She came to Imperium as a storm unbidden, forged in the savage reaches where steel and sinew ruled, and for a fleeting, treacherous span she tasted the soft decadence of that marble empire—wine upon her lips, silk upon her skin, and gold flowing to her as though she were some dark queen risen from forgotten ages—but the dream soured as all such dreams must, for whispers slithered through the perfumed halls, eyes marked her as other, as untamed, as a thing not bent to their laws, and in the dead of night they came with cold iron and masked faces, dragging her down beneath numbers and deceit, stripping her of finery, chaining her like a beast and casting her into the stinking bowels of the city where hope rots and screams echo unheard, until at last they hauled her forth not for judgment but for sport, placing a weapon once more in her hand and thrusting her into the roaring maw of the arena where nobles gorged themselves on bloodshed, and as the gates thundered open and another doomed soul advanced to meet her, something ancient and terrible stirred within her, for in that instant she understood—Imperium had not broken her, it had merely reminded her what she was—and with a savage smile she lunged forward, no longer a captive, but a living tempest come to drown the empire in blood.
