I had failed them.
All of my men. Every single one of them. They had looked up to me, relied on me, trusted me to lead them to victory. And I had failed them.
I deserved whatever punishment Rome served me. But my men didn't.
The first thing King Jason did when he had all of my men imprisoned was separate the men from the women and children. I had gotten one glimpse of Annabeth when they did this. She had had a baby in her arms. Our baby.
And I would never meet them. I didn't even know their gender.
They had taken the women and children away, down another road. But us men had a different fate, it seemed.
There weren't many of us left. Most of them had died fighting for me, leaving a little over a hundred behind.
I was scared. Not for myself, but for my men.
We had stopped, and I could hear a lot of movement outside. Eventually, the back of the cart opened, and a Roman walked in. He grabbed my arm and forced me to my feet, dragging me out of the cart.
The sun blinded me for a few seconds, but then my vision cleared. The entire road was covered in crosses. My eyes widened.
They're going to crucify us, I realized.