Istop baking.

Whatever peace I thought I found is lost to me. I spend my days in a haze, training as much as Patricia the Medico, Contessa the Lanista, and Pliny the Magister will allow me. I bristle under their scrutiny like a teenager trapped in his father’s house, ready to escape.

I sit on the side of the training fields and watch the other Silvers train, jealous beyond words. I have tried being, but all it has done is make me confused. I feel like a sword that has been put back in the forge and reheated until all its sharp edges turn round and flat.

I was something, and now I am nothing.

Sleep evades me. I am listless like a tigris stuck in a cage. Some nights, I sneak back into the hall to cultivate fire while Anas watches over me, but it feels like an exercise in futility. My veins have long since ceased to burn from the strain of that inferior fire. I am trapped in a rhythm I cannot escape from, unable to progress in any of the directions that I want to go, and instead, I sit here, stuck.

Often, I wander the dark estate at night, alone with my thoughts, wrestling with ghosts that haunt me. If Marcus were here, he’d shove me into a wall and tell me to get over it. Felix would make some scathing comment about my melodrama belonging on an opera stage instead of in a gladiator ludus.

But neither of them is here to pull me out of my spiral. I have lost them both to the grinding gears of the Empire, and I am no richer for it. Once I walked this path with nine brothers. Now it is only me. Once I told them that I knew where we were going, but now I am lost.

Beyond the ludus section of the estate is another massive pond. When I asked Pliny why there are so many on the grounds, he shrugged and said, “What else do you expect from the descendants of the man that killed Poseidon?” A wrecked ship sticks out of the water, and massive, dark fish move below its surface like hungry shadows.

DO NOT SWIM reads the sign at the edge of the water. This place used to fill me with a sense of discomfort from all the creatures that could eat me. Now, I find that that fear is grounding. I make my way along the stone path to an island that sits in the center. There are no plants here, only the stink of saltwater and waves that are created by some oceanus relic, recreating the dead god’s domain. What would I find if I were to dive to the bottom of this aquarium? Some cave full of loot taken from Poseidon’s final lair?

The island is a large, flat rock that sits in the middle of everything. A small trail of steppingstones leads to the part of the sunken ship, and another wraps out to the far side. There is a small pagoda made of stone on the northern corner and a couple of benches worn smooth by the people who have sat in them over the years.

Luna’s light pours down on the water, and I watch her reflection dance. Mons Olympus does not show in the water’s surface, and I find comfort in that. I come here to think about the gods less. There is something transporting about the sound of waves that seeks to take me to some other place. Before I went to Antioch, I had never seen the ocean. Now, I understand a little of its strange allure.

The sound of a footstep scuffing a pebble pulls me out of my study of the dark water. I turn in surprise to find Rin approaching. The dark-haired woman is dressed in silver, which shines under Luna’s light. In her hands, she carries two wooden training katanas.

She tilts her head, studying me like I am a bug she found under a rock. After a moment of inspection, she tosses one of the swords at my feet. It clatters against the stone.

“Come,” she says, turning to walk toward the middle of the platform. My heart races as I scoop up the wooden weapon and follow in her wake. She makes it halfway before turning to face me. I watch as she settles into a low crouch blade held low and extended.

I stare at her blankly for a couple of heartbeats until one of her dark eyebrows arches slightly, the first expression she has made tonight. Understanding floods through me, and I copy her stance, surprised at the burn I feel in my muscles from the unfamiliar pose.

She lowers her blade and circles me, clucking in disappointment. Using the tip of her training katana, she pushes my left foot back a half-pace. Next, she raises my wrist and straightens my back. My eyes widen at the exertion it takes to hold such a simple pose. My legs begin to wobble after a few minutes, but Rin says nothing, so I dare not move.

When at last she is satisfied, she nods in approval. I relax, groaning slightly in relief. But my new teacher does not let me rest. She falls into the same crouch and adds movement, falling back a step as she raises her blade to eye level where it would be easy for it to block any incoming stroke.

She looks into my eyes to make sure I am watching and repeats the motion. I say nothing but wince as my already stressed muscles complain. I shudder to think how embarrassing this would be if I were not an electus. I am a professional fighter. I train every day, and yet a simple pose felt like it was torture.

I resume the form, unsurprised when she corrects my form with the tip of her wooden sword once again. She moves quickly to settle me into the proper posture before gesturing for me to begin. I pull my left foot back, raising my sword in my best approximation of what I saw her do.

She shakes her head and moves in front of me, repeating the movement. I see no difference between what she does and what I did, but I nod as if I have just gained some tremendous insight. I am terrified that if I am difficult or ungrateful, she will walk away.

I drop back into the crouch, ignoring my thighs’ protest. This time, she only corrects my right foot’s angle before nodding in satisfaction. I smile, proud of my small progress. I fall back with my left foot, and she lets out an exasperated sigh.

“Your hips,” she says, breaking her silence for the first time. She pokes my left one with her training sword. “They go first.”

“Like this?” I lean into the step, angling myself slightly so I am no longer presenting my front fully forward. It feels strange to me, but she nods, and I begin to understand. Legionnaires are taught to take up space. Together, we are the bricks of a wall. But walls are meant to take hits.

In the ring, I am not a part of a shieldwall. I am not there to take blows and dish them back. That’s a recipe for death when I am facing other electi. I need to be a dancer—to present myself as little of a target as possible. That seems obvious now, but it is completely different from how I was trained to fight.

When I finally can do the first step correctly, she teaches me how to advance. From the same pose, she steps forward, angling the point of her katana toward an imaginary opponent for a simple thrust. It takes me fewer tries to master this one. I am learning. My mind races, trying to understand how to put these pieces together, to use them against my enemies.

As if I read her mind, she shows me how to step to the side, circling an imaginary opponent, while keeping my profile as narrow as possible. Then she has me put them together. She flows through the different poses like water. I follow her routine, awkwardly at first, but finding it after a few tries. Already the steps begin to feel familiar, like a dance to a tune I have heard before.

Sol’s light has not yet cracked the horizon when at last she steps back and lowers her sword. I copy her before bowing toward her on instinct. Not as deeply as I did to Hiro, but hopefully enough to show my respect and gratitude.

“Thank you,” I say as I come out of it. Rin looks away, embarrassed by my response. For a moment, she looks like a hero from a story, framed against Luna’s cold light, her black hair dancing in the light wind.

“Why?” I do not need to explain my question further. This time, she looks back at me, and a slow smile plays at the corner of her mouth. I feel one grow on my own face to match it.

“I like bread.”

I return to the kitchen.

Over the next few weeks, a new routine emerges out of my despair. By day, I follow the abbreviated training regimen that Pliny and Contessa allow.

Then I bake a fresh loaf. Palina has given up scowling at me when I steal one of her ovens. I am just a part of her life now. At night, Rin and I share my newest creation on the stone benches by the water while she teaches me kenjutsu—the art of the sword.

I have learned over a score of forms, the true version of the movements I used in the training hall when I learned how to better manifest the Glacialis Falx. Each variation is a puzzle piece I can fit together to form a never-ending dance. Rin insists I learn their names, but she does take pity on me, making translations for them after I prove hopeless at memorizing her native tongue.

“The Water That Cuts!” she snaps from the side, calling out the next set of moves that I must take. I nod, not taking my eyes off the pretend opponent in front of me, flowing forward diagonally in three sharp steps, each punctuated by a horizontal strike.

“The Song That Leaves!”

I retreat, leaning around invisible blows that follow a pattern. The move is different than The Song That Stays or The Song That Is Not. Each of them is designed to follow a series of exchanges that people naturally fall into.

If I swing my sword from left to right, then there are only so many directions that I can move after that. Each variation of the dance takes that into account and is prepared for them. While I understand the vision, part of me—the proud voice of Frigus Ventus that grumbles in the darker corners of my mind—is skeptical about this training method’s efficiency.

It’s pretty, but a fight is not a dance.

When I was injected with my Corda and first bound the Iron Symbol, I remember how different actually using my will was from what the magisters had taught me about being an electus. I had a lot of theoretical knowledge that was useless until I got my hands on it myself. I worry that all these forms will only be more of the same. But I am willing to do anything for a chance to kill Atticus and Brennus. If Hiro will not teach me, then I will take what knowledge Rin will give me.

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy the process, regardless of its potential usefulness. The strange woman has begun to come out of her shell, like a lily blooming in the sunlight. I do not know if she is shy, or if I have just finally earned her respect, but I find myself enjoying my time with her. She is demanding and specific, but not unfair.

It is a challenge to keep up with her in this art that she has been learning since she could walk. I am not the Primus. It is exhilarating, pushing me to new heights. We only use wooden swords. Iron can do nothing for me here. But I find a strange sense of joy in that. There is a mystery to sword fighting without using my Symbol that makes it feel more like an art than it ever has.

“Good,” Rin announces when I have finished the steps that she calls. I let my sword droop as I pant from the exertion. My muscles have begun to grow used to the demands of kenjutsu, but I know it will take months before they are truly conditioned for it.

“Bread,” the dark-haired woman commands with a small smile, making her way to the stone bench where my most recent loaf sits, still wrapped in a cloth to keep it fresh and moist. Luna hovers above us, her crescent shape shining weakly.

My stomach growls, and I accept the loaf to rip a piece from it after she has taken some. She tears into it, sighing contentedly as she chews. I hide my proud smile behind my own chunk of bread.

“You are wasted as a student of the sword,” she says between bites. “You were born to be a baker.”

No, that was someone else. I am merely a flame keeping some of his light alive. I smile and nod in thanks, not ready to tell her about Felix.

“How old were you when you came to the Iron Empire?” I ask, changing the subject.

“Less than three. I remember very little.”

“Why did you come?”

Rin hesitates, lowering what remains of her snack to look at me with discerning eyes.

“To repay a debt,” she says at last, troubled by her words. “When Varus-san was younger, he traveled to the islands of Nihon, where he met my father. Together they—” Her voice hitches ever so slightly, a rare sign of emotion from the cold woman. “My father was killed, and Varus-san avenged him.”

“I’m sorry.”

A heavy silence builds between us. I feel as if I have trod on sacred, painful ground, a private cemetery where visitors are not welcome. It is a place for quiet pain, not to be shared or shown. I recognize it. I have spent a lot of time there myself.

“My parents were killed too.” I offer her a glimpse into my own graveyard. She looks at me with a question in her eyes. I hesitate, unsure how much to share. “I have not avenged them,” I say at last, raising the wooden katana to inspect it.

Rin does not say anything, but after that night, her training intensifies. I do not know why she first chose to teach me kenjutsu, but now that she has seen a glimpse of the pain that I carry, she attacks my ignorance with relentless focus.

We meet for over a month before we begin sparring. As I suspected, all the forms and steps that she taught me do not immediately translate. Rin flows through them like a river, her attacks never ending. I am too slow, thinking about my moves before I make them. She is instinctual, and I am a pretender.

Rin ripples toward me in The Rapids, a series of reckless strikes designed to overcome my tempo. I recognize the first steps of her set and remember that The Stone That Does Not Roll is the preferred counter. I set myself, counting on my larger size to weather her storm.

But I am too slow. A true master of kenjutsu would not need to think; he would see and act. By the time I am settled, she is already inside my guard, her practice sword thrumming as it cuts through the air, trying to reach me.

Abruptly, she shifts into The Way of Fire, changing her stance to make it easier for pure aggression. Rin’s weapon moves in a series of short thrusts that force me to constantly readjust to prevent myself from getting stabbed. She is too fast, too fluid. Once more, I try to shift to a counter to her, only to fall behind.

“Yeowch!” I complain as her sword strikes my left shoulder with surprising strength. I stagger and fail to recover before the point of her training katana buries itself in my stomach, doubling me over. She is an enthusiastic teacher, but not a gentle one. My mismatched Corda roil, groaning under the strain I am putting them through, even though I am not using my Symbols. For a moment, I think I am going to be sick.

“You know you don’t have to hit me that hard,” I wheeze when I manage to stand upright again.

“The harder I hit you, the faster you will learn,” Rin replies, helping herself to more bread. It is sourdough tonight. It makes me think of Valentina; it was her favorite. What has become of her, the last living member of my original votum? Has she become a Censor, bound to the Empress, or have they cast her aside to some fresh horror?

“But the bruises make it harder for me to keep training,” I complain.

“Don’t get hit then, gaijin.” She says the term with more affection than she did when we first met.

“Does your grandfather know that you are teaching me?”

The shadow of a frown flickers over her face like an owl flying in front of Luna at night. “No.”

“What would he say if he found out?”

“That I am being a fool.” Rin picks up the loaf and tears another hunk out of it, done with the conversation. I do not think that she is a fool. I think she is beautiful and strong and wise. As we sit together in the dead of night sharing bread, I wonder if this is what old Hiro meant by being.

I realize that I don’t care. For the first time in weeks, I do not feel stagnant and trapped. It is the closest thing to being happy that I have been in a long time.