Zaeryn’s footsteps faded into the house.
Neither woman spoke for a long mont.
Kayla stood perfectly still. Her posture hadn’t changed, but sothing about her was different now. The coldness and sharp mockery from earlier were gone. What was left was focused. Serious.
"What do you want, Princess?" Kayla asked. Her voice had none of the theatrical edge from before Zaeryn was here, and when she looked at Viora, there was no friendliness in her eyes at all.
Viora turned to face her. Her expression gave nothing away. "I would think that was obvious."
"Humor ."
Viora tilted her head slightly, studying the other woman. She could feel the hostility coming off Kayla in waves. The friendly act was completely gone. It was surprising. Viora didn’t know why Kayla would already dislike her when they had just t. "I ca to see my brother."
"Why now?" Kayla’s eyes narrowed. "You’ve had more than eighteen years. Eighteen years to acknowledge he exists, to reach out, to do anything. Instead, you kept him hidden like he was sothing shaful. So why the sudden interest? Guilt? Curiosity? Or did soone finally order you to clean up your family’s ss?"
Viora’s expression didn’t change much, but her eyes sharpened. A faint smile appeared at the corner of her mouth. "That’s a lot of concern for soone you treat with contempt. It almost sounds like you care about him."
It almost sounds like she cared about him? The words were direct. Cutting. Kayla looked offended at that assumption, but she didn’t deny it.
"Tell , Kayla," Viora said, her voice quiet now. "Why is it any of your business whether I cared for him before? You’ve made it very clear you think he’s beneath you. House pets, wasn’t that what you called him? Untrained civilians?" She paused with a thoughtful look. "So why does my relationship with him matter to you at all?"
Kayla’s face stayed neutral, but her eyes gave her away. For just a second, there was real emotion there. Anger, maybe. Or worry. Sothing she didn’t want Viora to see.
"Unless," Viora said softly, "you don’t actually hate him at all. You’re just pretending."
Silence. Kayla’s hands curled at her sides. She wasn’t making fists, but the tension was obvious. She was holding herself back.
"I don’t care about him," Kayla said. Her voice was cold and asured. Every word was precise. "But I care about Ysine. And he ans everything to her."
She looked directly at Viora without blinking. "If sothing happened to him, it would destroy her. And I won’t allow that."
Viora’s expression went completely cold. She understood exactly what Kayla was implying. "Why would you think I ca here to hurt him?"
Kayla didn’t answer right away. She was watching Viora carefully, looking for sothing. A tell. A lie.
"He’s my brother," Viora said. Her voice was flat. Matter-of-fact. "I only found out about him recently. I had no idea he even existed until a few weeks ago." She paused. "And I have no intention of hurting him."
The two won stared at each other for a long mont.
Kayla’s expression didn’t soften, but sothing in her posture relaxed. Just slightly.
"Let’s hope that’s the case," Kayla said. Then she turned and started walking away.
She made it three steps before Viora spoke again.
"Don’t worry," Viora said, her tone almost pleasant. "Your secret’s safe. He’ll never know his harshest judge is also his guard dog."
Kayla stopped. But she didn’t turn around.
There was sothing dangerous in that stillness. Not the coiled-spring tension of soone about to strike, but the frozen calm of soone deciding whether violence was worth the political fallout. Viora had just called her bluff, and they both knew it.
"I’m watching you, Princess," she said quietly. Then she kept walking.
Viora stood there for a mont after Kayla disappeared into the villa. Then she allowed herself a small, genuine smile. ’Interesting.’
---
Inside the house, Zaeryn turned on the shower and stepped under the hot water. It pounded against his bruised shoulders and back, but it didn’t help much. Every muscle hurt. Viora’s strikes had left deep aches that the heat couldn’t touch.
She really could hit.
Not just hit, surgical strikes designed to shut down specific muscle groups. This wasn’t random violence. Every blow had been calculated, asured. She’d been teaching him sothing, whether he realized it or not. The lesson: he had a long way to go.
He put one hand against the tile to steady himself and watched the water swirl down the drain. It was slightly pink. His knuckles were scraped raw from that final punch, the one that had actually connected with her face.
It had impressed her. Zaeryn liked that part.
But he hated the mont his fist had connected with her face. She was beautiful. Perfect. And he’d hit her hard enough to draw blood.
It had been worth it. Every second of getting beaten down had been worth it.
He hadn’t just made progress with Viora. She’d gone from treating him like a mistake to sothing closer to acknowledgnt. But more than that, he’d gotten stronger.
Three of his abilities had ranked up in a single fight. That had to an sothing.
By the ti he got out of the shower and fell onto his bed, the worst of the pain had started to fade. It wasn’t gone. His back still throbbed with every breath. But it was manageable now. Tolerable.
Zaeryn stared at the ceiling for a mont. Then he pulled up the system interface.
The familiar screen appeared in front of him, showing his updated abilities:
[ABILITIES]
Hyper-Cognition: Rank B
Forr Rank: D
Rank B. That wasn’t just a small improvent. That was elite level. The difference between seeing patterns and predicting them before they happened. Between reacting and anticipating.
Kinetic Acceleration: Rank C
Forr Rank: F
Vitae Weaving: Rank C
Forr Rank: F
Both abilities had jumped multiple ranks. The speed boost alone had been enough to catch Viora off guard at the end of their fight. And his Vitae constructs had held together long enough to create openings, even if they were still crude compared to her ice.
He closed the screen and let his head sink into the pillow.
Three ranks in one fight. Not bad for a house pet.
The thought should have felt bitter, but it didn’t. Kayla’s insults had lost their sting sowhere between getting teleport-kicked in the spine and landing a clean hit on a princess. Turns out getting your ass handed to you by family was less humiliating than he’d expected. Actually, it was kind of motivating.
Maybe he should start demanding belly rubs and treats. See how Kayla liked that.
He wondered if Kayla had seen the whole thing. She probably had. Lurking sowhere with that cold, judgntal stare, cataloging every mistake he made. The thought should have annoyed him, but right now it made him smirk despite the pain.
a soft knock at the door broke his train of thought.
The door creaked open before he could answer, and Ysine slipped inside. She carried a small glass vial filled with a shimring blue liquid.
"Hey," she said softly, closing the door behind her. Her eyes swept over him, lingering on the fresh bruising along his ribs. A frown touched her lips. "I heard you and Viora sparred."
"She went easy on ," Zaeryn groaned, shifting to sit up. He winced. "Mostly."
Ysine sat on the edge of the bed. "Here. Drink this."
She held out the vial.
Zaeryn eyed it curiously. "What is it?"
"High-grade restorative. It’ll knit the micro-tears in your muscles before you wake up." She pressed it into his hand. "Viora gave it to . She said you’d need it."
Zaeryn blinked, looking at the vial. "She gave this to you?"
"She did." Ysine’s fingers brushed hair from his forehead, her touch cool and gentle.
Zaeryn uncorked the vial and downed it in one shot. It tasted like mint and liquid fire. Almost instantly, a warm numbness began to spread from his stomach to his limbs.
"Good boy," she whispered, pushing him gently back against the pillows. "Sleep."
___
Zaeryn woke up a few hours later, feeling better than when he went to sleep.
’Afternoon?’ He glanced at the chrono-display. It was afternoon going into the evening. He’d been out for hours.
Waking up was not the sa as it had been that morning. Well, yeah it wasn’t, he’d just gotten his ass beat by a princess. But the dicine Ysine had left on his nightstand had done its work. The deep aches that should have kept him bedridden were reduced to dull reminders.
Zaeryn sat up slowly, testing his range of motion. He could barely feel the pain after taking that dicine.
His mind drifted back to Viora, wondering if she was still here. He grabbed a fresh shirt from his closet and headed downstairs.
The house was quiet, with just the soft murmur of voices drifting from the living room.
Zaeryn padded down the hallway barefoot, following the sound.
When he rounded the corner into the living room, he stopped.
Ysine stood near the kitchen archway, holding an elegant ceramic coffee pot. She was pouring a dark, steaming stream into a delicate cup that looked almost fragile in Viora’s hands.
"There you go," Ysine said warmly, setting the pot down on the low table. "Fair warning, it’s strong. I don’t usually make it this concentrated, but sothing told you’d appreciate it."
Viora accepted the cup with both hands, her posture still regal even while seated on the midnight-blue divan. She brought the rim to her lips and took a careful sip.
Her ice-blue eyes widened.
"Oh." She set the cup down carefully. Deliberately. "What is this!?"
Zaeryn tensed. Shit. Did Ysine accidentally insult a princess with bad coffee?
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