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Summer had come and gone. The Daylight Games loomed on the horizon of tomorrow’s dawn. It was the privilege of those that would compete to spend the day before the games resting and basking in the encouragement and adulation of their peers. Legends would be made tomorrow, and a new champion would don the laurel wreath.

I’d chosen to take a bath.

The Rosy Dawn’s gymnasiums contained baths, as all proper establishments of its type did, but just as the pillars of the cult enjoyed a private gymnasium of sublime quality, so too did they enjoy an unparalleled bath house. The myriad pools, ranging from scalding hot to frigidly cold, had been carved out of the rock face of the mountain itself. The warm side of the grand corinthian building was perpetually cloaked in steam, emitted from the mountain’s own natural hot springs.

It was empty but for myself, my slave, and my littlest cousin. No one but an Aetos would dare pass through its hallowed pillars.

I hummed, elbows propped up on the cool stone of the hot spring’s rim as I unwound. My head hung back, a warm cloth draped over my eyes. For all that it chafed, the life of a Young Aristocrat came with undeniable benefits.

“Tell me, slave,” I murmured. “Did they have baths as good as these in Rome?”

“The baths at the forum were better,” he said, somewhere off to the right. Myron, who had gotten bored soon after entering and started splashing around, paused in interest. “What we lacked in natural springs we made up for with ingenuity. The greatest of them had rooms for steam as well as baths heated by hypocausts, mosaic floors, and fine marble walls. They were open to anyone with two denarii and on holidays they were free.”

“Sounds filthy,” I said. “This place is for cleansing. Why should I share bath water with every wretch that has two silver bits to rub together?”

“You would understand if you spent time in your own city.” He sighed. “There’s pneuma in every living thing, and there’s virtue just the same. The baths are one of a thousand ways to expose yourself to new aspects of life. Even the lowest of men can be wise.”

“Like you,” Myron declared.

“The young kyrios is too kind.” Myron squawked at the teasing nickname. “The only thing I know is that I know nothing at all.”

I lifted the corner of the cloth covering my eyes. There it was. That distant, wistful look.

“Tell me more.”

He blinked. “More of what?”

“You said the baths were one of a thousand ways,” I said. “You may not be wise, but you’re worldly, aren’t you? Tell me about your life. I want to hear it.” He looked surprised. Ho, how insulting. Surely I wasn’t that bad.

“So do I!” Myron chimed in, kicking off from the far side of the spring and paddling over. “What were the legions like? How’d you get so strong? How many places did you conquer-”

“One at a time, cousin,” I said, flicking a jet of water in his face. He shouted and splashed me back, only for Sol to dunk him when he wasn’t looking.

“The legions,” Sol said thoughtfully, while Myron coughed and spluttered. “I was young when my father was called up, everything seemed so much larger than life. I’d only ever been to the forum a few times by that point, and always under supervision. I lived my life ensconced in our villa until that day.”

“Your father had some influence,” I said. I’d known it, but saying the words gave them new weight. “Legionaries don’t bring their sons to war.”

Sol considered me. He knew. He’d known from the start, just as I had. Our origins rhymed.

“He was a captain,” he finally said. “An infantryman from the moment he could hold a sword. When I was young he’d tell me stories of his time in the ranks. The first century he was ever assigned to, the first men that he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with in combat.” He smiled faintly. “The first centurion that handed him his head. He used to say that those were the cruelest years of his life, but also the best.”

“He married into money, then,” I mused.

“He did,” Sol acknowledged. He ran a hand through his hair, frowning. “It was like most marriages of its kind. Politically driven. Loveless. My father had gained enough renown in his service to warrant the match, but my mother’s family and friends never let them forget his roots. It made her bitter.

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“But it allowed him to climb the ranks. And that was what mattered.”

“Where did he stand?” Myron asked eagerly. A common question, when it came to cultivators. Where did he stand, among heaven and earth?

Sol hummed. “By your standards, he was at the peak of the Sophic Realm.”

What?

“Oh,” Myron said, failing to fully conceal his disappointment. The cloth covering my eyes hit the surface of the pool. I realized I’d sat fully up.

“Sophic Realm,” I repeated, incredulous. “Your father?”

It didn’t make any sense. The son was built upon the foundation of the father. To be at his level, at his age, with such a worthless father? It defied reason.

“My father was a good man,” Sol said firmly. “He lived his life for Rome, and for the legions that raised him.”

“I’m not questioning your father’s character,” I said, waving an impatient hand. “I’m questioning-”

“He was a man that other men respected,” the audacious slave continued, speaking over me without care. “Renowned for his tactics in war and his generosity in victory. Men followed him without question.”

“So you learned from him?” Myron pressed, curious as I was to know how a man of such subpar cultivation could produce a son like Sol. Myron’s father was a peerless Hero. Damon Aetos was Damon Aetos. It only made sense that we would excel. But Sol?