After the Censor leaves, Pliny escorts me back through the library to the main courtyard, trusting me to find my own way back to my sleeping quarters. I am struck again by how little like a prisoner I feel, despite being owned like a dog.

For a moment, I pause by the fountain, listening to its calm bubbling as I gaze at Mons Olympus drifting above. The floating mountain is almost directly overhead here, because Anteforum is north of Segesta.

The old gray rock is quiet as ever, glowing softly with Luna’s light. My eyes scour over it, looking for some sign of life, some hint that other gods lurk there, just as Aquilo rots in the far North. The tingling pressure that often haunts me builds for a moment, but then it fades, as if distracted. Whatever mystery awaits in the home of the gods, it is for another day.

Eventually, I return to my room and stare at myself in the mirror that hangs in my little privy. It has been months since I’ve studied my own reflection. I do not recognize myself. I’m far too pale, having been cooped up away from the light. My eyes are tired and heavy for my age. Wavy brown hair hangs down to my shoulders.

In the legions, I would be beaten for looking so disheveled, for having hair so outside of regulation. Part of me aches to cut it, to return myself to a sense of normalcy. But I am not in the Twelfth anymore. My cohort is dead; I am the only one left. I do not deserve to look like their brother, not after I left them and lived. The long hair stays—the only penance I can afford.

Troubled, I curl up in my nest of blankets. Sol will still not rise for a few hours, and although I am petrified by the thought of being inspected by the Censors, I know that I should try to rest, but sleep feels so far away. Tomorrow, I might die. If I do, then I will have more rest than I could ever need. I close my eyes, burrowing into the darkness to hide from my fears, nestling in its embrace until sleep finally finds me.

The training ground is darker than I expected as I step out into the sands of the arena to be judged. The lumos relics above it blaze, shining down on me with the power of the noon sun, making it like an oasis in a desert of night. Everywhere else in the building, they are off; even the essence rooms are all powered down.

I cannot see the judge who watches, but I can just make out the soft edges of its form as it prowls around the arena like a lion. Its menace is a feral, hungry thing that lashes against the barrier.

“Begin. Let me see if you are worthy,” a voice calls from the darkness. I do not recognize it. It is neither masculine nor feminine but instead filled with the ringing of bells. Its inhuman tones crash down on me like waves.

I draw my gladius. Or do I? It is my hand. Maybe it was already there. I look around the empty room, but there is nothing for me to fight. That’s not why they are here.

No, they want to see me use Ancient Frost to show them that I am an electus worthy of the Games. I look down, and the sword in my hands is now made of ice, replaced by the Glacialis Falx. That feels right. I cannot show them my iron.

I summon a second copy, crossing them as I twist the blades, letting curved spikes grow out of them like thorns. I need to show them that I am strong. That my white rasa veins are not a sign of weakness. I must be allowed to fight in the Games.

I need to be free to carry out my vengeance.

“A cute trick,” a woman mocks from my right. The tolling bells are still present, but I can hear her voice bleeding through it now.

“Why do you waste your time with lesser gifts? Why do you ignore the true power that you carry?” she presses.

I pause, letting my arms go slack as I scan the darkness that surrounds me. Her words confuse me. This feels wrong, like I am in another place. The swords in my hand do not feel real, but my mind thinks they are. It reminds me of when I was trapped in a dream relic during the Sententia.

In the distance, a wolf howls. The scars around my wrist—relics of a long-healed bite—begin to itch.

“Who are you?” I demand, turning in a circle. Laughter comes from all sides, full of bells. She is not mocking my fear, but my stupidity. I should know who she is.

I do. But I am afraid to admit it.

“Speak my name, Ovicula,” she commands. “Call out to me, and I shall appear.” A shadow forms on the edge of the arena that I am trapped in. It is hard to make out, a pool of deeper darkness on the night that surrounds me. But I recognize her figure. I have seen her before.

I hesitate, terrified.

“You were not afraid to cry out to me in the depths of Winter’s fury,” she criticizes. “How you begged for my aid when you were in danger. Did I not guide you out of my brother’s frozen home? Have I not put your feet on the path that you asked for? Treat me fairly, as I have done to you. Or you will taste my vengeance.”

“Nemesis!” I cry into the void. The silence that follows is heavier. It holds a weight that is not physical. A thousand possibilities, an infinite number of futures, hinge on what I say next. I cannot breathe except to speak.

In the darkness, a single bell tolls.

“Nemesis,” I repeat, emboldened by their reactions. The pressure on me has grown a thousandfold, and I feel as if I might be torn into a thousand pieces if I do not act.

The bell rings again, louder this time.

“Nemesis! My brothers have been wronged! Their blood cries out to you from the ground, waiting for you to avenge them. Come and claim what is yours! Wield me as your weapon and taste our revenge.” The pressure on me vanishes in an instant, like a candle being blown out. For a moment, I sit in the void, waiting for the headsman’s axe to fall. But nothing comes.

The bell rings one final time.

The shadows sweep forward to swallow me. Nemesis is the daughter of Nyx, the Goddess of Night, and she flaunts her mother’s power as her own. I can barely see a dozen paces ahead of me in the murk. Then the goddess is here. She appears as bones, a skeleton floating just above the ground. Like her siblings, Nemesis is a giant, and I gape in horror as her body stitches itself together before me.

Pale flesh begins to creep over her innards. A dark cloak appears out of nowhere, covering her from my sight. I am relieved to be spared from the horror of seeing her rotted skin—I have seen enough living corpses to last me a lifetime.

A matching black blindfold wraps around her eyes before they form. As it finishes, Nemesis lands lightly. Her black hair fans around her, a shadow against the night that she travels in. The goddess is more whole than Aquilo.

Her head tilts down to stare at me. Blindfolded or not, I’m sure that she can see me better than I can see her. The votum in my right hand grows warm to the touch as her animus passes over it.

The goddess’s mouth curves upward into a sharp-cornered smile as she tastes the oath. My heart races as her face takes on a cruel light. I should not be surprised; vengeance is not a kind attribute. I wonder if I have made a mistake.

“For too long have I slumbered,” she murmurs, staring at me hungrily. “I thought that this was but a dream, a trick of my siblings to keep me distracted. But I am awake, I am certain of it.” I swallow nervously, unwilling to point out that I am fairly certain that I am the one sleeping.

“You have such anger,” she continues, tilting her blindfolded head to study me further. My senses recoil as something heavy and overwhelming drapes over me, scouring every inch of my mind, body, and soul. I am measured and weighed. “Such power. You remind me of him.”

“Who?”

The world blinks. One moment, she stands at a distance; the next, she is before me. My right hand is held in her cold, rotten one as she stares at my wrist—at the purple scars left by the wolf mythos during my Sententia. They burn against my skin, reacting to her presence.

“You bear the mark of my siblings,” she spits, disgusted and delighted. “Always testing. Experimenting. They search for one but do not know when they find it! Fools! Fools! The centuries have rotten their brains.”

“You know what this is? What they did to me?”

“I accept your offering,” she hisses in delight, ignoring my question. “It has been centuries since someone has brought a blood oath to me. Too long have I slumbered, unable to live, unable to wake, unable to dream.”

“I’m the first?” I ask in surprise. I’m shocked that no one else has been this stupid for over a hundred years. It puts my idea into terrifying perspective.

“You will spill the sacred blood you have promised. Feed me and make me whole,” she hisses, ignoring my question. “Then together we shall seek vengeance on my siblings and their rotten world.”

“Together?” I have already had enough dealings with the gods; I have no desire to interact with them again. I want only to avenge my family and brothers and to be left alone. Nemesis laughs, her voice echoing with the peals of the bells once more.

“They will not let you live, Ferrum Miles.” She calls me an iron soldier in the language of the ancients. “You will hurt them, and they will hunt you to the ends of Terra.” Her promise sends chills rushing down my spine.

I open my mouth to protest, but the goddess continues, speaking over me. One does not simply interrupt Nemesis.

“Our oath is not yet complete, mortal. If you wish for my aid, you will bring your blood—your votum—to me in my temple. But first, you must wake.” The darkness that swirls around the daughter of night sweeps forward, enveloping me until it is all I can see.

“Castor, get your ass out of bed right now!” Contessa barks, pounding on the door to my quarters. The darkness has become the back of my eyelids, and I wince against the sunlight pouring into my room as I open them. I’m coated with a thick sheen of sweat and twisted in my nest of blankets on the floor.

It was only a dream, I realize as the lanista continues to hammer away. I hadn’t actually been summoned by Nemesis. It was just a nightmare, nothing more. But as I look down at my right hand, the votum is there. The bloodstains, which used to be faded and brown, are bright-red, as fresh as the day they were made.