Guardian of Rome (#2 in Gladiator Series)

Prologue

Prologue

Dianna always knew she was high born. She had known it since before she learnt to walk.She had grown up knowing that somehow her blood was better than those around her.

Her aunt, a fair haired woman who smelled of roses, never failed to mention that fact at every opportunity. After all, Dianna doubted that their family would amount to anything higher than being related to the bastard daughter of the Emperor Titus. Hence why she had been given the name Dianna, as everyone knew that an Emperor's right to rule was divine, the same as her name.

But Dianna did not hate her father for sending her mother, his mistress, away when he became the Emperor. Dianna got to live in a nice house in the capital for a while and on occasions she got to interact with her father before he was pulled away on business. She knew that an Emperor's work was vast and important and she looked forward to the day when she was old enough to return to Rome and see him. She knew that he missed her the same way she missed him.

Brushing strands of her black hair away from her face as she headed back to her house, Dianna brushed her fingertips over the band of gold her father had presented to her on her fifth name day. It was a simple design which looked like two gold twines had been woven together around her wrist; Dianna never spent a day without it. But as she felt the light metal on her wrist, Dianna's stomach suddenly turned and her breath caught in her throat as a gush of wind appeared out of nowhere and whipped her hair up around her.

And as quickly as it had come, it was gone again leaving Dianna shaken to the bone as she knew something terrible had happened. She didn't know how she knew but the feeling of dread in her stomach would not dissipate. Picking up her skirts, Dianna started to run back home.

Over hills and across a stream, Dianna pumped her legs harder as their small village came into view and she began to see people start to crowd around. Her breathing was coming in tight gasps as she hit the crowd at full speed and started to push her way through, trying to reach the front. And when she did that's when she saw it; a Roman soldier.

Dressed in all his finery with a sombre expression on his face he looked a statue of grave strength as he waited for them to settle. As silence finally hushed over the crowd, the soldier opened his lips and his words felt like a sword in her chest.

"The Emperor Titus is dead!" 

The words struck Dianna like a blow to the stomach, knocking her back a few steps. Dead? How could her father be dead? Was it an illness of some kind that took him from her too soon? Dianna had been about to ask but the guard was not finished. 

"He was assassinated by the Gladiatrix Krista who has now fled Rome and, from this day henceforth, is an enemy of the empire!"

Dianna crashed to her knees in the dirt, her hands clasping at the ground as tears ran down her cheeks. Murdered; the news crushed into her like a boulder was pressing down on top of her. She was unable to move, or even breathe. Digging her nails into the dirt, Dianna cast her eyes towards the sky, praying to the Gods to give her the strength to avenge her father.

"I will find this woman," Dianna gritted her teeth as she suddenly realised that both her mother and father were dead, "And I will make her pay for what she's done."