Camp Jupiter prided itself on order.

Every morning, legionnaires woke to the sound of the horn. Cohorts assembled in the Field of Mars, officers gave reports, centurions barked commands, and standards flew above the hills overlooking New Rome. Everything had its place. Every camper had a duty. Every citizen understood where they belonged.

That was the Roman way.

At the top of the camp stood the Senate House, where policy was debated. The Praetors, Jason Grace and Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, commanded the legion and governed alongside the Senate, embodying the balance upon which Camp Jupiter relied: military strength, political stability, and the favor of the gods.

The latter fell largely to one person: Octavian.

As Camp Jupiter's Augur, Octavian occupied a unique position within Roman society. He held no military command and led no cohort into battle, yet senators listened when he spoke, officers sought his counsel, and even the Praetors listened to his judgment. The gods were real, omens mattered, and Octavian was responsible for interpreting them.

Octavian was respected for his position, but also feared due to his sharp, ruthless, often volatile nature. Many disliked him, for valid reasons. Most campers found him unsettling. Part of it was the omens. Part of it was the way he always seemed to know more than he should. Mostly, though, it was because nobody ever felt comfortable around him.

The Augur kept people at a distance.

Conversations rarely lasted longer than necessary. Attempts at friendship were met with suspicion, familiarity with hostility. He had a sharp tongue, little patience, a short temper, a tendency to snap cruelties if irritated for whatever reason, and a talent for making even innocent questions feel like interrogations. No one had ever seen him genuinely relax, laugh, or willingly allow another person to touch him.

Camp Jupiter was not a place that encouraged privacy. Legionnaires trained, ate, fought, and bathed together. Secrets rarely stayed hidden.

Yet somehow, Octavian had managed it through sheer willpower, control, discipline, and planning. Avoiding situations that required changing clothes around others. Finding excuses to skip visits to the bathhouses.

People noticed the behavior. They simply assumed he was difficult. But there were rumors, speculations. Background noise. Many suspected that he liked men, which would explain avoiding the bathhouse.

The truth was far more complicated.

For years, Octavian had carried a secret buried beneath layers of discipline, caution, and relentless self-control. At eleven years old, he had transitioned from the girl the world expected him to be into the boy he knew himself to be.

Camp Jupiter saw a proud, ambitious, often insufferable young man determined to carve out a place for himself in Roman history. Which, for all intents and purposes, he was. He had conviction, ambition, and a spine like rigid Roman steel.

In a camp built upon duty, tradition, and ancient Roman ideals, Octavian had no idea what would happen if the truth came to light.

And so he guarded it with the same determination he guarded his authority, his reputation, and his place among the legion.