Maximinus Thrax

The world tastes like wet iron. Blood and piss and leather gone black. The copper tang of loyalty—that old, rusting god bleeding out in the mud.

No crown. Crowns are for marble boys and senators' wet dreams. Maximinus wears his résumé in scar tissue. Keloid vines twist up his forearms, throttle his throat. The deepest one splits his mouth. Carved young, healed wrong. Every word sounds like he's chewing razors.

His men call him Thrax. Behind closed tent flaps, wine-drunk and shaking, they call him ...