Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Flavius
The morning after I held Sophia’s hands, I wake up feeling… wrong. Or right. Or something in between.
Not different on the outside—same scars, same red hair, same body built for killing and surviving—but something deep under my ribs has shifted. For the first time since I thawed into this strange century, I feel useful. Not as a performer. As a man who can give something that matters.
I helped her. When she was drowning in feelings too fierce and fast for her mind to sort, I knew exactly what to do.
My hands—hands that once ended men for the crowd’s pleasure—brought her calm instead of pain.
The old pressure-point patterns, the ones the Romans sneered at as “barbarian folk magic,” worked. They mattered. They mattered to her.
And the way she softened under my touch… Goddess, that lives in me now. But even that moment—even how she said my name—feels like something I should guard, not rush toward.
This—this—is what I was meant for. Not the performed smiles. I almost reach for that easy grin now, out of habit—but it doesn’t fit this morning. Not after yesterday.
The healing is real. It feels like the first true thing I’ve had since my childhood. It feels solid. Earned.
The thought follows me through my morning.
I move through the familiar tasks—checking the training yard, feeding the horses, walking the perimeter—but they don’t feel like busywork today.
Each small thing feels tied to something larger that I can’t quite name.
Like all this time I’ve been walking in circles around the edge of my life, and yesterday I finally stepped into the center.
Apollo snorts as I curry his neck, warm breath gusting against my shoulder. My mind keeps slipping back to Sophia in that chair—rigid spine, wide eyes, the way her breathing faltered, then found its rhythm again with my words and beneath my hands.
I didn’t fail her.
I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here, working the brush over Apollo’s coat, replaying every tiny shift in Sophia’s expression, the sound of her voice when she whispered my name. Long enough that I don’t hear Laura until she’s already at the stall door.
“Well, someone’s in a good mood this morning,” she says. “You’re humming.”
I blink. I am humming. A rough little tune from the old days, something we used to sing under our breath in the barracks when the guards were far enough away.
“Is good morning,” I say, giving Apollo one last stroke. “Very good.”
Laura leans her arms on the stall door, studying me with that steady brown gaze that misses very little.
She’s pulled her hair back in a messy tail, and there’s a smudge of dirt along one cheekbone where she’s clearly wiped sweat with the back of her hand.
She looks like what she is—someone who works, really works, not just talks about it.
“Did something happen?” she asks. “You look lighter. Taller, even.”
A dry laugh escapes me. “Am same height as yesterday.”
“On the outside, sure.” She tilts her head. “Inside, you’re… different. Spill it, gladiator.”
I hesitate, the old instinct to guard every piece of myself flaring back to life for a moment. Habit urges me to deflect, but I don’t. In the arena, you didn’t show weakness. Here, I still don’t know which parts of me are safe to share.
But this isn’t weakness. This feels like strength, like purpose.
“I helped someone yesterday,” I say slowly. “Someone whose mind was… too full. Too loud. Felt like it was going to break her. I used old techniques. From the ludus. From before.” I tap my chest with my knuckles, hunting for words. “They worked. Helped her calm. Breathe. Come back.”
Laura’s expression softens, her whole face warming. “That’s wonderful, Flavius.”
“Felt…” I search for English that is big enough. “Felt right. Like when fighter steps into arena and knows exactly where his feet should go. But instead of killing, was… un-killing.” I grimace. “This is not right word.”
“Healing might be the word you’re looking for.” Her tone is gentle. Healing.
We had other words, old words in my first tongue, for what we did in the barracks when someone’s mind went dark and wild. But the word healing fits too. It sits strange in my mouth, but not wrong.
“Yes,” I say. “Healing.”
She smiles wider. “You’ve always had a knack for reading people. Half the staff come to you when they’re upset and don’t even realize that’s why. Maybe now you’re just… leaning into it.”
I frown. “Leaning?”
“Using it on purpose,” she clarifies. “Not by accident.”
I think of Sophia’s hands trembling in mine, the way her shoulders finally dropped when the worst of it passed. Not an accident. I chose every point, every word, every breath.
“I want to do more of this,” I admit. Here I am, a gladiator asking to touch people for comfort instead of for show… or to hurt. “Not just perform. Not just make people laugh and forget I was weapon once. I want to help. For real.”
Laura studies me for another long moment. “I think you already are.”
I shake my head. “One person. One time. Want to learn how to do again. Better. Safer.” My stomach does a small, anxious flip. “But I don’t know how to make… place for this. Job. Role.” I gesture vaguely, irritated with my clumsy speech. “In this time, everything seems to need… paper. Plans. Rules.”
“That’s not untrue,” she says, mouth quirking. “But we don’t have to figure all of that out today.”
Relief drains the tension from my shoulders. I hadn’t realized how much I was bracing for her to laugh, or tell me this was foolish, or say there’s no room here for what I’m offering.
Instead, she says, “Start simple. You know what helped that person yesterday. You know what you did with your hands, your voice, your presence. Notice that. Remember it. Do it again for people who want it and feel safe with you.” She pauses. “We can sort out the official stuff later.”
“Official stuff,” I repeat, wrinkling my nose.
“Paper,” she clarifies, amused. “Forms. Schedules. All the boring parts. Let that be my headache, not yours.”
The tightness in my chest eases. “You would help with this?”
“Of course.” She shrugs, like it’s obvious. “We built this place to be more than a tourist attraction. If there’s a way your experience can help people? We should make room for that.”
The idea makes my pulse beat faster. We should make room for that. For me. For what I know. What I can do.
“But…” I trail off, shame flickering up. “Still not good with writing. Reading.” The words taste bitter. “Hard to explain things in way other people understand.”
“Then don’t start with writing,” Laura says simply. “Start with doing. And when you’re ready to put it into words…” Her gaze turns thoughtful. “You already know someone who’s very good at turning lived experience into things other people can understand.”
My heart kicks hard against my ribs, because I know exactly who she means before she says it.
“Sophia,” I say quietly. “She already asked me to teach her. To document what Philos taught me.”
“There you go.” Laura smiles. “So she’s already in. The question is whether you’re ready to really step into this—not just teaching her, but using it to help others here at the sanctuary.”
Just thinking about working with her on something this important makes my breath deepen. Heat kicks low in my gut, sharp and steady, a feeling I push down, not quite ready to face.
“What if I am not good enough?” I ask quietly. “She believes I can do this. What if I disappoint her?”
“Then she’ll help you figure out what went wrong,” Laura says. “That’s what partners do.”
Partners. The word rings in my ears like the clang of a gate opening.
I stroke Apollo’s neck, more to steady myself than to soothe him. “Is… big thing,” I say. “She already has much work. Many demands. Many people pulling on her mind. This will ask more of her.”
“Let her decide that,” Laura replies. “Your job is to be honest about what you can do and what you want. Hers is to choose whether to step into it with you.”
Step into it with me.
I swallow. My throat feels tight.
“What if I am wrong?” I ask. “What if yesterday was… luck? One time. What if I try to help and make things worse?”
Laura’s expression turns serious. “Then we learn from it,” she says.
“And we keep you surrounded by people who will tell you the truth. No one is asking you to fix everything or everyone. I’m just saying…
” She pauses, letting the words settle. “Maybe what you did in the barracks back then has a place here now.”
The barracks. Men shaking, weeping, staring at walls that weren’t there. Hands on shoulders, backs, and necks. Pressure and breath and murmured words in half a dozen languages. Keeping each other from shattering.
“It kept us alive,” I murmur. “In here.” I tap my temple. “Gave the mind enough quiet to survive another day.”
“Then it’s worth at least exploring,” Laura says. “One careful step at a time.”
Careful steps. I know those. In the arena, one wrong step meant death. Here, maybe a wrong step only means awkwardness, discomfort. Maybe this is a risk I can afford.
I nod slowly. “Will think about it. About how to begin.”
“That’s all I’m suggesting.” She pushes away from the stall door, straightening. “In the meantime, keep humming. It suits you.”
I snort, embarrassed, but I’m smiling as she walks away.
When the sound of her footsteps fades, I stay with Apollo a little longer, letting the brush move in slow circles over his coat. My thoughts don’t go back to the arena this time, or to the demonstrations, or even to the faces in the stands.
They go to Sophia.
To the way her fingers curled around mine. To the tremble in her voice when she asked me not to let go. To the fierce, focused look she gets when she’s trying to understand something new.
Laura is right. If anyone can help me find words for old knowledge, it is Sophia. And the idea of working with her on something that matters now—not just in dusty books or academic arguments, but in living bodies and beating hearts—makes my chest feel too small for what’s inside it.
By the time I put away the brush and step out of the stall, I’m walking faster than I mean to.
The path from the stables to the main building is one I’ve taken a hundred times, but today it feels short, like the world has folded in, narrowing to one point: the conference room where she usually works, the office where she sometimes hides when she needs quiet, the places where I might find her.
For the first time since the ice cracked and spat me into this impossible century, I am not just moving toward the next performance, the next crowd, the next day of pretending.
I am moving toward someone.
The feeling in my chest is sharper and truer than anything the arena ever gave me.