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Chapter Twenty-Two

D amian

Maya’s breathing has settled into the gentle rhythm of sleep beside me, but my mind races like a chariot without reins. Two thousand years. The words echo in my skull, impossible yet explaining so much. Everyone I ever knew—not just dead, but dust. Centuries of dust with no one to remember them but me.

My chest constricts as the magnitude crashes over me. Mother, carrying fresh-baked bread to the morning market. My little sister Melina, chasing butterflies in the garden. Even Father, whose wisdom I’ve clung to like a lifeline, is lost to history, their graves long since erased by time.

Rolling carefully away from Maya’s sleeping form, I press my knuckles against my mouth to silence the sound trying to tear from my throat. My whole world, everyone I ever loved… I wasn’t just taken from them. I was ripped from time itself.

The strange lights of this age filter through Maya’s window, casting shadows on things I still don’t understand. Machines roar past outside, their sounds a constant reminder of how far I am from everything familiar. Even the air tastes wrong—too clean, too processed, lacking the wood smoke and incense that once marked civilization.

Anger rises suddenly, hot as arena sand at midday. Maya knew . She knew everything while watching me struggle to understand this world’s mysteries. Each time I knelt, each time I called her Domina , each time I played the dutiful slave—she knew the truth and let me continue the charade.

My hands clench into fists. All those careful explanations about the technology of her place, about local training methods… she must have been laughing at my ignorance. Did she enjoy watching me try to make sense of this world with only fragments of understanding? Did my confusion amuse her?

It takes all my self-control not to roll over, wake her, and shout, accuse and confront. She should know how her actions hurt me. She should pay .

“A wise man masters his anger before speaking,” Father’s voice whispers from memory. “Else his words become weapons that wound their speaker first.”

But what wisdom prepares a man for this? What teaching covers waking two millennia from your last memory? The magnitude threatens to overwhelm me—not just my personal losses, but the weight of history itself. She told me empires have risen and fallen, gods have been forgotten. The whole world has transformed beyond recognition.

Maya shifts in her sleep, one hand reaching subconsciously toward where I usually lie. The sight of her familiar gesture cuts through my anger like a blade through leather armor. She lied, yes. But she also showed kindness when others would have exploited me. Offered protection when she could have turned me over to those who would treat me as a specimen rather than a man. Could have profited from me, rather than protecting me at a cost to herself.

“Judge actions by their intentions,” Father taught. “For the same deed can spring from love or malice.”

I turn to look at her now, peaceful in sleep, as I remember a thousand small kindnesses. Her genuine concern for my recovery. Her careful attention to my comfort. The way she flinched each time I knelt, each time I played the role she helped maintain. Not amusement in her eyes then, but pain. Guilt.

The anger doesn’t vanish, but it transforms. Maya is as trapped as I am—by her father’s choices, by Tony’s threats, by the corruption that seems to transcend time. She tried to protect me the only way she knew how, to delay the pain of this revelation as long as possible, even as the deception ate at her conscience.

Still, the losses crash over me again. Did two thousand years make the stones of the Colosseum crumble? Was the great lighthouse swallowed by the sea? The temples and forums I once walked, could they possibly still stand?

An entire world lost to time while I slept in frozen darkness. Even if I survive this modern tangle of threats, I can never go home. Never walk those streets again. Never see those faces.

A sob builds in my chest, but I swallow it back. Maya stirs again, and I force my breathing to steady. Strange how even in my grief, my body responds to her presence. Despite everything—the lies, the lost years, the uncertain future—I want to wake her. Want to lose myself in her touch, her taste, the way she makes me feel anchored in this impossible time.

“The heart knows truth even when the mind rebels,” Father would say. And my heart recognizes something in Maya that transcends time and deception. Something worth protecting, worth forgiving, worth…

My hand hovers over her sleeping form. It would be so easy to wake her, to let passion drive away pain for a few precious hours. But Father taught better than that.

“A man’s choices show his true character,” his voice whispers in memory. “Especially the choices he makes when wounded.”

So I lie, still as a corpse, letting the storm of emotions wash through me. Grief for all I’ve lost. Anger at the deception. Fear of this strange new world. Desire for the woman sleeping beside me. Each feeling acknowledged, accepted, but not permitted to rule my actions.

Tomorrow, I will face this new reality with clear eyes. Will begin learning what I need to know about this age, no longer bound by the pretense of slavery. Will work with Maya to free us both from Tony’s web, but with only truth between us now.

But tonight, I let myself mourn. For my family, for my world, for two thousand years of history I’ll never know. For all the moments frozen in time while the world moved on without me.

At least I wasn’t the only one who awakened. All the men on the Fortuna survived two thousand years in ice. They must be going through the same shock and mourning I am. I can only hope I will see them all again.

Maya’s hand finds mine, her fingers intertwining with mine as though even in sleep, she senses my need for connection. The simple touch anchors me, reminds me that while I’ve lost everything I once knew, I’ve also found something unexpected. Something worth fighting for.

Just before sleep claims me, I press a gentle kiss to her temple. She sighs softly, curling closer, and for a moment the weight of two thousand years feels almost bearable. Almost.