Pliny sends me to cultivate until I collapse from exhaustion, although I am relieved that he does not plan on coming with me to see what I do. I can feel the weight of the pondus in my pocket as I walk, and I dread spending time in its grasp.

I make my way to the training hall, pausing only briefly to stop by the dormitories to leave a message for Anas. Many of the gladiators who just returned from Antioch are in different loci refreshing themselves after the trip. I keep my head down, trying to avoid attention, as I walk quickly across the sand, heading for the Winter room.

Despite my caution, I can feel the heavy gazes of my peers as I pass them. I sense it even from some of the ones who were not there, who have only heard the rumor of what I have done. I am a named gladiator now; this is only the beginning. I do my best to ignore them.

The door to the miniature blizzard hisses open, letting out a blast of frigid air that I welcome. I crouch on my knees in the deep snowbank, searching it with my animus to get a sense of its maturity. It has decades to go before it becomes Ancient Frost, but every day that goes by makes it easier for me to convert the essence than it was when Pliny first activated the relic of this room.

Steeling myself, I reach into my pocket, forcing myself to grab the two bracelets of the pondus. Its heavy presence envelops me, holding me down. I shudder even though I am not cold and slip them onto my wrists one by one.

I can still feel my Symbols, but they are muted, distant. It is as if I am reaching for them through a heavy layer of oil. My grip is slippery. I must be methodical with every application of my will, or they will slide right out of my grasp.

I let out a long sigh, forcing my mind to clear of the mysteries that Pliny gave me. They are for another day. My road is long, and I have only begun to walk it. If I am going to make it to the end, I must first fix myself.

Tentatively, I reach out with my animus, sending it from my wrists, through the bracelets. My will slams against the pondus before getting stalled like a herd of cattle coming to a narrow gate. Only a fraction of my spirit can slip out into the world beyond. It is tedious, but at last I am able to connect to the snow and the Winter essence that waits for me to collect it.

Slowly, I pull it into me. Instead of the flood I am used to, it is a trickle. My veins do not burn, but inside my chest, I feel the center of my Cor begin to grow tense as it is forced to exert more pressure to drink from the thin supply. It is miserable, but it pushes me in a way I have never felt before.

Sweat rolls down my spine, freezing before it makes it off my body. My breath comes in ragged gasps, but I do not stop. I welcome the pain, thrilled by the sensation of being pushed. My reserve shakes like a weak muscle being strained for the first time.

When I can bear it no more, I release my animus, sagging as I struggle to catch my breath. I am cold for the first time that I can remember. I run a hand along the back of my neck, wincing as I peel a thin icicle from my flesh.

As I recover, I probe myself, seeking to understand what I have just done to myself. I cannot see them with my eyes, but my mind knows that there are three Corda reserves that burn with essence inside of me. One is small and red; it burns with the heat of Unrelenting Fire. Next to it is a much larger, dark gray Heart, hard and strong. The last is a deep blue, radiating cold like a storm.

Slowly, I compare my two Silver Corda, trying to see if there is a difference between them. In the past, they have been largely identical, except for the essence they are bound to.

But now as I study them closely, I notice a darker line that runs around the outer edge of my Winter reserve like a ring of a tree. Curious, I try to inspect it more closely with my animus, probing at its exterior with my mind. The essence there seems denser and colder.

Or maybe I am imagining things, looking for success because I need it to be true.

Confused, I open my eyes and stare at the pondus wrapped around my wrists. Could it be allowing me to layer more essence inside of my Cor? There was only one way to find out. Squaring my shoulders once more, I stretch my animus through the relic and into the snow, resuming my cultivation.

Hours later, I am certain that the outer ring of my Ancient Frost Cor has grown larger than it was before.

Probably.

My knees ache from supporting me in the snow for so long, but I dare not move. The training hall has emptied out, but I do not trust it. I must be patient. The back of my neck still prickles as if I am being watched. Perhaps it is only Pliny keeping tabs on me.

If it makes my existing Ancient Frost Cor stronger, I am grateful for the time spent suffering in this frozen locus, but otherwise, this exercise is purely a performance. I must show them that I am an obedient patient, doing as I am told and taking this danger to my progression seriously.

But they do not know what is truly wrong with me, so they cannot fix me. Only I can. Six doors down from me in the training hall is the solution to my problems. For now, I bide my time until it is safe to use.

Midnight, true nox, finally arrives, and it is time for me to start my plan. At last, I allow myself to rise from the snow. There is a tenderness inside my chest, as if I have overworked a muscle that is not used to labor. I find some comfort in the feeling, as if my day has not been wasted by meaningless routine.

I twist, stretching my back as I exit from the locus. Cautiously, I reach out with my animus, sweeping for signs of any hidden watchers, but I find none. Which means either I am alone, or those keeping tabs on me are wise enough to not carry Iron or Ice.

I stand in the dark for a long moment, straining my ears to listen. I hear nothing except for my own deep breaths and the echoing silence of an empty building. At last, I allow myself to relax, confident that I am truly alone.

As if to spite me, the far doors of the training facility creak softly as they open, and a figure lets itself into the room, barely framed against the darkness outside. I resist the urge to hide; I have every right to be here. To scamper into the shadows would only make me appear guilty. Besides, I am almost certain that the interloper is my guest.

“Castor?” a hoarse voice calls as the figure approaches.

“Thank you for coming,” I reply with a smile, turning to stride toward Anas. We meet in the darkness and clasp hands, an irony that our old selves would find unbelievable.

“What do you need?” We may be forgebrothers, but that has not made him any more predisposed to small talk. I hesitate for a moment, surprised by my own reticence. It feels pathetic to worry about revealing my new Symbol to him after he already knows the truth. What is one more damning layer upon the pile of secrets he already keeps? He senses my nervousness and cocks his head curiously in the dark, studying me closely.

“I need you to stand watch,” I say at last. “There is something I must do, but…I cannot be seen doing it.”

“What is it?”

I glance down the line of loci to where the red glow of the fire room waits. “When we fought the Shadowbound in the garden, one of them threw me into the brazier of everflame.”

“Vulcan’s bones! How were you not burnt to a crisp?” Anas starts forward, trying to get a better look at me as if he has not seen me a dozen times since then. I step into one of the pools of light so he can see my expression and give him a pointed stare, afraid to even say it out loud.

“It happened again?” His voice is horrified.

“It happened again,” I confirm. I reach over to my left wrist and pick at the paint that disguises my Copper veins. When I have uncovered enough, I hold out my arm so he can see for himself.

“Dead gods preserve us.” I chuckle at that, and after a moment, so does he. He was there in Aquilo’s halls with me.

“I need to go into the fire locus,” I tell him, gesturing down the line. “If I do not cultivate essence for this Cor, it will eventually kill me or break all my Hearts. I need you to make sure that no one sees me in there. Otherwise, they will be asking questions I cannot answer.”

“How long do you need?” Anas’s tone is suspicious, like a legionnaire being asked to cover a shift of the night watch. He suspects a trick.

“As long as I can get,” I tell him truthfully. “I need to Ascend.” His eyes grow wide at that. He is still a Copper, still bound by the inhibitus. To hear me speaking so casually of progressing to Silver must seem like arrogance.

“What do you want me to do if someone does come?”

“Distract them and drop your knife.” I gesture to where it rides on his belt. “I will sense it and get out.”

He blinks in surprise. It’s hard to understand the other ways you can use your Symbol until you Ascend. It’s like imagining a new color.

“I will do this,” he agrees after a moment of thought. “For the Twelfth.”

“For the Twelfth,” I agree solemnly, clapping him on the shoulder. What a thing to bind us together. The last legion is a place for the dregs of society to die, not for friends to be made.

Anas slides closer to one of the massive support pillars, letting its shadows conceal him as he settles in with a soldier’s grace to keep watch. With one last glance over my shoulder to make sure the coast is clear, I stride toward the fire locus whose light dances through the glass. The room is a flat space with a metal grid for a floor. Ignis relics send tongues of flame shooting up from the bottom in random bursts.

It looks like a glimpse into the depths of Hades itself.

At the door, I hesitate, watching the dancing flames lick at the sky like hungry tongues. Before Unrelenting Fire bound itself to one of my Cor, the fire in that brazier burned me with its rage. I remember the heat, the indescribable pain.

I am one with the flame now, but still, as I stand on the precipice, I feel fear. What sane man does not fear fire? Our mothers teach us to stay away from it before we can walk, holding our hands to the hearth to give us a taste of its harsh lick. As I stare into the inferno that waits for me beyond the door, I know I am ignoring all the advice she ever gave me. I am playing with fire and becoming an electus.

Angry with myself, I square my shoulders, forcing these invading thoughts to the back of my mind where they belong. Her wisdom is long behind me; I have taken too many different forks on the path since then. There is no way to go but forward, into the fire.

Besides, if Brogi, that Copper Norman electus, can handle the heat, what do I have to fear?

I raise my hand to touch the control relic for the door, and it sweeps it open, releasing a blast of heat out of its mouth as if it were a hydrus breathing flame. Ancient Frost flees, retreating from the inhospitable conditions like it did when I was poisoned with the inferna venenum, but Unrelenting Fire leaps into my grasp without hesitation.

Slowly, I take a step into the locus, willing the fire not to devour me. I wince as my foot lands on the iron, half expecting to smell the burning scent of leather as my sandal goes up in flame. A tremendous warmth sweeps across me, but it parts around me, obeying my commands. At the same time, my awareness expands to cover the room, filling it in like part of my body.

I crack open my eyes that I don’t remember closing and stare at my foot to make sure that it is safe. But that is silly, I realize. There is nothing about this that is safe. That is not what being an electus is about.

Living safely will not help me Ascend to Gold.

Living safely will not help me kill Atticus.

Gritting my teeth, I step fully into the kiln, letting the glass door slam shut behind me. Fire swirls around me but does not consume me. It welcomes me as kin—as part of its collective. The tension in my shoulders fades as I accept its hospitality. Taking a deep breath, I reach out with my Copper Cor, pulling in as much essence as I can. My Heart leaps in delight as my veins protest, stretching as I work them.

But despite being in the inferno, I am not able to find exactly what I need. Just like in the Winter locus, I must condense the essence, layering it upon itself to match the specific quality of my Symbol. It is not a problem of age, like with Ancient Frost. Instead, it feels like a level of determination. Most flames can be kept. It will burn in a hearth or a firepit. But Unrelenting Fire is more determined, hungrier. It demands to be freed, and the pet fire in this room does not quite have the same timbre. I wonder where in Domus Ignis my new Symbol resides.

Despite that similarity, I am struck by how different its presence is from Winter’s, which seems obvious in retrospect. Iron and Ancient Frost both share traces of cold logic. Unrelenting Fire, however, is a raging river of strength and warmth. Unlike my colder attunements, which numb my pains, this attacks them, burning them out of my muscles. When I first lost myself to Iron, it consumed me and buried me in a place where I felt nothing. No morality or kindness, just the icy determination of an executioner.

But there is a different danger here, I realize as I begin to relax in the embrace of Unrelenting Fire. Its hunger never stops. I feel its desire to spread, to consume. It exists like a feral, starving wolf constantly on the hunt for the next thing that will feed it in its quest. It will only be satisfied when the entire world is fire—when all that remains is ash, it can finally rest. I swallow as a cold touch of fear runs down my spine. Just because the fire does not burn me does not mean that it is my friend.

I am disappointed as I pull in as much essence as I can handle in the heart of the inferno. Part of me was hoping that I would Ascend immediately after coming into this locus. I triggered my inhibitus the first time they put me in the iron room below Agogia. But Ancient Frost took much longer, even when I was in the depths of the North. In fact, I didn’t make significant progress until I went down into Aquilo’s cave. Perhaps it was because Iron has less specificity. Any supply of essence can give me exactly what I need.

But my other Symbols require a more particular strain. If I really want to advance quickly, I will need to find a source of fire that matches what I need. If I am going to reach new heights, I’m going to have to earn it.

Turning away from my disappointment, I slide my focus to my Copper Cor, studying it more closely. What else can Unrelenting Fire do? I know that I can use it to affect my eyes and body, but that feels like something a child could come up with. Safe under Anas’s watch, it isn’t just a good time to cultivate, but also to experiment.

Closing my eyes, I reach out with my animus, sending it through the flames that I touch, just like extending my awareness through a shieldwall when I was in the legions. Slowly, I reach out with my right hand, palm open wide. With a thought, I command the fire to gather before me in a ball. I cannot manifest fire like I can ice, but it is far easier to manipulate than Iron. Unlike either of my other Symbols, Unrelenting Fire is not a solid—it is vis—energy, and it offers me almost no resistance as I shape it with my will.

I contract it with my mind, collapsing it onto itself to become denser. The light grows so bright that I can see it through my eyelids, white hot. I feel the heat, but it passes over me gently.

When I cannot contain it any longer, I release the ball of flame, throwing it forward with my will. I open my eyes, squinting against the harsh brightness, as the attack slams into the far wall, bursting as it encounters the stone. The flames envelop the whole far side of the locus before fading, no longer powered by my will. The white wall, which had remained pristine despite the fire that burns day in and day out here, is charred and black.

Whoops. I stare at the burnt stone, stunned at the hunger of Unrelenting Fire. Perhaps I should not be. It is in the name, after all. I walk forward, reaching out with a finger to touch the wall, relieved to find that it does not crumble at my touch. That would be a difficult thing to explain.

What power.

I can only imagine what I will be able to do once it Ascends to Silver and beyond. But first, I must complete the Copper portion of the path. I step back into the center, pulling more fire essence into me to refill the portion of my reserve that I emptied. My Cor burns as I push it to grow.

Abruptly, I realize that I have been so focused on Unrelenting Fire that I have forgotten to keep my other senses extended to watch for Anas’s signal. Feeling ashamed, I reach for Iron. It is more distant, as if scorched by the heat around us, but comes to my call. I sweep my animus out of the room and over to where my friend keeps watch. As my senses become aware of his knife, I stiffen in fear.

The weapon is not on his belt. It is too close to the ground for that. It can only be sticking out of the sand, warning me of danger.