Antonius

Antonius leaned back on the marble bench, one arm draped lazily over the backrest, his other hand cradling a goblet of dark Ithacan wine. The air was heavy with heat and anticipation, sweetened with perfume and sharpened with the stench of too many men in too small a space. Around him, the 108 suitors laughed, jostled, and preened like barnyard roosters in borrowed silks, all of them fools in his eyes—braying for the attention of a throne they did not deserve, vying for a hand they were not worthy to touch.

He sipped his wine, slow and deliberate, the flavor resting on his tongue like blood and honey. His dark maroon eyes scanned the hall, half-lidded and predatory, watching the others bicker over trivial things: who brought the finest gift, who had danced best at last night’s feast, who could charm the servants with less than a wink. Pathetic.

A lesser man might have felt tension. Not Antonius.

The lion in him only yawned.

He wore no garland of olive leaves, no scented oil save the one on his battle-scarred chest. Where others had come dressed in their finest, Antonius had come dressed in himself—gilded pauldrons gleaming like savagery given shape, lion’s hide cloak draped over one shoulder, and that unmistakable spear resting against the table’s edge like a coiled promise. He did not need to clamor for attention. He was the storm they would notice too late.

A hush began to fall across the marble atrium, whispers swelling like the tide.

"The royal is coming," someone murmured breathlessly.

Antonius set his goblet down, never taking his eyes off the corridor where they would appear. He tilted his head faintly, like a beast scenting fresh meat, the ghost of a smirk pulling at his lips—sharp, arrogant, inevitable.

Let them come. Let them look upon him.

Let them pretend they had a choice.

The palace corridors twisted like a serpent at night—moonlight pooling through high windows, the marble cold beneath Antonius’s bare feet as he stalked through them. His lion-hide cloak dragged behind him like the pelt of a god-slayer, damp with spilled wine and heat-slick with his skin. The goblet he’d brought with him—silver and dented from too many hard grips—hung from his fingers, sloshing red like the blood of lovers lost.

He was drunk. Magnificently so. The kind of drunk only a warlord with too much pride and too many victories behind him could be.

And yet, for all the wine and battle songs, his heart ached like a beaten drum.

"All I want…" he muttered, slurring the words into the air, letting them rise like ghosts in the hallway. "All I want is a home."

He passed a marble bust and slammed the goblet against it. It cracked with a satisfying clang, wine running like tears down its carved face. His eyes were glazed but not unseeing—burning still, with that same diluted-wine madness, only lonelier now. Hungrier.

"A hearth," he continued, staggering toward the far wing. "A partner to kiss my brow when I come back from war, to bear my cruelty with a smile and know that it is devotion. To bathe in my vanity and never once complain that the world bends for me. Is that so much to ask?"

He reached the door then—the one gilded in gold leaf, etched with the royal crest. Their door.

Locked.

Unmoving.

Unyielding.

Antonius stood there, swaying slightly, staring at it as if he could set it ablaze with sheer will. He reached out slowly and pressed his hand to the polished wood. For a moment, his touch was almost tender.

Then it slammed forward with a crack, palm flat and furious.

"I will be your husband," he snarled, voice thick with wine and longing. "Your king."

Another slam—louder, a lion’s roar buried in a man’s chest.

"You think mourning makes you sacred? That hiding behind veils and silence and servants will stop me from claiming what’s mine?" His voice dipped into a rasp, almost pained. "I have killed for less than the shape of your smile."

He leaned against the door, breathing heavily, forehead pressed to it now, voice softening just enough to cut deeper.

"You can’t stay locked away forever, little royal. I see you. I know you. And soon…"

His fingers curled into fists.

"You will belong to me."

The bow sat on its pedestal like a relic from another age—simple in shape, but heavy with ghostly weight. Curved from dark wood, horn-tipped and sun-aged, it seemed to mock Antonius with its silence. Around it, the courtyard rang with the jeers and gasps of suitors who had tried and failed, their pride trampled under the same impossible task. But none had dared try this many times.

Except him.

Antonius’s knuckles were white around the grip. His arms flexed as he pulled back once more, teeth bared like a beast denied its meal. The string refused him. It bent slightly—tauntingly—then snapped back into its original place with a cruel twang.

A low growl rippled from his throat.

"Filthy thing," he hissed, glaring at the bow like it had insulted his bloodline.

The ten axes stood in a row down the courtyard, heads gleaming under the high sun. A single, clean shot was required—one arrow to pass through all their crescent-bladed mouths. It was poetic. Ceremonial. Impossible.

Antonius hated it.

He had tried seven times already. His arrows had curved, split, wavered—each failure driving another nail into the coffin of his pride. The crowd of nobles and sycophants whispered behind hands, some smirking, others too afraid to laugh. No one dared say it aloud, but the truth hung in the air like incense:

He was not the one.

He refused that truth.

With a snarl, he lifted the bow again, muscles straining, veins thick beneath burnished skin. His lion-cloak shifted in the breeze like it too was growing restless.

"Your ghost still fights me," he muttered, imagining the dead lover’s shadow clinging to the weapon. "Fine. Let it watch me win."

Again, the bow resisted. The string would not yield. His shoulder twitched, breath shallow.

From the dais above, where the royal sat in veiled composure, he could feel their eyes on him. Cold. Distant. Judging.

Mine, his mind whispered, furious and certain. You’re already mine. This is just... ceremony.

He flung the bow down, not in surrender, but in rage—it clattered loudly on the flagstones.

"How many trials must I endure to claim what is already owed?" he barked, turning toward the throne, voice loud enough for all to hear. "Is this challenge, or insult?"

The silence that followed was thick.

He grinned, dark and sharp.

“Keep your games, royal. I’ll win them all. Even if I have to burn the gods who made the rules.”