Chapter 51 Ties that bind – Arianna

  Arianna woke to the shrill beeping of the alarm. Beside her, Cassis stirred and silenced his phone with a groggy swipe. For a moment, she smiled at the sight of him—hair tousled, eyes heavy with sleep, his whole expression unguarded in that fleeting transition between dreaming and waking.

  But then yesterday’s memory came rushing back in, dousing her warmth like cold water.

  She was still mad.

  The irritation she had hoped would melt away overnight lingered like a stone in her chest. With brisk movements, she slipped out from under the covers and made to leave, not trusting herself to say anything kind just yet. But Cassis’s hand closed gently around her wrist, stopping her.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, confusion lacing his voice.

  Arianna paused, trying to will the emotion out of her tone. She didn’t want to fight with him. It was such a small thing. But her heart refused to let it go, like a splinter too deeply embedded to ignore.

  With a slow breath in and out, she turned to face him. “I’m still angry about yesterday.”

  His eyes sharpened as recognition dawned. He narrowed them slightly. “Well, me too.”

  Her temper flared. “Why are you mad? I’m the one who should be. You—again—told me what I could and couldn’t do.”

  “I didn’t tell you anything,” he shot back. “I let you do what you wanted. But you shouldn’t just hurt yourself so carelessly.”

  “Oh, come on,” she snapped. “You didn’t say it after the first outburst, but every gesture, every look you gave me—your whole body screamed what you didn’t say. You have no right to decide that for me. If I get hurt, that’s my choice.”

  “I know that,” he said quickly. “That’s why I didn’t stop you. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  Her frustration spilled over in a strangled cry. “Ugh! Then what about you? You get hurt all the time and just shrug it off. I hate it, but I don’t treat you like you’re doing something idiotic!”

  He stood, clearly exasperated. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Why couldn’t he just understand?

  She shifted her tone, trying to make it clearer. “It hurts, Cassis. When you get hurt and act like it’s normal or necessary, it hurts me. But I’m starting to understand now that there will be times when you get hurt. I’ll get hurt too—because this world doesn’t allow us to avoid pain. And I don’t like it, not at all, but sometimes it’s part of doing what has to be done. Seeing you not even acknowledge that you’re in pain or that it is normal that you get injured instead of me or someone else hurts my heart so much I could cry. But I don’t because that is what you have decided to do and I trust you to only take on what you can bear. I can try to make it easier on you by healing or being strong enough not to need protection anymore.”

  She stepped closer, her voice trembling with a mixture of pain and defiance. “I’m asking you to trust me. Don’t treat me like I’m some fragile child who doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  Her voice rose without her permission. “You may be older than me, more experienced with life in the apocalypse, but that doesn’t make me less. I need you to stop looking at me like a burden. Like someone to be protected from the world instead of someone who stands with you in it.”

  He looked stunned. Like he’d braced for a counterattack and instead had been hit in the heart. She could see it—he hadn’t expected this. Maybe he never realized just how deeply his instincts to shield her were cutting into her sense of agency.

  Arianna wasn’t stupid. She knew why he had been happy when she’d chosen the cleric class—because it meant she would stay away from the front lines. Because he thought it would keep her safe. And at the time, she hadn’t minded. It had been the right decision then. They’d needed a healer to survive and that was more important than her feelings on the matter.

  But things had changed during their battles. She had fought anyway because it was necessary. And she enjoyed the power she experienced while being an active fighter instead of a passive one who has to wait for people to get injured.

  And now with her new class, she could fight just like he could. She was fighting. But he still treated her like someone who needed shielding. He hadn’t hesitated to hurt Helen in training—hadn’t faltered or held back. He had trusted Helen to handle it, to take care of herself.

  Why couldn’t he extend that same trust to Arianna?

  He opened his mouth as if to reply—maybe to argue, maybe to apologize—but no words came out. For once, Cassis was speechless.

  Arianna stood still, breathing hard, her fists clenched at her sides. She didn’t know if she’d gotten through to him, but at least the silence that followed was no longer confused—it was thoughtful. Maybe even a little remorseful.

  Finally, Cassis found his voice. “I never saw it that way,” he said quietly, his tone thoughtful. But then, more firmly, he added, “But it hurts me too—when you get injured. A lot more than when it happens to me. You're only here because... because I wasn't strong enough. So, everything that happens to you feels like it's my fault. I can’t handle it. I just can’t.”

  Arianna blinked, surprised by the raw emotion in his words. What kind of ideas was he carrying around?

  “Why would you think you’re responsible?” she asked, her voice calm but firm. “Do you honestly believe your wish brought me here?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer.

  “Even if it did, that doesn’t make me your responsibility. It doesn’t take away my worth—as a fighter or as an adult. Even if something happens to me because of you, it's still mine to deal with.”

  Cassis didn’t look convinced, but after a beat, he nodded and said, “I don’t know if I can stop feeling this way... but I’ll try not to smother you. Just—please—promise me you won’t hurt yourself on purpose again. Only when it’s absolutely necessary.”

  Why was this so important to him? Still, Arianna could understand the feeling. She tilted her head and countered, “Only if you promise not to treat your own injuries like they’re nothing.”

  That kind of compromise, she could live with. And so could he. He seemed unhappy with the deal – so was she –, but it was one they could both accept. A small, strange relief settled over her. The anger boiling in her chest finally began to ease.

  Then, out of nowhere, Cassis shouted, “Helen!”

  Arianna jumped. “What?!”

  “She wanted to talk to her ‘friend’ yesterday and then call me. I forgot because of... everything. But she didn’t call. I hope she’s okay.”

  He was already grabbing his phone, scrolling through contacts. The first call went unanswered, but he tried again and this time, she picked up.

  He forgot to put it on speaker, so Arianna could only make out snippets of the conversation.

  “Yeah?” Helen's voice sounded groggy.

  “Helen? Is everything okay? You didn’t call yesterday.”

  There was some rustling on the other end.

  “Yeah, everything’s good. I—”

  “Helen, who is that?” a man's voice interrupted. Deep and heavy with sleep.

  Oh. Helen had definitely reconnected with her friend. Arianna’s eyes lit up with amusement, and she had to bite her lip to keep from grinning.

  Cassis must’ve reached the same conclusion. His expression was priceless, somewhere between scandalized and horrified. Arianna couldn’t help it, she burst into giggles.

  Helen said something else, and Cassis sighed, defeated. “Yeah... till this evening.”

  The moment the call ended, Arianna broke into full-blown laughter.

  Cassis narrowed his eyes at her, mock-offended. “What’s so funny?”

  Still chuckling, she shook her head. “Nothing. Come on, let’s get back to training. It’s finally time for group combat.”

  With that, her demeanour shifted back into something focused and serious. Cassis exhaled slowly, choosing to set everything else aside. He walked with her toward the training area, discussing their new training plan.

  They went to the gym for their daily run of the obstacle course with their trainees. This time, Arianna finally managed to rank up her stamina capacity to Advanced—a well-earned result after the gruelling effort she had put in.

  Afterward, Cassis gathered the trainees and divided them into five balanced groups. Each group contained a warrior, a ranger, a mage, and a cleric. From this point on, they would begin training as coordinated teams, with each class assigned specific battlefield roles. Faith had joined them for the run, but she chose to sit out the group sparring session, not wanting to disrupt the team dynamics. Instead, she stayed with Arianna and Cassis, observing the matches from the sidelines.

  Arianna needed to assist with healing often, as many of the clerics were not yet as capable as her. Even just being in combat – though just training – instead of standing on the outskirts made healing more difficult and chaotic.

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  A healer needed more of an overview of the battle as they had to adapt how much mana they could use for healing according to how the battle went. If it was a drawn-out conflict, they would have to heal sparingly, just enough to keep the team going and let the other fighters’ natural healing step in for minor and sometimes medium injuries. That in turn would take away from the fighters’ overall power as they would be trying to not aggravate their existing injuries too much and not to get any more injuries.

  Most of the clerics didn’t really know yet what construed a minor or medium injury in this new system world, and they healed too many injuries and then suffered from mana depletion or didn’t have enough mana to heal the dangerous injuries.

  So, Arianna stepped in frequently to help when someone required more support than their teammate could offer. Faith watched with fascination, clearly impressed by how much the groups had improved already, and winced as many clerics but also mages fell into mana depletion.

  The mages had also fired their Magic Missiles towards the other groups. Sometimes a mage could intercept the missile with their own spell, other times a ranger shot their own elemental arrow at it, or a warrior used their elemental blade to slash at it. Very rarely a cleric needed to use their elemental barrier which again used up their mana.

  The group combat continued until even the rangers and warriors dropped from mana depletion. It was a terrible sight – so many soldiers lying on the ground, some dry heaving, others being violently sick. But it was necessary. They had to learn with their bodies when their mana levels were too low, otherwise they could get into exactly this situation during a real fight.

  Cassis explained that to Faith and that they would do this group training tomorrow, too. In the afternoons, the focus would shift toward spells—developing their own abilities while also gaining familiarity with the spells of the other classes. Collaboration was key, and Cassis made sure everyone understood that.

  After a short break where most trainees got at least a little bit of mana back they did another round of sparring. Once done with that they went to a well-earned lunch, during which Arianna and Faith kept an animated conversation going about mana channelling.

  Then it was time for Arianna’s lesson. She had the trainees practice their spells again, but this time she incorporated short periods of meditation to help them refine their mana control.

  Later, she introduced them the possibilities Mana Sight offered on further rank ups—learning to perceive more than just their own elemental mana and using non-elemental mana deliberately – though to be fair they also needed good Mana Control for the second one.

  While none of them succeeded at it just yet, a few showed real interest. Most of them ended up with splitting headaches from the effort, but some were excited by the challenge and eagerly told her they wanted to keep practicing.

  That evening, Arianna and Faith relaxed together, watching a few more episodes of the romance series they had started earlier in the week. As the show played, Faith turned to her and asked gently if things were alright between her and Cassis after the events of the previous day.

  Arianna gave a small smile and nodded. "We're okay," she said. "We’re a couple, but it’s all still new—and with the apocalypse going on, it’s... complicated." She hesitated before adding, “Sometimes I get this irrational anger when he tries to protect me. I know he means well, but it makes me feel small.”

  Faith’s expression softened with empathy. “I understand,” she said. “Uncle Dan —Commander Brice as you know him — has always tried to protect me, too. He was my mother’s best friend and promised her to take care of me. And I know his protection comes from love, but it was suffocating. We had a lot of arguments about it. This job is finally the first time my dad and he started trusting me to stand on my own. I really want to prove I can do it.”

  Arianna nodded, feeling a connection spark between them. “Yeah... I get that. It’s nice to have people who care about you, but being overprotected all the time just makes you feel like you’re not capable.”

  The two continued talking, sharing personal stories and frustrations. It turned out that Faith’s mother had passed away when she was very young and that her father was often busy with his work leaving her with Brice. Arianna still couldn’t see how Uncle Dan and the tyrant Brice were the same person and became more and more sure that something had happened to turn him into that.

  Arianna and Faith bonded over being raised by a single father and the challenges it brought to a daughter. Faith told her about that awkward moment of puberty when she first got her period.

  “Well, thankfully I had already learned about periods in school and knew what was happening and what to do. But I didn’t have any supplies at home. So, I wanted to go to the supermarket and get some. Then Uncle Dan came in and freaked out because there was blood on my pants. I had bled through without noticing. It was embarrassing. But even worse was Uncle Dan trying to examine me for injuries. I had to tell him that it was my period. He then became really weird and blushed. Then he mumbled something and asked me what I needed. He told me to lie down, he’d go out and buy everything. Man, that was a terrible moment.”

  Arianna laughed. Men sure were strange. Something similar had happened with her own father. Then she brought out an even more awkward story. “Well, fathers and periods are all like this, aren’t they? Did he have the ‘talk’ with you? You know the ‘intercourse talk’.”

  She used air quotes, as her own father had done a lot during that talk. He hadn’t been able to say ‘sex’ and was using different words for it. Just thinking about it she broke out in laughter.

  “My dad couldn’t even look me in the eye while he talked about how things worked and to always use a condom and to be careful of STDs and so on. Then he went on about boys and told me that I could always talk to him. He was so uncomfortable. I had no plans whatsoever to talk to him about boys. But it was sweet of him.” She smiled sadly.

  Faith must have picked up on her mood and asked: “Is he…?” She didn’t need to finish. Arianna answered. “Yeah. He died of cancer seven years ago. As terrible and embarrassing and awkward as those talks were, I’d give everything to have them again with him.”

  Faith rubbed her shoulder in empathy. They were quiet for a bit, then she said. “Yeah. I should treasure Uncle Dan more.”

  Arianna looked at her. “You should. And you need to take care of him. For some reason the men who love us seem to take on more than they can carry way too often. We need to help them see reason and take care of them, too – be they fathers, uncles, brothers or boyfriends.”

  Faith nodded enthusiastically. They swapped some more stories about protective men who only had their best interests in heart but sometimes failed spectacularly. By the end of their conversation, Arianna felt much closer to Faith. There was something comforting in knowing that someone else understood the push and pull between independence and being cared for.

  Since the next day would be Arianna’s last at the fort, the two of them decided to stay in touch. They exchanged phone numbers, and Arianna promised to call once she was out of the dungeon she would be raiding the day after tomorrow.

  When Arianna returned to Cassis’s room, she found him waiting for her. As soon as she entered, he told her about his conversation with Helen—and how her friend was planning to purchase a few properties in his parents’ neighbourhood so that they could later on get a decent base going. The slight wrinkle of distaste that passed over his face when he said “friend” nearly made Arianna burst into laughter again. He really couldn’t hide his feelings when it came to his family having lovers, thinking of his dislike of Camden.

  Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Cassis asked her to look at some of the listings with him. He wanted to buy one of the houses—with her.

  That caught her completely off guard. They would buy it together?

  "But I don’t have any money in this world," she said, blinking in confusion. "I don’t even have a job. I can’t buy a house."

  Cassis looked at her as if she’d said something crazy. “Well, yes, I know that. That’s why we’re going to use my money. But the house will still belong to you, too. We’re a team—and I intend to stay one.”

  She hadn’t expected that kind of declaration. In the past, when she’d imagined buying a house with someone, there had usually been more candles and romantic timing involved. But Cassis wasn’t that kind of man—and she loved him for it. The way he said it, calm and steady, warmed her in a different way. She smiled, stepped forward, and hugged him. They definitely weren’t a fake couple anymore.

  Then a thought struck her, and she pulled back slightly.

  “Oh—but we still need to go through the revelations and the basic knowledge document. We have to send it to Ben and his father.”

  Cassis nodded. He’d already read through the entire thing and had simply been waiting for her to do the same.

  They spent the next hour shoulder to shoulder—first reviewing the document one last time, then sending it off, and afterward looking through available houses in the neighbourhood together. It was a quiet hour, filled with occasional commentary, subtle glances, and the comfortable silence of two people planning a future side by side.

  The next day unfolded much like the one before: obstacle course, group combat, mana training. After completing the obstacle course, Cassis had messaged her through their private party chat with exciting news—he had finally reached Master rank in his stamina capacity. She congratulated him immediately, genuinely impressed. That was no small feat, especially given how demanding the training had been.

  The group sparring was again brutal. This time they let two groups spar while everyone else was watching. The trainees were strong but still struggled with applying their mana-based abilities well during a fight.

  Cassis explained to her that this was to be expected as they had experience in sparring before the apocalypse. They were used to moving their bodies, that gave them an edge with their physical abilities and skills but worked against them with their magical abilities and spells as that was new to them and people were animals of routine. Their first reaction would be to do as they have always done, a physical reaction. They’d have to work on this consciously. People with less or no fighting experience didn’t have as much trouble with their mana related abilities and spells since everything was new to them.

  The first round of group combat ended when both clerics had passed out from mana depletion, the mages were well on their ways there, too, and the warriors and rangers sported injuries that Arianna definitely had to heal.

  Then came the next round of group combat. The same happened over and over for each new round. Afterwards, especially the clerics looked terrible, as they had used up the most mana and pretty much had to suffer through mana depletion every round they fought. In the end they were looking at Arianna who had just healed everyone before their lunch break as if she was some kind of alien.

  Cassis laughed and told them to rest up well since they would work on their spells and meditation after lunch. They grumbled but nobody talked, and they went off to their rooms.

  During lunch Faith finally asked her. “How can you heal so well and so many, when the other clerics I saw tapped out just healing three people?”

  Arianna laughed. “At first that happened to me, too. But I quickly learned to use every break I got to meditate and to only use my heals when necessary. Of course, I also only use as much mana as the wound needs to close, not a drop more. They’ll have to learn that through repeated use. And now I’ve got some titles that help with mana regeneration so it’s easier for me.”

  Faith nodded, but Arianna could tell, she didn’t really understand most of it. But the clerics and mages would probably understand after the sparring today. She’d work with them on Mana Control again. The warriors and rangers also had to learn when and how to use their spells.

  After lunch Cassis and Arianna split the group into magic and physical classes once again. Cassis explained to his half how to better use their spells and integrate them into their fighting. They also practiced how to change the amount of mana they used for the spells.

  Arianna talked with her half about conserving mana during battle and to use short breaks or lulls in battle to meditate. They practiced this a lot – short bursts of meditation instead of prolonged rest periods. Most important was that the trainees needed to learn how to control their mana better and to assess wounds better. They’d have to study on their own which injuries could safely be ignored now that every awakener could heal many of their injuries on their own in time.

  By the end of the day, both she and Cassis had reached level 13 in their respective professions, which had also granted them two additional class levels, putting them at level 17 and 18 respectively. Cassis’s mana saturation had climbed to 39%, a notable improvement, while hers had risen by just two percentage points, bringing her up to 58%. Not bad, considering the little time she had spent on herself during this week.

  In the evening, they said their goodbyes to the trainees and to Commander Brice, who personally thanked them for their efforts and wished them luck in the dungeon. He even told them—half-jokingly but with a sincere undertone—that they were welcome to return and train more of his soldiers anytime. His words were warm, his gratitude clear.

  Arianna found herself a little unnerved by his kindness. In the other timeline, she had witnessed him do terrible, unspeakable things. How had this man—so calm and considerate—become the merciless tyrant she had known? She doubted it was a mask since Faith had grown up with him and described him just like this: a silent and stern, but warm and honest man.

  Had something happened to Faith in the other timeline? Was that the trigger for his change? She didn’t know. Not yet. But they’d be watching him closely. Hopefully, Faith would help with that—though Arianna wouldn’t tell her the real reason for her interest in Brice. Not yet.