Page 100 of House of Serpents and Slaves

"We'll be on a dragon! He can't-"

"And when the raids are over? When the Talfen retreat?" He shook his head. "Better to stay. Fight. Earn our freedom properly, together, like we planned."

Above us, something screamed - a sound that made my bones vibrate and my vision blur. We were out of time.

"Please," I whispered, but I could already see the decision in his eyes.

"Stay and fight with us," Marcus pleaded, reaching up toward me. "We can defend our home, together."

"Home?" The word tasted like ash in my mouth. "This was never home, Marcus. It was a cage. A prison."

"But it doesn't have to be anymore." His voice cracked with desperation. "Once we earn our freedom, we can build something real. Something ours. A quiet place, just us, away from all this." His eyes shone with a future I'd never seen, never wanted. "We could be happy, Livia."

"I told you," my words came out soft, broken. "I've never wanted that. Never wanted quiet."

The dragon shifted restlessly beneath me as Marcus's expression hardened, reality finally cracking through his dreams. "Then what? You still crave vengeance? After all these years?"

"Yes." The truth of it burned in my chest like dragonfire. "And I'll have it."

"That's a child's hope!" His voice rose, raw with frustration and fear. "How many times must you learn that it will never happen? The empire is too big, too powerful-"

"What happened to never stop fighting?" I demanded. "You taught me that!"

"For a future!" He slammed his fist against his chest. "Our future! Not this... this suicide mission of revenge!"

In that moment, as the city burned around us and the Talfen screamed overhead, I finally saw the truth. All this time, Marcus had been trying to save me, to reshape me into something softer, safer. Someone who could want the gentle life he dreamed of. But that person had died in the flames of my village, and herashes had given birth to something harder, something that could never rest in a quiet home.

"You never really saw me, did you?" The words fell like tears between us. "You just saw what you wanted me to become for you. I'm sorry, Marcus, but I will never be that woman." His face crumpled, and I watched his dreams shatter in his eyes.

"Livia, please... don't throw everything away. We've worked so hard, come so far."

"For what?" My hands shook on the chains. "Another pretty lie? After what he did to me last night, how can you still believe Drusus will ever grant us freedom?"

His jaw tightened, and I saw the shame and rage flash across his face - the same helpless fury I'd seen in his eyes as the guards had held him down, forced him to watch. "We'll make him pay for that, I swear it, but-"

"Pay? With what? More fights? More scars? More of his games?" The memory of Drusus's touch made my skin crawl. "He showed us exactly who has the power. Who will always have the power, as long as we stay in his world, playing by his rules."

"And this is better?" Marcus gestured at the chaos around us, his voice raw. "Running away on the back of a dragon with a half-breed? That's your vision of freedom?"

"At least it's real freedom!" The dragon shifted beneath me, responding to my surge of emotion. "Not just a longer chain, not just more chances for him to-" My voice broke, and I couldn't finish.

"He'll hunt you down!" His voice cracked with desperation. "He'll hunt you down and tear you apart. Is that what you want?"

"I want to live!" The words burst from me like they'd been trapped for years, maybe they had. "Really live, Marcus. Not just survive. Not just exist in this cage. I want to find the people who killed my family, who razed my village to the ground and I want my vengeance for them. And if I die pursuing that, then so beit! But I can't just exist in this... this cage you're so desperate to make comfortable."

Something in his expression changed then, a dawning realization that made his shoulders sag. "That's all it's ever been to you, isn't it? You and me? Even the future we planned was just another cage to you."

"Marcus..." The pain in his voice made me reach toward him, even as the dragon's muscles bunched beneath me, preparing for flight.

"No." He stepped back, shaking his head. "I thought... I thought if I could just show you another way. If I could help you see that peace isn't weakness, that there's more to life than fighting and vengeance..."

"Come with me," I whispered, one last desperate attempt. "Please. We can find a different way, together. Something that isn't this."

His face twisted with pain. "You think I don't understand wanting vengeance? After what he did to you? After what I was forced to-" He cut himself off, fists clenching. "But vengeance is just another chain. Another way they control us."

"No," I said softly. "It's what keeps me alive. What gives me purpose. And if you ever really knew me, you'd understand that."

"I know you," he insisted, but there was uncertainty in his eyes now. "The woman I love wouldn't throw her life away on a suicide mission."

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