Coming out of the shower, Cesare shrugged into his jacket. The heavy weight settled across his shoulders, taking some of his nerves with it. This wasn’t the war; it was killing. He’d never change the world, that was for shiny heroes, pretty boys that get the girl. Long ago he’d stopped trying to change the world, it was enough to make it bled when it got uppity.

Walking down the hall, he faced the eyes of the hopeful and the gleeful in equal measure, apathetic to both groups. Those that wanted him dead were cowards, too scared to face him, hoping someone else would do it for them. The other groups only sin was weakness, they’d never stood up for him or come to his aid.

Ducking into his room, Kali met him in a stripped-down version of her kimono from last night. Shining black, the kimono was simple and elegant, hiding what modest curves she had. It showcased the natural beauty of her doll like face and stygian hair.

“Ready?” she asked, arms full of folded fabric.

Cesare opened the door for her, matching her mischievous smile with one of his own. Most of the students had left already to get good seats, only the lazy marked the hallways. The kids stared, frozen in space at Kali's appearance, caught between awe and disgust that she was with him.

Cesare lead Kali through the halls of the Serpens Lacum, a sterile silence enfolding the stones, hate strangling sound, killing anything soft in the castle. The boys parted and scurried against walls and banisters, opening a way for them down the stairs, glaring with the glittering malice of stepped-on cats.

Cesare took a deep breath when the Serpens Lacum closed behind them. “You were never meant to be one of them,” Kali said, meeting his eyes. “Don’t dream of being normal Cesare, dream of being great.”

People regretted the chances they were too cowardly to take, but they never regretted the chances they took. If he was going down, why not shoot for Gods throne? You only die once, better to do it with blood on your teeth, and the world screaming.

“Alexander the Great wanted to rule the world. Genghis Khan had the same dream. Musashi wanted to be the greatest strategic mind ever. Don’t settle for common dreams, its unworthy of you,” Kali said, hand tightening on his arm.

“I’m not sure …” The whisper was born in the midden heap of his past. Tongues of fire as the whip came down, the cold kiss of the knife, the meaty hands that pried and bruised, the agonized cries in the darkness of a hundred nights.

Holding his arm, she stopped him. “I can find men anywhere, each with a bigger dick than yours.” Deadly serious, her eyes swam with wisdom bought by centuries crawling over the broken glass of shattered dreams. “I can find any number of beautiful women to slip between my thighs.” She captured his attention, pulling him into her depths. “I wouldn’t waste a minute more than it took me to fuck and tell them to get out. You’re special, I see it even if no one else does, even if you don’t see it yourself.”

She held his eyes with a conviction scary in its intensity. “You really think I can be …”

Shaking her head, black hair whipping in the wind, she glared up at him. “You can be anything you're willing to be, Cesare. But the first step's believing.” Her glare was swiftly taken by a tenderness all the more powerful for how rarely she let anyone see it. Laying a hand on his cheek, her voice was a whisper of power. “You can’t see it because of what the world's done to you, but the greatest things come out of the hottest, most hateful crucibles. Your molten steel filled with more raw potential than anyone I’ve ever known. I believe in you, and no matter what happens today, that won’t change.”

Ducking his head, his lips met hers. Hungry and alive, he pushed into her mouth, tongue sliding around hers in a duel of power and strength. Kali surrendered under his assault, melting into his body as she submitted to his kiss with a low moan of desire. Holding her sweltering body against him, his hand ran down to the small of her back, pulling her into him.

Breaking apart, he gave her a crooked smile of thanks. Maybe he could never believe in himself, maybe he would always need the crutch of others beliefs. But was that a bad thing? Those that could get by on their own were bitter, cold creatures, devoid of life and light. It was the broken that struggled to keep their hearts open, that doubted and cried in the dark, that lived life to the fullest. Because life was, tears, pain, and despair, with shining bits of happiness sprinkled through, a night sky filled with stars of euphoria surrounded by black sorrow.

Kali nodded slowly, watching her words sink into him. She hadn’t convinced him and they both knew it. But she’d made progress, and when you were fighting a melancholy ocean of abuse and degradation, progress was enough.

There were two groups waiting at the willow tree separated by something more than distance. It was said in sidelong looks and the fingering of weapons, readiness marking eagerness and savage needs. On sighting them, the harem moved as one to surround Kali, using their bodies to push Cesare out of the immortal’s space. Nzinga held Kali's attention while the dogs played their games, the big woman handing over a dressing bag while taking the folded remains of last night’s kimono from Kali.

The women looked between Cesare and Kali, knowing something had happened but unsure what it was. Anastasia and Alexandra were dressed in school uniforms with black yoga pants underneath skirts. Alexandra handled her spears with casual grace, copper spirals glowing in the early morning light, while Anastasia's back pack bulged from the two footballs in it.

There wasn’t any need for words. They’d trained weeks for this day, bled, sweated, cursed, to kill the kids that dared to come to their school. The women cut through the harem’s cordon as if it didn’t exist, maybe it didn’t for them, for reasons unique to each of them.

The campus was a graveyard, everyone waiting at the stadium for the meat to arrive. Walking through the stillness, Cesare couldn’t help thinking this was his last time. There was no way to test if his theory would work, and if it didn’t, there was nothing after. Even if it worked perfectly, this fight would cost him. He’d be paying in buckets of agony even if he was perfect.

The women didn’t know it, oh, they had an idea he'd do something dangerous. It couldn’t be anything but a desperate gamble, given what he was up against. But none of them knew the red lining of crazy that was going to go down.

They reached their private entrance, the harem grudgingly taking up places outside the runes. The earth swallowed Cesare into its shadowed depths, carefully spaced runes flaring into spectral life at their approach, ghostly white, they kept the tunnel in perpetual twilight. The dark closed in around them, pressing down with the authority of the womb. A womb could kill or nurture, a healthy baby rocked to sleep in a cradle of love, and a failed thing crushed, flesh ruptured and bones broke to pass from this world. We cherish the womb of life and revile the one that brings death.

Passing through the walls of black roots with the smell of old soil coating his tongue, he wondered why we venerated the one and hated the other. Death was maligned as evil and wicked, life sainted, but both came from the same gods. This womb would be his birth canal, he would come full figured from it and dance destruction upon his enemies.

As they reached the door to the only room in this underworld of the Goddess, Cesare laid his hand on the roots of the doorway. Black as night, thicker than his arm, they wound their way into the ceiling, disappearing into the tapestry of life. Rough and coarse, they had a thin layer of dirt that clung to the living wood and coated his hand. It was real in a way humans could never be. Born of the soil, fed by the sun and the grace of the mother, it was here and now.

All his life he'd wanted to be somewhere or someone else. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t hated one or the other, most times both. The wisdom of the tree was in its acceptance of the now. All his life he’d wanted more, time, money, love, and he'd die wanting. This tree was a better, finer thing than him, wiser than a grasping, needy rat, always looking for an angle. If he was going to be born again, he’d at least chosen the right womb this time.

Scowling, the women watched Kali strip off her kimono, leaving it as a pile of liquid black on the floor. She pulled the jeans and shirt out of the dressing bag, looking them over with a critical eye. Unhurried and unashamed, she was a woman completely at ease with her body.

“Mom!” Anastasia complained.

Bending down, Kali pulled the jeans up her legs, showing off the perfect globes of her ass as she wiggled into them. “He’s not seeing anything I didn’t show him last night.”

The others whipped around, glaring at Cesare, aghast and furious in equal proportions. Sighing, Cesare tore his eyes off Kali's ass. “We slept together, that was it,” Cesare said, meeting their eyes easily. “Not that it's anyone's business.”

There had been a time when he would have given anything to be with them, one and all, they'd rejected his pleas. They’d had their reasons, good ones too. But that didn’t make it hurt less. If they thought they had a say in who he fucked after pushing him away like a shit stained dog, they were fucked in the head. He was free of any entanglements, not by his choice, but theirs.