Brutus walked across the central floor of the theater, his hands clasped behind his back. Even as Julius felt relief, he saw his old friend too carried a blade in his hand, and he slumped brokenly. Blood poured from his wounds and his vision seemed to sharpen as every sense screamed to live. He felt the hands of his enemies fall away, but he could not move or fight them any longer.

“You too, Brutus?” he said.

Brutus stepped into the line of benches and raised his knife up to Julius’s face. His eyes held a great sadness and a triumph Julius could not bear to witness.

“Yes,” Brutus replied softly.

“Then kill me quickly. I cannot live and know this,” Julius said, his voice a whisper.

The other men stood back in awe, seeing the blood they had released. Julius did not look at them. Slowly, without dropping his gaze from Brutus, he reached to the twisted folds of his toga and drew it slowly upwards.

Brutus watched in silence as Julius showed his contempt for them all. He bowed his head under the toga, folding his shaking hands into the cloth. Then he sat perfectly still and waited for death.

Brutus showed his teeth for an instant, then shoved his knife through the cloth, finding the heart. The tableau broke as the others joined him, stabbing and stabbing at the small figure until it slumped to the side and the last of life was gone.

The susurration of panting breath was the only sound in the world as Brutus looked around the men in the echoing theater. Every eye was on the body that lay between the benches, limp and slick with blood. The dark liquid stained their faces and arms and rested in tiny droplets in their hair.

“He’s dead at last,” Suetonius murmured, shaking as the draining frenzy left him weak and dazed. “What happens now?”

The men who had come so far looked to Brutus for an answer.

“Now we walk out,” Brutus said. His voice shook. “We walk. We go to the Senate house and we tell them what we have done. We have cut the tyrant out of Rome and we will not go in shame.”

He saw Suetonius begin to wipe his knife clean and Brutus reached out a hand, stopping him.

“We will not hide the marks. Let the blood show the honor of those with courage to stand against a tyrant. This is how we have saved the Republic. Let it show. Now he is gone, Rome can begin to heal.”

His eyes glittered as he looked down at the figure of the man he had known and loved.

“We will honor him in death,” he said, almost too quietly to hear.

Those closest to the doors began to walk away and Brutus went with them. The rest followed, glancing back at the scene, as if to reassure themselves of its reality.