Ido not go to bed when I am finally free of Varus and his plots. I am exhausted, but already I can tell sleep will flee from my embrace. My world is still spinning, and the silence only makes it worse.

My family. My friends. Dead gods and stolen Corda. It’s all too much. I am full of secrets and rage that twists, fighting for position inside of me. I am truly lost and alone; part of a rebellion that I am not certain that I believe in.

Maybe I don’t believe in anything.

My feet take me to the infirmary without any prompting.

Anas lies in a bed at the end of the room. The rest sit empty, their sheets folded with pristine, almost military accuracy. Laertes, the Ironbound from the Second Legion, sits at his side, watching over him. He glances up at me before giving me a tired nod. I drag a chair from the front to sit with them.

Anas seems to sleep peacefully. A dozen red-stained bandages are wrapped around his head, neck, and arms. A relic is strapped to his chest with a pair of leather belts, glowing slightly as it does its work. We sit in silence for several long moments, just watching him breathe. He seems at ease, which lifts one of the many weights from my shoulders. I am not ready to lose another friend, another brother.

It is shocking how close to breaking I feel. Brittle, like poor iron or thin ice. Every soul that I have lost feels like a stone tied to my ankles, trying to pull me into the dark with them. I am still a young man, but already my dead weigh me down.

With Anas unconscious, I find myself studying the older centurion from the Second Legion, sitting beside a man from the Twelfth. I do not know why Laertes is here—he did not serve with Anas, did not know him from any other legionnaire, but here he is, keeping watch.

His expression is grim and weathered, like a mountain that has been exposed to the wind for hundreds of years. This is not Laertes’s first time sitting at the bedside of a fellow soldier. It has taken its toll on him, but it has not broken him, like it threatens to do to me.

“Does it ever get any easier?” I ask, breaking the silence.

“I have lost many ironbrothers, but I still feel it every time.”

“You don’t go numb?”

“Some do, using our Symbol like a drink to take away their pain,” Laertes acknowledges with a nod. “But that doesn’t last; it only delays the hurt. Makes the storm worse when it finally arrives.”

“I lost a lot of friends in the legions.” I do not know why I tell him this. He has certainly lost as many, if not more. Maybe because he is the only conscious man who knows my story who was a part of that world. Maybe it is because I am broken and cannot hold my secrets any longer.

“In the shieldwall, you feel them die,” Laertes says, his voice haunted with his own past. “No other Symbol fights like we do—together, even as Coppers. Every time one of us falls, we feel them ripped from the line.”

I’ve never thought about that; I spent little time in the front of an actual battle. But even so, it makes me think of the pack mentality of the Iron Legions in a new light.

“I never mourned them,” I admit ashamedly. It is tradition for the survivors to build a shrine to the fallen, like we once did for Macer. How else are their souls supposed to find their way to the other side? All the guides are dead. We must show them the way. I did not dare risk doing so while trying to keep my secret.

“Someone did,” Laertes promises, turning to fix me with a stark stare. “The Marius brothers did not die in silence. There were those who watched. I know some of the men in the Sixth and Seventh. I promise you they remembered their duty when the Twelfth did not come back from the snow. That is our way.”

His words free me of some of my guilt. Not of surviving, but of surviving in silence.

“How do you bear it, then?” My voice sounds weak and small in the empty room. “How do you keep on when you’ve lost so much?”

The old centurion is quiet for a long moment, as if debating what secrets he is willing to share. “In the legions, they tell us that we are Iron, and so we must endure. But Iron can break. They only need us to last twenty years, then we’re no good to them anymore.”

I nod in understanding, a cold reminder of another of the Empire’s cruel systems. “They do not teach us how to survive, only how to last long enough.”

“Too right.”

“But how do you last?”

The older man eyes me, something glimmering beneath his gruff exterior as he looks from me to my friend who sleeps in the bed. “You make their deaths worth something.”

He makes it sound so easy. Maybe in the Prime Legions, men join for Empress and Empire. But the men of the Twelfth were there to pay for their sins. They died for nothing, killed by an imperator with a vendetta.

Another piece of rust that needs to be cleaned.

“How?”

Laertes just looks at me, his eyes telling me I already know everything I need to. I have seen that look in my officers’ eyes a thousand times.

“You know?” I ask. Even here, in the depths of Varus’s power, I dare not whisper the word rebellion aloud. I cannot, for my oath to this house binds me like a muzzle on a dog.

“Anyone with eyes knows, boy. It’s hardly a secret.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you care? Why are you here? What business is it of ours if the palatine devour each other?”

“I served my Empire for seventeen years.” He shifts so he can glare right in my eye. A fire burns deep in there, buried in the ashes but not out. “In the Second Legion, the best of them. Those Mars-damned Praetorians strut around like they’re the heirs of War, but you’ve been there, you know the truth. Their ranks are full of palatine sons who play games. Not the Second. That’s where the real killers are forged. But when I helped Gaius Marius save those boys from the Twelfth, I was beaten, dishonorably discharged, and sent to die in the Games.”

I am silent, surrounded by thoughts that I am not ready for.

“And for what? FOR WHAT?” Laertes’s voice rises as his rage builds like an inferno. “For saving my ironbrothers? For protecting men of the Empire? For bleeding with the men who bled with us? That is my crime?”

Anas murmurs in his sleep, stirring but not quite waking. Laertes takes a deep breath and leans back in his chair. The two of us watch him sleep for a moment, lost in our thoughts.

“How could I not be here, lad? They sent me here. They told me this was where I belong—and they were right.”

I do not know what to say.

In a moment, I feel selfish—foolish. My life in the Empire was easy until it wasn’t. But to claim that my family’s estate and expansive fields are the norm is a lie. To pretend that many had not been a part of the machine of the Iron Empire, grinding others into dust, was cowardice.

How many of my brothers in the Twelfth truly deserved to be there? Surely the ten boys from Segesta did not. Why was Petrus taken from us? What crime were Antony or Haxus guilty of? What wrong did red-headed Rufus commit that saw him fed to the grinder?

Why did Marcus have to die?

My hands are shaking again as I stare at Anas’s bandaged form. The old centurion notices but doesn’t say anything. Good officers can tell when silence is more powerful than shouting. We both know that his words have struck home. Now it is up to me to find out what color I bleed.

“Thank you for sharing your wisdom, Dominus,” I rush out, standing and giving him a sloppy salute that would have gotten me whipped in the legions. Laertes returns it with a wry smile. He’s already fought this duel in his own head.

“Get some rest, Legionnaire,” he says warmly. “I’ll sit with your brother for some time yet.”

I nod in thanks and hurry to go, head bowed under the weight of the thoughts that it carries. My eyes are distant, unfocused as I walk. Only her voice pulls me out of my stupor.

“Castor!”

I freeze, hesitating at the entrance to a private room in the infirmary. It is mostly closed, but as I push on it, it swings open freely, revealing Alessandra lying in its sole bed. She is pale, and a large series of bandages are wrapped around her entire torso in lieu of a shirt. I look away hurriedly, embarrassed that she might think I am staring.

But that is not the only reason I look away. Guilt surges in me at the sight of her so weak. It is my fault. I failed to protect her. I took too long in my duel with Brennus and in doing so almost let his accomplice kill her.

“Come in,” she asks, her blue eyes holding mine in their grasp. Obediently, I slink in, sinking into a chair that no doubt held her father not long ago.

“How did you know it was me?” I ask, desperate to break the silence.

“I heard someone shouting and assumed it was your fault,” she murmurs, leaning back against her pillows as if the effort of sitting up has worn her out. Her black hair fans out around her like a crown. Despite my burdens, I laugh at her teasing.

“Oh, well, I don’t know why you’d assume that.”

Her eyes go flat as she stares at me like I am an idiot.

“I’m sorry I let you get hurt,” I say when I can bear it no longer.

“You let me get hurt?” she repeats my apology incredulously. “Did you give Brennus or any of his goons permission to stab me?”

“Well, no but⁠—”

“Did you bribe the foreman of the Foundry directly instead of thinking to have an intermediary to make it anonymous, making it simple for the Valerus to find us?”

“No.”

“Did you choose the groom who was on their payroll as our driver?”

“No.”

“Then how in all of the dead gods’ names could you possibly have let me get hurt?” She is still weak from her wound, but her glare is strong.

“I took too long killing Brennus. If I had just finished him off faster…”

“You took too long.”

“Yes!”

“You took too long killing a Praetorian Fidelis. A Silver Ironbound. You were not fast enough killing one of the most dangerous men in the world.” We sit in silence, staring at each other in stubborn frustration. I do not know what to say. How to explain that I had failed.

“Yes.”

Alessandra sighs and glares at me, her irritation shining bright despite her injuries. I am no medico, but I take it as a good sign that she still has so much of her usual fire. “Castor, am I a daisy, a delicate flower?”

“No.”

“Am I some poor plebeian wandering the streets, unaware of the dangers that surround my domus and myself?”

I think back to our conversation at Delilah’s house, where she warned me that my secrets would get her and her family killed. No, she knew the dangers. “Of course not, but I⁠—”

“You are a very gifted warrior. You may be on a path to become the greatest electus to ever live. But that does not make you responsible for my actions. I am a palatine woman, heir to the house you are sworn to. I am an argentum electus. I am educated and dangerous, and I willingly and knowingly chose to take you to Foundry, despite the fact that my own life could be put at risk.”

“You knew Brennus was going to attack?” I ask in disbelief.

“No, I had no idea. But I chose to aid you in breaking one of the core laws of our Empire. Treason seems important enough to be concerned about death, don’t you think?”

I am silent for a moment, boxed in by her superior rhetoric, but still feeling guilty.

“I wanted him to suffer,” I admit at last. Surprise flickers across her expression, and she sits up, groaning slightly as she does.

“Who, Brennus? For what, daring to attack me? I assure you my family has committed equally egregious crimes over the centuries…”

“He killed a friend of mine, in the legions.” I swallow, thinking about wiry Macer and his loyalty that I may have earned but never felt like I deserved. “He killed my friend, and they did nothing because Brennus was a Praetorian and my friend was just some Twelfth riff-raff.”

Alessandra’s eyes go wide, and a hand comes up to cover her mouth. “Castor… I’m so sorry.”

My eyes lose focus, staring at a spot on the wall above her head as I tell her the story. I have never told it before. I am grateful to Laertes for telling me how he carries the weight of his burdens, but he was not exactly my first choice for a listening ear.

But Alessandra? I can tell her about Macer.

I tell her how the officers whipped me instead of Macer the day I became Primus. I tell her about how hard he worked to stand in the lines. How he watched my back when the rest of the cohort hated me.

I tell her how he saved my life in the desert outside Agogia.

When I finish, she is silent for a long time. Her eyes brim with tears, although I do not know who they are for. Macer is long gone; his bones cannot see them. There are no messengers left to carry her sorrow to his soul.

“So you see,” I half-whisper, not looking at her, “I could have been faster.”

“Oh, Castor,” she breathes, and her hand reaches toward me in sympathy, but we are too far apart. It flops to the edge of the bed, a genuine gesture that fades under the pressure in the room. For a moment, I consider rising to my feet and fleeing. I cannot bear to sit here any longer and witness the cost of my vengeance.

“You have saved my life twice already,” she says at last, trying to absolve me of my guilt.

“But I did not⁠—”

“You and I are on a path of danger,” she says with force, cutting me off. She grunts in pain, sitting up to glare directly into my eyes. “My father will not live forever. One day, his enemies will be my enemies. I will be threatened again, and when you save it a third time, you will do better. By the fourth, you will be an expert. Do not let your failings define you, Castor. Without you, I would be dead. If you wish to apologize to me for your perceived failings, then this is how you will do so.”

I blink in surprise at her sudden ferocity. Her eyes tell me that she knows that her father has revealed to me the truth. Her words spark against something that Laertes said, like a hammer striking an anvil as it shapes the iron in between them.

I am not defined by my mistakes. Broken things can be repaired. I am not dead yet. If I am going to carry the weight of all these souls on my shoulders, the least I can do is learn from their ends, make their lives worth something.

I can remember them, but change.

My mother and father might not recognize me, but why should they? When they saw me, I was a boy, and Castor the man has passed through the fires of places they could never dream of. Recognition isn’t a sacred virtue, nor is change. It is what I am becoming that matters.

Alessandra sees something change in my face because her imperious frustration fades in a heartbeat and is replaced by a soft smile. I return it weakly, unused to moving my mouth in such a manner anymore.

“Scar or not, you did save my life again,” she murmurs, holding my eyes with her own. “Last time, that got you a pair of gladii worth more than some estates. What can I do to repay you this time?”

I laugh, eyeing the new Silver veins running down my arms. I have already been given all I need.

But there is something, that annoying little voice whispers in the back of my mind. I feel more like myself than I have since I left the North. For too long, I have been in the depths of despair, hiding in the shadows and cowering from my enemies.

But that time is coming to an end.

My lips quirk, attempting to form into a broad smile as I hold in a laugh. I know what I want. What I am ready for. What I need.

“I could use a haircut.”

The story will continue in

Bloody Sands

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