Casian stepped forward. The wind pushed back. It didn’t matter. Nothing about this mattered.

  The second prince was speaking, white hair blasting in the wind, face fully focused. Casian could swear they were words, but it just seemed to wash away. He didn’t think he could’ve listened if he wanted to. He saw pressure differentials. Invisible fishing lines of pressure, scything through the air.

  Casian shifted his weight, stone pushing and pulling. Wind howled, jagged paths carved through the dirt and earth. Casian didn’t see it in its totality- he took it in stages, pieces– Force, angle, impact. Everything else was noise.

  The stone adjusted with him, plates moving and hooks catching before he could consciously think about it. Currents buffeted his form and either slid off curved edges or broke on his body. It wanted to throw him, to flip him through the air.

  Casian stepped forward. The wind broke against him like waves on a cliffside.

  Absently, almost mindlessly, something drifted through his mind.

  It’s good, he thought, that Rosalinde finally found a partner.

  The prince’s magic surged. Wind shifted unpredictably– gusts turned sharp, threads of air twisting into invisible blades. It was clever. A technique that would cut through armor’s gaps, slip between and beneath plates, exploit the small openings present in all armor. Casian could recognize the intent, the likely theory behind it. He adjusted.

  Stone slid, sealing over weak points before blades could reach them. Slats moved in calculated intervals, not closing up entirely– that would make him rigid, easy to topple. Instead, it breathed with him, shifting and adjusting like it was alive. Weaknesses existed, but they flowed positions like water. Casian wasn’t still, and he wasn’t yielding. He simply continued forwards, like trudging through water.

  The prince shouted something. Maybe it was a command, or frustration.

  Casian didn’t care.

  The wind got even louder, and Casian’s footsteps were yet to be interrupted. Unbothered. He saw them as they came- not with his eyes- reading the way currents moved through the air. He imagined most opponents would struggle against someone who had so adequately managed to turn wind into an offensive element that was almost entirely invisible. Like trying to block a storm of swords while blindfolded.

  Casian could’ve been having a moment of reprieve, right now.

  He really, really could’ve.

  A curling vortex started forming above him. Gigantic and twisting, spinning to a small, thin point. He could almost imagine its intended flight-path. Could practically see it in his mind. A spinning drill coming down on him and the earth like a hammer, shredding it like paper, scattering and blasting the area to component pieces.

  Casian did not often need somatic elements to his spellcasting. His focus was adequate. Somatic elements could still be useful to maintain concentration on occasion, or for messy spellcasters.

  He noted the way the second prince’s fingers twitched in place, like a conductor restricting themselves but unable to stop the instinctual desire to orchestrate.

  Casian frowned. When was the last time someone had interrupted the time he exclusively asked for nothing but to be left alone?

  It had been years, he was fairly certain.

  The academy was new. People didn’t know him here. Only faint whispers of his reputation existed. Assumed to be overblown.

  Casian raised an arm towards the massive drill of air, and crushed.

  Ten-hundred-thousand crickets screamed. An endless cacophony of cracking and popping. Currents required continuous motion, pieces of space moving in concert with one another. Like thousands of grains of rice in a washbasin. Casian grabbed handfuls of the grains of rice and scattered them, over and over. Ripped the moving structures of wind apart, tore them to their component pieces.

  The vortex crumbled like a shattered mirror. Wind spiraled out of control, chaotic and wild as it splintered under Casian’s bruteforce manipulation of space. The second prince’s eyes widened, fingers twitching in disbelief, no longer in command of the force he had so carefully constructed.

  Casian didn’t look up. His expression was still as distant and empty as it had been before. He barely felt the change in the air. The wind was never really a threat. It was a nuisance.

  The prince was exceptionally clever with his magic. Casian had to give him that much. It was a display of skill, of calculated artistry, meant to rattle an opponent. An endless storm of swords before a crushing hand of the gods ripped it all to pieces. Hold them still until they are reduced to a blank slate.

  It was wasted here, he thought, on someone who he would never succeed against.

  Casian stood, lost in thought.

  Waste. That was the crux of a lot of it, wasn’t it? Wasted time. Wasted energy.

  He always detested waste.

  The fragments of wind slipped through his fingers as easily as sand. For a moment, it was almost sad that he was so distant. The prince was good, even if he used crutches for his spellcasting.

  The prince’s fingers moved again, sharper, with greater intent. A second, then a third, and a fourth, set of smaller vortexes began to form. Burrowing through open air like worms. It twisted inwards with greater speed, pulling at air and distorting currents like a whirlwind caught in a vice. The magic was strong enough that you could see the white lines distorting the air, hear the tumultuous wind at a steady, high whining pitch.

  Casian’s attention flickered. He stared at one of the vortexes and let a single cricket’s pop displace air.

  The structure remained stable, the unnatural force and speed behind it being self-perpetuating.

  Casian eyes narrowed. This was different. This wasn’t a last-ditch attempt at a trick, or a frantic retaliation. It was desperate, energized. Calculated. Splitting his attention and betting it against Casian’s. Making his projectiles self-perpetuating. Like flying arrows, small and violent, taking a life of their own upon themselves. The second prince wasn’t done yet.

  Good.

  Casian would have been upset if this ended so quickly. If he never got the opportunity to make a point.

  Casian considered teleporting– pulling space, appearing within the second prince’s guard. The second prince was obviously not martially gifted- he was on the thinner side. His battlefield control, though, was excellent. This was the closest Casian had seen another person get close to his grasp on his surroundings. He could end this duel in an instant. Appear and crush him. Snap ribs, break legs, grasp his neck firmly within his hands.

  Casian didn’t move. He observed the vortexes. He raised a palm to one.

  He displaced half of it in moments, ripping it to shreds.

  Then, slowly, but surely, it began to reform, not one- but two of them. Multiplying.

  Casian let his palm drop. He was here to make a point. A vortex started to build speed towards him, and he ripped it to shreds. It made three new copies of itself. Sweat poured down the second prince’s brow. He took his breaths in great heaves.

  Casian took a step forward, and ripped two vortexes in half. He paused for a moment, the second prince’s fingers trembling. It multiplied. He ripped another in two.

  Then another. Then another.

  The dueling grounds were silent save for the high-pitched howling of twisting wind, the sharp cracking of displaced air, and the prince’s heaving breaths. Casian took a step forward.

  The prince’s fingers trembled, his entire body shaking from the strain. Six sets of living knives tried to find purchase on Casian’s skin, and were scattered before they could get close. He was pushing himself almost as hard as Casian had, when he was younger.

  He ripped another vortex apart a foot before it reached his skin.

  Pointless. This was so pointless. It had maybe been interesting, for a moment. Casian felt like drinking tea. Felt like sitting down and having himself be uninterrupted.

  The prince’s breathing was ragged, his face drenched in sweat. He was still trying, still trying to push past the wall that Casian shuttered down around himself. Storms of wind flared, twisting viciously, like a wounded animal striking out. His fingers openly rose in front of him, directing them.

  All this effort, for what? A woman that doesn’t want you? A battle you can never win?

  Casian could hear his heartbeat thundering in his ears. His fists balled.

  Casian reached out in his mind, He felt the space around him, the battlefield with furrows in the ground, the trembling form of the second prince. He grabbed space, and he twisted. Not around himself, not around the prince.

  He twisted everywhere. A storm of furious crickets across the entire battleground. He ripped air to shreds, scattering them like sands in the wind.

  He stepped forwards and the second prince crumbled. His eyes were wide, looking at him in something close to horror. The second prince took a step back and stumbled, falling on the dirt.

  Casian kept walking forwards, until he stood before the second prince, who watched him silently, frozen, chest heaving in place. Casian reached down and grabbed his collar, and lifted him cleanly off the floor. His glasses dangled loosely on his nose.

  The second prince twitched, before writhing in panic, arm swinging up, Air followed it and tightened into place unthinkingly, like a knife. Casian tilted his head back, just an inch.

  A blade of wind finally, for the first time in the battle, sheared through stone with a thunderous screech.

  Casian felt the wind meet half of his face, how the blade had cleanly cut through the front-left side of his helmet and sheared it clean off. Casian could feel how his eyes were wide, unblinking, set off far away as he judiciously and meticulously catalogued how space moved.

  He breathed out of his nose, and stared at the prince, meeting his eyes. Not a drop of blood was spilt. Casian, for the first time in this duel, thought about the second prince as a person, really thought about it.

  He could not brutalize a member of the crown family for disturbing him, no matter how he felt about it. He internalized this information, then began to reroute the most efficient path to achieve victory.

  The second prince was better with his magic than his brother. Not by a small margin. A large one. A tremendously large one. He was better than Dante. He was better than anyone that had tried duelling Casian in the past six years. The only person he’d met that was better was Casian’s uncle. The prince was raised in a sheltered environment, royalty. He had the best tutors. He was bedraggled and reading through textbooks before the duel began. He was physically inept. Royalty had tutors. Trainers. Healers. They weren’t allowed to be physically inept. He reconsidered.

  He was sickly. Weak, permanently.

  His magic and his mind was all he had. His practice in his discipline, his skill. Casian frowned.

  Casian thought before he spoke. He didn’t raise his voice. He remained entirely and perfectly calm. The picture of tranquility.

  “Your spellwork is sloppy.”

  Silence burned through the courtyard like a brand.

  Tears burned in the second prince’s eyes. He dropped him to the floor, where he fell, almost lifeless. The fight had left him.

  The prince tried to speak, stuttering in stops and starts. Desperately trying to silence sobs.

  Casian turned, and left. The clinking of stone on the academy flooring was a balm to his soul. Blessed silence.

  How unfortunate, he thought, that we didn’t have a crowd.

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  He would have to tell Rosalinde to make sure that it was understood to not get in his way like this again. Casian kept walking.

  His tea was getting cold, after all.

  —-—

  The afternoon air was cool and crisp in the market square, small hole-in-the-wall shops lining the sides. Casian almost felt like smiling. Three days without duels. An entire actual weekend. Rosalinde was also going to be footing the bill for today’s visit, as well as the replacement cost for his personal supply. His good mood– or what qualified as such for him– was practically invincible as he pushed open the door to the Steep Dreams tea shop.

  The warm, fragrant air of the shop enveloped him immediately. The quiet murmur of conversation and delicate clinking of porcelain cups and saucers filled the space. The aromas of various teas blended in the air— floral, earthy, spicy. Casian’s gaze flicked to polished wooden shelves, neatly stocked with some of the finest blends across the continent, and the small backyard space with a lovely tree with some sort of pink flowers in bloom.

  He put in his preferred order, a darker tea, strong, simple. The caffeine would be a treat for today. It always felt good to indulge in stimulants whenever he didn’t need them to actually remain focused on anything. It wasn’t until he had stepped outside with the provided kettle– it was the work of a small amount of stone shaping on the pads of his hands to ensure he wouldn’t be burned handling it as hot as it currently was– and begun to settle down that he noticed the woman who was steadfastly staring at him from the table less than five feet away.

  She was around as tall as he was- perhaps slightly taller? It was difficult to judge while sitting. Her hair was long, black as night, falling and flowing like a waterfall behind her head. Emerald green eyes stared out, deep red lips– likely lipstick?-- and a gentle face with a cruel smile on it. Her garb was expensive, and beautiful, black and red intermingling in a dress that probably was worth more than most commoners would make in a decade, with a red ruby brooch around her neck. She was rather striking.

  She saw him and prowled to the open chair across him on his small table, before taking the seat without asking.

  Casian didn’t immediately respond, just tracking the unexpected intrusion. His eyes flicked from the woman to the empty chair she left behind and back to her face, but he said nothing for a moment. She wasn’t one to care for politeness, it seemed.

  Her smile widened, but it wasn’t warm. There was something predatory about the way she sized him up, her eyes trailing over him, inspecting every inch with a closeness that most people probably found uncomfortable or improper.

  Casian was not like most people, however. He was no hypocrite– he did this exact same thing every time he used spatial magic, most people just couldn’t reasonably accuse him of it, or didn’t even realize it was happening. He bore the gaze genuinely unbothered– plenty of people already looked at him like he wasn’t human, either by reputation or personal dislike.

  “So, this is where the undefeated Casian spends his free afternoons?” Her voice was smooth, low and almost too sweet. “I must say, I’d have sooner expected something more befitting your reputation.”

  Casian raised an eyebrow.

  “What sort of reputation is that, exactly?” His voice contained all the typical flatness, although he did interject a bit of idle curiosity.

  The woman’s eyes glinted, her lips curling into a tighter smile as she leaned back in her chair, clearly pleased with herself. “Oh, you’re a master at playing the innocent,” she said, voice absolutely dripping with sarcasm. “But you must know, nobody stays undefeated without being noticed. A reputation can grow quickly, and it seems yours precedes you. Casian, the quiet, brooding duelist– untouchable.” She spoke the word like a taunt, something meant to make him squirm.

  “And that’s not even getting into the relationship you have with your family– learning not only your father’s magic, which one could maybe excuse, but your mothers, and then your sister’s as well.” She let out a playful, mocking gasp. “One can’t help but wonder exactly how close you are to your family, after all. Seems like there might have been a fair bit of touch involved.”

  Casian raised a brow.

  “I suppose that practicality is a new concept, then? Or is the idea of being willing to risk to succeed just a new experience for you?”

  Her eyes narrowed- she probably hadn’t expected him to actually shoot back meaningfully. But Casian couldn’t help but feel a little chatty. It was a good day. She leaned forwards slightly, lips still curled in a mocking smile.

  “Risk, hm?” she said, her voice taking a bit of a colder edge. “And what has that risk gotten you?”

  Casian snorted.

  “Incestuous accusations and an undefeated record, or have you simply not listened to yourself?”

  The woman’s smile faltered and she rocked back, but only briefly. She quickly recovered, the gleam in her eye sharpening again as she leaned back in. “Touché”, she said, voice smooth and tinged with the smallest touch of annoyance. “For someone who is known to be as talkative as his stone, you have a sharp tongue, don’t you?”

  Casian could almost smile.

  “Most of my opponents simply prefer a different sort of conversation.”

  The woman’s eyes flashed with a mix of amusement and irritation. She leaned in closer, her voice dropping an octave. “How quaint.” she purred, her gaze never leaving his. Casian was doing his best to contain his amusement. It had been so long since someone had truly tried to play these sorts of word games with him when they would matter– when it wouldn’t be violence speaking for the two of them moments later.

  “Perhaps,” she said, faux-reproachful, “I should’ve expected you to be experienced with rebuffing such accusations. They must come often.”

  Casian took a sip of his tea while she spoke. He was feeling more present for this conversation than he’d been in a long time. He decided on honesty.

  “No,” he began. “Less often than you would think. Most suitors are too infatuated with my sister to risk sullying her name with an insult that would also apply to her.”

  She seemed to sour at that, speaking without much thought. “How typical of men. Led by their pathetic lusts and little else.”

  Casian tilted his head slightly, studying the reaction with mild interest. Sharp words, certainly, but they carried a note of something deeper– disdain, certainly, the woman dripped it, but also frustration. Something personal, perhaps?

  “Bold words,” He settled on, setting his cup down for a quiet clink. “Though I wonder if your complaint is with them, or with the fact that they aren’t interested in you, instead.”

  Her eyes snapped to his, a flicker of something unreadable flashing across her face and behind her eyes before she schooled her expression into one of cold amusement.

  “You mistake me,” she said. “I’ve no interest in the affections of fools.”

  Casian gave a small shrug. No reason to give a proper answer.

  “You must be very lonely, then.” His voice was as light and bland as if commenting on the weather.

  The woman reeled back for half a moment before stopping herself. Her lips parted slightly, as if she was about to speak, but she simply exhaled a quiet laugh, shaking her head. “You truly don’t hold back, do you?”

  “Should I?” Casian countered, watching her closely.

  She smirked, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “No,” she admitted, voice still light, but with an unspoken and near unnoticeable tightness. “I suppose it wouldn’t suit you.”

  Casian let out a hollow nod. “I have been accused of many things, but being accused of holding back is rarely one of them, yes.”

  She hummed, considering him more closely, now. “A rare trait. Most people have the sense to temper themselves.”

  “Or the fear,” Casian corrected mildly.

  Her smirk tightened, something sharp lurking behind her eyes. “And you? You intend to tell me you have neither?”

  Casian tilted his head slightly, fingers resting idly against his cup. “If I did, would we be having this conversation?”

  That earned him a small laugh, low and edged. “Fair enough,” she conceded easily enough, drumming fingers lightly against the table. “Though, I wonder– what is it that drives you, then? If not fear, if not caution?”

  Casian tapped his fingers against the table. “That is the question, isn’t it? What, indeed.”

  She wouldn’t be getting anything about his motivations. Nobody would, after all, even false ones could risk drawing too much attention to Rosalinde’s proclivities.

  She narrowed her eyes, not quite satisfied with his evasion but intrigued enough not to push– yet. Instead, she changed approach.

  “You speak as though you are a man without desire.” she mused, looking at him like someone studying a strange specimen. “But that would make for a rather dull creature, wouldn’t it?”

  Casian took another sip of his tea, unbothered. “A dull creature wouldn’t be sitting here, capable of matching words with you.”

  That got him another flicker of amusement. “No,” she admitted. “I suppose not.” She poured herself a cup. He didn’t stop her. Her gaze locked back on him. “So, then– what is it you want?”

  Casian let a beat of silence stretch between them. “At this moment?” He set his cup down, tiling his head slightly. “To finish my tea.”

  She scoffed, rolling her eyes, for a moment seeming entirely un-noble like. He watched her face flow with the movement.

  “How conveniently simple.”

  “How disappointingly direct,” he shot back.

  That made her pause. “You prefer things indirect, then?”

  She seemed vaguely incredulous.

  Casian lightly tilted his head and let one his hands reach up to his chin, as if considering the question for himself. “I much prefer whatever provides the most clarity,” he corrected. “Directness can often lose important detail.”

  Quick answers lacked detail. Indirect ones lacked in the same way. Knowledge was the keystone to survival. To dodge a hit, you had to know it was coming. To block it, you had to know it was coming. The most dangerous knife was one you didn’t see.

  She raised a delicate brow, fingers idly circling the rim of her cup. “Clarity?” she echoed, tasting the word like a new sensation. “Interesting. I’d have thought you prefer control.”

  Casian lips curled at the edges– not quite a smile, not quite not one. “Control is an illusion,” he said, quite confident. “You cannot have control. Understanding, however, is real.”

  Her expression flickered, and for the first time in their conversation, something in her posture shifted, her shoulders straightening, her chin lifting just slightly.

  “Spoken like a man who has spent a great deal of time grasping for it.”

  Casian’s fingers drummed an idle tune against the porcelain of his cup. “And yet, here I sit, quite at ease.”

  She smiled again, lips sharp and eyes bright. “Ease and comfort are not quite the same, are they.”

  “No,” he agreed, swirling his tea and watching the liquid shift, like furious waves on the ocean. “But comfort is not required for satisfaction.”

  She raised a brow and changed tacks again. “People choose illusions over truth all the time– clarity is sacrificed so quickly for convenience. And you?” She tilted her head, almost challenging. “You’re saying you don’t?”

  Casian took another slow sip of his tea before responding. “I simply prefer to know which illusions are worth indulging.”

  She let out a single, sharp laugh. “Ah! Selective in your self-deception, of course.”

  The woman looked at him, assessing. “You, admittedly, are not what I expected.” She took a slow sip of the tea– the tea that Rosalinde was paying for. “You are still, of course, infuriating, but I had expected it to be in a different manner.”

  Casian tilted his head slightly, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I do have that effect on people.” His tone was light, but there was an edge of something sharper underneath it all.

  Casian gave a brief nod of his head, like someone recounting an important detail or point from memory. “Most of my opponents are not exactly pleased when they lose, so that effect is not exactly new, either.”

  The woman’s eyes flickered with something close to recognition, although fleeting. Strange. “So, you do consider your interactions with others to be a battle?” she asked, the corners of her lips turning up in something that was less mocking and more genuine. “I must admit, I find that amusing.”

  Casian’s smile widened just the slightest bit. “Not everything is a battle, but I’ve yet to lose anything by treating it like one. People can be more dangerous than we like to give them credit for.”

  Her gaze sharpened, amusement fading and mixing with something more cynical. “A man who sees threats in everything. How terribly predictable.”

  Casian leaned back slightly, fingers clasping his cup with familiar ease. “Predictable, maybe. But I am ultimately fueled by results.” He replied. “I will stop being predictable when it stops working.”

  She leaned forwards, gaze narrowing, calculating behind emerald eyes. “Results, hm? You speak like they’re all that matter, but everyone’s got a different definition of success, don’t they?”

  Casian’s smile softened, but there wasn’t an ounce of warmth in it. “People argue over the semantics, but the outcome is the same.” He paused, tasting the phrase he was about to speak in his mouth. “Success is survival.”

  “And survival– does not care for intent.”

  She regarded him, weighing his words. “A pragmatist, then,” she said, almost to herself, before locking eyes with him again. “Always calculating.” She spoke next with a sort of testing, uncertain cadence, providing a hypothesis to him for him to shoot down or validate. “So long as you’re alive, you can seek a more beneficial state of affairs. Being alive is the only true prerequisite to any level of success?”

  “Somewhat correct.” he gave to her.

  “Somewhat?” she shot back, the slightest of offense in her tone.

  Casian paused for a moment, considering.

  “...Not long ago, I participated in a duel.”

  She looked at him like he was a moron. He raised his hand slightly to signal that he was going somewhere with this.

  “In it, my opponent used a form of magic, that if I had failed to adequately respond to, would have likely tore through my armor, before scattering my body into constituent pieces across the dueling field. I would not have been cut in half, or maimed, I would have been minced to pieces in an instant.”

  “It was a maneuver completely unsuited to a formal duel. It is the type of maneuver that every one of my opponents use, with a constant regularity. I am undefeatable. Extreme force is acceptable. There are no low-stakes duels for me. I will succeed, or I will stumble, and swiftly die. You misunderstand the realities of my situation.”

  The woman’s brows furrowed slightly, and for the first time in their exchange, she seemed genuinely taken aback. Her lips parted as though to speak, but the words caught in her throat, leaving her silent for a beat too long. Casian’s stare bore into her, unwavering, as she adjusted herself, like she was steeling herself against something unexpected.

  She cleared her throat, forcing her gaze away from him for a moment as she regained her equilibrium. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, but still laced with the sharpness that had characterized the entire conversation– that perhaps, just characterized her.

  “Your point being…?” she asked, as if she struggled to fully comprehend or realize the implications of his words.

  Casian leaned forwards, fingers on the edge of his cup, eyes never leaving the emerald orbs that were now hidden behind a handful of black strands. “Survival is not as simple as remaining alive. It is the capacity to continue fighting whenever everything threatens to destroy you. It is the capacity to continue fighting– to survive in a manner that continues to allow you to act, to choose. Not every threat is as obvious as a sword, or a spell. The greater dangers are often being caught unaware in subtle shifts of power.”

  Hence, his complete disdain for the nobility power plays. The eternally sleeping bear, the undefeatable combatant. A fixture, not a person. People got caught in politics. Fixtures got planned around. Beyond reproach or expectations in any reasonable manner.

  She paused, lips pressed together, something flickering faintly in her eyes. A realization, maybe?

  “I… understand.” she said, although it was clear she did not accept the notion, or perhaps even entirely believe it. “...You believe that you have to fight for the mere right to exist?” She sounded almost unnerved, vaguely uncomfortable, with something soft and strange lacing the edge of her voice.

  Casian’s gaze didn’t waver, expression unreadable as he considered her words. For a moment, the table seemed to stretch across the space between them, the shade of the tree-that-he-could-not-name hanging over the air between them like a heavy curtain.

  “Yes,” he said, voice calm, steady. “There is no other choice but to fight when you understand the cost of not fighting. Nothing is given freely. Every step, every fragment of peace, is earned with the knowledge that someone, somewhere, wants to take it from you. If you are not prepared– if you are not willing– you will lose it.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly, but for the first time it was something he could definitely clock as not being hostile. More in thought. “And if one were to stop fighting, to accept the end when it comes…?” Her voice trailed off like it was a question she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to.

  Casian’s lips curled again into a smile, devoid of humor or mirth. “Then you are at the mercy of those still fighting.” His tone was matter-of-fact. Clinical, like he had chosen to discuss a simple fact of nature. “Survival is not about passive endurance. It is active. Constant. If you stop fighting for what you want, you will be left with nothing.”

  She shifted in her seat, her posture now stiff, as though he had stricken a nerve. Then, the vulnerability she’d shown for a short moment was gone, replaced again by cold composure and the mocking smile, although her eyes still held something– quiet understanding, or resignation. He couldn’t decipher it.

  “As if there’s no choice? Stopping is inviting destruction?” She seemed incredulous.

  Casian met her with a gaze so intense that it could likely be physically felt.

  “You’re right. There is no other choice. Anything else is misunderstanding the stakes.”

  She stopped, in thought, pausing for a few moments. She let out a sharp inhale, shot between her teeth.

  “Unbelievable. You are practically an animal. Barely human. Masquerading as something more intelligent while living in a constant state of fight-or-flight.”

  Casian’s eyes darkened. His expression sharpened. The words stung, but not in the way they’d been intended to. He didn’t retreat, or flinch. He leaned forward slightly, drawing himself more into the conversation. Voice low, unyielding.

  “An animal?” He repeated, flat, with an undercurrent of something deeper. “What, then? Is someone who refuses to acknowledge the risk of inaction? Who believes they can wade through life with no comprehension of consequences.”

  “Someone,” she shot back. “Who understands that there are limits to capacity– that stress will kill you as certainly as a sword. You cannot live with the blade in your hand at every hour of the day.” She was building steam. Impassioned.

  “You speak of choice, but why would anybody choose to live like this?” She continued, voice raising, arm waving to him, challenging what was proper.

  That stung.

  Casian sulked in silence for a moment, thinking, before finally speaking.

  “Someone,” he trailed, slowly, haltingly, taking a sip of his tea. Being more vulnerable than he had been in some time. “Who did not ever get much of a choice in the matter.”

  Casian’s words hung in the air, but the silence that followed felt heavier than anything they’d exchanged in the conversation as-of-yet. He noticed her demeanour shift– not quite defeat, but almost resigned. Her gaze flickered to the door, shooting back to him, and without another word, she stood.

  Casian watched her for a moment as she moved to leave, something nagging at the back of his mind. He leaned forward, his gaze catching her as she got near the door.

  “Your name,” he asked, voice calm, but with unmistakable expectation.

  “I- You,” She visibly sputtered, genuinely put-off “You don’t know who I am?”

  Casian didn’t answer. He felt like that was something that could answer itself. Why else would he ask?

  “No. No! You are unbelievable. And absolutely infuriating.” She continued, building steam. She quickly raked her slender fingers through her long, flat, draping hair in a display of distress.

  “I am thoroughly done with this conversation! Good day.” With that, she turned on her heel and left, door clicking shut behind her with the finality of a chapter closing. Casian sat in silence for a moment, the words they’d spoken echoing in the empty space between them.

  It had been more amusing than sitting here alone, he supposed.

  He took a sip of his tea, eying the cup left across the table from him.