Page 22 of Thawed Gladiator: Quintus (Awakened From the Ice #6)

Chapter Twenty

Quintus

Before dawn, the air changes—quiet, but wrong. A soldier learns this kind of silence: the pause before a storm, the breath the world takes before it speaks bad news.

Nicole’s phone vibrates on the bedside table. She answers, voice soft at first, then tight. “Ava? Slow down.” A beat. “I’m listening.”

I sit up, say nothing. In the ludus, men survived by knowing when to move and when to be stone. I choose stone—present, steady.

“It’s Dad,” Ava says loud enough that I can hear. “We need you to come home.”

Nicole’s shoulders draw up like the ghost of chains tightening, though they no longer bind. I rise and stand in the doorway to the small kitchen, where she can see me if she turns. I do not interrupt. She finishes, promises to call again, and ends the line with a shaking breath.

“Tell me,” I say.

“My ex,” she says, palm pressed to her eyes. “Embezzlement. A lot. The kids are panicking. I need to go.”

“How far?” I ask.

“Chicago. Today.”

I nod once. “Then we make ready.”

She blinks, as if she expected argument or soothing words. I give her neither. Pity can weaken the spine; clarity steels it. She moves to dress. I gather her charger, the jacket she will forget, and water for the road. In battle we call it kit—simple, necessary things that keep a fighter upright.

“I can drive,” I say.

“Quintus, you don’t have to—”

“I know,” I answer. “I choose to.”

She studies me, searching for insistence, for command. There is none. Only choice, laid at her feet. She nods.

We move like people who have practiced together. She phones the Sanctuary office, leaves notes for Maya, emails her professor; I check the car—fuel, tires, lights. At the threshold, she hesitates.

“I’m afraid,” she admits, quiet as a vow before Fortuna’s altar.

“Fear carries the standard,” I say. “Let it march beside you, not ahead of you.”

On the road, the land unwraps in long, gray ribbons.

She speaks in pieces at first—dates, numbers, the slow grind of a man who makes every storm another’s burden to bear.

I listen. The Romans taught patrician boys to argue; the arena taught slaves to hear.

When she pauses, I ask the questions a tactician asks.

“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 a leather 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.

I type only: Always.

Sleep comes like a sentry—alert, light. Morning will bring questions, papers, faces that pretend concern while counting losses. It will also bring Nicole, standing on her own feet, with a man beside her who does not mistake love for possession.

I have fought for emperors and for coin. Tomorrow I stand for something rarer—someone I choose.