Mark Paren

I’m happy you’re enjoying it.

Better bring some Tums. Indigestion is possible. Thanks for commenting.

Marcus and Ingomar have many new experiences ahead of them. Thanks for commenting.

New chapter arriving next week.

Coming soon!

Should be a new chapter by mid week.

The service is set (characters introduced) and we start “feasting” (the story begins} with the next chapter.

The journey from the villa to the imperial palace passed in a blur of torchlight and the steady clop of hooves. Marcus sat beside his father in the litter, the curtains drawn back just enough to let in the cooling evening air, and watched Rome slide past in fragments: a fountain lit gold by a brazier, a knot of laughing revelers spilling from a wine shop, the dark silhouette of the Circus Maximus crouched against a sky gone the color of a bruise. The weight of his finely draped toga pressed

There may be an imperial feast in the next chapter. I hope that will satisfy your appetite.

Glad you liked it. I hope you enjoy the story.

Thanks, the second chapter will post soon.

I’m glad it’s hitting a note. Thank you for the comment.

They have a lot to learn about each other. They come from very different worlds. Thanks for commenting.

Prologue The stench of Rome hit me first. Sweat and smoke and the sharp bite of too many bodies pressed together under a sun that felt weaker than our northern light. We rode through gates of stone so vast they seemed carved by giants, not men. Arminius rode at my side, his face a mask of Roman calm, but my blood sang with unease. This was the beast my elders warned of in the long winter nights. Towers of white marble clawing at the sky, roads paved smoother than any forest path, and everyw

A Roman noble born for music, not war. A Cherusci warrior born for duty, not desire. Sent to the Rhine frontier under an ambitious governor’s wing, Marcus finds in Ingomar something Rome never taught him to want, and something Ingomar’s people would never forgive. Their bond grows in stolen hours, firelit and unspoken, while empire and tribe both close in around them. Then the forests of Teutoburg swallow three legions whole, and everything either boy was raised to become burns with them. What’s left isn’t safety. It’s a choice, made in the open, at a price neither can take back.