THEO THE EMPEROR

Theo the Emperor - Part One: From Childhood to War
Baetica, fourth century. Beneath a sky fought over by the bright gods and the gods of the deep, Theo is fifteen. He grows up on the land of his forefathers, between the golden olive groves and the black mines that swallow men alive, in the shadow of a towering father - one of Rome's greatest generals. Theo believes him home from the armies for good. He is wrong. A soldier's son is a soldier by blood, and the Empire will come for him.
He learns the sword in camp, discovers the secret his mother hides in the low room of the house, watches men and beasts die in the arena - and then, one day, a letter from the court shatters everything. His father is recalled to war, and Theo wins the unthinkable: leave to go with him. He leaves behind the sun, his kin, his gods, and sails toward the far end of the known world.
There lies Britain: an island of mist and iron, a sea that takes its toll, a moor where men kill beneath the great wall at the edge of the world. And it is there, between two charges, that Theo meets what neither Rome nor the gods foresaw - Erelieva. A Gothic princess, a lead rider, a Christian of a faith some call truth and others call heresy. Hostage, ally, enemy. Everything divides them: the frontier, their blood, the God they pray to. And yet, in the one warm place on a frozen land, two children the world has promised to opposing sides know each other at last - and seal, in secret, what it will one day cost them to carry.
Told in two voices - the emperor grown old, and the woman who shared his youth - this first part is a novel of coming-of-age, flesh, and faith, meticulously researched: every chapter set beneath the sign of a god, every page steeped in the dust of the mines, the salt of the crossing, and the cold of the borderlands. A childhood tipping into war - and a love born on the wrong side of the line.