The Sultan, having failed to break the fortress walls of Libyssa in his first strike, turned instead to a brutal campaign of psychological warfare and devastation. A massive encampnt now lood to the north of the Roman lines, its banners fluttering in the early sumr winds like vultures circling above. From there, he dispatched three thousand n eastward to hold the exhausted defenders of Nikodia in check, while another three thousand scattered like a net across the region—operating as mobile detachnts of scouts, pillagers, and death-bringers.
Within days, the once fertile and peaceful province of Nikodia descended into inferno.
The surrounding countryside, bereft of walls and defenders, was razed village by village. Smoke curled into the sky day and night, as the Turkish raiders emptied every granary, uprooted crops not yet harvested, and slaughtered livestock, even those crucial for reproduction. They didn’t just rob the land—they cut its future off at the root. Every usable item, from seeds ant for the next season’s sowing to cooking pots and carpentry tools, was looted or destroyed. What could not be carried was burned.
So comprehensive was this annihilation that flas were visible from the towers of Constantinople, painting the night in strokes of red and orange like an unholy dawn. The people of Nikodia, unable to resist, were seized in the thousands—old n, won, children—herded like cattle to the walls of Libyssa. There, they were used as fodder: forced into the moats, driven toward the walls to draw Roman fire, expend bolts and arrows, and grind down morale. It was not just cruelty—it was a calculated tactic ant to sap the will of the defenders.
In the heart of Nikodia, the governor could only watch in helpless horror from his tower, weeping openly each morning as he surveyed the horizon. Every hamlet, every farmhouse, every roadside chapel now smoldered in ruin.
anwhile, across the Sea of Marmara, in Constantinople itself, the sa flas were witnessed by another man.
The young emperor stood still on his balcony, eyes locked on the distant, flickering blazes like a priest before a funeral pyre. He had said nothing for an hour—only watched, unmoving, save for the faint twitch of his fingers around the iron rail. The light of the flas cast uneasy shadows on his face, aging him in seconds.
Behind him ca the gentle shuffle of footsteps, and a worn voice broke the silence.
"Your Majesty... it is getting cold, you should put on so cloth."
The emperor turned slightly, enough to see the old man who bowed before him—Uncle Abdullah, his father’s most loyal companion, his ntor, the last vestige of the generation that had once rebuilt the Empire.
He moved to help the elder upright. "Uncle, it is late for you too. You should rest, you have rely just recovered for a month..."
But the man’s eyes, dulled by age, were not without warmth. They drifted down to the emperor’s bruised knuckles, saw the signs of a restless man who had taken to sleepless pacing and striking stone walls. He sighed.
"Forgive , Your Majesty. But... you are not in your best condition. And you are the only male heir of the late emperor. You have no child. If sothing were to happen to you—"
The emperor closed his eyes.
He did not answer these words.
Because the words were true.
Just days ago, upon receiving the urgent news of Giovanni’s confrontation with the Sultan’s army, he had left his slow-moving infantry and half-secured Balkan provinces behind. He rode hard through the night with his personal guard, a skeleton force of cavalry, leaving the campaign in Serbia to his trusted commanders to handle the chaos. Rebellions and brigands still festered across the region, but they could wait, as they are no longer considered a threat.
In the five brutal days it took for Emperor Leo to gallop from the mountains of the Balkans back to Constantinople, he faced ambushes at every turn—bands of rebels, traitorous nobles, and the scattered remnants of defeated warlords seeking revenge. Wounded more than once, he pressed on, galloping day and night, until the very skin on his thighs and waist blistered and tore, sticking to his linen robes beneath the searing heat of sumr.
When the Emperor finally arrived at the gates of Constantinople, he looked less like the ruler of a restored empire and more like a soldier barely clinging to life. He swayed atop his steed, barely able to keep himself from collapsing. But still—he persisted.
And he gave only one command to the guards who rushed forward:"No one must know I am back."
Not the Senate. Not the generals. Not even the palace staff.Leo feared spies hidden within spies. In this desperate hour, secrecy was as valuable as swords.
He wanted the world to think he was still in Serbia.
"Thank you, Uncle Abdullah," the Emperor murmured, eyes still on the flas across the straits. "Indeed... I am now the only male child of my father, left alive in this world. —and my adopted brother, Giovanni Giustinianni. If I fall... if I die... the empire my father fought tooth and nail to rebuild will collapse once more into chaos. And this ti..." he paused, his breath catching in the cold air, "it may never return. His restoration was a miracle. Miracles do not co twice."
Abdullah nodded, face weathered and pained.
"But..." Leo turned to face the old man fully, the moonlight glinting off the bruises on his jaw and hands. "Over the years, through everything I’ve seen... I’ve co to believe one thing: that a thousand hardships may stand in the path of duty—but duty still calls. And soone must answer."
He stepped forward.
"If not —then who? My sister? My mother? You?" His voice remained calm, but each word was driven like an iron spike. "This empire needs soone to stand in the fire. To bleed for peace, so that others can live in it."
"No matter what happens," Leo continued, "soone must be willing to fight now... to earn us one more decade of peace."
The old man, eyes wet, bowed low again, his back bending beneath the weight of history. "Then may God watch over you, Your Majesty."
Leo embraced him gently, patting him once on the back. Then, without another word, he walked away from the palace balcony—and into the unknown.
Beneath the Emperor, assembled in the shadows of the Hagia Sophia, stood 1,500 n—a ragged yet proud army made from what the capital could offer in haste. There were the Varangians, grizzled northern warriors who had pledged their loyalty to the throne; a handful of city cavalry who had returned with him from the Balkans; ceremonial guards pulled from palatial duty; and even urban constables and lawkeepers, their swords more accustod to thieves than armies.
It was all that Constantinople had to spare.
Leo could not wait for the full might of his legions to return from Serbia. Anatolia burned by the day, and every ssage from Giovanni, though reassuring, weighed heavier on Leo’s heart.
Giovanni claid the cavalry was holding firm within Libyssa. That the barricades were strong, the n resolute, and the Sultan at bay.
But Leo knew the truth of war: silence often precedes a grave.
And Giovanni commanded nearly three-quarters of the Empire’s cavalry—a concentration of power so dangerous to lose, that even a minor defeat would undo everything Leo’s father had built over decades. He did not believe Giovanni would lie. But he also knew that sotis... good n say nothing, to buy their emperor ti.
And so, with no certainty—only instinct—Leo made his choice.
With a final glance at the sleeping city of Constantinople under curfew, the Emperor descended the docks and boarded the ship under Cerberus’ silent watch.
...
The siege of Libyssa had now entered its third harrowing day.
The trench before the Roman walls—once a death trap carved to halt cavalry—was already filled to the brim with earth. It had not been done by soldiers. Instead, the Sultan conscripted every Rulian slave—man, woman, or child—into a brutal system of forced labor.
Each day, the slaves were handed buckets and driven toward the slope under whips and curses. Their task was simple: dig dirt from the land, carry it up the embanknt, dump it into the trench, and return with an empty bucket. Only then could they queue before a Katib to receive a "token." This token was the sole ans of exchanging for a day’s ager ration: a few slices of blackened bread and a bowl of briny soup.
But even this system, cruel as it was, devolved into desperation. Hunger made thieves out of the young. Forr bandits and starving boys would often pounce on the old and weak, snatching away their tokens—leaving them to starve, or worse. And still, when the sun rose the next day, the Turks returned with their whips and forced the broken to labor once more, eventually leaving so dying of starvation.
Below the walls, the ground wept.
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