“He taught me pressure points. How to breathe through pain. How to make body calm when mind is screaming. How to steady someone who is drowning in their own fear.” A faint, bitter smile. “He said, ‘They will try to make you forget that you are human. This knowledge reminds you.’”
“How long did he teach you?”
“Maybe a year. Then he was sold. Or died. I never knew.” Flavius looks at his own hands. “But before he left, he said something I never forgot.”
I wait.
“He said, ‘The body remembers what the mind tries to forget. Learn its language, or it will speak for you. Learn to heal it, and you can heal others too. This is the only power they cannot take from you.’”
His voice cracks on the last word.
“So I learned. I practiced on myself first—finding the points, the breath, the touch that makes pain ease. Then I used it on otherfighters when they broke. When memories made them shake. When arena took too much and they forgot how to come back.”
His throat works before he adds, “There are wounds no healer’s hands can stitch close. But sometimes… sometimes you can teach body it is safe enough to keep breathing.”
For a heartbeat, his control falters. The grief there is naked… and devastating.
He draws a breath and steadies himself, shoulders settling back into place—not closed, but held. His attention moves to me.
The images won’t stop. My mind keeps recreating what he described—his body tied, vulnerable, the systematic brutality designed not to kill but to teach submission. The boy he helped forced to watch. The trainer’s words:Your body is not yours.
I try to imagine what that would feel like—to have your autonomy stripped so completely, so publicly, so deliberately. To be reduced to a tool while someone calmly explains that you have no right to your own mercy, your own kindness, your ownflesh.
My body does what it does when I take in others’ trauma too directly: it tries to embody it. The phantom sensation of restraints. The imagined impact of wood against skin. The humiliation of being displayed as a warning.
The buzzing lights, the scrape of chair legs in distant rooms, the rough grain of the wooden table—all of it crashes in at once,indistinguishable from what I’m imagining. My breath comes shallow and quick. Black specks gather at the edges of my vision.
Flavius notices instantly. “Sophia? What is wrong?”
I can’t answer. Everything is too loud, too bright, too overwhelming. My fingers tremble violently.
He moves—quiet, controlled, not touching me yet. “Hey. Is okay. You are safe.”
“Can’t… too much…” I manage.
“Is all right.” His voice drops into something deep and steady. “I know this. I see this before.”
Nodding frantically, I try to signal that I understand, even as the world tilts sideways.
“May I touch your hands?” he asks gently. “Philos teach me this. Helps when mind is overwhelmed.”
The name registers through my panic—Philos, the healer who taught him the only power they couldn’t take away.
I should be nervous about this. I’ve never liked unexpected touch—hands on my shoulder in crowds, surprise hugs from relatives, the casual physicality most people take for granted. My sensory system treats uninvited contact like an invasion, something to brace against.
But he’s asking, giving me time to process and decide. His approach—slow, visible, seeking permission—makes consent feel possible instead of theoretical.
When I nod, his hands close around mine—warm, calloused, impossibly careful. He handles me the way he handles a new weapon: with respect, with intention, giving no chance of harm.
“Close eyes,” he murmurs. “Just feel my hands. Listen and follow my words.”
His thumbs press into specific points on my palms—slow, circular pressure that sends warmth up my arms. My breath hitches, but the pattern grounds me.
“In for four… hold for four… out for six…” His voice guides the rhythm until my breathing steadies.
“How do you know this?” I whisper, but I already know the answer. Philos. The old healer who saw a beaten boy and taught him his body could still belong to himself.
“Philos taught me many things,” he says softly. “Pressure points. Breath. Touch that tells body it is safe.” He hesitates. “After the beating, I could not sleep. Could not eat. Body stayed afraid even when punishment was over. He showed me how to calm it. How to remind it… it is mine.”
