Tiberius sat slumped beneath the statue of Augustus, like a man worn down by time, shadowed in black robes.
He could hear footsteps.
Slow.
Deliberate.
It was getting near.
Then murmurs.
He did not look up at first, even when it grew increasingly loud.
Like the annoying buzzing of a hornet.
When he did look up, his eyes were red.
His face sagged.
Hollow.
His son had just died.
And Agrippina had come to talk politics.
Senators hot on her heels.
As if she owned the place.
His palace.
The foolish senators stopped on their tracks, looked between them—suddenly trapped between thunder and lightning.
The buzzing stopped.
Only Agrippina moved forward. Then stopped right in front of Tiberius.
Silence stretched on.
Agrippina's hazel eyes were trained on Tiberius's old, tired eyes.
They measured each other.
Then Tiberius raised one trembling hand.
"Leave us."
The senators bowed and scattered like leaves in a storm.
All that enthusiasm on the way from Curia Julia gone in an instant.
'Spineless.'
Now only two remained.
Agrippina stood straight. Looking proud of herself.
Unblinking.
Tiberius studied her as if from underwater.
"You came quickly," he rasped.
"I don't waste time," she said.
Silence. Thick. Personal.
Then he coughed, rubbed his brow, and spoke again.
"It's been years since I last saw you."
The reply came instantly.
"Well, you've been enjoying being a hermit."
Then she added,
"You're not even there to take your son's carcass."
Tiberius did not let the rage show on his face.
Instead, he looked at Agrippina.
She was just like her father. Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa.
Foul-mouthed. Direct to the point.
Silence again.
Agrippina's eyes didn't waver.
Tiberius sighed. A long one.
Then he rubbed his temples.
"You win."
Silence.
"Your older son will be named heir."
Agrippina's breath caught—but she didn't move.
She tried to control the emotions surging within her.
Not expecting Tiberius to give in so easily.
She's prepared to make her case.
Then suspicions arose, and she said,
"And if my Nero Caesar dies?" she asked coolly.
"Then the other," Tiberius said.
Silence again.
And as if sensing the suspicions she was trying to hide, he added, "And if he dies too, then the next. You have enough sons, don't you?"
He looked at her now with something between bitterness and awe.
Then his voice dropped.
"But give me one."
She tilted her head at the unexpected words.
"What?"
Silence stretched on. Then Tiberius spoke. "Give me one of your sons,"
"Why?"
Observing Agrippina's reactions. "For my grandson. Gemellus."
But she remained quiet.
So Tiberius continued, "He's too young. Too fragile. He needs someone. A brother. A… father."
Silence.
"I can also train him how to be a perfect heir."
Agrippina still said nothing. But her mind was already working.
She doubted that Tiberius would really train the son she would give him.
'What nonsense..'
But then, she remembered Antonia's look after they had their ientaculum that morning…
The soft favor in her voice when she mentioned Caligula instead of Nero.
She thought of how Antonia had always held Caligula's hand a little longer than the others.
'Should I take away her favorite?'
A throb in her chest, but she ignored it.
'I've already come too far to turn back now.'
And she smiled—just slightly. Suddenly imagining Antonia's face.
'If she loves him so much, let her lose him,' she reasoned with herself, still bitter about Antonia's words the night before to feel guilty about the idea of giving away her son.
"You may have one," Agrippina said quietly.
'I'm sorry,' she thought.
"My third son."
"Your third son?" Tiberius raised an eyebrow. "The youngest?"
"He'll be... harmless. Loyal. He's… quiet."
Silence.
"Good," Tiberius said. But his eyes narrowed.
He could see it in her.
The way she'd already cut her son off like a loose branch.
"But in return," Agrippina said, stepping closer.
Her voice like silk sliding over a blade, "I want my name clean. Every whisper, every scandal—wiped. I want official statements. Inscriptions. I want my honor restored."
Tiberius stared at her.
Then nodded. Once.
"Done."
She smiled then.
A real one.
Broad.
Triumphant.
"This is how you use power," she whispered.
He said nothing.
But as she turned to leave, she didn't see the way his hands tightened in his lap.
She didn't see the rage building behind his glassy, tired eyes.
'So it's you, isn't it?,' he thought. 'The one who took my son.'
'You came to bury me before I was cold.'
'You will pay.'
Then his labyrinth mind began to spin out of revenge.
While Agrippina descended the palatium steps, joy rising in her like a tide.
Her son's birthright—safe. Her enemies—will be silence.
The useless and cursed Caligula? A small price.
She had beaten Rome at its own game.
But far back where she came from, in the shadow of the palatium—
Tiberius sat in the dark, already planning.
***************************
Earlier that morning....
Drusus Caesar was there.
Hidden.
Knees shaking, tucked in the shadows between the statue of Diana and the curtain near the cubiculum's entrance.
He watched as the guards searched his mother's cubiculum—slow, deliberate.
His arms were crossed. Chin tilted.
Acting like an adult.
A smug face.
Or at least how he envisioned a smug face.
But any adult could see that he was just pretending.
'Exactly as it should be,' he thought.
Feeling like he had won something.
But still feeling scared.
No, he felt it.
He convinced himself.
He felt invincible.
As if the gods were in his favor.
He had taken the vial last night, when no one was watching.
'It was purely accidental, but whatever.'
He slipped it through the cracks behind the tapestry.
The poison someone had planted, hidden.
'It really was poison,' he gulped.
He had it now. Hidden away. A trophy.
And when his mother looked around and said, "Search, then," all icy and proud—
He almost laughed. Fear forgotten for a second.
They found nothing.
'Because I took it.'
'Because I'm smarter than all of you.'
He felt proud of his discovery and his quick thinking.
Then he slipped out the way he came.
Hallways blurred in the summer heat.
Humming to himself...
That was this morning.
Now his mother had gone to the Senate House.
'Lucky,' he thought. 'Nero Caesar will be officially the heir now.'
Now he felt a bit jealous.
"But I also have a chance to be heir... if something were to happen to my older brother... like being poisoned..."
Then he imagined himself as the heir.
All the people who had looked up to his father before would look up to Drusus too!
Respect! Admiration!
He remembered his time when they traveled to Syria.
That was when he bumped into him.
His growing fantasy halted.
It came from the tutor's room.
The pest.
Caligula.
Alone.
Looking pretty.
Like a statue. Like a little girl.
Drusus sneered.
'When I become heir, I'll have you removed from the family.'
Then Caligula turned to leave but Drusus cut him off.
"How was playing with that half-bastard slave?"
Caligula said nothing. His eyes unfocused.
So Drusus leaned in.
"An Aemilii bastard, right? A defect. Just like you are," his voice full of insult.
"I'm not surprised. A half-bastard and a cursed bastard."
Caligula's face held no reaction.
"You match."
His grin sharpened.
"I even think you're the one who killed Father—maybe the gods marked you for it."
Then—
A fist.
Caligula's.
Right into Drusus's cheek. A crunch on his teeth.
The impact made Drusus stagger back a step, his smugness cracking in real time.
His eyes widened. Pride damaged. He lunged.
They fought.
Like wolves in the dust.
Hair, nails, teeth. No form. No grace.
Just rage.
Agrippina found them.
Caligula on top.
Drusus bleeding from the nose.
Both breathless.
Animal-like.
She didn't even ask.
She pulled Caligula away.
And slapped him.
Hard. It echoed through the hallways.
So hard he blinked sideways, teeth tearing his lip.
Caligula was bleeding.
"You disgrace yourself," she hissed. "And me."
She pulled him up by the arm and shoved him down the hall.
Not a word to Drusus.
That night.
Caligula sat on the edge of his bed, quiet.
His mouth throbbed. His knuckles ached.
His mother hadn't spoken to him since.
He wasn't sure if she even glanced at him at dinner.
But he could feel her aura.
Cold. Measured.
Not disappointment.
No.
Just nothing.
He felt like a ghost.
Like she didn't care.
Like she had cut him off.
From what and where... he didn't know.
And that made it worse.
He sighed.
He had hit Drusus first.
And he didn't regret it.
'Drusus is more hurt than me,' he winced.
His older brother bled more.
Caligula saw it on his own knuckles.
Black liquid.
'It's not mine.'
Drusus' pride was shattered.
Good.
And not just in the body.
He bet his face was more... damaged.
He had called Lepidus a bastard.
Make him feel like it was his fault their father died.
Like he knew anything.
Like he was cursed.
'I'm not cursed.' he closed his eyes. 'Lepidus said I'm not cursed..'
He pressed a damp cloth to his lip and let his mind drift—
Back to the fight.
Back to Agrippina's slap.
And then, slowly...
Back to Lepidus.
He could still see his face.
Clear.
The only face he could see.
Everyone else?
Shadows. Blurry.
Moving but no color, no shape.
But Lepidus—he had contours.
He had warmth. He had light. Colors.
'His green eyes… so expressive. I've never seen a green like that—like leaves after rain.'
Caligula's lips curled into a small, secret smile.
'Well how can I see any green when I can only see black and white without Lepidus..'
Even through the pain.
Then—outside the window, near the fig tree—
A whistle.
Two tones.
Soft.
Familiar.
His heart stuttered.
He stood.
The pain forgotten.
Because he knew that whistle.
Like the whistle last night.
Lepidus.
He slipped quietly from his cubiculum, pulse rising.
Because in a world of masks and ashes, blurred faces and silent halls—
Lepidus was real.
And he was waiting.