Chapter 50: Macedonia II
Chapter 50: Macedonia II
As they approached, a line of carriages stretched for what felt like miles, a sluggish river of wood and iron crawling toward the gates of the city. The morning sun had given way to a hazy afternoon, the heat pressing down on the valley like a damp cloth. Alex sat in the back of the supply cart, his back against a sack of grain, watching the landscape inch past.
Oseka was beside him, unusually quiet. The teasing from earlier had faded somewhere along the road, replaced by a stillness that Alex didn’t recognize. They hadn’t talked much since the gate. They hadn’t needed to.
When they finally passed through the walls, the city hit them like a fist.
The streets were narrow and filthy, the cobblestones cracked and slick with something Alex could swear was shit. The buildings leaned into each other like wounded soldiers, their walls streaked with grime, their windows empty or boarded over. The air was thick with the smell of rot—garbage piled in corners, human waste running in shallow channels along the roadside, the faint, sweet stench of something dead somewhere nearby.
Children lined the streets. Dozens of them. Their eyes were hollow, their bellies distended, their hands outstretched toward the carriages with the desperate, mechanical repetition of people who had been begging for so long they’d forgotten what hope felt like. Some of them were no older than five or six. Most were barefoot. A few had limbs twisted from untreated injuries, their small bodies bent into shapes that made Alex’s stomach turn.
"Please," a girl called out, her voice hoarse. "Please, just a coin. Just bread. Anything."
A soldier backhanded her across the face before she could finish. She crumpled into the mud, clutching her cheek, and the soldier grabbed her by the arm and dragged her off the road. The other children scattered, their begging replaced by silence, their eyes watching from the shadows of the alleys.
Alex’s hands clenched into fists. The system was silent. The carriage rolled on.
Beside him, Oseka hadn’t spoken a word. His jaw was tight, his eyes fixed on the children being herded off the road. The muscles in his neck were corded with tension.
Alex understood. There was nothing either of them could do. Not here, not yet.
The carriage climbed higher.
The roads began to smooth out. The grime faded from the walls, replaced by white stone and clean mortar. The smell of rot gave way to something sweeter—incense, maybe, or flowering trees. The beggars disappeared. The soldiers stopped beating people and started standing at attention. The carriages around them changed too—no more supply carts or merchant wagons, just polished wood and iron fittings and the sigils of noble houses on every door.
By the time they reached the upper district, it was like they’d entered a different world.
The streets were wide and clean. Statues lined the boulevards; gods and heroes and long-dead kings, their marble faces serene in the afternoon light. Temples with white columns and golden roofs stood on every corner. Nobles in silk stolas and embroidered togas strolled past, their laughter carrying on the breeze. Servants followed them with parasols and wine jugs.
Alex stared at it all. The contrast was staggering. Down below, children were starving, while up here, a woman in a blue silk gown was feeding a piece of honeyed bread to her pet monkey.
Oseka finally spoke. His voice was flat. "So this is where all the gold goes."
Alex didn’t answer. There was nothing to say.
The Colosseum rose at the far end of the upper district, built into the hillside like it had grown there. It was larger than the one in Rome—older, its stone darker, its arches broader. Banners hung from its upper tiers, the sigils of a dozen provinces snapping in the wind. The lion of Brutus flew highest of all.
The carriage came to a stop near the registration area, a long stone building attached to the arena’s outer wall. Guards in polished armor stood at every entrance. Officials with scrolls and wax tablets hurried past, their faces pinched with the stress of men who were responsible for things they couldn’t control.
Alex climbed out of the cart. His legs were stiff from the ride. His chest still ached from the dream. The system was quiet, a faint warmth in the corner of his vision, watching and waiting.
He took a step toward the registration building.
And the moment his foot touched the ground, the world dissolved.
—
He was running. His limbs small, a child’s. Bare feet slapping against warm stone. The sun was bright overhead, the sky a deep, cloudless blue. The streets around him were clean and white, the buildings freshly painted, the air smelling of bread and flowers and something sweet he couldn’t name. People smiled as he passed—old men with kind eyes, women with baskets of fruit, children his own age who waved and called out to him.
He was happy, he was loved. This was home.
He turned a corner and saw a fountain—a marble horse with water pouring from its mouth into a wide stone basin. A young maiden stood beside it, her face half-hidden by the sun, her hand raised in greeting.
"Alex..."
He squinted against the light, trying to see her face.
"Wait up!"
—
The vision shattered. He was back in the upper district, one hand braced against the side of the cart, his chest heaving, the Colosseum looming above him. The guards were watching him with mild curiosity. The officials with their scrolls hadn’t noticed a thing.
"Albius." Oseka was at his side, his hand on Alex’s shoulder. "Are you okay? You just... stopped."
Alex shook his head. The world was still spinning. The warmth in his chest was fading, but it left something behind—an ache, a longing, a sense of loss for a place he’d never been and a childhood he’d never lived.
What the hell was that?
"Albius?"
"Nothing," he said. "Just... dizzy, from the ride."
Oseka didn’t look convinced. But he didn’t push.
Alex straightened up. The Colosseum waited. The registration waited. The champions of a dozen provinces waited. But for a moment, just a moment, he let himself look back at the street behind him—the clean white stone, the marble fountain that wasn’t there, the ghost of a voice that had called him by a name only one person in this broken world still used.
Then he turned and walked toward the arena.
The past could wait.
The present was waiting too.