Just because she isn’t allowed to push my Cor in training doesn’t mean Contessa has any intention of taking it easy on me. The next morning the entire complement of Silver gladiators marshals in the training hall under the severe gaze of the lanista. I am sweating, put to work as if I had not just survived a set of the Games. All of us have heavy weights strapped to our shoulders on a yoke as we run in circles, carrying more than any non-electus could.

“Pick up the pace!” Contessa barks from across the hall. “The games in Forum are in six months, and I swear by the dead gods you will be reborn by then!”

“I was under the impression that process took at least nine,” Illy grumbles under his breath to me as we move at a brisk trot, shoulders hunched under our burdens. In the center of the room, several Gold gladiators train. Malus Mors holds off two other fighters at once, swinging a giant sword I could barely lift even with both hands. Beyond him, Fantasia blurs as she passes through solid objects as if they were air. She is like a ghost—a deadly wraith.

“Perhaps the lanista wishes us to remember that the impossible is expected of us,” I grunt back, feeling sick to my stomach. My mismatched Corda twist in complaint, racking my body with pain as I draw from their strength. This challenge is difficult for all of us, but in my condition, it is almost unbearable. What will everyone think of Frigus Ventus if he passes out in the middle of a simple physical exercise?

“I’m sure you’ll find a way to pull it off,” the shorter gladiator retorts. “All part of your budding myth. He can see invisible men, carry more weight than a dozen soldiers, and be reborn in the blink of an eye.” Despite the friendly banter of his words, I feel a trickle of sweat run down my back that has nothing to do with the exercise that we are performing.

Illy was the only other person in the ring with me when we fought Impostor, the false teleportation gladiator. He has the most reason to doubt exactly how I knew the trick that they were playing. Too many questions about that could get me killed.

“Oh come on,” I reply, trying to sound embarrassed. “You and I both know that I just got lucky. Thank the dead gods for putting Reese in our ludus. Without her, we’d both be rotting in some unmarked grave while the Heartsmiths cleaned our blood from our relics.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you get lucky,” Illy replies, shooting me a wry glance. “I have seen you persevere, but I see no sign of Rotten Fortuna bestowing any latent blessing upon you.”

“That’s not true,” I protest, trying to joke my way out of this conversation. “All of us are blessed to eat at the mess hall here.”

“The food is good,” he allows, turning to look ahead. The two of us have passed most of the other Silvers; Contessa’s lesson about not holding back has been well-learned. Only Obellius is still ahead of us. The massive Rock electus powers forward with a load double my own. He’s not the sharpest gladius in the armory, but there is no denying his strength.

“But you and I both ended up here,” Illy continues, turning to fix me with a penetrating stare. “I’m not sure I would call that any sort of fortune.” I am silent for a moment, torn between taking an out to distract from this dangerous conversation and… something else.

An instinct left over from another life.

Are you watching, Durus? Looking to see if the lessons you tried to teach me stuck? I remember following in his shadow at Fort Frigidus, visiting the men, learning how to reinforce them with a joke or a casual word. The Iron Legions are only as strong as the men who held it together, and the wise centurion worked hard to strengthen their courage as well as their arms.

Ludus Pelias is not a legion, but we are at war. The stakes demand that we win the Games or watch our domus fall. If Varus is killed, I have noiallusions about what will happen to us. Those lucky enough to survive will be sold to other houses that will use us with less kindness.

But for me, Frigus Ventus, the only named Silver gladiator in the circuit? I had no doubt that I’d find my way into a Valerus dungeon, where Brennus and his terrifying mother could exact their revenge.

My chance at freedom would die with Varus and his house, and then I would die. Nemesis may be free and roaming the world, but I did not think she would protect me. The stories about the gods do not make them sound like guardians, only harsh taskmasters.

If I am going to be free of this place, there is only one way. I must win, and my comrades must win. We must tear through the Forum games like Fidelia among normal men. But the rest of the draft doesn’t trust me. None of them other than Illy even particularly like me. What could I possibly do to alter that course?

Besides taking a risk and following the example of a better man than me, of course.

“You’re right,” I admit with a slight chuckle. “Fortuna’s ghost does not live in Mar’s house.”

Illy grunts in acknowledgment but doesn’t press. It feels like he is standing across the dueling ring from me, sword held in a low guard, waiting to see what I will do.

“How did you end up here?” I ask the question gently, tossing him an apologetic glance to let him know that he doesn’t have to answer. I’m hoping that we have become good enough friends that he will take it as an olive branch rather than an interrogation.

Illy is silent for so long that I fear I have killed the conversation between us. Part of me is relieved, glad to be free of the duelist’s verbal probing at a dangerous topic. But I can’t help but feel like I have failed, that I have let down Durus’s memory.

“My family was patrician,” he says abruptly, not turning to look in my direction as we plod through another lap around the training hall. “Wealthy—even for our class. We had a minor estate on the edge of Anteforum, a relic from a bygone era where my great-grandsire was a man of tremendous means. My siblings and I attended a preparatory academiae with palatine children to give us an edge in the collegium and our sententiae.” I blink in surprise. I’ve never even heard of an academy for younger students to attend.

“I never really moved in the mixed social circles, between palatine and patrician. But my younger sister was the light of them. Even as a girl, it was obvious that she would grow up to be beautiful beyond measure. The young men of the Great Domuum circled around her like sharks.” His lips quirk into a frown, flickering like lightning before it vanishes. I keep silent, afraid to break the tenuous surface tension of his story.

“She grew up. Liberties were taken. I took some of my own.” His teeth flash in a smile this time, as if he enjoys the memory. It stretches his face into something sharp and narrow, like a vulture’s. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the shorter man look cruel.

“Unfortunately, it was the wrong son of the wrong domus,” he continues, not looking at me, lost in the memories behind his own eyes. “They dragged me before the magistrates and bankrupted my family.”

“Surely you were not convicted as a murderer for that?” I protest, daring to interrupt at last. “For defending your sister?”

“Ah, but it was my word against his family’s, and gold gives the most convincing of testimony. What judges couldn’t be bought were intimidated. I never stood a chance. Didn’t even make it to my Sententia. My family was forced to sell our estate and all their belongings. When that wasn’t enough to repay the debt, they sold me to the Games.” He shrugs, as if he does not blame them for that.

“Dominus Varus himself bought me from a stock of Blanks, and I won my Cor in the Games.”

“Does he know about this?” I ask, eyeing him curiously. Illy’s past has a familiar echo to what the senator told me about his own.

“He must.” Illy shrugs, a motion that must be difficult under the yoke of all the extra weight. “It is in my writ that consigned me to the Games. Why?”

I hesitate for a moment, unsure if it is my tale to tell. But I think Illy should hear it, and it’s not like it is a secret. After all, its final scene played out in front of thousands of witnesses. What’s one more who knows the tale?

“He told me a similar story once,” I allow after a moment. “About his own time in the arena, after his own sister suffered in the same way.” Illy’s head snaps up, and he stares at me with wide eyes, just as surprised as I was.

“He told you this?”

I nod.

“In a personal conversation that you had, just the two of you?”

My mouth opens to protest, but no words come out. It seems that I have only managed to make myself more suspicious rather than reassure my friend.

“Your turn,” he presses, not letting the silence between us build. “I told you my secrets. It’s time you trusted me with yours.”

“Pick up the pace!” Contessa shouts from the far side of the room, where she glowers at all of us with her arms crossed. I bite back a curse as I turn back to face forward. I have done this to myself. Damn Durus and his teachings. They have only brought me closer to ruin. And yet, part of me yearns to tell the truth. Those who know are not my friends—they are the pieces of driftwood that I have found as I am lost at sea.

But Felix and Marcus are gone, and there are none left for me to share the burden of myself with. To Anas, I am an ironbrother. To Alessandra, I am Frigus Ventus, the salvation of her domus. Both of them need me to be something. They do not care about Castor, the mortal whose flesh holds the Cor Hearts that lets me be the thing that I am becoming. I’m not sure that’s true about Illy.

“I, too, was patrician,” I begin, still not entirely sure if this story will end with the truth or a fiction. My heart seems to see a path, and I can do nothing but follow it.

“My family ran into some trouble with the Censors.”

Illy hisses in hatred, making me glance at him in surprise. It seems I am not the only one who bears a grudge for the White Hand and its fingers.

“Like you, there was no justice to be found, and when the dust settled, my mother and father were dead, and I had been conscripted into the Iron Legions. Sent to Agogia to die.”

Illy is so surprised that he stumbles, drawing to a halt for a second before he scrambles to catch back up to me. “Mars’s Rotting Beard,” he breathes softly. My pulse quickens, terrified that I have told him too much already.

“When I received my Cor, it went wrong,” I continue, feeding him the same half-truth that Varus and Pliny accepted when they first evaluated me. “Thanks to my ice, I ended up here instead of the front line of the Twelfth Legion.”

“You were supposed to be Ironbound?” he breathes in wonder. My heart skips a beat at the note of inspiration in his voice. I have become like Icarus and flown too close to the sun.

“But instead, I became an immundus.” I gesture at my white rasa veins with a tilt of my head, trying to remind him that I am deformed. “A thief of one of the Iron Legion’s Cor Hearts and in debt to the Empress for what I have taken.”

Illy is silent for a few moments as he processes my tale. I can feel the sharp edges of his mind turning as he dissects my story. Despite my concern over his scrutiny, I feel a little lighter than before, even carrying Contessa’s heavy burdens.

We do not speak for the rest of the exercise. The lanista increases our pace until even electi are breathing in ragged gasps. My muscles burn like the veins of my Corda when I push them too far. Contessa has found a way to train me without breaking her word to Pliny.

As I sweat and suffer, I think about what Illy told me. His story is familiar; it could be a mirror of my own. The senator seems to collect people like him. How many more of the gladiators in this ludus have similar experiences being caught in the rusty machinery of the Iron Empire?

I am sure that is deliberate.

Anyone with eyes can see that there is no love lost between Domus Pelias and Domus Agrippa. A thread of doubt squirms in my chest, pulling uncomfortably on my patriotic heart. I feel lost. This is not the world I set out to explore. I want no part of this struggle. I am not like those Imperials who hid among Knut in the snow. I do not want to tear down the Empire itself. My revenge is a personal thing.

All my life, I have lived in the Iron Empire, and it has been…good to me. People have enough to eat. The roads are safe to travel. Even in the larger cities, most seem to have plenty. This country reeks of riches and opportunity. I have seen the rust firsthand, but I do not know Diana Agrippa. I have never seen her. I do not know if she is the root or even if she is evil. I hate Atticus and General Tyrus and the small, petty people who abuse their power.

But Varus seems to be heading for deeper waters that I have no desire to swim in. I need to earn my freedom soon. A consistent thought slowly emerges from the tangled chaos of my emotions. Not only is it too dangerous for me to be here, under the scrutiny of so many learned electi who will eventually ascertain the truth of what I am, but I have no desire to be dragged into some sort of coup against the Empress.

Frustrated, I study my Unrelenting Fire Cor with my mind, probing at it like a sore in my mouth with my tongue. It seems no different than when I first attuned to the Symbol in Senator Delilah’s garden. While my veins have grown stronger, there is no sign that it is almost ready to Ascend. It is like an anchor tied to my ankle, and the water around me is rising. If I do not get out, I will surely drown.

When Contessa has run us ragged, she releases us from training, eyeing us all like she is disappointed that we did not march a hundred miles inside the training hall. I give her a tired smile, but she doesn’t return it. Stress pulls her face taut as she glowers down at me with her arms crossed.

“Forum is less than six months away, Castor,” she reminds me, as if I had somehow already forgotten.

“Yes, Lanista,” is all I say as I reply meekly, ducking my head in a subservient manner.

“Straight into the locus,” she reminds me. “Pliny won’t be happy to see you dawdling.” I feel my smile die a little as I realize there will be no break for me. The pondus, a weight of a different kind, sits in my pocket waiting to torture my Cor the same way Contessa just tortured my body.

“At once, Domina,” I promise, dropping the last of my weights at her feet before turning toward the Winter essence source. I feel her eyes on the back of my neck watching me as I cross the training hall.

Illy is waiting for me there, his expression guarded. I feel a knot of tension spread throughout my chest as I approach him. I was too honest. I gave him the puzzle pieces, and he put them together.

“Castor,” he says softly as I draw close. His voice is pitched low enough that no one else can hear. His brown eyes hold mine fearlessly, like a hunter who knows that he has his prey dead to rights. My right hand curls into a loose grip, preparing to summon the Glacialis Falx.

If I am fast enough, I can cut him down before he tells Contessa. I’ll be a murderer, but that will just get me sent back to the Games anyway. The truth will see me hung in front of the Empress’s Palace.

“I am sorry that you lost your family,” he says slowly, not meeting my eyes. “But I wanted to say⁠—”

“Illy, it’s not what—” I interject, desperate to convince him, to save his life.

“I know how hard it is to be honest,” he continues, looking up at me for the first time. A proud fire burns in the back of his eyes, a boy who is not ashamed of showing his hurt.

The tension in my shoulders fades as I realize that I am wrong. He doesn’t know.

“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. Thank you for trusting me. You’ve saved my life and shown me your pain. You and I are true friends now. No matter what happens, I’ll watch your back and one day, I’ll help you get revenge for your family.”

“I feel the same way,” I reply through a mouth full of ash. This is what I wanted, yet I feel guilty. I have not shared my secrets with the shorter duelist. I fed him enough to feel like we were the same, and now he is mine. He is friends with a mask, not the man beneath.

Durus, are you watching?

“What are you going to do?” Illy asks, his eyes boring into mine.

“It’s easy,” I reply with a wide grin, clapping him on the shoulder. “First, we’re going to win.”