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Safinia watched his chest. Now that the adrenaline of the fight had eased, she noticed he wasn’t good at hiding his movements before they came. He chattered on as he slashed at her. “After Numa, Tullus Hostilius, but then another Sabine—Hersilia’s son. Ancus Marcius will wage a good and proper war with the Latins, righteous and driven like any child of Cures.” Livy smirked. “Though he will think of himself as Roman.”

He’d slowed to let his dramatics land. Safinia lunged low, aiming for his belly, but realized too late he’d been baiting her close—Livy abandoned the knife and lunged to grab her spear as it came close. Before she could recover, he ripped the weapon from her and kicked her square in the chest. She hit the ground, feeling as though a mule had stepped on her.

Safinia’s hand flew to her ribs. Nothing out of place. She was well enough to berate herself, trying to get to her feet only for her chin to slam back into the ground as Livy yanked her leg.

He pulled her head up and wrapped his forearm around her neck, pressing until her vision frayed at the edges. She scratched at him, but he was immovable. “Face it. You’ve lost. Rome rises now. It is a wall you can’t tear down. You can’t punch it into unbeing. Look, now—” He yanked at her until they faced the circus. “If you won’t come with me, I’ll at least make you see it begin.”

The ghostly people around them vanished from her vision. Now they were back, decisively in her time, the forum nearly deserted, as everyone gathered to watch the offerings. They were too far for Safinia to see it clearly, but when Livy’s free hand pressed against her forehead, her vision sharpened sickeningly; the muffled cheers became distinct.

“No—” she said, twisting her head.

“Relax,” he said in her ear. “I’m not bringing you back just yet.”

Romulus climbed a small, dirt-packed hill at the center of the circus. It was topped with a small boulder. He put one foot on it, threw his head back, and roared, an animalistic call that was taken up by the Romans on their horses, who circled and turned to face him at their center. The noise bounced through the valley, cutting through the chatter of the crowd and silencing it.

“Countrymen,” Romulus bellowed. “Esteemed guests of Cures and Sabinum!”

A cheer came up at this. Safinia’s stomach turned. How brief was a soldier’s memory. Livy’s fingers pressed hard into her temple.

“We gather as one nation,” he began. His lungs were the size of a beast’s. “So that Consus will see our greatness as a people, as a neighbor, and as keepers of the lands, and bless us with rain. Bring the animal forth!”

Four men struggled to drag an only partially subdued bull to the stage; as it was rolled and prodded, the animal thrashed its head and limbs wildly. It was garlanded, draped in shimmering, braided thread, its horns painted gold, circlets with bells around each leg and the neck. A slave stepped behind Romulus and presented him with an ornate dagger; the four men put their weight into holding the bull still and upright, dragging its ears and horns back to display the greatest length of neck.

It briefly escaped one handler’s grip with a toss of its head; the bull’s horns opened an ugly gash over the man’s cheek. Romulus laughed, a booming sound, as the animal was brought back under control.

“The reward is greatest for the fighting animal,” Romulus called. A lie. But why shouldn’t he rewrite history? He motioned to his retinue of slaves and cultists of Consus. A woman stepped forward, wearing the long, white stola of a married woman. A murmur went through the crowd as she was recognized—Hersilia. She presented Romulus with a large, shallow bowl.

Safinia thrashed, kicking one leg back at Livy. He held her still. “Watch this,” he repeated in her ear. The scene became clearer still, the grunt of the animal close as if next to her ear.

Hersilia knelt before the bull, the bowl held below its head. Romulus unsheathed the ritual dagger, silver, flashing in the torchlight, and stabbed it savagely into the rearing, screaming animal’s neck. He sawed it through the bull’s throat, blood pouring in sheafs into Hersilia’s bowl, spraying both their faces with constellations of spatter. The men encircling Romulus had begun to look out into the crowd; their horses, sensing restless riders, shifted from hoof to hoof.

But Livy would only let her look at Romulus. Her limbs felt locked. He took the bowl from Hersilia, pulling her to her feet and tipping the blood into his mouth. It dripped, viscous, into his beard and down his neck. Then he leaned down to kiss his queen, one hand gripping the back of her neck, staining her face red.

The Romans had turned their horses, now, toward the Sabine. More were at the edges of the circus, holding weapons, wearing iron arm and leg plates. They were teeth, ready to close around the watchers.

Romulus kicked the boulder at the top of the hill, grunting with effort as he moved it. It concealed a hole, black with shadow, a hungry, earthen maw. He poured the rest of the bowl into it, intoning something in Latin, an old dialect that Safinia did not understand.

He screamed once more, the white of his teeth stained with blood, his jaw wide. And then he smiled at the crowd, his hands raised in triumph. “You’ve waited long enough,” he cried. “Men—time to feast!”

They surged into a sea of people, crashing against them like they were battered grains of sand. Screams broke through cheering, a dissonance that set the world on its edge.

Livy’s ring was still on Safinia’s thumb. She maneuvered it with the hand that didn’t pull at his wrist, sliding it onto her middle finger, facing the stamped wolf out. Livy crowed in her ear. “I can’t believe I get to see it—”

He was too busy gloating. His grip relaxed a fraction.

Safinia threw him off her, twisted and punched him, his nose crunching under the heavy, solid ring and her small, callused fist. Blood and mucus spurted from his face, slicking her knuckles. She punched him again, in the teeth, feeling the bones in her hand separate against his jaw, even as it, too, cracked. Livy pressed a hand into her face, trying to push her off him. The knife, the one he’d had at the start, lay in the dust near them. Just within reach.

She snatched it before his disorientation wore off. Let him think he had succeeded in moving her. The momentum helped her get up onto her knees. As he sat up, she slammed the blade into his stomach, and he was down again, looking at her with shock, then derision. His blood oozed from the wound and over Safinia’s hand. By the smell, she’d hit his intestines.

“The gods will punish you,” she told him, pulling the knife free and letting his wound gush unencumbered.

Livy sneered. “Small-minded. Gods are stories, invented for our purposes.” His voice was thick with blood. “Gods of justice, vengeance—they’re just our own moralities made immortal. Humans make the world. They get to say what happens next.”

“You’re not a god. You’re just a man.” Safinia was almost disappointed. She sat back on her heels. Exhaustion hit her like a stray hoof to the back.

“Exactly.” Livy coughed, laughing.

“And you’ll be dead in a moment.”