Chapter 13 #2
We move. Not well. My gladiator’s grace fails completely when faced with this unfamiliar pattern. I’m used to terrain that gives feedback—sand, stone, the resistance of a body I’m throwing to the ground. Grass and music and a woman I don’t want to step on are different.
We bump into one another. Twice. We step on each other’s toes. Once, she trips over nothing at all and only my quick grip on her waist keeps her from stumbling outright.
She laughs every time. Not the polite, embarrassed sound I’ve heard her make with visiting scholars, but something free and warm that lights up her whole face.
“This is so bad,” she says, breathless.
“Is perfect,” I counter.
“Objectively false.”
“Objectively,” I repeat solemnly, “I am having the best time I have had at a party in… ever.”
Her laughter softens, then fades. Her gaze lifts to meet mine, and for a moment the whole world narrows to the feel of her in my arms, the faint scent of her lavender shampoo, the tiny frown line between her brows that appears when she’s concentrating.
“I’ve never liked dancing,” she admits quietly. “Too many variables. Too much… exposure.”
“You are doing it anyway,” I point out. “That is courage.”
She swallows. “It helps that you’re here.”
My chest pulls tight, like a wound being stitched closed from the inside.
The song stretches around us. People fade into background motion: Maya twirling one of the volunteers; Laura slow-dancing with Varro near the lantern-lit fountain; Quintus nodding along to the beat as he adjusts the playlist, his woman Nicole at his side.
The sanctuary feels like a heartbeat around us.
Sophia’s body gradually eases. Her shoulders drop. The hand on my shoulder stops gripping and simply rests. Her head tips just a fraction closer, as if her body is reaching before her mind gives permission.
“Fortuna’s Night,” she says after a while, voice softer than the music. “I didn’t realize… how important this is for all of you.”
“It’s important to Laura,” I say. “Important to the others who remember the ice. To the crew who did not wake.”
I pause.
“And to those of us still learning what it means not to die when fate says we should have.”
She is quiet for a long time, then, “I’m glad I’m here for it.”
We don’t kiss—not here, not in front of everyone, even though I want to.
Even though the memory of her against the stable wall is so fresh I can still feel her hands in my hair.
But her forehead brushes my chest briefly as we turn, and the touch carries the weight of everything we’re not doing in public.
The promise of what we will some day do in private.
My body remembers hers with startling clarity. But here, now, this softer intimacy feels like its own kind of gift.
By the time the song ends, several people have very clearly noticed us.
Maya catches my eye over Sophia’s shoulder and gives me two thumbs-up so exaggerated I nearly choke. I look away before Sophia notices. Thrax lifts his cup in my direction, smugness radiating off him in waves. Even Lucius gives me a small, knowing nod before returning to his conversation.
Sophia and I step apart slowly, as if neither of us quite trusts our legs.
“Water,” Sophia says abruptly. “Or I’ll fall over.”
“Thirst will undo you faster than battle,” I agree gravely.
She laughs again, shoulders loosening once more, and we make our way to the drink table. The music shifts back to something louder, more chaotic. Kids are now trying to imitate Thrax’s attempts at some kind of modern line dance. It’s… alarming.
Sophia takes a cup of water and gulps half of it in one go. A bead runs down the side of the cup and onto her thumb. Without thinking, I reach out and brush it away with my fingers, letting my thumb linger against her skin for just a moment longer than necessary.
Her breath catches. Her gaze flicks up to mine, and I see the memory flash across her face—my hands on her waist, her body pressed against mine, the heat between us in the stable.
“Careful,” she murmurs, but she’s not pulling away. “People are watching.”
“Let them,” I say quietly, though I step back. Just a fraction.
“Trying to scandalize the sanctuary?” Her voice comes out huskier than usual.
“Only you, little scholar.”
Her lips part, and for a moment I think she might kiss me right here in front of everyone. The wanting is written all over her face. But then Maya’s laugh cuts through the moment, and Sophia blinks, stepping back.
We stand here for a moment, suspended between what we are and what we might be, until Laura appears at our side like a benevolent goddess in jeans and a linen blouse.
“Fortuna likes to see the living enjoy themselves,” she says cheerfully, pressing a small coin into each of our hands. “Go make a wish. Or an offering. Or both.”
Sophia looks down at the coin. “Is this… from the original ship?”
“Replica,” Laura assures her. “I’m not that sentimental. Well, I am, but I’m not stupid.” She winks. “Toss it near the shrine. Ask Fortuna for whatever your heart wants most.”
She disappears before either of us can protest.
We saunter toward the little shrine together. The night air is cooler away from the crowd, cicadas humming beyond the fence line. The lanterns here are fewer, more scattered, leaving pockets of shadow between their pools of light.
“What do you wish for?” I ask quietly as we approach.
Sophia huffs out a breath that might be a laugh. “To get my research completed and the paper written without losing my mind?”
I make a face. “Fortuna cannot work miracles, little scholar.”
She nudges my arm with her shoulder. “What would you wish for?”
I look at the statue of the goddess. At the carved ship. At the little brass plaque beneath that lists the names of the crew and gladiators we lost.
“Second chances,” it says in both English and Latin. As if fate were a person you could negotiate with.
“Have already had more than my share of wishes granted,” I say truthfully. “Am alive. Am free. Doing work that means something.” I trail off, then finish more softly. “And you.”
Silence.
The words hang between us, heavier than I meant them to be. True, but dangerous.
She looks down at her coin, and I see the smallest curve of her lips. “You do,” she says quietly, “have me, I mean.”
My chest goes tight. “And you have me.”
“I know.” She glances up, and the look in her eyes is so open it steals my breath. “I’m still… figuring out what that means. What we are. But I know.”
I’m clenching my fists to keep from reaching out and tilting her chin up so I can see her better. Instead, I close my hand around the coin, press my knuckles briefly against the carved wood of the ship, and toss the offering into the bowl Laura set out.
What I wish for isn’t a thing.
It’s a life.
A life where I’m seen for who I am. Where loving her does not limit her. Where she never has to choose between me and her dreams. And Goddess help me…
I don’t know if I could survive losing her.
I risk a glance at her. Her eyes are wide, searching my face.
“Done,” I say. “If Fortuna disapproves, she can send storm. Hopefully not while we are outside.”
Sophia’s lips twitch. She steps beside me, touches the edge of the shrine lightly with her fingertips, and draws in a small, sharp breath. Barely there, but I hear it.
She looks at the shrine instead of me, which somehow makes the moment feel bigger. Heavier. Like the wish touched her too, even if she’ll never say how. Then, she drops her coin in after mine. The faint clink sounds like a promise.
We stand there for a moment longer, neither of us moving. The fountain murmurs behind us. The party sounds distant, muffled by trees and night air.
When we finally walk toward the lanterns, she’s quiet. Too quiet. I can feel something shifting in her—a weight she’s carrying that wasn’t there before.
“I had a call with Dr. Blackwell this afternoon,” she says almost casually. “Before the party.”
Instinct prickles along my spine. The same warning I get when an opponent circles behind me.
“Oh?”
“She wanted to talk about some of the ideas I’ve been developing here.
” Sophia smooths the dress as if the motion steadies her.
“About your healing techniques. The way you talked about different kinds of pain. I mentioned a few of the concepts and she…” She swallows.
“She sounded really excited. Said this line of work could open doors if I frame it right.”
Open doors.
Doors lead out as often as they lead in.
I force my jaw to unclench. “Is good,” I say. “You deserve doors to open.”
She looks up at me, brow furrowing. “You don’t sound… thrilled.”
I search for the right words. “Am glad your advisor sees value in what you do.” I pause, trying to pin down the unease. “Just… be careful. With how much you share. Before it is finished.”
She frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” And I don’t. It’s instinct, not reason. “Something about way she asked. Feels like…” I shake my head. “Like when opponent watches too close. Waits for opening.”
Her eyes sharpen—the same look she gives me when she’s certain I’m wrong about something. “She’s not like that.”
I nod, even as my gut says otherwise. “If you say so.”
She studies me for a moment longer, then sighs. “I’ll make sure the information you and the others share is used ethically.” Her hand brushes my forearm lightly, a quick reassurance. “I wouldn’t let anyone reduce you to a footnote, Flavius.”
The quiet fierceness in her voice is its own kind of vow.
“Come on,” she says, clearing her throat. “Before Maya decides we’re boring and comes to drag us back to the dance floor.”
We return to the heart of the party. As we step into the lantern light again, conversations pause. Not long. Not dramatically. But enough that I feel the shift.
Maya’s eyes go straight to our joined orbit like a moth to flame.
Laura watches us with a soft, satisfied smile that says she’s been waiting for this since the day Sophia arrived.
Even Thrax’s woman, Skye, who usually does her best to stay out of other people’s business, gives us a look that can only be described as fond.
Thrax leans down to murmur in my ear as he passes on his way to the grill. “Told you,” he says. “Everyone can see it now.”
I want to deny it. I don’t.
Instead, I find Sophia’s gaze again. The noise of the party blurs. Her mouth curves into a small, private smile meant only for me.
Everyone else may see it.
But in this moment, under Fortuna’s lanterns and the soft thrum of music, it feels like there are only two of us here at all.
By the time the party winds down, I’m tired in a good way—muscles loose, heart full, the kind of exhaustion that comes from joy instead of stress.
I walk Sophia back to her cabin. The path is familiar now, but it feels different with her beside me in the dark, close enough that our arms brush with every other step.
At her door, we stop. The porch light casts long shadows, and somewhere a night bird calls.
“Thank you,” she says softly, “for the terrible dancing. For… all of it.”
My smile is slow and warm. “Was my pleasure, little scholar.”
I lean in, and for a moment I think about kissing her the way I did in the stable—hungry, urgent, with my hands in her hair. But something about tonight feels different. Softer. Like we’re building something that doesn’t need to rush.
Instead, I press my lips to her forehead, lingering there for a heartbeat that feels like a promise.
“Sleep well,” I murmur against her skin.
Then I step back, hands sliding away from her waist with obvious reluctance.
I watch her slip inside, listen for the click of the lock.
We’re taking this slow. Drawing it out. Letting the anticipation build.
And somehow, that makes it even better.