When Julius rode out from the Eastern Vanguard, no banners fluttered.
No horns sang.
Just a line of thirty Praetorian cavalry, their dusk-black armor absorbing the morning light, cloaks a muted swirl of imperial purple as they moved like a single, breathing machine around him.
No fanfare.
No prayer.
Only motion.
His command had already passed: Sabellus and Caetrax would hold the east.
Elheat would keep pressing the western scar.
Gallius circled north, gathering whispers and converts.
And Julius?
He rode toward something older than victory.
Something older than war.
~
By mid-afternoon, the trees began to lean inward.
The Aigrette forest wasn't dense—just... resistant.
Every pine and oak seemed to bend toward the path as if eavesdropping.
The air turned heavy, the kind of quiet that prickles beneath the skin.
Even the birds withheld their songs.
