The morning air hung thick over the waters of the Golden Horn, the inlet cloaked in the scent of salt, wood tar, and distant smoke. From his post atop the inner sea walls, Markos peered through the early haze, his fingers tightening around the shaft of his spathios. Below, in the harbor, the ships of the Latin crusaders maneuvered like predators. Dozens of Venetian galleys pressed forward, their armored prows shimmering. Markos, a centarchos of one hundred Varangian axe-bearers, was stationed near the Blachernae sector—one of the few stretches of Constantinople's seawalls considered vulnerable. He could see firepots being readied aboard the Venetian vessels and the telltale glint of grappling hooks in motion.
The defenders of Constantinople had failed to secure the heavy chain that once protected the mouth of the Golden Horn. With the traitorous assistance of the deposed prince Alexios Angelos and the Venetian fleet under Doge Enrico Dandolo, the Latin forces had bypassed the city's strongest naval defenses. As the attackers moved to press the breach, Markos shouted orders down to his men in a mixture of Greek and Norse-accented commands, drilled into them for months. His unit—an elite splinter of the Varangian Guard—stood ready, their polished axes gleaming with the weight of centuries-old loyalty to the emperor.
Crusader troops surged off the decks as their ships made contact with the walls, scrambling to scale ladders or leap onto floating platforms. Greek archers rained arrows from above, while the defenders hurled stones and pots of fire at the swarming ships below. But some enemy soldiers, particularly the armored Flemings and Franks, were already climbing. One ladder struck the battlement near Markos, and he personally hewed down the first invader with a brutal sweep of his spathion, then kicked over the ladder as flames licked the base of the tower. "Hold the line!" he roared, catching the eye of a younger guardsman who had frozen in place.
The battle grew savage and confused. Latin troops had managed to secure portions of the lower harbor wall and were flooding in through breaches made by siege engines. The clang of steel against steel rang out amidst the shrieks of the wounded and dying. Markos fought beside his men, the Varangians forming a shielded wedge to push back the enemy, their axes rising and falling in grim rhythm. But the Latin pressure was relentless. The makeshift barricades at the base of the walls collapsed under the weight of the attackers, and cries of "Alexios! Alexios!"—supporters of the exiled prince—mixed with Latin prayers and war cries.
Despite their valor, the Varangians were being stretched too thin. Markos knew the wall could not be held indefinitely. Over the next two hours, the Venetians landed more troops behind the initial assault, while Byzantine command faltered under Emperor Alexios III's indecision. Supplies meant to reinforce the defenders never arrived. Markos found himself fighting alongside civilians and hastily armed monks—each more determined than trained. He took a deep cut to the shoulder while saving one such boy from a Norman pike, and in that instant, he saw how little the city's high walls could guarantee survival if the heart of the empire was already failing.
By late afternoon, a section of the sea wall had fallen. Markos, bloodied and weary, gave the reluctant order to fall back to the second line of defenses. The breach of the Golden Horn had begun the slow unraveling of the city. As they retreated, he looked back over the harbor and the rising smoke, knowing the battle was far from over—and that something worse awaited the soul of the city. But even then, beneath the thunder of war, a whisper from the shadows tugged at his thoughts—a dreamlike voice calling him by a name he had forgotten, reminding him that this siege was only the beginning.
Night fell with a breathless heat, pressing down on the city like a smothering veil. The breach had been repelled temporarily, but the price was evident in broken stone, blood-slicked alleys, and the growing tension among the people. Markos limped through the dim corridors of the Blachernae district, his wounded shoulder wrapped in linen, his axe still at his side. Word of a fire spreading from the Latin quarter reached him just before midnight—initially whispered, then shouted as church bells began to toll in alarm.
The blaze had started near the docks in the Perama district, where Venetian ships had offloaded supplies and troops earlier that day. Rumors flew—some claimed it was a Greek mob seeking revenge for the invasion, others swore it was the Latins themselves, torching the homes of suspected loyalists to the Angeloi. Markos, leading a detachment of Varangians toward the sea walls again, saw the sky turn a sickening crimson. The wind, a cursed ally of destruction, carried the flames from the waterfront to the tightly packed wooden homes of the Latin merchants.
By morning, the inferno consumed entire neighborhoods. Black smoke choked the avenues of Constantinople, blotting out the sun. Screams echoed from burning tenements, and families fled with bundles clutched to their chests. The Emperor's guard, stretched thin, could do little but try to control the panic. Markos led his men in a desperate attempt to open firebreaks in the Aurelian quarter, wielding axes not for war, but to cut down homes in the path of destruction.
Still, the flames leapt across alleys and marketplaces. Churches were lost, relics burned, and the treasured manuscripts of the ancient world smoldered to ash. Markos, his lungs filled with soot, found himself dragging an old woman from a collapsed home, only for her to die minutes later from the smoke. His hands shook. "This is not war," he muttered to himself, "this is madness." Yet the fire raged on, unchecked, a symbol of how little the emperors held sway within their own walls.
By the second night, the Varangian Guard had joined monks and civilians to form fire lines from the cisterns, but the chaos worsened. The foreign mercenaries grew distrustful. Riots broke out in the northern quarters. Markos nearly lost his life when a gang of looters mistook him for a Latin sympathizer. Only his Imperial crest spared him—a badge he now wore not with pride, but with the weight of guilt. The city was unraveling from the inside, and the fire had become both cause and metaphor.
Standing atop the Forum of Constantine as dawn broke on the third day, Markos stared across the charred rooftops of the capital. The Latin quarter was in ruins. Thousands were homeless, the people bitter and faithless. In the smoke, he thought he saw a shadow—horned, feminine, watching him from the far parapets of the burned church. It faded with the wind, but he could still feel her whisper from the dream: "It doesn't matter how far you are. I found you. And now you will be mine again."