The dining table was long enough that he could not see the far end of it clearly without turning his head.

He had measured it once, when he was younger, pacing it out in careful steps while the servants were elsewhere.

Thirty-two steps from one end to the other.

He remembered this because it was the kind of thing his mind held onto, numbers and distances and useless information.

He sat at his end of it now, in his chair, which was the same chair he always sat in, positioned at the precise distance from the table his tutors had determined was correct for his posture.

His hands were in his lap.

The food was on the table.

Not in front of him.

In front of them, arranged across the considerable distance between his chair and his parents, with the quiet abundance of a household that had never had occasion to wonder whether there would be enough.

Roasted things and braised things and things that arrived in covered dishes that released small clouds of fragrant steam when the lids were lifted by servants.

He watched his parents eat.

His father ate silently, a silent elegance in every movement. Something about it was so unnatural that it scared Leonidas, even if he would never show it to his father’s face.

His vermillion cloak was folded over the back of his chair.

His mother ate more slowly, favoring every bite as if it were her last, cleaning herself after each bite. A noble lady through and through.

She looked up from her plate and found him across the length of the table. Her hazel eyes tracked him for a moment before they landed on the empty plate before him.

His own did too.

"You understand why, don’t you, Leo?"

"Yes, Mother."

"Tell me."

He kept his back straight and eyes forward, not daring to stare at his mother’s eyes in the presence of his father.

"I lost to Seridius in our practice match yesterday. Losing to a retainer is unacceptable for the Prince of War. I failed to represent what I am."

She nodded, a small approving nod that meant he had hit the mark.

"Three days," she said. "It’s not a punishment, Leo, it’s a reminder. The body remembers what the mind forgets. When you’re hungry, you’ll remember what it costs to lose."

"Yes, Mother."

She returned to her food.

His father had not looked up.

The servants moved through the room, refilling glasses, lifting empty plates, and replacing them with the next course.

They moved around him without acknowledgment, the way water moved around a stone, because there was nothing to serve him and therefore no reason to approach.

He watched a covered dish arrive in front of his mother, the lid lifted, steam rising. She made a small sound of appreciation.

He kept his hands in his lap. But his mind was elsewhere.

I want to eat too...mother, why are you so cruel? What have I done to deserve this?

But he never voiced his thoughts, because voicing them would be tantamount to treason. His father was the king, and his mother the queen.

He watched his parents eat and thought about the bout with Seridius.

He had been winning for most of it.

That was the part that stuck, not the losing but the fact of how close he had come to not losing, how there had been a moment, near the end.

Seridius had been off-balance; he could have defeated him had he acted just a half-second faster, had he not hesitated, but he had, and this was the result.

In a real battle, I would have already been dead. Mother is always right, the body will remember even if my mind forgets.

One half-second.

That was all it would take for him to die. Then and there, Leonidas vowed to himself that he would never hesitate again.

He won.

His father said nothing about the win, as if it was expected, which it was.

But his mother had smiled and told him she was pleased.

That night, he sat at the table and ate, and the food tasted better than it had before the three days, which was probably the point.

The week after, he lost again, to a different opponent, a boy two years older than him.

His mother didn’t let him eat for two days, but the next time...the next time he won.

* * * * * *

Seridius was a crimson-haired and eyed boy who just so happened to be the son of the War General, a knight who operated directly under his father, a proxy of sorts.

He was also the man who treated Leondias like a son, wrapping his arm around him, joking with him, training him, and helping him become a better person.

Seridius had noticed.

He hadn’t said anything about it, which was how Leonidas knew he was actually a good person, because a different person would have said something and made it into a thing.

But Seridius just moved on and let the moment be what it was. Leonidas was far too grateful to his friend, not that he would acknowledge it, of course.

He spent more time at the Morgan estate than what should have been possible, maybe that was why Seridius’s father was sent as a delegate to the Circle of Sand.

* * * * * *

At eleven, Leonidas nearly died from blood loss from his ’punishments’ but was saved by his mother just before submitting.

A few months later, after his twelfth birthday—which he spent with Seridius—his father had pushed him too hard, and his body had broken under pressure.

He had died that day, but luckily, his mother was quite strong, and she had brought him back.

The sun rose high over the Circle of War, illuminating the radiant town square, a colosseum academy that served as a training hub for the trials everyone would inevitably have to face in the Labyrinth.

Today was the day Leonidas Hector Aristeus officially became sixteen years old.

It was also the day when he escaped the Circle of War, with nothing but a sword and a friend.