Alric lay in the small garden beside the living quarters.
It had been four days.
Four long, agonizing days.
Since the duel with Castor, he had lost almost every match he'd been challenged to. What was once rising glory had become a slow, public fall. From promising hero to silent disgrace.
Then came the others.
Those who had once lost to him, now eager to reclaim their pride—to prove their defeat had been a fluke. And he—he had no answers.
He couldn't focus.
He couldn't stop hearing things.
He couldn't control his blood.
Even when he saw their movements a full second before they made them, his body couldn't respond. His control over blood flow was incomplete, erratic—his thoughts sharp, his body slow.
The entire process demanded a level of control beyond human measure. And worse, it was slipping from his grasp. Even his sanity felt distant.
His senses had only sharpened further since the awakening. Relentlessly. Hour by hour.
Now, from this very garden, he could hear swords clashing in the Third Cohort courtyard. He could hear two trainees sparring at the gate. He could hear water boiling in the kitchens.
He could not sleep.
He could not think.
He could not even stop to breathe without noise tearing through him.
So he had come here tonight—to this small, secluded garden where he had once known peace.
But even here, the world would not go silent.
He heard birds bringing food to nests.
He heard the wind rustle the leaves.
He heard the fall of a flower petal onto grass.
He heard a fly caught in a thorny bloom.
He heard another fly chewing on the petal.
He heard bees—one, then another, circling, choosing, landing on flowers with fluttering wings.
He saw them. All of them. Clearly.
He could feel the individual blades of grass beneath his fingers—he could count them without looking.
He shut his eyes. Tried to focus. Tried to sleep.
But the moon climbed high and sleep refused him.
There was only more sound. More sensation. More pressure.
Then—
"We meet again, Plainsman."
The voice cut through the haze.
His eyes flew open.
His body reacted before he could stop it. His mind drew a plan—fast, clear, clean: rise, draw blade, spin, disengage, strike if needed.
But—
His body failed.
He crashed to the ground with a thud, pain blooming through his head like a hammer to the skull. The moonlight itself felt sharp, like it was slicing his ears open.
And then came the voice again, close.
"Why are you so jumpy?"
Alric forced his eyes open, blinking through the white-hot ache behind them.
And there she was.
The same woman he had seen last time in this very garden. Sitting beside him now, her eyes calm and green, as unreadable as ever.
She looked at him with no judgment. No pity. Just quiet focus.
"Heard you've been awakened," she said.
How? How did she know?
Did she also know of his defeats? The shame? The whispers?
He wanted to speak. To explain himself. To prove—something.
But he couldn't.
He could barely form a thought. Let alone words.
"What's wrong with you?"
She leaned closer now, examining his face. Her voice seemed closer than it should've been—though it could've been from inside his skull.
He looked up at her—and his senses exploded.
He could see every strand of her hair. Jet black. Slightly windblown. Reflecting moonlight like threads of silver.
He saw the small mole hidden at the base of her neck, half-covered by her hair.
He saw the curve of her lips. The gentle motion as they moved—forming words he could not register.
He saw it all.
He heard nothing.
Or perhaps he heard everything—so much that he couldn't separate it. Couldn't grasp any one sound.
Her lips kept moving, and he watched them in a daze.
But her words slipped through him like smoke.
He could not hold onto them.
He could not reply.
"Me."
He heard the voice again—low, steady, cutting through the noise. It was trying to tell him something.
He tried to listen.
"At me."
The voice pressed again, clearer now.
"Look at me."
He caught the full sentence this time. But… why?
He was already looking at her.
Still, he obeyed.
He opened his eyes again and let them settle on her face. Every detail was etched into him like it had been carved in stone—the curve of her jaw, the pale glow of her skin under moonlight, the way her long black hair framed her cheekbones like a veil.
"Look at my eyes," she said.
He already was.
Those green, unreadable orbs. Unblinking. Detached. Like glass.
He stared, and a strange, painful thought bloomed in him.
If I were to die right here, she wouldn't flinch. She'd just walk away. Without mourning. Without pause.
And he knew—it wasn't cruel. It was true. That was simply who she was.
And part of him—a small, splintered part—almost wanted to die, just to prove it.
"Focus on my eyes. Stop thinking."
He tried.
He tuned out the green trees, the vibrant red, white, blue, and yellow flowers, the moonlight glinting off their petals. He tried to forget the flies buzzing, the bees circling, the blood in his veins pounding like thunder.
And when all that fell away, he found only her eyes.
Cold. Still. Fixed on him.
The green in them was the only green in the world.
And it was… beautiful.
"Keep focusing on my eyes," she said again.
He did.
Then her hands came up—cool and steady—and gently cupped over his ears.
The sensation was blessed relief, like ice on fevered skin. He leaned into her palms without thinking, breathing in sharply, drinking it in.
"Don't listen," she whispered. "Just focus on my voice."
He did.
He no longer cared about the birds, the bees, the rustling wind. Her voice was the only sound that didn't hurt.
"Good. You're doing well."
He didn't answer, couldn't answer. He just looked.
And as he stared, he realized something odd.
She hadn't blinked. Not once.
Since the moment she told him to focus, her gaze had never broken—not for a single heartbeat. There was no smile. No twitch. No humanity in her expression. Just that same green depth—silent, infinite, immovable.
It was maddening.
It was saving him.
The green filled his world, replacing everything. It etched itself onto his soul like a seal.
"Very good," she said again. "Keep focusing. Now… all those sounds, all those visions, all those feelings—lock them away."
He heard her, and more than that—he obeyed.
He pushed the chaos aside, guided by her voice. Like arranging his thoughts in a hall, he placed the noise, the light, the sensory storm into a sealed chamber. Every part of it—the overload, the madness—filed away, deeper and deeper into a place she made him build.
"Make a key in your mind," she said.
And he did.
"Leave your most cherished moment there. Let it guard the door."
He did.
And as he sealed it, he left her eyes—those impossibly calm, detached green eyes—as the final image. The last thing the door would see.
Then, like a flood breaking through a dam in reverse, relief surged through him.
He no longer had to think.
No longer had to fight.
Darkness rose behind his eyes.
The last thing he felt was the soft surface of her hand easing his head down. Or maybe it was grass. Or cloth. He couldn't tell.
And then, nothing.