A smile came across my face as my heart raced. I knew at this point that if I were caught, there would be no words to explain why I’d boldly disobeyed. I glided forward, deeper into the water. I let my face fall under, then held my breath and swam forward; trying to catch the moonlight I could see waving through the water. I rose for air, flinging my long, dark hair behind me.
The moonlight I’d been chasing had moved forward like it was an illusion that couldn’t be truly captured. I fell below the water once more and chased the gleam. I rose from the water, finding myself just on the edge of the moonlight.
Just as I began to swim forward, I heard, “A light that beautiful can naught be imprisoned.”
Panic swept through me as I tried to place the young man’s voice. I frantically looked from side to side, from corner to corner. Then from the darkest, furthest corner of the pool, I saw an image move toward me.
“Yet, you should know that. I doubt any one man could capture you,” he said innocently.
“Should I scream for my father?” I asked, furrowing my eyebrows in the direction of the image, blocking as much of myself as I could with my arms.
“I don’t know who would be in more trouble: me or you. I should be here ... should you?” the strong, young, bold voice asked as it moved closer.
When he reached the point where the light showed his face, I saw Silas. He looked more real than he did today. I could see wounds that had barely healed on his arms. His eyes lacked the glow they had now, and his hair and skin were darker. In this image, I didn’t know him. My heart was racing - my breath was short. I wanted to know him – this breathtaking stranger I’d found in my father’s bath.
“Who are you? This is my house. Do you often stalk women in the dead of night?”
“Do women often bathe in the dead of night in a bath for men?”
“You aren’t from here,” I said as I stepped back with each step he took to reach me.
“No,” he said quietly, halting his approach. “Listen, I’m going to turn around, get my clothes ... maybe you should do the same.”
I nodded nervously and waited for him to turn, then I dove under the water and swam as fast as I could to the stone steps I’d used to get into the pool. With shaky hands, I pulled my gown on and squeezed my hair, trying to get out all of the water. I walked hastily to the stone pillars that led out of the bathroom, not wanting to be seen in there with a man, not wanting anyone to think that I’d lost my innocence with this stranger.
I wanted to run to my room, but I couldn’t make my feet work. The desire to know whom this breathtaking stranger was holding me in place. I needed to know if he would tell my father I was in there, if I could trust him.
I felt him moving closer to me and glanced over my shoulder. The sight of his strong body left me breathless. I knew I didn’t know him. I’d never seen him before; no one this beautiful lived in this city.
“Name?” I said shortly.
“Silvanus.” He smiled. “Julia, correct?”
I nodded. “How did you know?”
“I’m a guest of your father’s ... I suppose you would call me a guest.” His eyes moved slowly across my body. “Though he spoke of your beauty, he did not capture it properly.”
I looked at the abrasions on his arms and took in the sadness of his eyes. “What happened to you?”
Before he could answer, my pounding heart caused me to lose the hold on that memory, and I found myself back at the park, leaning against the oak tree with Silas next to me.
“Julia ... I think I like that,” I mumbled as I looked away to hide the blush in my cheeks. Though I couldn’t remember most of my existence, I doubted that any other moment could be as revealing as the first time I met Silas.
Silas laughed under his breath. “I loved that name. You carried it for over a thousand years. You thought of changing it more than once, but those dark eyes could only belong to Julia.”
“Why were you hurt? Where were we?” I asked, gazing into his eyes, regaining my composure and slowing my heartbeat.
“Pompeii,” he whispered as his eyes fell from mine.
“The city of ash,” I breathed, as my eyes grew wider. I remembered writing a report on that city when I was in eighth grade. I was always so far ahead of my classmates that my teachers would give me additional assignments to keep me stimulated. I chose that city. I don’t remember why. I just remembered the grief I felt as I wrote the report. My history teacher was so taken by my words that he suggested to my mother that I should travel to Italy to see the ruins. I told my mother that that was the last place I wanted to see, that it would be too heartbreaking to see the molds of the ones that lost their lives there.
“I see Charlie knows her history,” Silas said as he stretched his legs out before him.
“A little, but I don’t know why you looked hurt. Why you were a stranger just days before my nightmare began?”
“I was a Gladiator.”
“A criminal?” I asked in an unbelieving tone, suddenly understanding why he’d so fearlessly fought those Escorts before: he’d fought like the warrior.
He slowly moved his head from side to side as he locked his jaw and sadness filled his eyes. “No ... I was mistaken for my brother in Rome, forced to fight.”
“You brother never stood up – told them they were wrong?”
He nodded once. “He did, but I told them he was lying.”
“Why?”
“He had a family. A wife. Children. His crime was petty. He only stole food he needed, and he paid it back when he could.”
“So you were a sacrifice?”
He moved his head from side to side. “Even though my brother was older, I was built differently. I was stronger, more of an athlete. I knew he wouldn’t survive one battle. I’d already won three before he discovered that I was mistaken for him. By that time, I’d become a favorite. If I’d denied that I was him, they would have forced us both to fight, fight each other to the death. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“How did you end up in Pompeii?”
There was a chilling silence before he finally spoke. “Your father bought my freedom. He visited me in my cell. He told me he saw innocence in my eyes. I thought it was a trick to get me to confess that I wasn’t my brother, so I tried to act tough, but I didn’t fool him.”
“Why did he want to buy you?”
As Silas’ eyes stared into the distance, I watched every emotion ripple though his outwardly calm composure. “He didn’t want to own me; he wanted to set me free. He told me that he dreamed of me before he saw me fight, that the Goddess of Venus wanted me to live in Pompeii. He traded land and goods that he’d won in Rome for me. On our journey to Pompeii, I told him I’d pay him back, but he insisted that the land and goods were given to him by the goddesses and that I couldn’t pay him back.”
“So you were free in Pompeii to start a new life?”
“I was asked to fight once. To kill a man that wronged your father. Once that fight was over, my freedom would be given to me, a home would be given to me, and I could seek a wife.”
“Did that fight ever happen?”
He nodded. “On August 24th.”
“The day of the eruption ... how long did I know you before that?”
“Seven days,” he answered quietly.
“Was it a good seven days? How come I feel like I was mad at you?” I asked as flashes of time I couldn’t grasp echoed in my thoughts.
“I’d like to think it was a good seven days ... at least they were for me.”
My heart began to race as the memories became more vivid. I saw myself sneaking off to meet him by the pool each night. During the day, we acted as if we didn’t know each other. I was even rude to him when my father introduced him to me.
“We met in secret,” I said as I closed my eyes tightly in an effort to see the memories more clearly.
He nodded. “You were seventeen. Your father had tried to wed you three times before, but each
time you found a way to talk him out of it. You would uncover secrets about the men that you knew your father would despise, but you’d come to the age where he felt he could wait no longer to give you to a man. You were to marry a man that was a stone maker, an architect. He was a widower, twice your age. The only reason you had to not marry him was that you didn’t love him, but that reason wasn’t good enough for your father.”
I felt grief and anger as memories of pleas to the man that was my father went unheard. I saw myself pray to the goddesses...I prayed to Isis, and she responded. Each and every time.
“I thought the trembles of the ground were the answers to my prayers ... that the goddess had heard me and was honoring my request.”
Silas’ hand tightened around mine. “Everyone ignored the rumbling ground. They saw it as annoyance, but you’d smile and bow as your eyes gazed and met the heavens.” His eyes captured mine. “The night before August 24th, you told me that you’d rather die than marry anyone you didn’t love. You were praying for an escape from your marriage, and you didn’t care where it came from.”
“I asked you to take me away, but you refused,” I said as I remembered the words leaving my lips.
“You didn’t love me...not the way I loved you. You wanted your independence; not the heart of a man.”
I gazed forward as I watched the memory of our encounter under the stars that last night. Silas was wrong; I did love him then. I’d never taken the notion of love at first sight to be true until I laid eyes on him. I thought he was a gift from Isis, a strong man that could not only love me fiercely, but protect me; a man that respected and adored my independence. As strong as that emotion was, I couldn’t tell him how I felt about him that night. Even today, the words escaped me. Maybe it was because I didn’t want to give him hope that I could love him in this life, or maybe it was because it was an emotion that words couldn’t clearly describe in any language.
“So you refused me out of pride,” I said, feeling anger and rejection that seemed all too familiar.
“I said no, out of love. I couldn’t have given you a life you deserved. In my mind, you deserved all the jewels of the world. A home, a family - I couldn’t give that to you. I told you that I’d always be there, in the dead of night when you needed to speak your mind. That I would make the years of your life as peaceful and pleasant as I could - but you must marry the man your father had chosen for you.”
“I told you Isis would deliver me ... she would bring me my independence,” I said in a trembling voice as that memory became mine once again.
He let out a sigh. “You didn’t tell me that; you promised me that.” His eyes met mine, and I saw regret there. “You left me at dawn and went to the temple. I had to fight that day. Just as my victory came and my freedom was earned, the ash climbed out of the mountaintop ... the ground rumbled. While others looked on, stunned at Mother Nature’s display, I ran ... I ran to find you.”
I could see it, the ash, how powerful it was. I was in awe of nature’s display. Rational fear came to the people around me. Some people grabbed what they could and ran from the city, others sought shelter in their homes. I couldn’t make myself go home. I wanted to stay in the temple. It wasn’t long before the ash was so thick that it covered the sun – darkness was born in the middle of the day. Then the hollow rocks began to fall.
The peaceful balance of the city left as terror came. Slaves that were meant to protect their masters began to flee to find their own families, their own safety.
Silas, still in all of his armor, found me on the streets urging women, children, and slaves into the sanctuary of the temple. He tried to get me to go to my father. He told me they were escaping, that he’d promised my father that he’d bring me to the man I was meant to marry. As I argued with him, he picked me up and carried me down the streets.
When the falling rocks became heavier, he put me down, fearing I would get hurt. As soon as I was free, I ran, but he caught me again and forced me to walk forward. We’d almost reached my father’s home. I could see the servants loading wheel barrels with goods and pushing them through the crowded streets. Bodies of those that had fallen victim to the push of the crowd and the falling rocks were along the streets ... the cries of the children ... their mothers ... it was heartbreaking.
I looked up at Silas. “This is my fault! I must stop it. Because of you, precious minutes have already been lost!”
With those angry words, I ran from his side, toward the temple. Tears were streaming down my face as the reality of the moment came to me. I asked to be saved from my marriage; I told the goddess I would prefer death. I feared that she took my words too literally, though, and now my city was perishing.
As I ran to the temple, women, children, and slaves began to follow me. They knew that I’d always shown a connection to the goddess, that when I prayed to her on their behalf in the past, their troubles had been relieved.
When I reached temple, others had to help me open the doors. The rocks that had fallen were at least three feet deep. Just as the door opened, I felt Silas’ strong hand on my shoulder. I turned and looked fiercely up at him. “If you’d loved me enough to take me from here, this wouldn’t have happened. Let me speak to my goddess, let me ask for forgiveness – for the lives of the innocents in this city!”
“I do love you!” he screamed over the crowd.
His words halted my racing heart. I stared up at him, and in the midst of the chaos I found myself alone with him.
“Then help me pray for our redemption,” I said boldly, still not finding the courage to tell him that I loved him as much as, if not more than, he loved me.
Silas’ powerful arms held the door open while he screamed for those on street to follow us. The air was thick with smoke; it was so dark that my lamp could barely light the way to the altar.
A young girl helped me light candles, and I fell to my knees and prayed. Silas came to my side and knelt down. The only sounds were the coughs of the people that had followed us there. I prayed with every ounce of my energy. I told the goddess that I was a fool. That I should have trusted her to bring the man that I was to love to me. That I should have been patient for her to light my path. I promised her that if she would set me free from this answered prayer that I would be her voice, that I would stand for innocents. That I would not fear the men in this world. That I would be the change. I told her that even though I didn’t deserve Silas, I would always cherish him; that I would let him protect me, let him be my shield when the world refused to hear the voice of a woman. I asked for a peaceful escape for my city, I asked for forgiveness ... I asked for guidance.
The coughing stopped almost instantly. I looked behind me to see the people who had followed me lying across the floor as if they were sleeping peacefully. My eyes felt heavy. I was exhausted. I felt Silas’ arms go around me and pull me to his chest. He laid us down beneath the altar, and I closed my eyes as I listened to the calm beating of his heart.
The dream began then. I saw the goddess in all of her wonder, all of her power. In the dream, I saw the entire world, places I’d only heard of. Great cities, small villages, land that had yet to be discovered. I saw a darkness linger near innocence. I never heard the words or the command of my path, but I felt it. I felt her tell me that now I must save more than my city; I must save the light in this world. I must be the face that the innocents see at the moment the darkness comes for them, that I must pull them into the light that they were.
Silas was at my side in that dream. I watched as his chest swelled with pride, as his eyes filled with gratitude for the love we felt for each other, for the passion we felt for the weak. The dream was near endless, blissful.
When I finally opened my eyes, I felt the last drops of rain on my warm skin. I rose up to see us lying across ash. Pools of water reflected the purple sunset. I stood quickly, trying to understand where I was. I found Silas next to me and shook him violently to wake him.
We had no idea where we were. My cit
y was gone, and panic consumed me.
“How?” I asked breathlessly as I forced myself to focus on the reality I was in now, as I let a past that I no longer wanted to remember fall into my growing memories. “How were our bodies unharmed, sleeping above the ash?”
Silas stretched his arm around me and pulled me against him, allowing his calm touch to absorb me.
“We never understood the how,” he said quietly. “We awoke on ash that had buried the city. There was nothing left. From the clear sky, we knew days had passed. When we traveled to the closest city, we discovered that almost twenty years had passed since that day. That Pompeii was barely a memory.”
“So what are you? What was I? A ghost?”
He was silent for a moment as he tried to find a way to explain it to me. “I don’t think there’s a word. ‘Undead’ would be the closest in any language.”
“We just didn’t die? We just kept living?”
“Yeah, it took us a while to understand that. We were never tired. We would only sleep when we wanted to dream, when we wanted to seek advice from the gods and goddesses. Hunger never came. Dirt wouldn’t linger on our bodies -- it would just fall away. Our eyes glowed, so much so that often we didn’t make eye contact with anyone.”
“When did this war with darkness begin? When did you find a hatred of Escorts?”
“Immediately,” he said as he moved his arm from around me. I knew he was upset that I didn’t have more questions about the time we loved each other, the words we said to each other then. My focus was still on how to bring peace to Draven. “But it’s not like what you see now, shadows and whispers. It was more about feeding those that were hungry. Ensuring that artists and free minds were protected while they followed the call of their soul. We had many battles, and each battle would force us to flee to another city, to change the way we looked, to start over.”
“Why?”
“I would always fight for you, for anyone who needed me to, and when a blade did pierce my skin, blood didn’t come. The people around us would see us as evil, a ghost, witch, even as demons. The fact that we couldn’t die caused rational minds to see us as the darkness we were fighting. We had to run.”