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Our tale now unfolds in two intertwined threads. First, Brigomarus, the red-haired Gallic captain of Herod’s guard, recounts his brutal past, from slavery and the gladiator’s arena to serving the paranoid King Herod. Sent by Herod’s scribe, Nicolaus of Damascus, to find the famed physician named Adam Aliquis, Brigomarus rides out from Jericho, unaware that destiny is leading him toward the caravan of the Star Bearers.

Meanwhile, Sophia narrates the Star Bearers’ caravan journey from Petra through the desert to Mamshit and toward Judea, filled with poetry, prophecy, and Loukia’s haunting songs of healing for her silent mother, Kaliope. As they near Bethlehem, the group senses both revelation and danger. Their path collides with Brigomarus’s patrol, and when he recognizes Adam as the physician he seeks, he seizes him, and Sophia as well, in Herod’s name. The company cannot prevent it. The chapter closes under a gathering shadow: the healers become hostages, and the road of faith now leads straight into the heart of Herod’s darkness.

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