11. Hell

General Cleandro ends the brief library respite and drives the initiates back to class. Alexis, half-blind with exhaustion and pain, staggers through Pine’s math and Augustus’s Discipline and Power. Augustus publicly contrasts mutts and heiresses, then teaches four Spartan constants: immortality after twenty, enhanced intelligence, difficult global leaping tied to one’s domus, and binding oaths limited to three bonds. He adds the modern controversy over enforced marriages and explains that animal protectors choose Spartans via a dangerous bond—rejection boils the mind—scheduled for December.

During meditation, Cassius of Hermes reports sensing power, while Alexis drifts and draws Augustus’s ire. Overwhelmed, she asks to use the bathroom, collapses on a broken toilet, and despairs. Nyx appears, reminds Alexis of her resilience and of Charlie, and demands she continue. Steeled, Alexis returns; Augustus meets her eyes, withholds criticism, and grows visibly furious at her state.

The initiates are hurled into another circuit: up the mountain and through the Styx. Alexis barely functions, receives a foil blanket only because Augustus wraps it around her, and is forced by him to finish an entire cup of water. Pine then administers an advanced Thagorean ethics exam. Later, Alexis finds she placed fourth; Iason of Athena scores zero.

Cleandro orders Iason on a solo circuit and returns alone, implying Iason’s death. Training blurs into a continuous grind of classes, tests, and repeated circuits over two weeks. Alexis hallucinates lights and sounds, smashes toes on rocks, and crawls from the Styx at night, snarling back at unseen voices.

At the end of the fortnight, figures arrive in smoke. A man with emerald eyes examines Alexis, confirms her truthfulness about not being okay, and wraps her in foil. When Alexis weakly calls him a “dog,” another voice laughs. A grip tightens on her arm; the rescuer says “Domus,” and the world warps as he leaps her away.