No fear touches me.

There's a difference between feeling fear and being controlled by fear. In this scene, Six offers a bit of advice. At the beginning of the previous book, nothing the Ghost Corps soldier said made it past Pietas's iron will. How could a mortal know more than he did? But over the journey across the planet, step by step, Pietas has opened his heart. Now that they are finally entering the camp where the other immortals live, Pietas must face the one person who's hurt him more than any other. His father.

Excerpt from Forged in Fire

Fists clenched, Pietas halted. His heart raced. His breath came too fast. Too shallow. I am bigger than any fear. I am unbeatable. I am unstoppable.

"Yes, you are." Six touched the middle of his back.

Pietas jerked away from him. "You aren't supposed to hear me, ghost."

"Then stop thinking so loud."

His iron discipline kept swear words from spewing out his mouth, but if ever one fit, it was now.

Six grinned. "Same to you, Ultra."

Exasperated, he turned to go.

"Hey." Six touched his arm. "Can I give you some advice?"

He tightened his jaw, faced the man, and waited.

Six stuck his thumbs under the straps of his pack. "After I signed the paperwork to become a ghost, I went home. Visited family. My abuela had died, but I hung out with my cousins. I said I was going on a long-term mission, so they put together a going away party. My birth mother showed up."

The ghost related few stories of his personal life, so Pietas paid close attention. "What happened?"

"I hadn't seen her in years. Maybe ten or more. Didn't want to see her. She'd abandoned me. Why should I talk to her? But I kept hearing my abuela's advice. 'Value family. They're your treasure.' I didn't want to believe that for a minute, but I couldn't get it out of my mind."

"You talked to her."

"I did. But before I went, I reminded myself of a few things my abuela taught me. Be aware of your emotions." He counted on his fingers as he listed them. "Don't respond to emotional chaos. Set boundaries. Don't let anyone steal your joy. Forgive those who do you wrong."

"How can one forgive when one can't forget?"

"Forgiveness doesn't mean you forget. You should never forget. To forget would mean they could hurt you again."

"Then how can one forgive?"

"You forgive because no matter what they did, or whether they deserve to be forgiven, you recognize that you deserve peace."

Pietas clasped his hands and brought them to his mouth, voiceless.

Once, when he'd trained with Armand and Philippe, he'd missed a blocking opportunity and Armand hit him in the chest. Philippe followed through not two seconds later. The twins hadn't intended to hurt him, but the double punch laid him out on the floor, unable to breathe, unsure his heart was still beating. Helpless.

Six's words hit him the same way.

How he ached to believe them.

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Water submits to my presence the way enemies submit to my will.

I wanted readers to see Pietas as he was before he met Six and had gone through a transformation. In this snippet, he's aboard ship, in the chamber used for the ritual. Each word and thought is concise, straightforward. There is no misunderstanding his words. Pietas means exactly what he says.

In the bathing area, Pietas took six steps down into a waist-deep pool. "Water submits to my presence the way enemies submit to my will." He cupped water in his hands, lifted it and let it pour down his arms. "The blood of my enemies trickles into the pool of time, is absorbed and forgotten." He pushed wet fingers through his hair and released it.

For Pietas, every thought, every action, every plan wraps around victory. He does not see defeat in any area of his life. His life defines purpose and resolve. He's invincible. Unshakeable.

But all that is about to change.

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The blood of my enemies trickles into the pool of time.

There's a story about "the blood of my enemies" when it comes to Pietas. This excerpts explains it well.

After exiting the pool, Pietas brushed off the water and wrung out his hair. He pulled out a tray holding half a dozen clasps. He chose a silver dragon studded with six turquoise stones, twisted his wet hair and fastened it up, out of the way.

He dried his face, gathered a brush and black face paint. Leaning in close to a freestanding mirror, he outlined a bandit's mask from beneath his eyes to over his dark eyebrows and filled it with black.

He'd worn the mask in battle ever since defeating the First Division, a human special-ops group formed to fight Ultras. It came about because Pietas had slain an enemy and blood had splashed across his eyes. Thinking the blood belonged to Pietas, the Ultra troops had rallied to him and slaughtered the humans. The blood dried almost black.

Stories of how their "bandit king" had conquered the First Division filled the night.

The name stuck. To his troops, he was First Conqueror, War Leader of the Ultras.

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