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His darkest moment is filled with light.
Even in death, Sura is brighter than any star in the Heavens; her eyes, wet with pain and sights of what is yet to be, outshine the Sun, Apollo's fucking carriage and all the gold in the world.
She is leaving him, leaving life in his arms, and yet the blood on her cheek cannot stain the beauty of such beloved face; the smell of it never erasing the sweet scent of flowers and home and freedom he used to taste on her skin, when her lips and her thighs and their love were the only thing that held meaning to him. When she dies, Hope and Life die with her; Spartacus is left with a cold body and an empty, silent chest.
Sura's last gift is not a kiss, nor the sweet sound of his name one last time on her lips. Instead, one spark of the fire that burned inside her lingers on, not enough, never enough to keep Spartacus warm, but enough to guide him, to show him the direction his destiny unfolds in; his darkest moment is filled with light.
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His darkest moment is pierced by spears.
Crixus is jolted away by the wet, sickening sound of throat ripped apart by wood; by the raw, coppery smell of thick blood spit out of a wound so deep you might fall into it. All he sees is black, and shadows twisting against darker shadows; the moon and the stars are hiding behind a curtain of clouds for they, too, do not wish to witness this night.
Crixus can't think, he can't run, he can't see, he can't scream. He hears whispers, a cry, loud and far away. He thinks, maybe we're safe; maybe they're not coming for us. But it isn't so; his father dies. His brothers die. Spears rob them of their lives and Crixus can see that because there is fire, red and orange and calling his name, calling him a coward, a useless cunt.
They throw him into the dirt and deeper against the shadows; the last he sees of his family, they're just bones and bodies, split and impaled and bloody and dead. He knows he will dream of this, he knows nothing will ever be worse; his darkest moment is pierced by spears.
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Her darkest moment, she cannot understand.
He left with a promise, he swore he would find his way back to her arms and she prayed the gods till her knees bled, till her voice thinned to no more than a whisper; he never should have left her side, but what other choices did he have? What other choice did they have?
So, she agreed. She watched him leave and hoped and hoped to see him come back; he promised he would. He promised, and he was never a liar. Aurelia shuts her eyes, she calls his name; strong hands, rough in touch and quick and unkind grip her thighs, her hips, hard enough to bruise. Her hair is pulled, her mouth filled with the taste of blood and when she finds she cannot speak anymore, she prays in her thought.
Varro will come to save her, just wait and see. He was always there for her; this time he is not, and in her darkest moment, Aurelia cannot understand.
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His darkest moment, he spends it whispering to their birds; they do not understand, the do not even listen, and it is just befitting an end to the lie he has lived all this time.
Pietros wishes he had been deaf and dumb as well, to be absent mind and pain and all that comes with love and deception. Death gives peace to his heart, and their birds beak at his feet.