The war council dinner did not so much end as dissolve. Alex, standing resolute behind his pronouncement, dismissed the stunned assembly with a curt wave of his hand. The generals and legates, their minds reeling from the night's shocking turn of events, filed out of the tent in a daze, their hushed whispers following them into the cold night air. They had come expecting a feast and had instead witnessed a public emasculation, a political masterstroke that none of them could fully comprehend.
Only Perennis remained, rooted to the spot, his face a bloodless mask of terror. Two guards, massive Dacian auxiliaries whose loyalty belonged entirely to General Maximus, stepped forward at Alex's silent command. They flanked the Praetorian Prefect, their sheer physical presence a cage of muscle and steel. Perennis didn't resist. The fight had gone out of him, replaced by the limp, resigned fear of a man who knows the executioner's axe has already been sharpened.
Alex led the small procession out of the command tent, not to the stockade, but to a small, isolated storage tent near the camp's perimeter. It was used for keeping spare leather and oilskins, and the air inside was thick with the smell of lanolin and cured hide. There was no furniture save for a single, flickering lantern on a crate and two rough stools. It was a place of no importance, a place where a man could disappear without notice. The message was brutally clear: You are now nothing.
The guards shoved Perennis inside and took up positions outside the tent flap, their spears crossed. Alex entered after him, letting the canvas fall shut, plunging them into a claustrophobic, flickering intimacy.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of Perennis's ragged breathing. Then, the Prefect's composure, held together by the thinnest of threads, finally snapped. He sank to his knees, his hands clasped in a desperate plea.
"Caesar, I… I can explain," he stammered, his voice a hoarse croak. "It was a misunderstanding. A terrible, ill-conceived jest! The wine… it was merely a poor vintage, perhaps soured…"
Alex let him babble. He walked over to one of the stools and sat, his movements slow and deliberate. He looked down at the most powerful man in his personal retinue, now a groveling, pathetic creature on a dirt floor, and felt not a shred of pity. Only a cold, analytical curiosity. He let the silence stretch, letting Perennis's lies wither and die in the oppressive quiet.
Finally, Alex spoke, his voice low and devoid of anger. It was worse. It was calm. "Let us not speak of wine, Prefect. The vintage no longer matters. Let us speak of accounting."
Perennis looked up, his face a mask of confusion. Accounting?
"Tell me about the thirty-thousand sesterces diverted from the winter payroll of the Legio II Italica last month," Alex continued, his voice as soft and sharp as a surgeon's scalpel. He was reciting the data Lyra had pulled from the camp's logistical records, information no emperor should know, let alone care about. "The records show it was paid to a grain merchant from Pannonia named Gallus. A man known for procuring more than just wheat. What was it you purchased from him, Prefect? His silence?"
The Prefect's face went slack. The blood drained from his cheeks, leaving them a pasty, grey color. This was impossible. This was a minor, carefully buried discrepancy, a secret slush fund known only to him and his most trusted financial clerk. It was the kind of trivial graft that oiled the wheels of Roman politics, utterly untraceable.
"I… I don't know what you mean, Caesar…"
Alex leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "No? Then perhaps you can clarify another matter. Three weeks ago, you journeyed to Carnuntum, claiming a need to inspect the auxiliary barracks. But you spent the evening at a low-rent tavern called The Prancing Goat. Not your usual style, Prefect. Your guests were two men, envoys from Senator Quintus Metellus of Rome. You thought no one saw you slip out the back. You were wrong."
Each word was a hammer blow, shattering Perennis's defenses. This wasn't just knowledge; it was omniscience. The boy in front of him wasn't just a clever actor. He was something else, something terrifying. The emperor's eyes seemed to see everything, to pierce through walls and into the darkest corners of his soul. The rumors of a divine change, which Perennis had dismissed as camp superstition, suddenly felt horribly, terrifyingly real.
"Who told you this?" Perennis whispered, his voice trembling. "These are lies… whispers from my enemies…"
Alex gave a cold, thin smile. "My enemies have been surprisingly silent. No, this information comes from a higher authority." He stood up and began to circle the kneeling man slowly. "But my favorite piece of information… my most recent acquisition… concerns the six dead dogs found at the western perimeter. The strays who so graciously finished the meal I was too 'pious' to consume."
He stopped directly behind Perennis, leaning down so his whisper was directly in the man's ear. "Tell me, Prefect. What vintage of wine pairs best with Aconitum?"
The name of the poison—Wolfsbane—was the final, devastating stroke. It was the one secret he was certain had died with the dogs. Hearing it spoken aloud, here in this dark tent, by the very boy he had meant to kill with it, broke him.
A choked, guttural sob escaped Perennis's lips. The last vestiges of his pride, his cunning, his ambition, all crumbled into dust. He was no longer a Praetorian Prefect, a master of intrigue. He was simply a man facing a god, and he had been found wanting.
He collapsed forward, his forehead touching the dirt floor, his body wracked with violent, weeping tremors. "I confess," he cried, the words torn from him, muffled by the ground. "I confess! It was me! The wine, the poison… it was all me."
"Why?" Alex asked, his voice still unnervingly calm. He stepped back and sat down again, an interrogator waiting for the full story.
"Ambition," Perennis wept, his confession now a desperate, babbling torrent. "The Senate… they were terrified of your father. His wars were draining the treasury, his philosophies were shaming their lifestyles. They wanted the old ways back. The parties, the profits… They saw you, and they saw an opportunity. A boy who loved the arena and the banquet hall more than the ledger book."
"So you plotted to kill me?"
"No!" Perennis insisted, looking up, his face streaked with tears and dirt. "Not at first! The plan was to control you, to rule through you. To be your guide. But you… you changed. On the journey from Rome, you were… different. After your father's death… you became this… this person. Cold, calculating. Wise. You were not the boy they promised me. You were not the fool I was meant to manage. You were a threat. The senators… they said you had to be removed before you could reach Rome and consolidate your power. They promised me the regency, control over the empire, until a more… suitable heir could be chosen."
"Who?" Alex's voice was sharp. "Who in the Senate?"
Perennis hesitated for a second, then the names began to pour out of him. A web of powerful, influential men. Senator Metellus. The wealthy landowner Flavius. The old patrician Cornelius Scipio. All men whose families had profited from corruption for generations.
And then he delivered the final, devastating name, the one that tied the entire conspiracy together.
"But she was the key," Perennis choked out, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "The guarantee. She had the connections to the old, noble families, the ones who despised your father for being a provincial. She was the one who assured us all that you were nothing. A simple-minded brute, easily manipulated. She assured us that your anointment was a mistake that could be… corrected."
Alex leaned forward, his heart suddenly a block of ice in his chest. "She? Who is she?"
Perennis looked up, his eyes wide with a final, desperate plea for mercy, for understanding.
"Your sister, Caesar. The Augusta. Lucilla."