished, leaving only shadows behind.

Constantine was not afraid. He knew what he wanted, and he was willing to pay.

As night fell, the monks led him back to the chamber of the pool. The guardian waited, her eyes softer now. "You have learned much," she said. "But one truth remains. The world will not accept what you bring without a reckoning. Will you risk everything?"

Constantine nodded. "I will risk it all."

The monks bowed. The ritual began again-a song, a whisper, a line of runes traced in light across the water. Constantine watched as the secrets of Aegis bound themselves to his will, the knowledge burning through his mind, reshaping him.

When the ritual ended, he was different. He felt it in his bones, in his blood. He had crossed a line no emperor before him had dared. The city above would never be the same, nor would he.

He turned to his men. "We return. The age of secrets is over. The age of mastery begins."

And with that, Constantine led his company out of the sanctuary, back toward the world he was remaking in his own image-changed forever by what he had learned in the silence beneath the earth.