Astelion POV
Kiono didn't look at me when he returned. I didn't ask, I didn't want to know. He didn't offer a single word of explanation, he didn't apologize for the devastating storm we had just walked through, and he completely refused to let Kris's name cross his lips.
For a solid hour, I simply walked in front of him, the steady, rhythmic click of his boots trailing a few paces behind me. I kept my gaze fixed forward, leading our aimless path through the streets of the town. He was a stone wall marching in my shadow, his broad shoulders set in a line so rigid it looked painful.
Finally, the aimless wandering rubbed my raw nerves thin. I stopped dead in the middle of a quiet alley, turning my entire body around to look at him.
He halted instantly, but his eyes remained firmly fixed on a point just past my left shoulder. I stared into those piercing, intense blue depths, cold, sharp, and buried under secrets.
"Go back to the lodge," he said, his voice flat, completely in a different register he had used with me in the forest. "Get some rest."
I stared at him, genuine surprise tightening my chest. "You're sending me back there? After what just happened? After she literally tried to bury us in frost?"
"You're safe there," he replied, though the muscle in his jaw twitched violently. "Castel's made it perfectly clear that further outbursts will not be tolerated. Kris won't risk it at least not right now." He finally let his gaze drop, but only to map the tears in my lavender gown. "There will be some new clothes waiting in your quarters. Put them on and get out of that dress."
"I'll come for you at sunrise. We begin training tomorrow."
That was it. He turned and walked away down the path like nothing had happened at all.
I stood there longer than I meant to. Pale flower petals drifted slowly across the streets. Kris's earlier sobs still echoed in my mind faint now, but not gone.
Everything felt unfinished. Unspoken. Heavy. I turned walked back to the lodged, it was quite and Kris was nowhere to be found. I quickly went upstairs to my room, closing my door softly. Too softly. Like the room might break if I didn't.
The silence pressed in.
I sat on the edge of the bed, replaying it all. The storm. The way Kris looked at him, the way he didn't deny it and then Castel. He hadn't even been there, hadn't raised his voice, hadn't moved.
And still he had taken control of everything.
Snow frozen midair, wind crushed into nothing, power severed like it had never existed. He didn't fight. He corrected.
If Castel was that powerful... How did he fall? How did Cion defeat him? How did the future collapse into ruin under someone like that? It didn't make sense. Something was missing. Something no one was saying. I changed slowly, thoughts tangling tighter with every second. How was he weakened? I lay down. Sleep didn't come.
Because if someone like Castel could fall, what did that mean for everyone else?
Sunrise, Kiono was already waiting, no warmth and no softness.
"Come."
We rose into the air, his telekinesis lifting us seamlessly. The forest swallowed us whole. And the month began.
Week One — Break Her
From the first second we landed in the hidden clearing, Kiono dismantled everything I thought I knew about survival. He wasn't a teacher, he was an apex predator hunting down my weaknesses.
"Your stance wrong."
Before the words fully left his mouth, a snap of his telekinetic force hit my left heel, knocking my center of gravity completely off balance. I stumbled, but before I could recover, a wall of pure pressure slammed into my chest, sending me skidding through the dirt.
"Your breathing too shallow. Your control reckless," he remarked, circling me like a hawk as I pushed myself up, coughing the dust from my lungs. "Again."
Hours blurred into an endless loop of exhaustion and impact.
"Again."
"Again."
"Again."
My muscles trembled so violently I could barely lift my hands. My head pounded from the constant neural strain of trying to predict his invisible strikes, and my vision blurred at the edges.
"Hold it." He unleashed a dense, crushing boulder of psychic mass directly over my head.
I shrieked, throwing my hands upward as I desperately try to hold the telekinetic structure together. The weight was agonizing, pressing down until my knees buckled and the shield collapsed into nothing under his sheer mass. I hit the ground hard.
He beat me every single time. Effortlessly. Without breaking a sweat.
"Your mind is too loud," he said, standing over me, his broad silhouette blocking out the morning sun. "You think too fast. You show everything before you act. Your eyes give away your target before your magic even leaves your skin."
"My power isn't the problem!" I wiped blood from my split lip.
"It isn't." He paused, his piercing blue eyes boring into mine with a freezing intensity. "You are."
I hated him for that. I hated him because he was right.
Week Two — Learn Her
By the second week, the air in the clearing shifted. It wasn't kindness it was something far more dangerous. Precision.
He stopped breaking me. Instead, he started studying the specific frequency of my power, learning the unique hum of my telekinesis.
"Slow down," he murmured.
Instead of overpowering my next strike, he stepped directly into my guard. His massive, calloused hands slid along my bare arms, adjusting my wrists, tilting my fingers just a fraction of an inch to correct the trajectory.
Our training became a brutal dance. "Don't move because I moved," his voice rumbled right against my ear, his chest nearly brushing my back as he corrected my stance. "Move because you already knew I would."
Suddenly, I started landing hits. Small clips at first, shredding the fabric of his sleeve, grazing his shoulder, then sharper, heavier strikes that actually made him work to deflect them.
During our breaks, the harsh military silence began to loosen.
"What's your favorite season?" I asked one afternoon, lying flat on my back beneath the shade of a massive tree, watching the leaves sway against the sky.
"Winter," Kiono replied, leaning his back against the thick trunk.
I turned my head toward him, tracking the perfect, sharp lines of his face. "Why?"
"Everything is quieter."
I smiled faintly, a soft breeze rustling my hair. "I like spring."
He glanced down at me, his gaze lingering on my lips. "Because it's loud?"
"Because it survives winter."
Something dark and intense flickered deep in his expression before vanishing just as fast. We ate beneath the trees, sharing long, comfortable silences. He told terrible, dry jokes with a deadpan face, and I laughed anyway, just to see the corners of his mouth twitch. Something between us was breaking open.
Week Three — Feel Her
It wasn't a change in power, it was a total collapse of proximity.
He started getting closer. Deliberately. Closing the distance until I could feel the radiant heat radiating off his body, smelling the scent of spring, fresh flowers blooming that belonged entirely to him.
"You hesitate," he said, stepping deep into my space, forcing me back against a mossy boulder.
"I don't," I breathed, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"You do."
I shoved his chest. Hard. His muscles felt like solid iron under my palms, he didn't move an inch.
"You react to me," he whispered, his voice dropping that sent a shiver straight to my thighs.
"I don't."
"You just did."
My control snapped just for a second, my magic flaring outward in a chaotic surge. That second cost me. Every single time.
"Again."
"Again."
"Again."
Until we were locked in a fast, vicious close quarter drill, blasts of telekinetic force crackling between our hands like miniature thunderbolts. I stopped looking at his movements. I stopped thinking. I just felt him. I anticipated the shift in his weight, the unique rhythm of his mind.
With a sudden, violent twist of my wrist, I spun beneath his arm and bound him mid-step, wrapping a clean, unyielding ring of my kinetic force around his ankles and torso. He was pinned. Clean. Precise. Unbreakable.
He didn't fight it. He didn't even try. He just stood trapped in my magic, looking down at me through the dark strands of his hair, his chest heaving.
"Good," he murmured.
I released the power slowly, my fingers trembling. "You let me win."
"No."
And I believed him. That was worse. Because now I knew I was getting stronger, matching his pace. And he knew it too.
I lost my balance during a blindingly fast close-range sequence, my boot catching on a slick root. My focus snapped, my defensive barrier unraveled, and I began to plunge backward toward the rocks.
He caught me.
Not roughly, and not with his magic. He lunged forward and used his body. One powerful arm wrapped securely around my waist, pulling me flush against his hard torso, while his other hand steadied my bare shoulder.
We were too close. Too still.
Neither of us moved. My breasts pressed hard against his chest. His grip around my waist tightened just slightly, his fingers branding themselves into my skin through the thin fabric. For a terrifying, intoxicating second, it wasn't training anymore.
Then he let go, stepping back into the shadows. And everything snapped back into place.
"Again," he said. But his voice wasn't as steady as it used to be.
Week Four — The Echo of Blood
The shift between us was no longer just physical. We didn't go straight into combat the next morning. Instead, we sat on the roots of a giant, willow tree, the air heavy with the scent of damp moss. The suffocating proximity from the day before still hummed between us, a quiet current that neither of us could quite shut off.
"I never felt love from either of my parents," I said softly, breaking the silence as I stared down at my hands, the vulnerability raw and aching in my chest. "I stayed in the shadows. For the first few years growing up, my father couldn't even look at me. He hated what I represented, so he put a mask on me. I grew up believing I was entirely unlovable."
Kiono remained quiet for a long moment, when he spoke, his voice was lower, rougher than I had ever heard it.
"I don't know what it's like either," he confessed, his gaze fixed on the horizon. "To be truly loved by anyone. I hate my father more than anyone on this earth. He only values what he can use, what he can control."
He turned his head slowly, those intense blue eyes locking onto mine with a sudden, fierce vulnerability that made my chest ache.
"But I believe that one day... there will be someone who loves unconditionally. And I will be able to love them better than my father ever loved my mother. You deserve love, Astelion. You deserve to be loved completely. Without a mask."
The confession hung in the space between us, stripping away the titles of Captain. It brought us closer, closer than the training drills ever had. I leaned toward him, my breath catching as his eyes fell to my lips. His hand lifted slowly, his fingers brushing the edge of my jaw, his thumb tracing my lower lip.
The air grew thick, burning with a quiet, mutual desire. The space between us completely vanished, our kinetic fields humming, begging us to close the final inch and bind ourselves to each other. We almost kissed.
But with a sharp exhale, he abruptly pulled his hand back, the wall of the Captain slamming back into place.
"Rest," he muttered, standing up and clearing his throat as he turned away from me. "We continue tomorrow."
Meanwhile, back at the lodge, Kris had changed, no more yelling, no more crying, just smiles. Perfect. Cold. Cruel.
My bedroom door was completely frozen shut with a thick sheet of elemental ice one morning. My food writhed with pale insects the next. The water line cut off completely mid-bath, leaving me freezing in the dark. Every time Kris passed me in the halls, she looked calm as ever, her white hair pinned flawlessly.
"You're adjusting well to our climate, Astelion," she murmured smoothly.
I didn't retaliate. But it was getting harder to keep my hands down. Because now, I had something in this timeline that I truly, desperately wanted for myself.
Week Five — Want Her
By the final week, everything sharpened to a razor's edge. My power was dense, my instincts fluid, my restraint ironclad. And him.
He didn't step close to me anymore. He kept a frustrating, deliberate distance during our sessions, guiding me entirely with his voice from across the clearing. That was so much worse. Because now that the touch was gone, the distance was all I could focus on. I craved the heat of his hands.
"You're holding back," I said one evening as the sun dipped below the mountains, painting the sky in deep shades of purple.
"So are you."
"I'm not."
"You are."
A heavy, breathless pause.
"Why?" I demanded, stepping toward him.
He didn't answer. Because he knew. Because if I didn't hold back, if he didn't keep his distance, we wouldn't just lose control of our power. We'd lose control of something far more dangerous.
Dusk settled. The forest grew dead quiet, the air heavy with oncoming rain.
"Kiono."
He didn't look at me. "What?"
"I can't stay at the lodge anymore."
His jaw tightened, "she's not stopping."
"I know." I took a slow, controlled breath. "I'm trying very hard not to hurt her, Kiono. For your sake. But my patience is gone."
Now he looked at me. Really looked. "You could hurt her. You could break her."
"Yes." That was the problem.
The silence stretched longer than ever before, thick with an unspoken promise.
"I know another place," he said finally. "A small cottage deep within the forest. It's much quieter."
I tilted my head, my heart taking a dangerous, violent leap. "You would move all because I asked you to?"
"Yes."
He stood to his full height and held out his hand. I reached out, my fingers wrapping tightly around his palm. And this time, neither of us let go right away. Our grips locked, the heat of his skin traveling straight up my arm as he pulled me to my feet, his eyes lingering on my face in the dim light.
We rose into the sky together, our telekinetic shields merging into a single, seamless aura as we left the clearing behind. As we gained altitude, I looked back one last time at the blue stone structure of the lodge shrinking into the mountainside.
A month ago, when I first landed in this time, I had felt entirely uncertain, cornered, and lost. Now, looking down, I felt stronger, sharper, I have forgotten why I was here and dangerously attached to the man flying beside me.
Far below, standing on the high balcony of the lodge, a tiny figure stood watching our ascent into the clouds. Kris.
There were no tears on her pale face this time, and there was no wind whipping through her hair. She was perfectly still, she wasn't trying to stop us anymore.
She was planning something a hell of a lot worse.