He makes a small rolling motion with his hand. “Up, down. Up, down. Like waves on bad-weather sea. Too many thoughts in small space.”
I glance down and realize he’s right—my muscles are tightening and releasing in tiny pulses, the way they do when I’m looping something.
I exhale slowly through my nose. “Accurate,” I admit.
He studies my face. “Training was… too much?” he asks. “Too loud? Too… real?”
“It was a lot,” I say, because he deserves honesty. “But not in the wrong way.”
Something eases around his eyes. “Good,” he says. “You stood very steady.”
You have no idea,I think.You have no idea what that did to me.
We reach the main path that leads toward the dining hall. Voices drift from the open doors—the clatter of dishes, the smell of coffee, someone laughing too loud at something that probably isn’t that funny. My stomach notices, belatedly, that the last thing I ate was a protein bar before dawn.
“You should eat,” Flavius says, as if he heard my thought. “Your brain works better when you eat.”
I lift a brow. “You literally just finished fighting for two hours.”
He tips his head, mouth quirking. “Yes. But I need shower first. Very sweaty. Not fair to others.”
“Fair point.”
He laughs under his breath.
At the bottom of the dining hall steps, we pause. People come and go around us—staff in sanctuary polos, a couple of early tourists with maps in hand, a little kid dragging a plush tiger by the tail. The smell of bacon and toast wraps around us.
“You eat,” he says. “I will shower, change. Then make jokes for children.” The word jokes lands differently now. I know exactly what he’s putting on and how much he’s holding back. “I eat later. After demos.”
“Okay.” I pause to make sure he sees my face when I say, “Thank you for letting me watch.”
His gaze holds mine, steady. “Thank you for staying,” he says.
Heat pricks behind my eyes. I swallow it fast. “See you later,” I manage.
He nods once and peels away toward the cabins, the sun catching fire at the ends of his hair. People instinctively move out of his path without knowing why.
I turn toward the dining hall and nearly collide with a man-shaped wall.
Not metaphorical. Actual.
Sulla.
He’s coming out as I’m going in, a chipped ceramic mug in his hand. Up close, he’s all angles and scars and gray at the temples, like someone took the idea of Taskmaster and carved it into a person. Even in a sanctuary T-shirt and jeans, he radiates that specific kind of authority that makes people stand up straighter without thinking about it.
Laura warned me about him in my first week. Formerludusmaster—the trainer whose authority in the training ground was absolute and brutal. He’s been at the sanctuary since the beginning, but no one’s quite sure why Laura keeps him around. “Difficult” was the diplomatic word she used.
We both stop short.
“Watch your feet, scholar,” he says.
My brain scrambles for an appropriate response. “Sorry,” I say. “I was… thinking.”
One thick brow twitches. His gaze slips from my sand-dusted jeans to my face, then over my shoulder in the direction Flavius walked away. Whatever he reads there seems to satisfy him.
The nod he gives me is short and deliberate. Not the polite one he gives to tourists. Something else—a kind of acceptance I wouldn’t have expected from a man whose cruelty once keptgladiators in line. Maybe that’s why Laura keeps him around. Maybe redemption is possible even forludusmasters.
Then he steps aside and leaves the doorway clear.
