The Three Fates

The Three Fates

Beloved Emperor Trajan is dead. His brutal successor Hadrian draws ever nearer to Rome. And three desperate souls try to forge new paths in a world turned upside down . . .

THE EMPEROR’S NEMESIS. Battered warrior Vix has always been Hadrian’s bitter enemy, and he vows that will never change, even when he is made Praetorian Guard and Imperial watchdog. But with his family’s lives on the line, Vix faces a bitter choice: kill a friend, or serve a foe?

THE EMPEROR’S RIVAL. Mild, scholarly Titus might once have been favored as Imperial heir, but he never wanted the throne. All he desires is peace in the arms of his new bride—but the jealous Hadrian has other ideas. A horror of bloodshed and violence interrupts Titus’s wedding night, and the man of peace faces an uncertain future at sword-point: honor and death, or betrayal and a cell?

THE EMPEROR’S WIFE. Elegant, elusive Sabina is desperate to escape the bleak future that awaits her as Hadrian’s Empress, and even more desperate to conceal the secret growing in her own body. But when she begs a famous seer for a glimpse into her future, she receives an astonishing vision of the Eternal City under Hadrian’s rule, and the new Empress must choose: her own freedom, or the glory of Rome?

Three former friends find new futures in sacrifice, omen, and prophecy. Three prequel vignettes to Kate Quinn’s long-awaited Lady of the Eternal City.

The Three Fates

Kate Quinn

The Three Fates

© 2015 Kate Quinn

All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

Kindle Edition

VIX

My soul died on a dusty summer road far in the Empire’s east.

Well, no. My soul’s demise happened on that dusty road, but it started on a dry island called Selinus which was now a tomb. Emperor Trajan died there—Trajan, the most foul-mouthed, iron-haired, sword-callused man ever to wear the purple. Hell’s gates, but I loved him! The ashes from his pyre were still smoking when I boarded a trireme with sorrow weighting my heart, rage sheeting my eyes, and a list of dead men crumpled in my fist.

How do I get out of it? For days, those words circled inside my skull. How did I get out of an Imperial order—an order to destroy five men, one of whom was a comrade from war, and another of whom was the best friend I’d ever had?

Hate me if you wish. Over that list of dead men, his deep-set eyes had met mine: Publius Aelius Hadrian, the new Emperor of Rome. Think of me when you slit those five throats. And a ripple of loathing fluttered in my stomach under his gaze. It’s like passion, that kind of hatred—the same flutter of the senses, the same burning obsession, the same dry mouth and thudding heart. Except that passion dies, and hatred never does.

Go, Hadrian said. I want my enemies taken care of by the end of the month.

I couldn’t help challenging him. And if I don’t?

He gave his faint, wintry smile. Disobedience has its price.

So I went, and while I was puking over a trireme’s rail into the sea or jouncing like a sack of millet in the saddle of a bad-tempered horse, I thought How do I get out of it?

There was a way. There had to be a way. I’d gotten out of worse dilemmas than this. I’d survived the gladiatorial arena; I’d escaped two wars and an Imperial assassination unscathed—I could eel my way out of Emperor Hadrian’s orders and his displeasure. I was not going to kill my friends just because a madman in purple had his boot on my neck.

On your family’s necks, the thought whispered. My ginger-haired wife; my two little girls with their petal-soft cheeks and petal-soft souls—and my son. My brave and beautiful son who tried to imitate my swagger and had a smile like a gleam of sunshine through storm-tossed clouds. I saw that smile disappear forever under the