What does courage taste like? Somewhere between iron and ash, between pine resin and blood warming cold hands, the Dacians stepped into battle wearing animal heads like punctuation marks at the end of fear. In these Romanian mountains, war read like folklore written with smoke. Men did not march, they were unleashed, howling through the Carpathians as if the forest itself had grown teeth and decided Rome needed to be reminded that empires bruise. History says their capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia,

Joseph Married a Pagan Priest’s Daughter—And It Rewrote the 12 Tribes.