The barracks. Men shaking, weeping, staring at walls that weren’t there. Hands on shoulders, backs, and necks. Pressure and breath and murmured words in half a dozen languages. Keeping each other from shattering.
“It kept us alive,” I murmur. “In here.” I tap my temple. “Gave the mind enough quiet to survive another day.”
“Then it’s worth at least exploring,” Laura says. “One careful step at a time.”
Careful steps. I know those. In the arena, one wrong step meant death. Here, maybe a wrong step only means awkwardness, discomfort. Maybe this is a risk I can afford.
I nod slowly. “Will think about it. About how to begin.”
“That’s all I’m suggesting.” She pushes away from the stall door, straightening. “In the meantime, keep humming. It suits you.”
I snort, embarrassed, but I’m smiling as she walks away.
When the sound of her footsteps fades, I stay with Apollo a little longer, letting the brush move in slow circles over his coat. My thoughts don’t go back to the arena this time, or to the demonstrations, or even to the faces in the stands.
They go to Sophia.
To the way her fingers curled around mine. To the tremble in her voice when she asked me not to let go. To the fierce, focused look she gets when she’s trying to understand something new.
Laura is right. If anyone can help me find words for old knowledge, it is Sophia. And the idea of working with her on something that mattersnow—not just in dusty books or academic arguments, but in living bodies and beating hearts—makes my chest feel too small for what’s inside it.
By the time I put away the brush and step out of the stall, I’m walking faster than I mean to. The path from the stables to the main building is one I’ve taken a hundred times, but today it feels short, like the world has folded in, narrowing to one point: the conference room where she usually works, the office where she sometimes hides when she needs quiet, the places where I might find her.
For the first time since the ice cracked and spat me into this impossible century, I am not just moving toward the next performance, the next crowd, the next day of pretending.
I am moving towardsomeone.
The feeling in my chest is sharper and truer than anything the arena ever gave me.
Chapter Eleven
Sophia
Laura caught me after breakfast. I had just stepped into the courtyard, coffee in hand, when she called my name in that tone she uses when she’s pretending something is offhand but it absolutely isn’t.
“Had a conversation with Flavius this morning,” she said, leaning against the railing as if she wasn’t watching me for reactions. “About the healing work you two are documenting together.”
My stomach did a small flip. We’d agreed he’d teach me Philos’s techniques, and I’d document them for preservation. But something in Laura’s tone suggested this had expanded beyond our original plan.
“He’s thinking bigger now,” Laura continued. “Wants to actually use it—help people here at the sanctuary. The trauma support program. Staff. Maybe even some of the other gladiators.”
My pulse quickened. That was more than documentation. That was… real. Active. A living practice, not just preserved history.
“He’s nervous about it,” Laura added, her voice softening. “Worried he’ll disappoint you. That he won’t be good enough. But he kept coming back to you—how you understand both the history and the healing. How you could help him bridge the gap between what he knows and how to teach it properly.”
Heat shot up my neck. He’d been thinking about me. About us working together on something that mattered.
“He didn’t use the word ‘partner,’” Laura said with a knowing smile. “But that’s what he meant.”
Partner. The word landed deep, heavier than I expected.
I heard myself answer with a calm I absolutely didn’t feel. “If he wants to expand this into active practice, I’d be honored. I’m absolutely in. We can develop a proper framework. Make it sustainable.”
Honored. It came out measured. Appropriate.
In my head, everything was screaming. My chest was doing strange, uncooperative things. I barely slept last night.
And he trusted me so much that the effect was seismic.
