Chapter 832: It happened
And yet—it had happened.
He had done it.
Lucavion, without hesitation, without ceremony, had stepped in and shouldered the consequence of something she couldn't fight. And not with spectacle—but with ease. With control. As if none of it rattled him. As if Thalor's oppressive, suffocating mana was merely dust brushed from a shoulder.
And then…
He winked.
Back then, right after it all diffused—when her lungs were still burning and her spine was still trembling beneath her gown—he winked. Not smug. Not flippant. Just that glimmer of mischief curling behind his lashes, like he already knew how the next few beats of the world would unfold and simply let her in on the joke.
'You arrogant… impossible man…'
She had hated him for it. For making her heart skip when it should've clenched. For flashing charm where silence should've followed. For being confident in a moment where she had nearly shattered.
But now?
Standing on the terrace's overlook, gazing down at the field where sword met sword and silence thundered like drums—
He had proven it.
That confidence wasn't vanity. It wasn't baseless.
He had earned it.
Lucavion's movements had danced between elegance and fury, every step whispering calculation and chaos in the same breath. She hadn't just watched him win—she had watched him resonate. With Rowen. With the blade. With something no court in the Empire had trained them to see.
And now… every noble in that viewing hall had seen it too.
The air was thick with silence, even though the match had ended. There was no applause yet. No soft commentary. Just a subtle, quiet unraveling of posture—lords leaning forward without realizing, ladies still clutching their hands mid-gasp.
Some had eyes wide with disbelief.
Others?
Terror.
Lucien had not moved.
Rowen had not yet spoken.
And Lucavion, standing beneath the glow of the moonlight with dust on his sleeves and sweat barely kissed along his brow, simply let it settle. He didn't boast. Didn't gloat.
He stood like someone who knew exactly what he had done.
And exactly what it meant.
'No wonder you winked.'
Priscilla's lips pressed into a thin line, her chest rising slowly.
It wasn't just the strength that shook the nobles.
It was the implication of it.
Because this—what he'd just done—wasn't supposed to be possible. Not for a man of uncertain background. Not for someone who stood outside the usual noble factions. Not for someone whose reputation had long been tainted by rumors and manipulation.
And yet… he had stood equal to Rowen.
Rowen.
Lucien's champion. The Empire's sword. The man who was supposed to be unmatched in discipline and heritage.
Lucavion had not only met him.
He had danced with him.
And no one in the audience—no one—could deny it now.
He wasn't a question anymore.
He was an answer.
And that terrified them.
****
The duel's end hadn't rung with triumph—but with a silence that hummed louder than any cheer.
"…Draw?"
The judge's word had barely finished echoing when the courtyard stirred. Not with laughter. Not with dismissal. But with murmurs sharpened by awe.
"He blocked Rowen's final strike…"
"And landed his own at the same time?"
"That kid—Lucavion—he's…"
"…not to be trifled with."
The nobles spoke in hushes. Velvet-smooth tones glazed in shock. Their fans didn't flutter now—they had stilled, like all motion deferred to thought.
One older baron near the fountain leaned toward his companion, voice low. "Rowen Drayke has trained with the Knight Commander himself since he could hold a sword. That wasn't a spar. That was his full form. And yet…"
"No victor," the companion finished, a hint of admiration in her tone. "Which means either the Drayke bloodline has lost its edge…"
"Or the commoner was something else entirely."
The unspoken tension twisted in the air. None dared challenge Rowen openly. But none could deny what they'd seen either.
Lucavion had stopped the Empire's finest blade.
And he had smiled doing it.
Thalor, still at the edge of the gathering, sipped calmly from his now-cooled wine. He let the murmurs play their part—ripple outward, soften the battlefield. Let awe settle like dew before sunlight burned it away.
Only then did he speak, half to the nobles behind him, half to himself.
"Yes," he murmured. "He is… very much not to be trifled with."
And yet the gleam in his eyes was not disappointment.
It was intrigue.
He wasn't a swordsman.
Not by tradition. Not by discipline. Not by pride.
But Thalor had eyes. And what he had just seen—that final exchange between Rowen and Lucavion—wasn't just a duel. It was a conversation written in steel, and every syllable had been carved from mastery.
Rowen Drayke hadn't simply swung a blade. He had called upon something sacred. Something old.
Thalor's gaze narrowed.
'I've seen notes of it before... whispered in scrolls… sealed in Tower archives we weren't even meant to catalog.'
The final technique. That arcing spiral.
It hadn't been refined for war. It wasn't a battlefield technique, nor a maneuver meant for slaying monsters or dueling mages.
It was art. Pure and singular.
The signature of the previous Sword Saint.
A technique known only in theory—a stroke meant to be the summation of a life spent in silent worship of the blade, stripped of mana, incompatible with bodily reinforcement, discarded in an age obsessed with augmentation.
A sword technique… for the sword alone.
And Rowen had used it.
Not just mimicked it.
He understood it.
The elegance of the motion, the arc of his pivot, the stillness in the breath just before impact—it wasn't forged in some noble courtyard.
It had been passed down.
And yet…
Lucavion broke it.
No—met it.
Not with matching form. Not with traditional counters. But with something almost unspeakable.
Instinct, yes. But not wild.
Calculated.
Reflex sharpened into design. A pattern of motion that didn't come from practice, but from understanding. Like he had read the technique in real time and rewritten its ending.
Thalor felt it now, low in his chest.
That twist of recognition. That rare, spine-pricking certainty that what he had just witnessed was not luck. Not a fluke.
It was revelation.
'A sword genius…'
The thought wasn't bitter. It was clean.
He'd suspected it for a while—ever since Lucavion responded to the term ionized without blinking, ever since the stabilizer's ripple aligned too perfectly. The man was no fool. He'd evaded every bait Thalor had thrown like it was dance.
But this?
This sealed it.
Lucavion wasn't some clever manipulator hiding behind half-truths and charm.
He was dangerous in the ways that mattered.
'My instincts were right,' Thalor mused, setting down his wine, watching as Lucavion finally moved—graceful, still quiet, not victorious but content. 'He's not just here to survive us. He's here to match us.'
His smile returned.
Wider this time.
Not out of politeness.
But because, for the first time in years…
He was genuinely intrigued.
Thalor stood still for a moment longer, watching the slow exhale of the court—the nobles resettling into themselves, eyes wide, lips tight, as if unsure whether to be impressed, afraid, or both.
He had not gotten what he wanted.
At least—that's what they would think.
A draw wasn't a spectacle. It didn't give the court a victor to rally behind or a loser to mock. It left things in limbo. Suspended. Quiet.
And yet…
He had gotten exactly what he wanted.
Confirmation.
The whispers about Lucavion had been too disjointed to trust: prodigy, risk, anomaly, troublemaker. But now? Now the court had seen it. With their own eyes.
The swordsman who stood toe-to-toe with Rowen Drayke.
The genius who turned a discarded relic of the Sword Saint into an opportunity—and survived it.
That was enough.
No—more than enough.
It was the spark.
'Let's make the fire, then.'
Thalor's hands came together in a slow, measured clap. Not abrupt. Not mocking.
Just enough to draw every ear again.
"Remarkable," he said, stepping forward so his voice carried through the chill of the courtyard. "Truly, I must commend both of you."
His gaze drifted, first to Rowen—still standing like the air around him hadn't fully cooled—then to Lucavion, who had already begun dusting off his cuffs as if nothing had happened.
"Lucavion," Thalor said, smiling, voice like silk folding over steel. "You've surpassed expectations tonight, haven't you?"
The silence shifted.
"Truly," Thalor continued, stepping further into the moon-drenched courtyard, the hush still curling like fog around him, "a spectacular performance."
He let the words land—not tossed like praise, but placed, deliberate and reverent. A gift wrapped in intrigue.
Lucavion, still brushing off the last shimmer of dust from his sleeve, turned slightly—just enough to meet Thalor's gaze. No pride in his eyes. No smugness. Just that usual half-smile, the kind that knew more than it ever said.
Thalor matched it with one of his own.
"The kind of performance," he went on, voice curling now into the crowd's lingering attention, "that leaves no need for ceremony."
A few nobles stirred. Not just from the compliment—but from the implication.
Because everyone in this courtyard knew what came next.
He turned slightly, just enough for his voice to carry not just to Lucavion—but across the watching line of Lorian students, where silks in foreign hues glittered like challenge.
"And so, it is only right," Thalor said with calm finality, "that he face the next of our guests."
Chapter 833: A link ?
There was a murmur.
Not loud. Not unruly.
Just a soft ripple—like wind passing through silk—as the Lorian delegation absorbed Thalor's words.
The students shifted, almost in unison, as if some unspoken instinct had swept through them. Their gazes turned toward Lucavion—measured, curious, now edged with something sharper.
Interest.
Not disdain. Not mockery. But the kind of interest that came from recognition.
Recognition of someone dangerous.
Of someone real.
The one who had parried the Empire's sword to a draw.
And yet...
He was still being treated as second.
Lucavion felt it—the shift. Not in words, but in eyes. The way the Lorian students' postures remained poised, yet a few tilted their heads. The faint narrowing of pupils. The glint of calculation from one girl in gold-threaded sleeves. The boy near her, with the long scar running beneath his collarbone, gave a near-invisible nod—half to himself, half to what he'd just understood.
'So they've placed him beneath Rowen,' Lucavion thought.
Of course they had.
Even after a draw.
Because Rowen had stepped forward first. Because Rowen was the Empire's heirloom—already polished, already paraded.
Lucavion was the challenger. The surprise.
The court had eyes, but they still needed permission to elevate someone like him. No name. No title. No bloodline draped over his shoulders like a banner.
So Thalor had given them that—without ever saying it outright.
Rowen was the standard.
Lucavion was the trial.
The courtyard breathed again—but softer now, more calculated. The game had been balanced, if only in appearance.
Thalor's arrangement was elegant in its quiet diplomacy. By placing Lucavion against the Lorian representative after Rowen, the Empire had, without ever admitting it, acknowledged the structure laid bare by Prince Adrian's earlier remark. Titles. Balance. Optics.
Rowen, the heir to the Knight Commander, had already taken the field. To pit him against a lesser noble from a foreign land would have shattered the veneer of politeness Arcanis held so dear.
So Lucavion was slotted into place—not beneath Rowen in strength, but beneath him in standing. It worked, politically.
Prince Adrian understood that.
Hence, when he stepped forward with that unfailing calm, hands behind his back and chin tilted in perfect grace, his words rang as both deference and tactic:
"From our delegation," he said, "Jesse Burns will represent us."
There were no gasps. No shock. Just the quiet, curious tilt of noble heads.
The name meant little.
Low-tier. Borderline minor. A cadet house, barely registered in Empire ledgers.
But the name didn't matter now.
Because Jesse had already started walking forward.
The hush shifted again, rippling outward as she entered the courtyard—steps smooth, practiced, but unembellished. Brown hair, tied loosely at the neck. A plain blade at her hip. No gleaming adornments. No silver-threaded tunic. Her uniform bore the Lorian crest, yes—but it sat on fabric that looked more functional than fine.
She was, by every noble's eye, decent.
Not beautiful. Not dazzling. Not threatening.
But her stride was unbroken.
And then she looked up.
At Lucavion.
Thalor's gaze narrowed.
It wasn't attraction. Nor intimidation. Nor even the watchfulness of a duelist preparing herself for engagement.
Her orange eyes met Lucavion's with something far more strange.
Recognition?
No—deeper.
Thalor's fingers tapped once against the curve of his wrist, the motion featherlight, the smile not quite reaching his lips.
He was no mind reader. Certainly no eye reader.
But he had seen enough to recognize when something was off script.
Jesse Burns didn't just approach Lucavion with discipline—she approached with something older. More weighted. Her steps were steady, yes, but her gaze?
That wasn't curiosity.
It wasn't competitive focus.
It wasn't admiration, either.
It was a thread.
A taut, invisible cord drawn tight between them, vibrating with a tension no one else in the crowd could name—but Thalor felt it. The way Lucavion hadn't moved. The way his chin hadn't lifted. But his breath—just the faintest catch in his exhale.
Ah.
'They know each other.'
He couldn't say how. Couldn't say why.
But Thalor had stood in too many courts, orchestrated too many traps, danced around too many veiled betrayals to miss the look a person gave not when facing a stranger—but someone they'd left behind.
'So... there's something I didn't know.'
That alone would've been enough.
But now?
Now the girl had become more than a name. More than a political placeholder tossed in by Lorian to maintain appearances.
She was a piece of Lucavion's past.
And Thalor, above all things, collected context.
His gaze followed Jesse's stride as she moved to her place in the dueling square, and then flicked back to Lucavion.
Still no words. Still no shift in expression.
But the silence between them?
It felt like it had already begun to speak.
"Heh…"
The chuckle left his lips so softly only those closest heard it. But it wasn't humor. Not entirely.
More like recognition.
Interest.
'Just like Valeria Olarion… this one as well.'
Another woman orbiting the enigma.
Another thread tied to the tapestry that Lucavion insisted on keeping so artfully tangled.
And that was the thrill of it, wasn't it?
Not knowing.
Not yet.
Not entirely.
Not many still understood who Lucavion truly was. Not even those who whispered his name now with respect. He was rising—yes—but still veiled. Still cloaked in smoke.
And Thalor?
He lived to pull back curtains.
'One way or another…'
Thalor's tongue flicked over his lower lip—absent-minded, indulgent—as his gaze narrowed on the pair now facing each other in the lanternlit atrium. The audience held its breath again, caught between etiquette and anticipation. But Thalor wasn't watching the form or the stance. Not yet.
He was watching the thread.
Still pulled taut. Still humming between them.
Jesse hadn't bowed in flourish. She hadn't even drawn fully yet. And Lucavion? He hadn't shifted his posture more than a half-inch. Yet the air had already changed.
There was something here.
Something coiled in the space between their eyes.
Thalor smiled—barely.
Not out of amusement.
Out of appetite.
'Go on… show me.'
Because there were only so many things that made someone like Jesse stare like that. Only so many reasons a sword held loosely in one hand could look like it remembered another life.
Regret.
Betrayal.
Something broken.
Something left unsaid.
'Did you betray him?' Thalor mused. 'Or did he leave you behind?'
He didn't care which—not yet. All he needed was the friction. The little crack in Lucavion's composure. The crack that might splinter into something useful.
Or beautiful.
He leaned forward slightly, just enough for the wine in his glass to shift.
Something interesting might happen, indeed.
*****
Jesse stepped forward.
One boot, then the next, slow and steady on the marble beneath her feet. She didn't glance at the crowd—didn't need to. She could feel their stares, their measuring gazes. But they weren't what filled her mind.
He was.
Lucavion.
Standing there with his estoc lowered and that crooked smirk still half-shadowed by moonlight, like the duel had been nothing more than an idle exercise. Like he hadn't just dismantled one of the Empire's most polished prodigies with nothing but instinct and invention.
And Jesse had watched every second of it.
The clash, the pivot, the rhythm—gods, the rhythm. She could still feel it pulsing in the soles of her feet. She knew Rowen's technique well enough to recognize what Lucavion had broken. He hadn't matched it. He'd unmade it.
It had been a long time since she saw him fight.
Too long.
Even back in the military—when she was still fresh to war, to everything, when she was still only in the pits of despair—Lucavion had always been different.
Back then, he hadn't been a commander or some whispered name floating between battle camps. He was just a one-star. A nobody. A boy with too much sarcasm and a blade that never moved wrong.
But, even then…
Even then—
He was already dangerous.
Already right.
She remembered the first time he sparred with her. How his blade slipped past hers, not with speed, but with precision. How he never used more strength than needed. How he corrected her grip not with theory, but with a single, offhanded, "You're holding it like you're afraid of bleeding. Either let go or cut something."
She hadn't forgotten.
Because it was Lucavion—Lucavion—who taught her how to hold a sword with intent.
Who trained with her after hours, long after the others went to sleep.
Who stayed behind when no one else cared whether she lived or died the next day.
He was the one who helped her become stronger.
Not by kindness.
By showing her how not to be weak.
And now, watching him stand across the courtyard, that same unreadable calm in his posture, that same flicker of sharpness behind his eyes…
It felt strange…
Not the kind of strange that made her anxious.
No, it was quieter than that. Heavier.
Like trying to breathe in a room that still carried the scent of something long gone—smoke, steel, him.
Lucavion hadn't just gotten stronger. His sword had evolved. The way he fought now—calm, unsparing, unorthodox—it was more than talent. It was like watching a language only he spoke.
But Jesse remembered its first words.
Chapter 834: Words of steel
Jesse remembered its first words.
She remembered the way he used to fight in the camps. Not wild, not showy—just… right. Even when he barely had any rank. Even when his only advantage was how fast he learned and how little he cared for tradition.
That hadn't changed.
But everything else had.
The court clothes.
The posture.
The weight behind his name, even if it still wasn't a real name.
He felt further away now.
And she? She wasn't the same either.
She'd bled since those days. Killed. Survived. She'd become someone who walked with purpose in courts like these, someone the prince himself trusted to act without crumbling.
She wasn't just a girl dragging herself through drills anymore.
She had a place.
A reputation.
But standing across from him now… it all felt muted.
Like she'd stepped sideways into a version of the past where things could have gone differently.
Maybe—just maybe—in this courtyard…
She could relive some of it.
Not all.
Not the ache, not the silences that stretched between deployment and disappointment.
But this.
Lucavion's eyes met hers.
And for a moment, it was like the war never ended.
The noise of the courtyard faded—nobles, politics, everything. All she could see was him. The same black eyes. The same unreadable calm.
But behind it?
There was a glint. Something quieter.
Memory.
And Jesse felt it in her chest like a bruise.
He remembers too.
Back then, when they were just half-starved grunts in rusted armor, when the nights were colder than the steel they carried, he'd said something. One night after drills, when the others had already collapsed into their tents, and she was still fumbling her blade in frustration.
He stood beside her, arms crossed, watching her form collapse for the fifth time.
And then, with that lazy grin she'd come to associate with pain hidden beneath confidence, he said:
"You're trying to fight with a sword. Don't."
She blinked at him. "What?"
"Talk to it. Listen to it. You're not swinging a tool. You're holding a conversation. The moment you stop listening, it stops protecting you."
She never forgot that.
Even when he left.
Even when she was alone.
She'd carried that phrase like a shield in the years after. When the war turned darker, when the air felt thick with ghosts, when he wasn't there to spar or joke or tell her what she was doing wrong—his words were.
Jesse had to survive the rest of it without him.
And it hadn't been clean.
Not by a long shot.
The men who came to her tent didn't want camaraderie. They wanted access. To her, to her proximity to command, to what little warmth she had left.
They weren't like him.
They didn't speak to her like she was real.
But she shaped herself in those moments.
In the silences.
In the refusals.
In the fights she picked, and the ones she walked away from with blood on her knuckles.
She survived.
Not by being soft.
Not by asking anyone to stay.
But by becoming someone no one could bend.
And now—
Now she stood across from him.
All of it pressed forward now.
The weight. The past. The silence between them.
Standing there, before Lucavion once more, Jesse felt everything she'd buried knot itself behind her ribs. Not like sorrow. Not like rage. Like something fuller. Whole.
She looked at his blade.
It was new—strange. The estoc didn't carry the same chipped familiarity of the training sword he once used to knock her onto her back for five sparring rounds straight. It looked refined. Dangerous. Detached.
But the way he held it?
That hadn't changed.
Still loose in his fingers.
Still reverent in its distance.
Like he wasn't wielding it.
Like he was listening.
Jesse's lips curved—barely.
A smile, not of amusement or pride.
Something quieter.
It wasn't as she imagined.
She'd pictured this moment countless times. Thought she'd meet him again in a more private place, after the war had passed from their bodies, maybe after the blood had dried. She imagined a table, or a street corner, or even just a letter. Something clean.
But this?
This was better.
Here, in the open, in front of everyone who ever doubted her, she stood with the one person who had seen her, once.
And now?
She was about to speak the only way he ever truly respected.
Steel to steel.
The referee stepped forward, voice crisp in the chill air.
"On the signal. Combat until disarm, yield, or incapacitation. Competitors—are you ready?"
Before Jesse could answer, another voice cut through the stillness.
"Do not embarrass us."
Adrian.
His tone didn't hold cruelty. But it didn't have to.
Because that word—it echoed deeper than it should have.
Embarrass.
The first word her father ever used when her name was read aloud in court.
An embarrassment.
Not because she failed.
But because she existed.
The illegitimate daughter of a house that only recognized what could be groomed and paraded. A tool. A number. An afterthought.
She'd been sent to war not for glory.
But to disappear.
Let the battlefield deal with her.
Let the reports bury her name in the mud.
But she didn't die.
She learned to fight.
To bleed without weeping.
To build a sword-hand steady enough to silence the word embarrassment every time it surfaced in someone else's mouth.
And now—
She took a breath.
Still looking at Lucavion.
Still feeling his gaze locked with hers, saying nothing, as always, but letting it all speak anyway.
She didn't turn back toward Adrian. Didn't respond.
She simply stepped forward into stance, one hand resting on the hilt, the other loose at her side.
And with that same ghost of a smile, she whispered—not for the referee, not for the nobles, not for the prince:
But for him.
"I'm ready."
The referee turned slightly.
"Lucavion?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Didn't adjust his stance or glance at the crowd like so many others would.
His eyes stayed on Jesse.
Unflinching.
Still reading her the way he used to read enemy movements—quietly, carefully, like her very breath was a paragraph in some living book he already half-knew by heart.
And then—
He smirked.
Not the forced kind nobles wore in debates or salons.
But the old kind.
The real kind.
The one she remembered from the barracks. From campfires. From blood-soaked mornings when he still mocked her footwork between salvos.
"I'm ready," he said, his voice low and smooth.
As if this was just another sparring session after curfew.
Another night under a different sky.
The referee stepped back, hands raised.
The courtyard exhaled.
Jesse lifted her sword.
A long, classic blade—unfussy, unadorned. Meant for control and momentum, not showmanship. It gleamed in the lanternlight as she shifted into form—weight balanced, shoulders squared, eyes never leaving his.
'I want to show you…'
It wasn't pride.
It wasn't vengeance.
It was the quiet, stubborn wish of a girl who had been shoved into the battlefield and told to survive it.
A girl they thought would break.
A girl who almost did.
But didn't.
Not fully.
Because something in her remembered this—
This moment.
This weight in her hand. This silence before the strike. This gaze meeting hers like it always used to when they stood across training lines, half-starved and laughing between bruises.
Jesse had changed.
She wasn't that trembling cadet anymore. The one who used to fumble her draw, who flinched at feedback, who stayed silent when the others joked about her parentage like she wasn't there.
No.
She'd built herself blade by blade, scar by scar, under a sky that never looked warm again.
'Let me show you what became of the girl you left behind.'
Her feet braced.
The sword rose higher—shoulder-aligned, clean angle, no hesitation.
Let the court watch.
Let them weigh her stance, her rank, her origin.
None of it mattered.
Not here.
Not to him.
She dashed forward.
No flourish.
No warning.
Just pure, honed intent.
A streak of motion through the lanternlit silence.
CLANK.
Steel met steel.
Chapter 835: Words of steel (2)
CLANK.
The sound of steel meeting steel echoed sharp and clean through the atrium—like a bell ringing at the edge of a battlefield long past.
Jesse's blade slid against Lucavion's, her weight low, precise. The clash didn't push him back, but it didn't need to.
It started the conversation.
Her body moved on instinct—familiar steps refined over years, memories turned muscle, rage shaped into rhythm. And for a moment, even with the crowd watching, with Thalor's gaze coiled like a snake at the edge of the marble ring—
It felt like theirs.
Their spar.
Their world.
And somewhere beneath that strike, beneath the steel and stance, the memory of her family stirred.
The Burns family.
Earls. Once proud. Once significant. A lesser banner under a greater sun.
Until they backed the wrong prince.
The wrong heir.
A mistake that didn't just cost them political standing—it cost them their future. And when the Empire needed to send a delegation across the sea to Arcanis, the answer had been easy.
Send the Burns.
That was how she ended up here.
A scapegoat turned symbol.
A minor noble girl with no lineage worth reciting and too many battlefield scars to count.
They thought it was a punishment—being sent across the border to the Arcanis Empire, embedded in a delicate political envoy as little more than a placeholder.
But Jesse?
She saw the truth of it the moment she stepped aboard that ship.
'It's a chance.'
A chance to breathe air not heavy with her family's shame.
A chance to become something more.
And when she arrived, she carried not just her sword—but her foundation.
The Burns family had their pride, even if their name had wilted under bad alliances. They were Earls once—still were, technically. Still clung to traditions, to their private schools of sword and mana like they were clinging to relevance itself.
And they had one thing worth clinging to:
The Reaping Form.
A blade art inherited from the founder of the family. Wide arcs, precise steps, tight rotations built to cut down more than one opponent at a time.
Graceful—but merciless. Elegant—but efficient. It is it was described, but Jesse found these words simply pointless.
Jesse knew every inch of it.
But it hadn't been enough.
Not on the battlefield.
Not with how she fought.
So she took what the family gave her, and she added what only one person had ever given freely.
Lucavion's teachings.
His instincts. His irregular footwork, the way he cut angles into the fight where none should've existed. His sense for timing—not refined, but tuned, like a blade listening to itself.
She wove both together.
And when she'd returned—scarred and far more dangerous than any of them expected—they'd let her duel her brother Linston for the right to be sent to Arcanis.
Linston had the pedigree. The bearing. The perfect form.
But he didn't have her fire.
Didn't have the voice of steel echoing in his head every time his stance slipped.
He didn't have Lucavion's ghosts.
And that's why he lost.
Not in shame.
But in confusion. And anger.
—CLANG!—
The second clash was harder—Jesse's blade skidding off Lucavion's estoc, her stance tight, coiled. She slid back two steps, boots scraping the marble.
'He hasn't lost a step.'
Lucavion advanced—not fast, not aggressive. Just present. Forward. Like gravity had decided on a direction, and he was it. His estoc carved a smooth crescent through the air—measured, minimal—testing.
Jesse read it instantly.
Her shoulders pivoted, sliding into a low Reaping Form sidestep. Her blade dipped beneath his strike and swept upward—
—SHRRNK!—
Lucavion rotated. A half-turn into a parry, his estoc diverting her blade just past his hip.
'Still reads me like a book.'
But that wasn't all of it. She pivoted again, pulling her back foot into a tighter stance, the family form dissolving mid-motion into something messier—his old rhythm. She dropped low and swept her blade diagonally—
—CLANK!—
Lucavion blocked it, but not cleanly. The recoil nudged his arm an inch wider than he liked.
His eyes flicked—not in shock, but interest.
'He recognized it.'
She could see that.
The recognition.
'Can you hear my sword?'
She wanted to ask.
Yet she didn't.
She didn't speak now.
—CLANG!—
Their blades met again, and again, and again.
Steel whispered, screamed, sang—each strike between them a conversation Jesse could feel in her bones. Not words. Not even breath.
Just weight. Motion. Intent.
Lucavion never spoke in fights.
He let his blade speak for him.
And Jesse… she had always listened.
—SHRRRING!—
His estoc slid along the flat of her blade, riding the angle until he spun away with effortless grace, using the drag to reposition, to bait. Jesse followed—half a step too slow—and immediately felt the trap closing.
But she remembered this.
'He likes to test spacing that way. First draw is never meant to land—it's meant to read.'
She adjusted. Shifted her footwork against what her instincts screamed, and in doing so—escaped his circle.
Lucavion's blade hissed through the empty air where her wrist would've been.
He didn't blink.
Didn't falter.
He just turned.
His foot slid diagonally—counter-reaping—a movement he'd taught her. Taught her to punish straight-lined fencers. To cut their rhythm mid-rotation.
She knew what came next.
She pivoted—mirroring him.
Their swords met.
—CLAAANK!—
Jesse gritted her teeth, their hilts locking for a breathless moment. He was stronger. Always had been. But that didn't mean he pushed.
Lucavion never wasted effort.
Even now, the pressure was exact. Not overwhelming—just enough.
'You're still measuring me. You bastard.'
Her body spun away, tight arc, Reaping Form 4—the low shoulder cut. Her blade whispered across the space—
But Lucavion stepped into it.
—CLANG!—
A shallow parry.
Barely a turn of his wrist, but it redirected her cut—tilted it off her axis by just a hair.
Enough to break form.
Enough to leave her vulnerable.
She leapt back.
Two steps.
Then three.
Her lungs burned.
Her grip tightened.
Lucavion remained exactly where he was.
Not chasing.
Not pressing.
Watching.
'You never chased unless you had to. Still the same.'
But he wasn't just the same.
His footwork…
That had changed.
There was a tightness now. A surgical stillness in the way he moved. Less flourish. Less show. He was quieter—deadlier.
And Jesse felt it.
Not just the sharpness.
The evolution.
He'd fixed it. Now his movements didn't look like Lucavion.
He approached again.
Not fast.
Measured.
And then—
—SWOOSH!—
His estoc darted forward—not a thrust. A bait.
Jesse didn't take it.
She ducked low, her shoulder rolling inward, blade slicing diagonally up from hip to shoulder in a hybrid arc. It wasn't textbook. Not family style. Not his.
—SHHHRINK!—
He caught it.
Barely.
That smile in his eyes—it still remained.
Chapter 836: Words of steel (3)
That smile—
Jesse saw it. That faint curl at the corner of his mouth, subtle, unspoken, but maddeningly familiar.
That was his smile.
The one he used back then—when she'd fumbled her grip for the third time in a row, cursing under her breath as the training blade slipped in her palms.
The one he wore not when mocking, but when watching her try.
Back then, she thought it was arrogance. A smirk from a boy who'd clearly seen too many fights and thought too highly of himself. But now—
Now she knew better.
Lucavion only smiled like that when he saw progress.
When he saw effort becoming understanding.
'You bastard,' Jesse thought, eyes narrowing. 'Still smiling like you're watching some half-dead recruit try to walk straight.'
The blade lock broke.
Lucavion moved again, fluid, his estoc weaving a feint that mimicked a high thrust—but Jesse read through it. She leaned under the path, pivoting on her left foot, using the downswing of the Reaping Form to answer.
—CLANK!—
Steel met steel again, but it didn't clang wild.
It clicked.
Like the closing of a lock.
A memory fell in, unbidden.
"You're not learning to fight," Lucavion had said once, sprawled out on the training yard grass with his hands behind his head, one eye open. "You're learning how not to lose."
Jesse had rolled her eyes then. She'd watched knights—real ones. Her brother's instructors, her uncle's old guards. They followed forms, chanted oaths, moved like they belonged on war banners.
Lucavion did none of that.
He called his training the basics.
Not some blood-bound family style. Not an academy-refined sequence of forms. Just—
"Move like you're listening to what your body tells," he'd told her. "It already knows where to go. You're just here to not get in its way."
Back then, she didn't understand.
Back then, it didn't make sense.
"Move like you're listening to your body."
She'd furrowed her brow at that, confused and frustrated, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of a bruised wrist.
What kind of instruction was that?
She remembered the drills her family's knights barked. Measured stances. Fixed forms. Pivots recited like scripture. This foot here. That slash there. Again. Again. Again.
Lucavion hadn't cared about any of that.
He taught her to feel the pull of balance in her spine. To lean into instinct. To pivot not when a form dictated it, but when her body screamed for it.
At first, it was chaos.
She missed parries.
She fumbled draws.
She fell—twice—in one night and heard him chuckle from behind a half-eaten ration bar.
But something strange happened.
The more time passed, the more her body stopped fighting itself. Her stance stopped being a shape. It became a rhythm.
And when the war began in earnest—
It started to make sense.
Her squad had been ambushed outside Mornrock Vale—jagged cliffs, too little cover. They'd formed a standard line.
She didn't.
She moved.
She listened.
And her blade struck first. It struck true.
Not because of form.
Because of instinct.
Because of him.
She hadn't wanted to fight in a war. Hadn't wanted to kill. Jesse had imagined earning her stripes through command work—logistics, mana recovery, even communication lines.
Not the front.
Not the screaming.
Not the way the blood sprayed when you got too close and the other person didn't wear a helm.
But survival didn't ask what you wanted.
It taught.
And it cut.
Her hands learned before her mind accepted it.
But he—Lucavion—he didn't know what came next.
He didn't know what happened after he left.
'After you left…'
Her teeth clenched.
After he left, she'd been reassigned. There was no dramatic exile, no tribunal. Just a signature. A sealed order. And a silent understanding that no one would say it aloud—
But everyone knew.
She'd trained with him.
She'd sparred with the deserter.
And in the Empire's ranks, that meant something.
Even if she didn't follow him.
Even if she stayed.
Especially because she stayed.
The first squad they placed her in—the 17th Mobile.
She remembered the stares.
The too-long silences.
The way her new commander handed her a schedule and never once looked her in the eye.
'Illegitimate noble.'
The 17th Mobile had been stationed in the Shale Expanse—barren, wind-scoured, brittle as cracked bone.
The perfect place to bury someone quietly.
Jesse still remembered the way the sand scraped her knuckles raw during trench drills. The way they handed her half-rusted gear while the others wore polished mail. No explanations. Just glances.
The silence was worse than the insults.
Because silence said: we know who you are.
Not Jesse Burns.
Not a soldier.
Not a comrade.
The one who trained with Lucavion.
A deserter.
A traitor.
And worse—still loyal enough to stay.
At that point in the war, the Lorian Empire had already begun to fray. Resources thin. Casualties high. The upper command bristling under Arcanis pressure. Hope had become brittle—like porcelain left out in frost.
They needed scapegoats.
And Jesse?
She was perfectly shaped for the role.
Illegitimate daughter. Reputation tainted by association. No political backing strong enough to shield her. No noble father stepping forward to deny or defend.
Just the girl who used to train with Lucavion.
And Lucavion, in their eyes?
He wasn't just a deserter.
He was a symbol of abandonment.
Proof that even the prodigies would turn their backs when things got dark.
So they looked at her and saw echoes of him.
They didn't shove her into ambushes outright.
But they assigned her to lead them.
First wave. Thin recon. Forward scouts into terrain too unstable for proper maps.
It wasn't discipline.
It was slow execution.
But she survived.
Gods, she survived.
Not because of luck.
Because she had to think.
Adapt.
She used Reaping Form when it made sense. She used Lucavion's rhythm when her enemies got clever. And when both failed?
She made her own way.
'You who left me,' she thought now, parrying another smooth arc of Lucavion's estoc, 'you don't get to look at me like that.'
That same smile still hung at the edge of his mouth.
The one that once meant support.
Encouragement.
Now it felt like a blade on old scar tissue.
Her blade swung—diagonal, not quite Reaping Form, not quite his chaos either. It was hers. A curve meant to mislead, to pressure without overreaching. Lucavion countered—
—CLANK!—
But this time?
She pressed harder into the bind. Forced it to shift. Forced him to pivot first.
He did.
His eyes flicked, only briefly, but she saw it.
That shift.
'Do you know how much pain you caused me?'
Chapter 837: Words of steel (4)
'Do you know how much pain you caused me?'
She didn't scream it.
Didn't say it.
But it surged behind every strike. Every breath.
She'd bled for a cause that had already begun to rot. She'd fought beside people who'd sooner let her die than admit she belonged. She'd earned every inch of her standing with cracked ribs and bruised pride and a sword that never, ever stopped moving.
And he—the one who taught her to move like that—left.
'Do you even think about what happened because of your actions?'
She circled him now, blade steady, footwork sure. She didn't hesitate—not because she trusted him.
But because she had stopped waiting for people to come back.
Lucavion pivoted, reading her movement. His form—clean, close, defensive.
He wasn't striking.
He was studying.
Still treating her like a cadet.
Still watching her learn.
And it broke something loose in her chest.
That old hurt.
That old fire.
He never saw what she became.
Jesse's jaw locked.
'You don't know me anymore.'
Jesse's breath burned as it left her lungs—steady, sharp, laced with a fury she couldn't voice. But the rhythm of it matched her blade. Matched her body. Matched the life she'd carved out of abandonment.
'And that's your fault.'
She wasn't a cadet.
She wasn't some quiet shadow trailing behind his lessons.
She was a survivor forged in all the places he never saw.
And standing here—before the man who once taught her to listen to her blade—she realized he no longer heard hers.
Because it had changed.
She had changed.
She wanted him to see it.
Not through words.
Through pain.
Jesse exhaled through her teeth and stilled her blade just a moment—just long enough to feel again. Her stance sank. One foot braced behind her, weight angled as if to retreat—but not quite.
Lucavion's eyes narrowed.
He saw the shift.
He always saw the shift.
But this time, he read it wrong.
She wanted him to.
'You think I'm circling again. You think I'm playing your game.'
She wasn't.
This wasn't his game.
It was hers.
The one she built in blood.
She gripped her blade low, reverse, lowering her center of gravity. Her shoulder rolled forward, exposing her left side—just slightly.
Too much.
Too open.
Lucavion's eyes flicked once.
There.
He moved.
Estoc slicing forward in a perfect diagonal—sharp, minimal, aimed right for the exposed joint of her shoulder.
But Jesse didn't move away.
Didn't dodge.
Didn't block.
She let it happen.
The blade sliced across her arm—
—SHHK!—
Pain flared hot and white across her nerves, but her grip never faltered.
Her body twisted into the strike.
And then she moved.
From her low stance, her blade coiled around in a vicious upward arc, drawing from her wounded arm's rotation—a motion she had trained alone, in cold, dark fields when the world had already written her off.
Her voice didn't rise.
But in her head—
She whispered it.
"Dying Rebuttal."
A form designed to punish assumption.
The moment an opponent believes the fight's already over.
A counter born not from school or structure—but from necessity.
From being weaker.
From being disposable.
The blade screamed upward—
—CLAAAANG!—
Lucavion barely caught it.
His estoc tilted just in time to catch the full force of her upward cut—but the motion shook his stance. The snap of the clash echoed across the courtyard.
And his eyes—
They were wide.
Not from pain.
Not from surprise at the form.
But at the truth of it.
Jesse didn't stop.
She pressed the lock, leaned forward, blood still hot down her arm.
And looked into his eyes.
Those pitch-black irises she used to recognize in training tents and nighttime watches now held a fire—a kind of deep-burning presence he hadn't worn back then.
But so did hers.
And now?
His smile was gone.
Lucavion's smirk—
That damned smirk, the one she'd known like breath—
It was gone.
Erased not by pain.
Not by surprise.
But by something colder.
Something older.
His estoc still held firm in the lock, steel pressed against hers, but it no longer felt like a test. No longer the careful gauging of a mentor watching an apprentice grow.
It felt like acknowledgment.
And more—
Jesse felt it before she saw it. That subtle shift in tension. The faint tilt of his chin. His breath, slower now—not calm, but measured. Contained.
Like a flame smothered under pressure, building.
And then she saw his lips—
Not drawn in amusement.
Not parted in shock.
But curling.
Just slightly.
Not into a smile.
Into something leaner. More deliberate.
An edge.
'That look…'
Her heart hitched, chest tightening—not from fear, but memory.
She'd seen that expression once.
Only once.
Back during a skirmish north of the Muirwood Border. Before he deserted. Before he vanished. Back when they were both still soldiers.
There had been a scout unit—Arcanis elite. Assassins trained in misdirection, speed, kill-efficiency.
They had slaughtered half their patrol before anyone even sounded the alarm.
Lucavion had arrived too late to save the camp.
But not too late to respond.
Jesse had watched him walk into the clearing, quiet, unarmed at first.
And then—
His lips curled.
Just like this.
Back then—
He had looked down at the bodies with that same expression.
Not cruel.
Not distant.
Just… cut off.
The kind of stillness that didn't belong to someone watching comrades die—but to someone who had already grieved before stepping onto the field.
Jesse remembered the way the smoke hung over the Muirwood clearing, curling between the shattered trees. The bodies of their squadmates had been sprawled like broken puppets—throats opened, chests collapsed, uniforms bloodied beyond recognition.
A few had still been alive.
Moaning.
Crawling.
She'd taken a step forward, ready to help—only to stop.
Because Lucavion didn't move.
He stood at the edge of the carnage, motionless, his shadow cast long by the flickering remnants of the burning tents.
His eyes had passed over the wounded.
One by one.
Not to dismiss them.
But to see them.
Every injury. Every breath. Every loss.
And then—
His lips curled.
Just like they had now.
Not a grin.
Not fury.
Permission.
Permission for something inside him to change.
And when it did—he moved.
Fast.
Silent.
Deadly.
The Arcanis scouts hadn't even made it to the treeline.
Back then, Jesse had watched it happen, stunned.
Back then, she hadn't understood the weight behind that expression.
But now—
Now she felt it.
That same weight.
That same shift.
That same Lucavion.
—CLAAANK!—
The sudden clash snapped Jesse back into the present.
Lucavion's estoc crashed against hers—not for damage. Not for blood.
For distance.
He pushed her back, a clean separation of steel and silence.
She stumbled once—lightly—and readied again.
But he didn't follow.
Lucavion didn't press forward.
He didn't shift into stance.
He simply… stood there.
Sword still lowered. Still.
Watching her.
And then—his eyes dropped.
To her arm.
To the wound still slick with blood.
And for a moment—
Just a breath—
Jesse saw emotion behind those pitch-black eyes.
A furrow just between his brows. A tension in his throat, as if a word almost escaped and was dragged back down before it could reach the air.
"…."
He said nothing.
But she felt it.
That look.
That quiet ache.
Not for the pain she was in.
But for the pain he caused.
And Jesse?
Jesse didn't lower her sword.
Didn't let herself soften.
Because the wound wasn't just from this duel.
It was from every moment after he left.
Every time she stood alone in the dark with no one behind her but his shadow.
And he needed to see it.
To feel it.
So she kept her grip firm, eyes locked to his.
Let him look.
Let him remember.
Let him understand.
Because whatever was coming next—
It would not be gentle.
Chapter 838: Girl that is left behind
Sometimes, we do things without ever knowing what they'll mean to someone else.
Lucavion stood still in the aftermath of steel and silence, the faint hum of the crowd distant now, like an echo in another room. Jesse had returned to her side, her blade sheathed, her breathing steady despite the storm she'd just unleashed. The fight had ended—not with triumph or blood, but with something far quieter. Far heavier.
His hands were still open. Loose. Unarmed.
But his mind…
There are decisions we make because of the moment we're in, he thought. We tell ourselves it's logical. That it's survival. That we had no other choice.
And at the time, it made sense.
He remembered the dusk when he'd walked away from the Lorian camp, alone. When he'd abandoned the chain of command, discarded the insignia, left behind everything that tethered him to that war. He hadn't felt remorse. Not then. The world was shifting, bleeding at its seams, and he—armed with the knowledge from Shattered Innocence—knew the outcome before most even realized they were pawns.
Lorian Empire would lose.
And he?
He wasn't about to drown with it.
He wasn't a savior. Just a man who refused to be swallowed.
So I left.
One man couldn't save an empire. One soldier couldn't rewrite a campaign.
So he'd carved his own road through the chaos. And it had been the right choice. He'd changed lives. He'd learned truths hidden even from the Empire's elite. He'd seen Aether, broken fate-lines, unseated futures. He wasn't just a deserter. He was a variable. A spark that refused to die in the mud.
At least... it was right for me.
But that same decision—simple, clean, necessary—wasn't simple for everyone.
He looked at Jesse again. Her posture still strong, but her fingers slightly curled at her side like she was holding something in.
She was one of them.
One of the silent costs.
Lucavion's gaze lingered—not on the sheath at her hip, nor the sweat clinging to her brow, but on the silence around her blade.
It was loud.
Louder than any scream she could've given.
I was wrong about her.
When Jesse had stepped into the courtyard earlier, spine straight, movements clean, blade hanging without ceremony, he'd felt a strange flicker of pride. Almost amusement. So she made it. Huh. The girl he once guided through dusk-slick drills had found her way into these marble halls. Into the political maze of Arcanis. Into a fight beside him, not behind.
And he thought…
She must've had someone watching her back.
She must've landed on her feet, trained hard, fought smart, gotten picked up by one of the right families. A noble sponsor. A respected master. The right conditions.
Because the Jesse Burns he remembered—
She was sharp, but unrefined. Fire without a frame.
What stood before him now?
Refined. Balanced. Strategic.
When the duel began, he saw it in the first three exchanges—her stance had evolved, her step measured, her tempo matured. The same instincts he'd tried to nurture, now honed by brutal repetition.
And he'd smiled.
She got strong.
For a fleeting moment, he'd even thought… She remembered.
But then—
She made that move.
The one no instructor teaches.
The one that sacrifices the body to create an opening.
The one that says: Pain is nothing if it gets the message across.
And in that heartbeat, everything changed.
Her blade didn't just swing—it spoke.
Lucavion didn't need words. He didn't need a confession.
The blade had told him everything.
That wasn't the technique of someone who'd been nurtured.
It was a style forged in absence—
a rhythm shaped by nights where no one corrected her form,
no one tightened her grip,
no one caught her when she slipped.
He heard it in the edge of her feints.
In the unnatural grace of her footwork.
In the way her shoulder rolled into the pain—
not avoiding it, but welcoming it, like an old companion.
'This sword… it's screaming.'
Not loud.
But in that quiet, it cried louder than any voice.
"Where were you?"
"I became this while you were gone."
Lucavion's eyes dropped—not out of shame, but something worse. Recognition.
The sword.
That damned sword.
It wasn't just forged for battle. It was shaped in isolation. In the kind of quiet that made you question whether your breath was the only sound left in the world worth listening to.
He knew it too well.
That blade didn't move like it belonged to someone trained in safety, or polished by structure.
It moved like it had survived.
Like it had kept its edge because no one else would.
Every strike was defensive and offensive.
Every motion left just enough room to escape.
Every shift in footing said, "Trust no one—not even your sparring partner."
That blade had learned to dance alone.
And the more he watched Jesse, the more it felt like watching a mirror warped by time.
He remembered that same survival rhythm—how his own steps had tightened, how his own grip had shifted in those first months after being sent to the war.
At that time, he used a spear not a sword, but he still remembered those feelings.
He would never forget.
Back then, he'd fought like a cornered ghost.
No allies. No names. Just instinct. Just movement.
Just to survive.
And now?
Jesse's blade carried the same cadence.
Always alert.
Never open.
Never trusting.
Her stance was beautiful. But it was lonely.
He looked at her again—and for the first time, really looked past the fight.
There was thrill in her eyes, yes. The gleam of a warrior facing the one who made her stand the first time.
But behind that—
Anger.
Bitter, righteous, personal.
It wasn't just a duel.
It was a confrontation.
He'd left.
And he'd never once thought what would happen to her when he did.
"…Why?"
The word came unbidden, dry in the back of his mind.
Why had he never asked himself that?
Why had Jesse never crossed his thoughts in all these years?
The answer...
It wasn't noble.
He had been too busy surviving.
Too caught up in escaping the noose that was the Lorian war machine.
Too consumed by the chaos of the Shadowed Thicket, the betrayals, the artifacts, the truths buried in the wreckage of false empires.
Then came Vitaliara.
And after that, it was just fight after fight.
Stronger. Smarter. Sharper.
Every step forward felt like it required blood.
He had been selfish.
And now, standing here—his fingers still tingling from the aftershock of that last clash—he saw the answer play out in her silence.
She had been the one to bleed.
Alone.
Jesse hadn't just endured.
She'd been shaped—not by guidance, but by abandonment.
By the hollow left behind when someone you trusted vanished without a word.
And now…
Now her blade carried that legacy.
No teacher could take credit.
Not Lucavion. Not the academy. Not the Empire.
Only pain.
He exhaled slowly, and for the first time in a long time…
He felt small.
Not because he was weaker.
But because, somehow, she had carried the weight he'd helped put on her shoulders.
And she'd carried it beautifully.
But that didn't make it right.
Chapter 839: Girl that is now found (2)
Her orange eyes were still glowing—bright, sharp, fierce—but not cruel.
Not yet.
They shimmered with heat, yes. With frustration. With the raw, lingering sting of abandonment. But beneath all of that, something gentler remained. Something far more human than the warrior's edge she now wore like armor.
She still just wants to be heard.
Even after all this—after the silence he left in his wake, after the years of solitude etched into her blade, after the blood she spilled that he never saw—she looked at him not like a ghost, but like a man who could still answer her.
And that broke something in him deeper than guilt.
Lucavion inhaled, slow and sharp. The breath burned slightly, like it didn't want to settle.
The past won't change.
No matter what he says now, no matter what thoughts churn through his mind—what he did, what he didn't do—it's already carved into both of them.
He left.
And she survived it.
That truth doesn't vanish just because he's only now learning to look at it.
And in this chamber, where words are drowned beneath the memory of clashing blades, there is no apology he can speak that wouldn't feel hollow.
Only swords are heard here.
And so, he steps forward—not toward Jesse, but toward that unspoken truth.
She is not the cadet he taught to breathe through her parries.
Not the girl who tripped over her stance and gritted her teeth through another night of failed drills.
She is a survivor.
A blade in her own right.
A soldier who came from the battlefield without a hand to hold and still stood tall enough to meet him in open challenge.
And so…
He bowed.
Not deep.
Not ceremonial.
Just low enough.
Low enough to honor what she became.
Low enough to say, I see you.
Low enough that for the first time since she drew her blade against him—he didn't look down at her.
Lucavion straightened slowly, his eyes steady now, the faintest glint of something rare stirring in them.
Not pity.
Not regret.
Respect.
She had earned it the hard way.
And right now, he knew—this was all he could offer.
No excuses.
No explanations.
Just the quiet recognition that Jesse Burns, the girl he once taught to listen to her blade, had forged a song of her own—
—and it was louder than anything he'd ever taught her.
*****
The blades sang before either of them moved.
A single inhale between them—then—
—CLANG!
Lucavion's estoc met Jesse's reverse grip with a sudden, sharp twist of metal and muscle, the impact ringing like a struck bell through the chamber. Sparks skated off the meeting point, dancing between them as momentum spun apart, only to converge again.
—SHHHINK!
—CLAAAANG!
She came at him low—shoulder tucked, footwork tight, sweeping in a crescent that carved a line across the floor. He read it too late. Her momentum snapped upward.
He twisted, blade barely catching hers.
The lock clicked between them.
A pause.
Blades gritting against each other—then pulling apart like breath torn from lungs.
I didn't know.
You should have.
Jesse's blade darted forward with the precision of a razor through cloth—her Reaping Form spiraling with perfect economy, no wasted movement, no hesitation.
Lucavion caught her thrust on the flat of his estoc and pivoted sideways—using her weight, letting her pass him like a gust through broken walls.
His blade flicked once. A mark. A line. Not deep—but real.
Her eyes flared.
She spun with the cut—not away from it, with it—and retaliated.
—CLANG!—SHHHK!—SWOOSH!
Her foot came up, heel lashing toward his ribs, and he ducked under it—his coat fluttering with the breeze of her motion. Their rhythm was quickening. His shoulders moved without thinking. Her instincts were sharper.
It's my fault.
You left me.
He stepped back.
Jesse pressed forward.
The dance resumed, and now it was faster—less show, more truth.
Their blades spoke in broken, honest tones.
Lucavion's steps grew tighter—less theatrical, more sincere.
A twist. A parry. A lunge.
Her counters were merciless—sweeps designed to disarm, not kill. She was making him feel every inch of ground she'd earned in his absence.
I thought you'd have someone guiding you.
I didn't.
—CLAAANG!
His estoc locked hers at the base, steel grating as both their arms trembled from the pressure.
But you've grown strong.
She shoved forward.
I was forced to.
Her voice echoed in every strike. She didn't need to say it. Her blade did.
That is life.
Lucavion's stance shifted—subtle. A nod. An answer.
He stopped resisting her momentum—and used it.
Her blade slipped past his shoulder, overextending—but he didn't strike.
Instead, he turned with her, his estoc following but never cutting. A motion of reflection. Of listening.
She blinked.
Their swords lowered.
Just slightly.
Breath fogged between them.
—Clink.
The blades touched again. No clash. No sparks.
Just the faintest note.
I see it now.
Too late.
Maybe.
They stood there, blades crossed gently between them, breath steadying.
In that chamber, the crowd had long since faded. The politics, the reputation, the court watching from the balconies above—it all vanished beneath the weight of this silent conversation.
A moment passed.
Their blades still touched, not in violence, but as if to keep the silence between them from shattering too quickly.
Jesse stepped back—just a breath. The kind of movement that didn't belong to dueling form, but to something older. Personal. Vulnerable.
"I've been looking for you," she said softly, words catching in her throat like they weren't meant to be heard by anyone but him. "All this time. A trace. A name. A rumor in some broken outpost. I chased ghosts."
Lucavion didn't flinch. He only looked at her, voice quiet, but unwavering.
"I'm here."
That was all.
He didn't explain why it took this long. Didn't make excuses for why his shadow had vanished when she needed it most. Because she already knew. Because saying it now would ruin what their blades had already said for them.
His fingers adjusted on the hilt of his estoc, steady once more.
"And now that you've become this strong…"
He tilted his head slightly. "I won't hold back. I won't treat you differently."
Jesse's eyes narrowed—but not in offense. In agreement.
"I don't want you to."
Lucavion smirked faintly. "Good to know."
Then he moved.
—SHHHHHK!
A blur of cloth and silver as his estoc cut upward in a tight spiral, the blade a whisper of starlight. It was his own form—subtle, minimalistic, precise. The style born not from academies or bloodlines, but from survival and speed.
Jesse blocked—barely. Her blade shivered under the angle. He twisted again, ducking low and pivoting behind her.
—CLANK!
Steel met steel in a flawless parry—but it was his tempo now. His rhythm.
One step.
Two.
She tried to counter.
But he was already in motion.
His blade curved low, drawing her attention downward—
—and then it stopped.
A flick. A glide.
—SHINK.
The flat of his estoc tapped gently against the crook of her neck.
No blood.
No wound.
Just an end.
Silence followed.
Lucavion held still for a heartbeat longer… then pulled back.
"Winner, Lucavion."