Arbor's sunlight crept in half-hearted, like even the house wasn't convinced mornings were worth it. I was already in the kitchen, no flair, no illusions, no froth-art masterpieces. Just two mugs and a roast strong enough to wake the dead. No spirals today. No hearts. Just heat. Just warmth. She needed warm.
When she padded in, hair a glorious disaster, eyes still clouded with sleep, shoulders loose from exhaustion, I was waiting. Mug in hand. She took it without a word, sipped once, and I watched the tension bleed out of her like a knot pulled loose. She didn't thank me. She didn't need to. We sat in silence. Not the brittle kind. Not heavy. Just silence that allowed itself to exist. Twin mugs. Shared quiet. Nothing asked. Nothing taken. For a while, that was enough.
Until she set her mug down. Stretched and threw a lazy jab at the air. I blinked. "...Are you shadowboxing at my breakfast table?"
She ducked. Spun. Kicked like the air had offended her. Graceful. Sharp. Efficient. The thought hit me. She wasn't just playing. She was training. I stood, half-laughing, half-chilled. "Oh, you're not fighting me. You're fighting everything."
She didn't answer. Just smirked, that small, knowing tilt of her lips that said watch me.
Gods above, I saw it. She wasn't running from the dark anymore. She was walking straight into it. Head high. Fists ready. I drained my mug, held out my hand like I was offering her a battlefield. "Let's go break something, my shadow queen."
The words left my mouth, but something twisted low in my chest. Because the way she moved, it wasn't ornamental. It wasn't for show. Every step, every strike was precise. Efficient. Surgical. Her body didn't sway with beauty, it calculated angles. She wasn't remembering dance. She was remembering how to kill. She moved like war. For the first time, I wondered if I'd missed it. I'd fallen for her smirks and sleepy limbs, her stubborn fire and quiet strength, and somehow I'd mistaken her stillness for fragility. Her silence for softness. Her curling into me at night for weakness. But none of it was weakness. The silence was calculation. The stillness, control. The way she leaned on me? Strategy.
And me, the god of chaos, lord of noise, I'd been fool enough to think she was breakable. But she wasn't. She had trained in twelve temples. Learned pain in a dozen dialects. Survived every altar they put her on. She hadn't just been carved by gods. She had studied them. Stolen their skills. Worn survival until it fit like skin. Now I could see it waking up in her.
The mind, brilliant, terrifying, precise. The body, scarred, divine, unrelenting. The woman, more than mortal, more than goddess. And me, what if I couldn't keep up? What if the Annie I adored, the one who rolled her eyes at my dramatics, who kissed my smirk like a dare, who let me build forts and coffee hearts, what if that was just her cocoon? A lull between wars? What if this was her breaking free?
She turned to me then, sweat-damp and glowing, her eyes feral with something I couldn't name. She raised a brow, hands signing the single challenge: Ready?
I blinked. Swallowed. Smiled anyway. Still Annie. But gods, so much more. I took her hand. And this time, when I said, "Let's go break something," I meant it. Even if the thing she chose to break… was me.
Arbor dropped us into one of my favorite training chambers, a cathedral in ruins, its stained glass shattered into glittering sand. A place where even the light felt like it had sinned. I expected sweat. Maybe a few half-hearted kicks. Some sparring to loosen her up. I did not expect violence.
The second her feet hit the ground, she fell into a stance I didn't recognize. Not dance. Not display. Combat. Low. Coiled. Eyes sharp as razors. She shrank herself, not timid, but deliberate. Smaller. Quieter. Sharper. Like she wanted the world to forget her existence right before she tore its throat out.
She moved. Crack. A punch split the air. Spin. Elbow. Drop. Sweep. No flourish. No hesitation. Not reacting. Remembering. Gods, she was beautiful. Not soft. Not celestial. Deadly. I leaned against a broken pillar and told myself not to look too enchanted. Failed spectacularly. She wasn't performing. Not for me, not for anyone. She was testing herself. Tearing the ghosts out of her own bones. Her heel slammed into a practice dummy, sending it cartwheeling across the sand before it burst into sparks. I blinked. She just roundhouse-kicked a training dummy into the astral plane and I am unreasonably turned on.
Arbor, ever the smug bastard, conjured another dummy. She destroyed that one too. I laughed, half in awe, half in pure disbelief. "Stars help me, this is my wife."
The thought hit me like prophecy. Not yet. Not officially. But someday. When that day came, I wasn't putting a crown on her. I'd make the whole universe kneel. Because she didn't move like someone surviving anymore. She moved like someone choosing. Then the cruel thought crept in. What if she'd gone to Aerion? What if this fire had been sharpened into a blade for his altar? She would've been perfect. Terrifying. She would never have smiled again.
I looked at her now, sweat, grit, bloodied knuckles, and saw the truth. She was a weapon. But with me? She was Annie. She glanced at me, eyes locked, a silent dare. I smirked. "Oh, we're sparring now?"
Arbor whistled. The floor shifted, the cathedral dimming, a circle forming in the sand. I stepped forward, cracking my neck, rolling my shoulders, grinning like a fool already in love with the end of the world. "So what's the warm-up, my little war goddess?" I purred. "Wrestling? Synchronized stabbing?"
Her stance said: Try me, clown.
I chuckled. "Skipping foreplay. Got it."
At first, I didn't take her seriously. Just watching her, admiring. She moved like wrath wrapped in restraint, and I was half-distracted, half-dumb with it. "Don't hold back, Dollface," I teased. "I can take it."
She didn't. She lunged. A knee to my ribs, a foot grazing my cheekbone. Fast. Precise. Too damn close. "Oh, okay! Straight to attempted murder," I wheezed. "Love the enthusiasm."
I blinked behind her in a flash of violet chaos. Leaned down to her ear. "Missed me."
She elbowed me in the gut. Hard. "OW. That's my flirting lung!"
She didn't stop. Jab, jab, sweep. I flipped backward, laughing like a lunatic. "Oh, you're actually mad at me. That's hot."
Then her shadow cracked the ground. Leyla's domain. Black tendrils writhed up, sticky and hungry, wrapping my legs. "Well. Rude."
Vines tore out of the sand next, Ravina's touch. Thorned, hissing, climbing to strike. I snapped myself out of range, reappearing behind her with a grin. She didn't flinch. Just kept swinging. I tapped her shoulder mid-dodge, taunting. "What's the plan here, love- ACK—"
She clipped my ribs. I wheezed again. "Right. You do have a plan. Proud of you."
More shadows. More vines. She hurled a dagger of darkness straight at my face. I ducked... barely. "Whoa! Rude. Shoulder dropped, though, 9 out of 10-" She threw two more. I gasped. "Ten out of ten! There she is!"
She vanished. I froze. "Wait—"
She reappeared above me and dropped like divine judgment. Impact rattled my teeth. I barely blocked. Chaos sparked around us.
She wasn't playing anymore. By the gods, she wasn't alone. Every rune, every shard of power she carried, woke up with her. Aerion's precision. Navir's calculation. Ravina's fury. Leyla's darkness. Vitaria's life. Something from Maximus. And my chaos. Twisted into hers. A punch to my jaw made my ears ring. I staggered, laughing, blood in my mouth. "You're copying me."
Her grin was feral. Beautiful. "You thief!" I gasped. "You stole my chaos and made it prettier. How dare you."
Her answer was another strike. We collided, flame and shadow, sand exploding beneath us. She warped reality under my feet. My own trick, thrown back at me with a flourish.
WHAM.
I hit the ground hard, pinned by vines, shadows, and even my own chaos bent against me. She stood above me. Panting. Silent. Glorious. Victor. I laughed. Breathless. Bloody. Delighted. "Oh, Annie…" I groaned, grinning up at her like she'd just rewritten the scriptures. "If you were trying to awaken something in me…"
A slow, wicked grin stretched across my mouth.
"Mission. Accomplished."