Anas and the other ferrum gladiators leave shortly after I switch tables. The three former soldiers stalk out the front without speaking to any of the other gladiators. Anas shoots me a look over his shoulder before nodding down at his hands.

I follow the motion to see his right hand curled in the shorthand gesture for two hours that Percy taught us when he scouted with us. I blink twice in agreement, then he is gone. I spend some time with my fellow Silvers, laughing with them as the hour grows dark.

The majordomo returns with a pair of servants carrying two large flagons of wine, and we cheer as they pour us strong cups. “From the senator,” he announces. Contessa lurks by the door like a proctor, watching the proceedings with a dry amusement but offers no protest as her fighters begin to drink.

“The senator!” we roar in delight. There are perks to being a gladiator over a soldier, I muse as I sip at the delightful red. For a moment, I am neither; instead, I am home, in the house of my father. Evander loved wine; he collected it with rabid interest. My grandfather’s cellar was full to the brim with his favorites. I wonder if the Praetorians looted it before they burned it down. Father would like this one; I am sure of it. He’d probably call it “summery” and ask me about flavors I can never taste.

“Wow, she didn’t give us the cheap stuff,” Illy remarks over the rim of his cup. “She must really want to bed Varus.”

“What?” I gasp, choking on my own sip.

“Oh, come on, now you’re just playing dumb.”

It’s deep into the night when I finally leave the kitchen with the rest of the Silvers. Fannia has an arm thrown over Illy’s shoulder like a brother as we walk toward the fourth floor. “We should go to die in the arena more often!” she crows. Some of the joy seeps from our little group as we remember what the cost of this largesse is. The bill is coming due—it just goes to the butcher, not the banker.

“Sorry.” She gasps, desperately trying to bring the laughter back. But it is broken, like a vase that has shattered and cannot be put back together. We are somber and silent as we part ways for our rooms. My head is light, but I have had less to drink than my companions. Unlike them, I still have things I need to do tonight.

“Sleep well,” Reese calls after me. I shake my head as I slip into my room. I need to focus. The danger has not passed. It will never pass again as long as I live. Tonight, I will get answers. I have no window to check Luna’s progress, but I know the time is coming.

I force myself to wait patiently, tracking the passage of time as Percy taught us. I should be late. It would be suspicious if we were seen leaving together. Five minutes pass like an eon. It is still too soon, I count again, feeling Sisyphus repeating his endless task.

At last, I can bear it no longer. I leap to my feet and race to the door. I open it, half expecting to find my neighbor waiting for me. But the strange, dark-haired woman is not present. I am grateful for her absence; I can bear no more burdens.

I make my way to the front of the building, pleased to see that it isn’t under guard. Contessa trusts us to a point. I have no doubt that anyone who breaks a rule will be punished until they are bloody. Even if that is me, it will have been worth it.

I follow the path from the servant’s quarters toward the main courtyard, staring at the cold eye of Luna. It is past the time that we were to meet. Anas should be waiting for me; I just have to find him. I’m halfway to the carriages when something glints on the dark ground. My eyes dart to a stone that has been scraped by the edge of a knife. Two thin lines run parallel to the ground. An arrow caps the end of one, pointing to the path. A smile blooms on my face as I see another one of Percy’s tricks. I bend over to brush my fingers over the face of the stone, greeting it like it is my lost friend.

“I will see you again someday,” I whisper, knowing that is not true if Charon and Thanatos are dead. How can anyone ever make it to Hades without someone to ferry them there? But the lie makes me feel better, and I know that he will never hear it.

Trusting Anas, I break off the path, heading in the opposite direction that his arrow points. It was a simple trick, but one of my favorites. In the wild, a single mistake can be enough time for a scout to escape without notice. We always put our arrows facing the wrong way in case the Normans found them, so they would waste their time chasing ghosts.

I make my way through the thick grass in the dark, looking for a sign that I am on the right track. Just when I begin to fear that I missed his mark, I see it—carved into the base of a tree. This time, I follow the arrow’s direction. Percy’s logic was that if they figured out our trick, undoing it would fool them a second time. I don’t know if it ever worked, but it made the centurion chuckle, and that was a good enough reason for me.

I head into a dark copse of trees, which sends a tremor of fear down my spine as I step under their dark embrace. It reminds me of the last time I ventured into such a place, far north of here. My hand drops to my hip, but there is no gladius hanging there. I feel naked, despite wearing better clothing than I have in months.

Slowly, I make my way through the darkness, feeling my way with my foot as I take each step. In the distance, I can just barely make out a light dancing through the foliage. Faint music dances toward me in the night. Something is wrong. I seize Iron, sweeping out with my animus, searching through the murk around me.

I have just enough time to sense a gladius sweeping toward me from behind. I let out a grunt of surprise, twisting and reaching out with my hand to grab my assailant’s wrist.

The man lowers his shoulder and rams into me, driving me back with incredible force. My back bounces off the trunk of a tree, and I gasp for air as much of my breath is driven out of my lungs. The sword sweeps back for another attack, this time a diagonal slash that will open me from shoulder to hip.

I duck, trusting the darkness to protect me better than any shield, waiting until the blade bites into the wood with a hearty thunk.

My attacker lets out a curse of surprise as I leap up, grabbing him by the neck and twisting his head, forcing him to the side. He staggers and it’s my turn to shove him into a tree. I draw back my fist but stop as Anas laughs in delight.

“It is you!”

“What?” I hiss in stunned disbelief. “Of course it’s me. Who else can read Percy’s stupid arrows?” Slowly, I release my grip on his shoulders, realizing that he isn’t going to attack me anymore.

“I had to be sure.” Anas slides to the ground in a groan, and after a moment, I join him, leaning against another part of the same trunk. “It’s too dangerous.”

“You know my face,” I protest. “We were in the Twelfth together. I know you never liked me, but why in Dead Mars’s name did you just try to stab me?”

“You’re uninhibited,” he interrupts, leaning forward to look at me in the gloom. “You are uninhibited but still attuned to Iron. You’re free.” His voice is full of awe. “I had to be sure.”

I’m silent for a moment, realizing how strange this must be to him. I have had time to come to terms with what I am, but the members of the Twelfth perished before I truly understood what I was becoming. Anas has seen me summon the Glacialis Falx, but that was merely the first step down the path.

“Yes,” I murmur into the darkness. “It’s really me.” We sit in that companionable silence for a long moment, listening to the faint strains of the senator’s entertainment playing their hearts out. It is healing to keep watch in the night with my legion-brother once more. All my questions, all my thoughts retreat for a moment, so I can hold this precious thing one last time.

But at last, as all things must, it comes to an end. A bout of laughter echoes from the party beyond, shaking me from my communion with ghosts. Saturn may be dead, but time still moves. It will only be so long before we must part again.

“How did you survive?” I ask, sitting forward to fix the man with my most intense stare. He is merely a shadowy outline, but I cannot look away. “Did you get swept in the avalanche?”

“No,” he says softly, as if choking back tears. “I was further behind you and the rest, fighting the berserkir that I pushed out of the way.”

My mind flashes back to that battle as if I am still there. The wind races past me as Aquilo’s rampaging storm howls behind us. Anas tackles the berserkir, opening a path for me to charge at Astrid with Marcus and Felix.

“That Norman panicked and ran the moment the ground started rumbling. I chased him toward our line, which took me out of the path of the avalanche. He saved my life.” Anas’s voice twists grimly. “I still took his.” I pat him on the shoulder, unsure how to console him. Not when I was the one who drew the beast that triggered it.

“Once the pass was blocked, there was nothing to do but stand and fight. Gaius had us holding the narrow entrance so they couldn’t all push us at once, but they had too many furiae, and we didn’t have enough venator relics to bring them down. Eventually, they smashed through our line, and then the real killing started.”

I shudder in rage and shame at the thought of not being there with them.

“Those Marius brothers,” Anas’s gravelly voice is tinted with awe as he continues his story. “Never seen anything like it. They tore through the Normans like they were gods.” The outline of his face turns toward me.

“Is that what you are like now?”

“Maybe one day,” I scoff, hoping he will continue his tale. “I have much to learn before I can claim to be like Gaius.”

“Huh,” he grunts in agreement. “After enough of those berserkirs got past them, the barbarians started cutting through the Twelfth. The snow was red. It was so red.” He takes a shaky breath.

“We knew we were dead, but we did not break. We may have been men of the Twelfth, but by Mars’s Bones, I swear to you we stood to the end. Every last man held the line, and we made them pay for each step with oceans of blood.” He lets out a long exhale, gathering himself. “But at last, there weren’t enough men to fill the gaps. Something hit me from behind. I never saw what, but from the bruise, I think it was one of those damned furia. When I awoke, I was chained to a line of survivors in similar condition.”

“How many of us survived?” I ask, delighted to hear there were more.

“A score, maybe a little more.” His voice does not share my joy.

“Did you see Clintus or any of the others?” I demand. “Did any of the decade survive?” Suddenly, I am not a gladiator anymore, but an officer of the legions, worrying about my men.

“I didn’t.” He shakes his head. “Most of us were rank-and-file men from the cohort.”

“But not all?” My heart skips a beat as the man hesitates, afraid to tell me something that I can already guess.

“Castor, the tribune was in chains.”

Gaius lives. A thousand emotions surge through me before they come crashing down. Something in the heavy set of my friend’s shoulders hints that there’s more to the story, and it is not one that I will enjoy.

“Tell me.”

“The Norman bastards gave him to the Imperials that were with them. They took him away, and I never saw him again.” I feel only the cold grip of fear, deeper than even the chill of Ancient Frost.

In the dungeon, I spent a lot of time thinking about the mysterious women who waited upon Knut. What had they been doing there, working with the enemies of the Empire? They knew Gaius, not only by reputation but personally, and he had recognized at least one of them. Tullia, he had named her.

A long moment of painful silence stretches between us.

“The others?”

“They marched us back to their camp and sold us off one-by-one to slavers that came to trade. Some caravans went even further North. I was lucky that mine came South.”

“Why didn’t you break free? Tell people who you are?”

“Haven’t you heard? The North is besieged. The Lion is out of favor in the court of the Empress. He has accused General Tyrus of deliberately leaving him under-supplied and exposed. None of the other legions have been sent to reinforce Frigidus.” The big man shakes his head. “I figured if I started making some noise, I’d wake up to find I cut my own wrists.”

Tyrus. The general of Agogia who sent us to die in the North. My hands curl into fists as I remember his cold face. Like Atticus, he has taken a family from me. When I have finished with the Censor, I will look for him to repay him for what he has done.

“Enough stalling. How is it that you became uninhibited? How are you free?”

I am silent for a moment, gathering my thoughts. It seems darker now that it is time for me to share my secrets. How much should I trust Anas? Once we were enemies, but we have been forged into brothers. Already, he holds my life in his hands. Why should he not hold the rest of it? I never got the chance to tell Marcus or Felix the whole truth. He is as close as I will ever get to fixing that mistake.

“You remember in the cave,” I say without question. “You remember what we found in the depths after we killed the necromanta?”

“The crypt of Aquilo, aye. How could I forget?”

“Before we ever went to that place, I had already been bound to the ice that comes from there.”

“Bound? The same way you’re bound to Iron?” It’s too dark to see, but I can feel his eyes turn toward the white lines of my rasa veins.

“Yes, after I was attuned to Iron, I also found my way to Ancient Frost.”

“Dead gods protect us,” he whispers in horror. I snort in derision. I tell him everything. My stolen hearts. Atticus and his lies. The murder of my family. The votum first with Nemesis, then with Aquilo. The storm that turned on us.

How I Ascended.

“Jupiter’s Ashes.” He sighs, leaning back against our tree in shock. “If I did not know you, I would call you a madman and a liar. But I was there when you wore the inhibitus the same as me. I saw the cold wind that you brought.” He pauses before turning to look at me. “They will kill you for this.”

“They’ll try,” I agree softly.

He laughs—it is a soldier’s laugh, dry and humorless.

“What are the odds that it is you and I here at the last?” he asks after a moment. “There were nights when I dreamed of cutting your throat while you slept.” He is not joking.

“And there were nights I didn’t sleep because I worried about the same thing.”

Anas grunts in acceptance, but not apology. I don’t think he’s ever felt contrite a day in his life. “Yet now here we are, back-to-back against the tide.”

“Do you mean that?” Despite his harsh demeanor, I’m touched by the former captivus’s words. He’s not a man prone to flowery language. Somehow that makes his declaration mean more than it might from another.

“Gaius was a palatine, but he bled for me, for the plebeian under his command. Percy too. Way I see it, I’m their man until I repay the debt.”

I’m silent for a moment, considering that. I may be patrician, the middle class of the Iron Empire, but I feel the same way about the Marius brothers and what they did.

“You bled for me and mine too.” I extend my hand toward him. “It goes both ways, Legionnaire.” Anas studies my arm in the murky dark for a long moment. I wonder what thoughts are rushing through his brain. Have I made a mistake in trusting him this far?

“Do you know why I hated you when we first got to Agogia? I thought you were like them.” He doesn’t specify who he means, but I know he means the wealthy sons in the higher legions. “Some rich son who was being sent down to slum among the poors until he learned his lesson. You were already Ironbound before you got there. That only screams of being elite. Then you excelled where we all struggled. When they made you Primus, I was so sure.”

“You weren’t the only one.” I laugh, remembering Gaius’s accusations.

“But then they killed Macer.”

My smile dies, doused by the memory of the first casualty of the Fourth Cohort.

“They murdered him, and no one was angrier than you—not even me. You were like Gaius’s stormy shadow, barely able to restrain yourself. That’s when I knew you weren’t what I thought.”

“I am going to kill Brennus Valerus,” I whisper into the night, a promise that is more to myself than it is to the big man.

“Not if I kill him first.” A strangely companionable silence builds between us, two unlikely allies, forged in the same fires.

“How did you end up in the Twelfth, Anas?” The big man doesn’t answer right away. I wonder if I have broken the fragile peace that we have built. I know much of his character, I have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him on a battlefield, but there is much about my last companion that is a mystery. But then he laughs, and my concern about crossing his boundary evaporates.

“It was always inevitable, I suppose,” he says at last. “Father was a drunk, Mother was a prostitute. Ran to live on the streets as soon as I could; it was safer. Was begging by the time I was eight, cutting purses before I turned ten. After that, it only got worse.” I’m silent, trying to imagine being born into circumstances like that.

I am no palatine—my family’s fields are barely a drop in the ocean of the Pelias wealth. But compared to what Anas was given, my childhood home might as well have been set in Diana’s palace. What would I have become if I had been forced to fight for my existence from the moment I was born?

“Some of the gang I ran with got the bright idea to rob an Imperial courier wagon. I wasn’t even a part of it, but it was carrying a portion of the Census itself.” I wince at that. The Censor’s official count of the populace is among their most jealously guarded secrets. I can imagine how strong the response to such a theft was.

“Next thing I know, I’m rounded up along with another score of street rats. Half of us didn’t even do the Mercury-damned thing. But the Censors were out for blood. We’re sentenced en masse, and I got two options: rot in a prison or bleed in the legions.”

“And you chose to go to Agogia?” I ask in surprise.

“Mars’s Rotting Beard, no!” He laughs in scorn. “I knew what happened to the lads that got marched off to the Twelfth. Spent three years as a captivus before I couldn’t handle it anymore. My mind was gonna crack if I stayed in that place another week. Took the service even though it meant restarting my sentence. Then the first thing I see is a bunch of pretty patricians coming to play at being a soldier.”

“There was no playing,” I assure him.

“Know that now.”

The silence between us is more comfortable now. The airing of secrets has a way of smoothing out even the most unlikely of relationships. Despite his past, I trust Anas more than any other living soul. I know his mettle, and he knows mine.

And more importantly, I know that he wants what I do. “We will get our revenge. But it will take time—and be dangerous.” He knows this, but I feel the need to say it. I have led too many down paths that have gotten them killed to do so blindly any longer.

“What’s the worry?” Anas chuckles after a moment. “You and I are already dead. Thanatos is just late.”

“Might as well spend that time doing something with it.”

“You have a plan.” It is not a question.

“Blood for blood.”

He pauses for a moment, considering my words. “How?”

“First—” I cut myself short as something ripples across my awareness like a fish disturbing the surface of a still pond. I twist sharply, staring off into the dark as I send my animus out around us once again. A dozen sets of iron lurk around us—we are discovered.

I freeze, waiting for the guards to accost us, already dreading Contessa’s probing questions. They will see that the brand on my chest matches the one on Anas’s, and it will only be a matter of time before they uncover our secrets.

The former captivus does not speak, but I feel him grow tense. He may not have a Silver’s ability to sense Iron around us, but he can feel the danger radiating off me. He responds to my tension in kind, shifting slowly as he prepares to leap to his feet.

The bits of iron around us are not moving. Instead, they are still, waiting for something. For a moment I think they are spying on us, waiting to see if we will divulge more secrets. But the longer I study them, the more I begin to suspect something else is afoot.

Each of them carries a pair of short swords. Knives and smaller blades are tucked along their bodies in belts and boots. None of them wear lorica or any armor that I can feel.

These are not retired legion guards, or even the active-duty ones that the senator has keeping watch over her front door. This is a different kind of danger. Sicarii—assassins. My head turns toward the distant light that shines through the hedges. The music still plays, wafting through the evening.

They are not here for us.

I lower my right hand and bump it against Anas’s thigh, making the sign for danger that Percy taught us back on the ice. I do not know if he can translate it by touch, but he takes my meaning all the same. I scan the gloom, looking for the threat, but I see nothing. The hair on my arms begins to stand on end as I remember what Reese can do with her Symbol.

Abruptly, the forwardmost pair of swords moves, striding toward the gathering where Delilah hosts Varus and the rest of the worthies. “Kill the spares,” a voice hisses from the dark as the rest follow like loyal hounds.

There is no reply, but two pairs of swords turn, angling toward us, while the other ten head toward the garden party. “Ware! Enemies in the night!” I scream, like a legionnaire on watch. I leap to my feet, leaving Anas to retrieve his blade from the tree.

“East and west,” I shout, positioning myself toward one side, letting him stand at my back to cover the other. Both pairs of swords pause, surprised by my knowledge. As one, they begin to circle, hunting us like sharks. I twist, following the one to the south, letting Anas shift to watch the north.

“I don’t see anything,” Anas growls, holding his blade at the ready.

“Trust me.” I do not want them to know how I am tracking them. If they drop their weapons, I will be as blind as my companion. Behind me, the Northern assailant charges, blades spreading for a strike.

“Forward stab!” I roar, back in the legions once more.

“Huah!” Anas shouts in reflex, taking a step forward and jabbing his blade out at stomach height. His attacker meets the attack easily enough, but that is a mistake. He is not Ironbound. He was not made in the forges of Agogia.

The short sword shatters as Anas’s will crushes it with ease.

For four hundred years, the Iron Legions have carved through the enemies of the empire with ease. Tonight, this sicarus learns why. The ferrum gladiator’s blade continues forward, unbothered by the interference of the now broken blade.

Anas’s attacker screams in pain as my friend drives the sword home, burying it in his gut to the hilt. Now that my friend has his hands on his attacker, he does not let go. He grapples the assassin, carrying him to the ground, ripping his blade free.

I cannot help but be impressed that the second invisible man does not panic. He correctly understands that I am the problem. If I am dead, Anas will not be able to track him and will be easy to kill, even if the gladiator is Ironbound. Unfortunately for him, he seems to think that the fact that I am unarmed means that I will be an easy target.

He surges forward, invisible to my naked eye, but his iron betrays him. He thinks it is loyal to him because he holds it in his hands, but it whispers his secrets to me in the dark like an unfaithful lover. He leads with his left blade, angled low to disembowel me.

I twist, extending my right hand while calling on Ancient Frost’s power. The Glacialis Falx blooms in my hand, the crack of growing ice hidden under the sounds of leaves crunching beneath my feet. I do not try to summon anything other than a gladius. Tonight, that is exactly what I need it to be.

My left hand shoots out, grabbing my assailant’s leading wrist easily, even though I cannot see him. With a grunt, I step forward, headbutting him right where I think his face should be. The world spins for a second as my skull collides with his, but my Cor constitution shrugs off the discomfort. My attacker staggers back a few steps, flickering into view as he loses his concentration on his Symbol. I follow, frozen blade rising for the kill.

He takes longer to recover than me. I do not think he is a Silver; he seems weak and slow. His right sword curves toward me, and I block it without thought, reinforcing the ice in my weapon with my will. As my blade connects with his, I feel as Iron and Ancient Frost mingle and then become one, fused by their union with me.

With a thought, I cut through his weapon like butter, slicing it in half. The assassin must have had a good teacher—he recovers quickly, striking at me with his other blade, but it is too late. No amount of training could make him able to kill someone like me. I twist, letting the blade shoot past me, bringing my own sword back in a horizontal cut across his stomach.

The man drops to his knees in shock. I feel his short sword clatter to the ground as it drops from his numb hands. For a moment, we stare at each other, alone in the world. He is dressed in all black, covered in it from head to toe. A mask hides his face, and a hood covers his head. Only a pair of wide eyes stare out at me from the shadow.

“Please,” he whispers after a dozen heartbeats. I nod, understanding what he is asking. I drive the point of my weapon through his chest. It is a mercy; I doubt even a Gold electus would be able to heal the damage that I had inflicted on him, but he would take time to die. He topples over, and I turn away from his body as Anas rises from the ground, his own opponent lying visible and still at his feet.

“Mercury’s Rotting Balls, what was that?” he growls, sweeping his gaze around the dark copse, looking for more threats. “What did they want?”

“They weren’t here for us,” I tell him grimly, turning to look at the light of the senator’s party. “We were just witnesses.”

In the distance, the music still plays, oblivious of the death that is coming.