The market began as a scattering of crude stalls beyond the fortress walls—canvas stretched over crooked wooden frames, barrels turned on their sides to serve as tables. Dust kicked up by the endless shuffle of feet turned the air into a swirling haze. Within a week, it had swollen into a sprawling bazaar, a living organism of barter and ambition, where the scent of smoked meat mingled with the tang of forged iron and the musk of livestock and sweat.

  The barbarians came daily now, arriving with ox-drawn wagons piled high with plunder. Stacks of old books, their spines cracked and their pages yellowed but still legible, were traded like mere curiosities. Scrolls salvaged from ruined libraries, some still bearing the seals of imperial magistrates, were unrolled and bartered away by men who could not even read their worth. Ingots of copper and tin, pried from abandoned mines or storage fascilities, clanged against each other as they were haggled over. Wild honey sealed in clay pots, rough-hewn statues and looted paintings—once the pride of imperial villas—now changed hands for bolts of cloth or casks of cheap wine.

  Sheep and cattle were paraded in makeshift pens, their hides brushed to a shine, their hooves polished as if that alone would fetch a better price.

  And then there were the slaves.

  Irineus stood at the edge of the chaos, arms crossed behind his back, his face shadowed by the hood of his cloak. He watched grimly as a line of shackled men, women, and even a few children were herded forward by a barbarian trader. Their wrists were raw from the ropes that bound them, some bore the angry welts of whip lashes, and many stared ahead with hollow, broken eyes—the look of those whose hope had long since withered.

  Lucius appeared at his side, the frown etched deep on his scarred face.

  "Every coin you give them," Lucius’s voice cut through the noise, sharp with disapproval, " Every coin you give them for these people only fuels their cruelty. They will only sharpens their blades for the next raid. ”

  Sebastian, who had been inspecting the pens of livestock, joined them, folding his arms across his broad chest.

  "He’s right," Sebastian said, his voice a low growl. "Buy their slaves today, and tomorrow they'll plunder another village to sell you more. This isn’t charity—you are givin them incentive to raid more villages.”

  Irineus did not look away. His eyes stayed locked on a gaunt boy, no older than ten, who stumbled under the weight of iron shackles too heavy for his frail limbs. “And if we refuse? These people die in mud pits, breaking their backs for barbarian masters. At least here, they’ll have full bellies and a roof.” He turned to Alexios, who was already tallying numbers on his wax tablet. “Purchase them. Assign them to the workshops or the fields. No chains inside our walls.”

  Alexios, wax tablet already in hand, hesitated visibly.

  "The cost will be high," he said. "Supplies are already strained. Housing them, feeding them, protecting them—it is no small burden."

  "The cost," Irineus said sharply, "is less than the price of our humanity."

  He turned to Alexios and gave the order, brooking no further debate.

  "Purchase them all. Assign the strong to the fields, the skilled to the workshops. Free them—but bind them to labor, not by chains, but by necessity."

  Alexios bowed slightly and hurried off, his stylus scratching furiously against wax.

  By month's end, tents gave way to timber huts. Huts grew into houses with hearths and shutters to hold back the cold winds. Merchants built permanent stalls, and a tavern—the Boar’s Tusk—rose at the heart of the new settlement. Barbarian traders and fortress guards drank side by side, their arguments and laughter drifting late into the night. A smithy opened its doors, smaller than Gunnar’s forge within the walls but already busy hammering out repairs and crude tools. Even a rudimentary bathhouse steamed beside the riverbank, its smoke and laughter a sign of prosperity.

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  Irineus, seeing the swelling growth, ordered a palisade built around the outer settlement—not to imprison it, but to protect it. “This place is ours in all but name,” he told Martin. “Let’s treat it as such.”

  Trade boomed. The fortress delivered on its promise—200 sets of armor and 400 weapons each month, each piece stamped with Gunnar’s mark. In return, the barbarians brought horses: sleek, sturdy beasts bred for war. The stables swelled, and Martin drilled new cavalry units with relentless focus.

  Trade flourished beyond all expectations.

  The fortress delivered its end of the bargain: two hundred sets of armor and four hundred weapons every month, each piece bearing Gunnar’s stamp—a stylized hammer within a sunburst. In return, the barbarians brought horses, sturdy beasts bred for war and speed. The fortress stables, once half-empty, now overflowed, and Martin drilled new cavalry units with merciless precision.

  Yet despite the booming commerce, an unease festered.

  The freed slaves worked the fields and the workshops alongside the volunteers from the old empire. They wore no shackles, bore no brands, but the difference between them and the born-free was clear in every look and whispered word. Some citizens murmured that Irineus had made a pact with devils. Others, like Elara the weaver, spoke pragmatically:

  "Better a full belly and honest work than dying in a barbarian camp."

  Still, the line between survival and compromise grew thinner by the day.

  News from the front arrived on a damp morning. The garrison at Tanaka village sent a frantic report, the parchment smeared with mud and rain.

  Some time later.

  The report from the Tanaka village garrison arrived on a damp morning, the parchment smudged with haste.

  Bandits massing west of the river. No attacks yet, but they’ve burned two outlying farms. Request reinforcements.

  Irineus dispatched 100 militiamen with orders to bolster Tanaka’s defenses—expand the palisade, dig storage pits, stockpile grain. “Prepare for a siege,” he wrote. “But do not provoke one.”

  Then came Anund’s letter, delivered by a rider in a wolf-pelt cloak.

  Prince Goar’s stronghold burns. His granaries are ash, his warriors scattered. Within two months, the last embers of his rebellion will be stamped out. Then, my sister will come to you, and our peoples shall be bound in blood.

  Livia, sorting herbs in the garden, glanced up as Irineus read the message aloud. Her hands stilled, but her voice was steady. “A royal wedding. How… practical.”

  He said nothing. The space between them yawned like a chasm.

  Irineus read the letter aloud to his council, standing under the old oak beam of the war room. Livia, busy sorting herbs into jars, looked up at the words, her hands pausing mid-motion.

  "A royal wedding," she said, her voice cool and unreadable. "How... practical."

  Irineus said nothing. In the silence that followed, the fire crackled loud as a breaking bone.

  The council met that night.

  It was a bitter, venomous gathering.

  "You cannot marry her!" Lucius slammed his fist on the table. "She's a barbarian! Her blood will taint your noble imperial lineage. Her sons might not even see themselves as Tiberians."

  Sebastian spoke next, the strategist's calm in his voice. "And without this alliance, our walls will crumble in five years' time. Have you not heard about how many warriors they could raise? You would rather cling to blood purity than build your strenght?"

  Alexios chimed in, his voice sharp with concern. "Even now, our forges strain to meet demand. With the increase of production in order to arm the barbarians, we risk exhausting our ore reserves within three years. Barbarian merchants who trade in ores and metals are not a common occurrence, the quality of their goods varies. We cannot only depend on them to meet our needs."

  The room churned with argument and anger.

  Only Livia was silent.

  When Irineus turned to her at last, she met his gaze steadily, her hands folded in her lap.

  "You’ve built something rare here," she said quietly. "A place where people plant trees they'll never sit under. A place for the future."

  She paused, her eyes shadowed.

  "Will she understand that?"

  The question hung there like a blade suspended above them all, unspeakably heavy.

  Irineus said nothing.

  What answer could he give?

  At dawn, he walked the market alone.

  The sun crested the hills, gilding the half-finished palisade and the ramshackle houses with light. The air was sharp with frost. Traders were already stirring, calling out to one another in a patchwork of imperial tongue and barbarian dialects.

  A grizzled barbarian, one ear sheared away in some ancient battle, stepped forward and thrust an item toward him: a silver mirror, its handle carved with imperial eagles and laurels.

  "From a magistrate’s house," the man said proudly, grinning with broken teeth.

  Irineus turned it over in his hands. His reflection stared back—older than he remembered, lines of care etched deep, his eyes harder than steel.

  A prince, yes—but a prince without a crown.

  Without a word, he paid for the mirror.

  He bought the slaves too, every last one that came to the gates.

  And the fortress, ever hungry, grew larger still.