Dawn of a New Rome

The pull began as a faint tug at the edge of Alistair Finch's awareness. Within moments, it grew violent, tearing apart everything he recognized as himself. There was no corridor of light, no promise of gentle rebirth. Instead, there was a roaring storm, where colors bit into his nerves and sounds pressed down on his skull with real, physical weight.

A stripe of impossible violet raked through him like glass. In the storm, he tasted copper, heard iron shriek against stone, and felt saltwater sting skin that he was only just beginning to claim as his own. He tried to hold on to individual sensations, to catalog them as he had always catalogued every crisis, but nothing stayed still long enough to grasp. Memory and logic unraveled in the gale. The familiar scent of filtered air, the dry tick of a clock, even the dark humor of late-night thoughts-all of it was stripped away and scattered.

Other fragments crashed through. A leather strap pulled tight by a young hand. Cold metal of a military baldric pressing into bone. A woman's voice, urgent and soft, calling out a name that now vibrated through his every cell. Constantine.

Instincts built on years of crisis analysis tried to respond, sparking and then flickering out. To make sense of this chaos was like trying to collect a waterfall in cupped hands. Yet, some small part of him resisted giving in, and in that resistance he sensed a pattern. Something was guiding him, not by chance, but by design. This was not random oblivion, but a tunnel with a destination.

The storm broke apart. The pressure separated into distinct currents, lines he could almost trace. Pain returned, rhythmic, real, and insistent, as if reminding him that he still possessed a body, a heartbeat, a mind to feel it all. Pressure surrounded him. He could sense the outline of a body, boundaries he could no longer escape.

He realized, with cold clarity, that he was being forced into a new shape, poured into a form already prepared for him.

He slammed into consciousness. One instant he was nothing but scattered thought, the next he was packed tightly into bone, sinew, and blood. His lungs spasmed, uncertain of how to move. Air rushed in, thick and gritty, then burned his throat as it left. A heart hammered wildly, almost too strong for the chest that held it. Every sense caught fire at once. He felt coarse wool against bare skin, the sour tang of sweat, the distant thud of marching boots muffled by stone walls.

Pain hit him again. The ache behind his eyes was sharp and persistent, his temples pulsed with a steady beat, and his muscles ached as if from a fever only half broken. Even pain was useful, anchoring him to this new reality.

He tried to move. It took all his focus just to flex his fingers, but he managed. The skin felt different-callused, younger, stronger than he remembered. He turned his hand in the light. Lamplight, not the sterile glow of modern LEDs, flickered across knuckles, highlighting the youth and vitality he had not possessed in decades.

Sound sharpened. The heavy beat he thought was his own heart separated into the sound of distant drums, a military rhythm that set nerves on edge. Legion drums, he noted, though he let the idea settle without judgment. Closer to him, water dripped on stone, a draft moved through the room, and a quiet voice murmured in prayer. The language was Latin. He recognized it instantly, though he had never learned it as a child. Now it slid into his mind like a familiar tool.

In the blurry edge of his vision, movement drew his gaze. He forced his head to turn, pain flaring in his neck. A woman sat on a low stool, her posture sagging with exhaustion. She looked to be in her forties, her hair streaked with silver, her face marked by years of worry. Helena, his mind supplied, and with the name came a rush of memory that was not entirely his: lullabies in a provincial dialect, gentle scolding, the scent of rosemary. The emotional force of the memory nearly broke him.

His throat felt thick. He tried to speak, but all that came was a rasp, barely a word. Still, the woman heard him. Her head snapped up. Her eyes, a piercing green-grey, widened with shock and something close to hope.

"Constantine?" Her voice trembled, the name heavy with fear and longing.

The word struck him like a hammer. With it came another flood of images: riding lessons at dawn, a father's quiet pride, the cold splash of a river crossing, the presence of soldiers at his back. These memories layered themselves over his own, creating something new, something unstable but alive.

Helena stood, her body slow and careful, fighting exhaustion. She crossed to a table and filled a cup from a clay jug, then returned and knelt by his side. When the water touched his lips, he drank greedily. The taste was metallic and stale but glorious. He tried to thank her, and the words came in perfect Latin. The sound startled him. He had spent years learning new tongues for the sake of policy and negotiation, but now the knowledge was woven into every muscle and nerve.

It grounded him. He was not lost. He was armed with new tools. Where once he had wielded data and influence, now he owned the instincts of a warrior, the reflexes of a leader, and the knowledge of a living empire. All that remained was to survive long enough to use them.

Helena set the cup aside and pressed a cool hand to his forehead. Relief flickered across her features, hope threatening to outshine the weariness in her eyes. "The fever has broken," she whispered. "Thank the gods."

He wanted to reassure her, but emotion caught in his throat. He settled for a curt nod, regal and cold, the gesture of a man used to command. It surprised him how easily it came. He closed his eyes, not as a child hiding from pain, but as a strategist retreating to regroup. Exhaustion pressed down on him, the strain of two lives pulling at the seams.

Outside, the drums faded, and the first hint of dawn pressed grey light against the shuttered window. Inside, the lamp guttered, shadows reaching long across the room. Alistair catalogued everything-the scent of woodsmoke, the feel of rough cloth, the weight of new memories. It was data, it was grounding, it was survival.

Sleep dragged at him. He let himself fall, not into the empty void but into the honest black of fatigue. He knew that when he woke, he would face a new world. Rome's future waited outside these walls. Whether he would meet it as prey or as predator remained to be seen.

The last thing he noticed was the quiet sound of Helena's prayer drifting through the shadows. For a moment, he felt almost safe. Then sleep claimed him, and the long work of adaptation began.