Six weeks settled into something Rama hadn't dared expect this world could offer them again, a genuine rhythm, unhurried and repetitive in the particular way that meant safety rather than boredom.
He rose before dawn most mornings, drilled with the fourth company until midday, and spent the afternoons on whatever labor Bhargawa assigned him, fortification repair, supply cataloguing, the unglamorous work that kept a guard company functioning between the moments anyone actually needed it to fight. He'd learned, by the third week, exactly how much of his own capability the role could safely absorb. Strong enough to be valued. Never strong enough to be feared outright.
The calibration cost him effort every single day. He let a junior soldier best him at wrestling once, deliberately, and spent an evening afterward privately embarrassed by how good the small defeat had felt, an ordinary man's ordinary failure, nothing extraordinary attached to it at all.
