She chooses me.
She curls toward my chest, small hand resting tentatively on my ribs. I wrap an arm around her, slow and careful, letting her ease into the shape of me one breath at a time.
Her body relaxes in increments—shoulders last.
“Goodnight, Flavius,” she whispers, voice raw from crying.
“Sleep, Sophia,” I answer.
Her breathing steadies within minutes. Mine takes longer, not because I am restless, but because I keep listening to the sound of her exhale against my skin.
Holding her feels nothing like the arena. Nothing like danger. Nothing like the masks I learned to wear.
This is something I never thought I would have. Something no one taught me to survive.
And still… I want it.
Her fingers curl lightly in the fabric of my shirt, as if even in sleep she refuses to let go.
I close my eyes.
For the first time in my life, I fall asleep not guarding the door, not guarding my heart, but guarding this quiet—this small, impossible peace.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Flavius
I wake before the sun.
Not to danger. Not to footsteps in the sand or the creak of a door.
I wake because of warmth.
Sophia is curled against me, her cheek over my heart, her breath soft and steady, her fingers tucked loosely in the fabric of my shirt like she fell asleep holding onto something she didn’t want to lose.
And Goddess help me—I let her.
Last night’s confession sits in my chest like a stone and like a flame both. I told her about Marcellus. I put the ugliest, most shameful, weakest part of me in her hands.
And I survived it.
More than that. She held it. She heldme.
I lie still, watching the early gray light gather at the edge of the window. My muscles ache with a strange, bone-deep quiet. Not weakness—release. Something I haven’t felt since I was a boy allowed a moment of rest between beatings.
Sophia shifts, her thigh sliding over mine, her breath brushing my collarbone. She makes a small sound—half sigh, half question—as she wakes. Then her eyes flutter open.
Brown. Soft. Clear. And the moment she sees me, something gentle breaks across her face.
“…Good morning,” she whispers, voice still thick with sleep.
“Good morning,” I murmur back.
She studies me for a long breath—my face, my eyes, the place where her hand is still curled in my shirt. “You’re… okay?” she asks softly. “After last night?”
“I am,” I say. And I am startled to discover it’s true. “Because you wanted me to stay.”
She gives a small, relieved exhale.
