"Where did that co from, Zel?"
Zelda lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at her hands.
"Ever since we got here, the whole family has been pushing you and Freya together." She exhaled slowly. "I just want to know if you’re going to go along with it."
"You know no one pushes into things I don’t want."
"Even a demigod?"
Winston went quiet. His eyes narrowed and the faint crimson glow that lived behind his irises deepened slightly.
"Even a demigod."
Zelda studied him for a mont, then let out a breath.
"Okay." A pause. "But you still haven’t answered my question."
Winston looked at her properly for the first ti since sitting down. The loose robe she’d been given after treatnt had settled off one shoulder slightly revealing her cleavage.
Her blue eyes caught the room’s light in a way that made the color more vivid than usual.
Her lips were slightly parted, waiting.
He didn’t answer with words.
He raised his hand and rested it against her cheek.
She went still imdiately, suddenly aware of the distance between them. He drew closer, slowly, and she didn’t move away.
Her heartbeat was loud in her own ears. Every thought in her head narrowed down to one thing.
His forehead ca to rest against hers. He took her hand and pressed it against his chest.
"What do you think the answer is?"
She felt his heartbeat under her palm. Then sohow the distance closed entirely and her lips t his.
It was warm. It was not brief. His hand moved to her waist and lifted her without breaking the kiss, settling her into his lap as her arms found their way around his neck.
She felt his hand move lower and then —
"Ah~"
She pulled back, breathing uneven, and looked at him. His red eyes were looking back at her. Sothing in the eye contact made reality reassert itself all at once, and Zelda shot upright from his lap.
"I’m sorry for — I didn’t an to attack you like that—"
Winston laughed genuinely.
"If that’s what being attacked by you feels like, I don’t mind the loss."
Zelda’s face went completely red. She turned away and pressed both hands to her cheeks, which did nothing to help.
Winston watched her and smiled.
But underneath it, quiet and private, a different thought ran.
’I’m sorry, Zel.’
❖❖❖❖
The next morning Winston gave Zelda space and headed to the training grounds.
The estate had arranged temporary quarters for all three of them — clean, comfortable rooms in one of the residential wings, set up specifically for the pre-Crucible period.
The arrangent was straightforward: stay, train, prepare. The only issue was that the person assigned to run the training wasn’t there.
Freya had already found that out.
She stood in front of one of the estate servants with an expression that was doing its best to stay composed.
The servant was bowing at a precise apologetic angle.
"I’m sorry, young lady. Lady Elizabeth is currently in the Astral Heaven." A brief pause. "She left a ssage. She said — and I quote — ’Why bother training them myself when her boyfriend is a literal monster?’"
Freya’s eyes went wide. Then they settled back down slowly.
"She’s as vulgar as ever." She waved the servant off. "You may go."
The servant bowed and retreated.
The training ground door opened a mont later and Winston walked in with Zelda, both of them looking more rested than they had any right to after the previous session.
"Good — you’re up," Winston said when he saw Freya. "The healer said you’d recovered. How are you feeling?"
Freya looked at him. The servant’s words were still running in the background of her thoughts, and she filed them firmly away.
"Fine. I wanted to get so training in, but apparently my sister decided not to show up."
"Where did she go?" Zelda asked.
"The Astral Heaven, apparently."
"That’s abrupt. I assud she was assigned to train us for the week."
Freya shook her head.
"In the Valerian family, rit overrides most obligations. It doesn’t matter what my father instructs — if you’ve accumulated enough standing within the family, you can redirect or defer almost anything. Elizabeth is a general and his eldest daughter. She has more than enough rit to get away with this."
Zelda processed that.
"So good deeds cancel out the bad ones."
"Essentially."
"Which ans," Zelda continued, "we’re training ourselves this week."
Winston shook his head.
"Not necessarily."
❖❖❖❖
A car pulled up outside a large facility building and the driver moved to open the rear door.
Elizabeth stepped out without waiting for the servant at the entrance to complete the gesture, walking straight through the open doors.
Guards filled the interior. One of them broke from his post and fell into step beside her.
"Lady Elizabeth. We weren’t expecting you today."
She kept walking. "I wanted to get so training in."
The man had the sense not to push further. He peeled off as she reached the main corridor, and Elizabeth continued alone toward the back of the facility where the gate was housed.
The golden gate of Winterheart filled the far wall. It was tall and permanent with the specific steady light of a fully cleared and stabilized Tier Five passage.
Class holders were moving through it in both directions, so returning with equipnt, so heading in with purposeful expressions.
It was one of the Valerian family’s operational gates. Cleared by them, maintained by them, used largely by them.
Elizabeth walked through without slowing.
The temperature drop was imdiate on the other side.
The air carried the particular quality of the Astral Heaven, thinner and charged at the edges in a way that never quite translated to normal atmosphere.
The base spread out around the gate exit in every direction — buildings, infrastructure, the accumulated result of the Valerians having operated in this region long enough to build sothing permanent.
She didn’t stop here either.
She vanished in a spark of lightning, leaving the base behind and moving deeper into the region.
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