Page 44 of Thawed Gladiator: Quintus
“Who is harmed?”
“Where is the line you will not cross?”
“What power is yours, and what belongs to the court, to your children, to him?”
Answers arrive. Some are small and certain. Some are not yet formed. When her voice frays, I hand her water. When she is quiet, I let the quiet stand. Between us, trust stretches like aleather strap seasoned by years of strain—flexible, but unbroken.
At a rest stop, she leans on the open door and looks at the sky. “He always did this—created crises whenever I did well. It’s like he can smell my happiness and needs to stamp it out.”
“Some men fall beneath their own weight and drag others down with them,” I say. “This is not a judgment of you. It is a record of his choices.”
“Will I disappear again?” she asks. “Back into the woman who fixes everything and loses herself?”
“You are not that woman now,” I answer. “But if memory tries to bind you, you will not be alone while you break its hold.”
Chicago rises by late afternoon, towers of glass and steel, gleaming like shields lifted to a pale sun. At the hotel desk she says, “Separate rooms,” without looking at me. Good. A boundary is a wall you build for yourself, not a gate someone grants.
In the elevator, she stands close enough that her sleeve brushes mine. “Thank you,” she says. “For coming. For not… taking over.”
“I do not wish to fight your battles,” I say. “Only to carry the shield at your side when your arms grow tired.”
A corner of her mouth lifts. “That’s very Roman of you.”
“It is very us,” I say.
We set our bags down. She calls the lawyer, then Ava, voice steadying as she gives instructions: documents to gather, meetings to confirm, what belongs to the children and what will never again be theirs to carry.
“Tomorrow,” she says, handing me a bottle of water from the small refrigerator. “The firm. Their counsel. His mess.”
“Then we should eat,” I reply. “You do not go hungry into battle.”
Downstairs, the noise is ordinary—cutlery, low conversation, a child laughing somewhere unseen. Ordinary is a kind of mercy.We take a small table. I choose simple food. She watches the steam lift from her cup.
“I keep waiting to feel ashamed,” she says. “Like his crimes are a stain that spreads to me.”
“Shame belongs to the one who acts,” I say. “You are not his accomplice. You are his witness.”
She breathes out, a tight coil loosening in her chest. “And us?” she asks after a moment. “Does this… bend us out of shape?”
I consider. Truth is better armor than reassurance. “It tests the fit,” I say. “Metal is tempered by heat. So are bonds. We will know more by how we stand tomorrow than by what we promised last night.”
She nods, eyes bright but clear. “I can live with that.”
Later, in my room, I call Thrax. Latin settles in my mouth like an old prayer.
“How goes it?” he asks.
“She walks into trouble with her head high,” I say. “Fear follows her, but it does not lead.”
“And you?”
“I keep pace,” I answer. “Close, not crowding. This is her war. I merely carry the provisions while she carries the standard.”
He grunts a laugh. “Then the battle is already half-won.”
When I end the call, the city hums beyond the glass. I lay out clothes for morning—plain, clean, unremarkable. You do not wear glory to a hearing; you wear discipline.
A text arrives from across the hall:Thank you for being steady when my world tilts.
