I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI-Chapter 129: The Devil’s Bargain

The rift between Alex and Sabina was a chasm of cold, resentful silence. In the days following his decree to suspend the Occidental Trading Company, their once-seamless partnership had fractured. They spoke only of necessary state business, their conversations clipped and formal. Alex could feel her watching him, her sharp, intelligent eyes filled with a new and unsettling mixture of suspicion and disappointment. She, a woman who had built her entire life on logic, commerce, and the predictable flow of capital, could not comprehend his sudden, seemingly irrational turn towards superstition and bad omens. And Alex, bound by the terrible secret of the Silent Network, could not explain it to her.

He knew this fragile, hostile peace could not last. Sabina was not just his fiancée or his chief economic advisor; she was the logistical lynchpin of his entire regime. He needed her. He could not afford to lose her trust, even if it meant trading one great secret for another.

He found her late one evening in her offices, a cavernous room piled high with ledgers and shipping manifests. She was working, as always, her face a mask of intense concentration in the flickering lamplight. She looked up as he entered, her expression wary, her eyes cold.

"If you have come with another prophecy, Caesar," she said, her voice sharp as broken glass, "you may save your breath. The markets are already in a state of panic."

"I have not come with a prophecy, Sabina," he said, his voice quiet. "I have come to tell you the truth. Or at least, a part of it you will understand."

He saw a flicker of interest in her eyes. He had her attention. "What I told you of a 'curse' in the western seas was a lie," he admitted. The confession was a risk, but a necessary one. "A clumsy one, I admit. I needed to halt the voyages immediately, and it was the only reason I could give that the Senate would even pretend to understand."

"I am not the Senate," she replied, her voice dangerously soft. "And I do not appreciate being treated like a fool. Why, Alex? Why would you deliberately sabotage the most profitable enterprise in the Empire?" 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Instead of answering, he made an offer. "Accompany me. There is something I must show you. Something that will explain everything."

A day later, after a swift and silent journey in an imperial carriage, they arrived at the smoking, bustling heart of Alex's new Rome: the city-forge of Vulcania. He led her through the chaotic, awe-inspiring construction site, past the disciplined cohorts of the Artisan Legions and the rising stone walls of the new city. He led her to the forges.

The heat was a physical blow, the noise a deafening symphony of industry. Sabina, who had only seen this project as numbers in a ledger, now witnessed its raw, terrifying reality. She saw the great, water-powered trip hammers pounding glowing ingots of iron. She saw the new repeating crossbows being assembled in a production line. And she saw the roaring, smoke-belching furnaces, their fires burning with an unnatural intensity, fed not by wood, but by the strange, black rocks Alex had told them of.

He led her to a high platform overlooking the entire industrial valley. The sun was setting, and the glow from a dozen furnaces painted the smoke-filled sky in apocalyptic shades of orange and red.

"This is the future, Sabina," he said, his voice a low rumble that was almost lost in the din. "Not some mythical island of gold across a storm-tossed sea. This. Real, tangible, transformative power. The power to make infinite steel. The power to arm our legions with weapons our enemies cannot even comprehend. The power to fuel a true industrial empire that will stand for a thousand years."

He then confessed the truth he had been hiding, the partial truth he was willing to trade. He told her about the energy crisis he had inadvertently created with the demand for his new glassworks, about the clear-cut forests around Cumae.

"The forests of Italy, of the whole Empire, are not enough to fuel this new age," he explained, gesturing to the coal-fueled fires below. "This black rock is the only answer. It is the lifeblood of everything we are building. My 'curse' on the western sea was a lie to cover this truth: I cannot afford to split our focus. The Occidental Company was a brilliant idea, but it is a distraction from the main prize."

He looked at her, his expression one of absolute, strategic conviction. "All of our resources, all of our capital, every ounce of our energy, must be poured into this. The Northern Project. We must secure the coal fields of the north. We must finally conquer and secure the iron and tin mines of Britannia. That must be the sole focus of our expansion. It is a less glamorous prize than a new world, perhaps, but it is an infinitely more valuable one."

It was a masterful redirection. He had given her a solid, logical, and overwhelmingly compelling economic reason for his actions. It was a strategy she could understand, one that appealed to her practical, mercantile mind. He was trading the romantic dream of exploration for the pragmatic reality of industrial dominance.

Sabina stood on the platform, the heat of the forges on her face, the roar of industry in her ears. She looked at the raw, brutal power laid out before her, and she understood. Her anger at his deception faded, replaced by a renewed, almost terrifying, sense of their shared ambition. Her belief in his strategic genius, which had been so badly shaken, was restored.

But Sabina was no fool. She had seen his desperation in Rome. She knew he had been forced to lie to her, forced to reveal this new, grander secret to win back her loyalty. She understood, in that moment, that he needed her now more than ever. And a good merchant always knows when to press an advantage.

"Very well, Caesar," she said, her voice calm, the crisis in their partnership now over. "I accept this new strategy. It is sound. It is... magnificent." She turned to face him, her eyes reflecting the fire from the forges below. "But my support, my continued management of this... enterprise... comes with a condition."

She looked him directly in the eye, her gaze level, no longer his subordinate, but his absolute equal. "This new industrial heartland you are building, this engine of the state, it is too important, too complex, to be left in the hands of generals and engineers. They understand how to build things. They do not understand how to make them profitable, sustainable, efficient. It needs to be run properly. As a business."

She took a deep breath, and made her demand. It was the price for her continued loyalty, for her silence, for her genius.

"I want control," she stated, her voice devoid of any doubt or supplication. "I want you to create a new imperial office, by Senatorial decree. The Curator Aerarii Industrialis—the Curator of the Industrial Treasury. I will be its first head. I will have absolute authority over the budgets, the supply chains, and the production quotas for every state-funded industrial project. The mines of Noricum and Britannia. The forges of Vulcania. The workshops of the Institute. Celer and his engineers will answer to me."

It was a stunning, breathtaking power play. She was demanding half of his new industrial empire.

She gave him a cool, challenging smile. "You will be the Emperor of the legions and the laws, Caesar. The public face of Roman glory. I will be the Empress of its economy, the silent, unseen engine that makes it all possible."

Alex looked at her, at this brilliant, ambitious, and utterly indispensable woman. He saw the iron will in her eyes and knew this was not a negotiation. It was her terms of surrender. His surrender. He needed her to hold the home front, to manage the immense economic complexities of his plans, especially now that he was distracted by the invisible, existential threat from the Silent Network. He could not afford to refuse. It was a devil's bargain, but one he had to accept.

"The Senate will ratify your new position within the week," he said, his voice flat. He had just won back his most important ally, but at the cost of a significant piece of his own absolute power. He had just learned the true price of his secrets.