"Fuck!"
Alain's voice cracked under panic as he stumbled backward. The air ripped the word from his throat before he realized how exposed it made him sound.
Seria was already on him.
Cadet of the Knight Academy. Built for war in ways that no spellbook could teach. She moved with the speed of something predatory, more beast than girl now. Her body twisted mid-air, heel spinning toward his skull.
He threw his hands up fast enough to keep his jaw intact. The impact slammed into his forearms, numbing them to the elbows before blasting him onto the ground. His spine jarred against the dirt. The muffled groan that left his mouth sounded more like defeat than pain.
Her shadow fell over him again. This time heavier, uglier. A rock sat in her hand, crude but final.
"Damn it!"
He lurched upward with both arms to block. But before he could prepare for stone on bone, her fist drove into his gut. Air left him in a choking gasp as his world folded in.
They tangled on the ground, limbs locked, rolling, tearing into dirt and roots. If he let go, she'd beat him into paste. He held. He clung. His fingers wrapped around her wrists like a drowning man clutching driftwood.
Blood slicked down his arm. He had no idea when the skin split. A sharp edge in the grass? Her nails? It didn't matter. He locked tighter, forcing the shaking grip to hold.
"Ha… ha…" Their breaths clashed in the moonlight. His heart thumped against the weight of her fury.
Her eyes cut into him. Those damn green eyes, wet and wild, no trace of warmth left. They burned into him with hatred so raw he almost pitied her. Almost.
"I believed in you!" Seria's scream fractured in the air. Not a warrior's declaration. Not even rage. It was agony.
The sound froze him for half a second. Just long enough to turn her words into questions carved beneath his skin. What had she believed? What kind of trust had he broken?
A girl stepping blindly into the world. A friend she thought she found. A bond she built and held too close.
And he gutted it with his own hands.
His chest twisted colder than the blood flowing down his arm. He nearly choked on shame.
Then he spat it out. No time for worthless guilt. Guilt didn't stop knives. Guilt didn't stop her fists. Survival did.
He had to put her down.
But her power wasn't human. It was more than him, stronger, sharper. Like grappling a beast in the dark. One slip, and bones would snap.
Yet something gnawed in him. A question too sharp to ignore. How was he still holding her back? How did her strength not crush him outright?
It made no sense. Unless…
His mind pulled the thread. Slowly, the pieces locked together.
The spell. The mark. Even broken, some of it still tangled them.
"...Alright." His voice was a whisper, more to himself than her.
He jolted with a sudden scream, dragging up the last fragments of his strength and rage. "Uaaaa!"
The sudden fury blasted through his grip. Seria flinched, thrown back a single step, but it was enough. Alain rolled off the ground, gasping, half crawling, half staggering toward his feet.
Seria adjusted fast. Her knees bent, weight sharpened, energy coiled like a cat's snarl. She reached into her clothes with mechanical purpose.
The blade gleamed before he even processed it. Short, sharp, clean.
Her dagger.
"Ahhhh!" Her roar slid between fury and despair, stripped of anything human. She charged, blade angled inward to her body to close the distance, aimed at his heart.
The impact cut the night.
"Thud!" Flesh split. Blood smeared across grass and skin.
Seria's glare locked on him, teeth clenched, blade biting deeper with each tremor of her arm.
She thought she'd landed clean. And she almost had.
His arm was faster.
Alain had thrown it across his chest at the last second, forcing steel into his own flesh. The blade sank, sliding bone-deep into muscle. He smiled through the fire running down his veins.
And whispered.
"And with this rippling polyhedron shape, I bind you."
The words cracked through the space with the weight of an execution.
Seria's face froze, her fury torn open by sudden alarm. She tried to leap back, to unmake the mistake. She was already too late.
The shadows burst outward from his wound, black light erupting from his bloodied hand. The energy twisted through her body, ripping strength out from under her faster than she could scream.
"Ugh!" Her body convulsed, seized, collapsed. Grass cushioned the fall, but nothing cushioned the pain that stuck in her voice.
She hit the ground hard.
Alain gasped, dragging in air through gritted teeth, shaking as he pulled the dagger out. The blade left his arm with a sound he'd never forget, followed by the warm flood of blood pooling down his sleeve.
"Kill you!" Seria's throat broke with sobs lined with venom. Caught in the binding, her voice twisted like an animal's cry. Her words were fragments of hate more than speech. "I'll kill you, Alain! I swear I'll rip you apart!"
Alain pressed fabric against his wound, tearing a strip of his shirt into a crude bandage. The cloth turned dark too fast, but he tied off what he could.
And moved toward her.
She hissed. Growled. Tried to make her voice animal enough to ward him off. Her body still jerked against the hold of the spell, strained but locked in place.
Alain crouched over her. Positioned himself above, staring down into the face that once smiled like sunlight.
Now it bit like knives.
Her eyes fought upward, still clawing through him even as her body lay rigid against the earth.
"...So it was as I thought." His voice was calm now. Almost frightening in how drained of tone it sounded.
The question from before unfolded itself. Why hadn't she crushed him? Why hadn't her strength buried him where he stood?
Because part of her was already bound. Already tethered beneath his spell. Her will might scream, but the power burned into her blood listened elsewhere.
He looked down at her, blood dripping from his hand, clothes torn, eyes sinking deeper into shadow with every pulse.
The answer was simple.
She was his prisoner already.