Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Dawn breaks over a Pompeii transformed by ash. Leandros and Issa rise to find the city stirring in confusion. At the boathouse, Marcus awaits with a cart, but the envoy from Rome intercepts them. A tense confrontation ends with Thalia's intervention, allowing the cart to roll onto the coastal road as Vesuvius rumbles behind them.
The villa was still dark when Leandros woke. The lamps had burned low, and the air in his room was thick with the smell of dust and the faint sulfur tang that had seeped through the shutters overnight. He had not slept. He had lain on his bed, fully dressed, listening to the mountain groan in the distance and the dogs howl in the streets below.
He rose and crossed to the window. The sky was not yet light, but the darkness had softened to a deep gray, the color of wet stone. Ash was falling—not heavily, but steadily, like fine snow drifting from a slate-colored sky. It coated the rooftops, the garden, the fountain in the courtyard. The water had gone gray and still.
A soft knock came at his door. He opened it to find Issa, already dressed in a plain tunic and woolen cloak, her hair pulled back. She carried the leather satchel Thalia had given them the night before.
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