"Test is over," Sigurd said, and walked away.
After that Julius felt nothing but a heavy, indifferent dark, an absence that swallowed sound and heat and the small, bright anger that had driven him into the yard in the first place.
When he came back it was to sunlight and the ordinary noises of home: a hen clucking somewhere beyond the wall, leaves whispering in a soft, indifferent wind. He blinked and the garden resolved itself—the same high wall, the crooked pear tree, the flagstone path he had tramped a thousand times. The practice sword was still in his hand; his mouth tasted of iron.
Across from him Conner stood, one hand resting on the pommel of his blade. Relief and something softer crossed the older man's face. Dust clung to his boots, a thin line of sweat darkened his collar. He looked older than Julius remembered; the laugh lines and small gray threads at his temple were new markers. Still, the set of his jaw was unchanged, familiar as a command.
"You're here, boy," Conner said, voice low and steady. "Did you get into a fight?"
Julius tried to gather the loose threads of memory. Shouting, bells, a ring of faces—Sigurd's tall shadow more than a man, a corner of laughter like a blade. The crowd's sound still hummed at the edges of his head, sharp and cruel. He tried to stand and his knees complained; the practice sword felt heavy in his hand.
"What?" he managed.
"You're confused. I'll explain later." Conner let a teasing tilt come to his mouth, a manner that had steadied Julius since he was small.
"So,are you going to tell me how they beat you?"
"At the academy test, Father," Julius said. The words fell out like a confession and a bruise both.
"Were you late?" Conner asked simply.
"Yes. I was late… a little." Saying it felt like admitting a private failing aloud; the memory of the blow made his teeth ache.
Conner barked a laugh, short, surprised, ridiculous against the cool morning.
"Did you fight Sigurd? That old man, he always liked that."
"You know Sigurd? How?" Julius asked.
"I went to the academy," Conner said, setting the flat of his blade into the earth and leaning on it. "He was my commander, too. He's harsh; he makes men check their pride." He paused and his eyes drifted, briefly, toward the distant city.
A strange warmth settled in Julius's chest: the odd comfort of being part of a line, fathers and commanders who had learned the same hard lessons. Conner's hand on his shoulder was light and steady. "You did what you could. We'll mend what's broken. You'll learn. That's what matters."
For a beat the past and present hummed together—Sigurd's cold face, Magnus's clipped orders, Will's dry look, then the weight of the day settled back onto Julius's ribs. He tasted the memory of the yard and the crowd and felt the slow ache beneath his skin, the soreness of pride and blood mixed.
"Time's up. Goodbye, Julius ," Conner said, half-mock, half-farewell.
The infirmary smelled of antiseptic and linen, a clean world that somehow made the ache sharper by removing all disguise. Light fell through high windows in a thin band. Julius woke to the sound of a distant cough and the low scrape of a nurse's shoe. A woman smoothed a linen bandage at his side, her movements practiced and efficient.
"How are you feeling, Julius ?" she asked.
"Feeling… good, ma'am," he tried to say, and it came out too bright. He could still feel the dull throb where Sigurd's hand had landed. The nurse gave him a sideways look that was almost pity, then rose and left him to the murmuring hush of the ward.
He lay there with the clean light making the plaster ceiling into an anonymous sky, the taste of metal in his mouth, the odd sense of being watched. Then Sigurd entered—no preamble, no expression that conceded anything. He filled the threshold, tall and composed, the academy's order written into the rigid set of his shoulders.
"You fought well," Sigurd said after a long silence. "But in the end you lost. It's unfair—you showed better than most." The words were flat, the sort of praise that closed with a verdict.
Julius's chest tightened. The compliment tasted mixed—honey and iron together. He scanned the commander's face for the rest of the sentence, some formal instruction or censure that would clarify it. Sigurd's mouth twitched and he let a corner of a smile rise, a small, private thing.
Then Sigurd laughed: low and startling in the hush of the infirmary. It carried a note of something that was no mocking and no approval, more like recognition of an odd truth. Julius waited—expectant and stupid in a way that made his cheeks burn—for whatever would come after.
"You're in, Julius," Sigurd said.
The words hit him like warmth. For an instant he couldn't breathe; his whole body seemed to tilt. The wounded part inside him lifted as if some invisible hand had slipped a weight from his shoulders.
"You're in?" he repeated, incredulity and relief thick in his voice.
"Good luck at the Academy." Sigurd nodded once and left the infirmary without another word, the door closing on the sound of his boots.
Julius lay there as the news uncoiled inside him. He imagined Octavia's arms, the small stubborn smile that hid a thousand fears. He tried to piece together how the blow and the blessing braided into the same moment—how humiliation and acceptance could live so close together.
"Hey, anyone here?" he called, the thrill of the news bubbling through the weariness.
A different nurse came in, glancing him up and down as anyone would check a new patient. Her name tag read Thessa. She had dark hair and bright blue eyes and a quick, easy smile that put him immediately on uneven footing.
"Young man, first time I've seen someone land in here before they're accepted as a nurse," she said, teasing. "You're new, aren't you?"
"I am. It's Julius." He answered, and found himself staring a little with the dazed awkwardness of a boy who still smelled of the yard.
"You got beaten and still got in?" Thessa gave him a small, impressed noise.
"Happens sometimes. You're only the second I've seen[1]. Sounds like trouble with promise."
She moved with the everyday certainty of someone who had seen it all: broken elbows, brave lads, those who left the ward quieter and wiser. "Tell Octavia I said hello," she added before she left, brisk as a wind.
Left alone, Julius let the quiet settle properly. The ache in his ribs was still there, a reminder, but so was the new shape inside him—direction. He thought of Conner's hand on his shoulder, of Will's dry watchfulness, and of Magnus pacing the training yard. He thought too of Sigurd's strange laugh, which now sounded less like mockery and more like something that acknowledged grit.
Outside, the city carried on in its indifferent orbit: carts creaked, merchants shouted, a bell rang somewhere. Inside him, something small and stubborn smoldered into life like a coal fanned to heat.
***
"Well, what are your thoughts, Commander?" Will asked.
"As you said, Will, he has potential."
Sigurd looked from the office window toward the palace.
"The Empire needs brave men, Will."
[1] Well, you can guess who. She saw that as a student not as a nurse