“You—” I start and have to pause to swallow past the lump in my throat, “—are the worst.” George pretends I don’t exist. “Seriously. I’m going to make Caz send you back home. You’re going to send me into heart failure.”
Only once I’ve confirmed he is, in fact, physically occupying thesame world as I am, do I notice the figure moving in the ring below. Varo is a line drawn by a sword, all economy and no waste. He’s alone, which seems like a choice he would make even if everyone else had been awake. He steps and turns and cuts in a sequence that looks like it belongs to a language I don’t speak. Fluid, precise, breath steady. There’s sweat at his temples and a damp dark where his tunic clings between his shoulder blades. The sound of his boots on the packed earth is rhythm, not noise.
I lean my forearms on the rail beside George and don’t say a word. Watching him work is like pressing a cold cloth over a fevered thought; some part of me that’s been too bright dims to bearable. It happens the way heat lifts off a summer road. The air shifts over him, a shimmer that shouldn’t be there in morning chill, and for a fraction of a second the color of him is wrong. Not wrong. Different. Pale where it shouldn’t be pale. Light catching on something that isn’t sweat or sun.
I blink hard. The shimmer’s gone. He’s exactly as he was—Daemari-perfect, hard lines where glamor draws them, nothing that would make any Councilor frown when they pass him in a hall. My hand finds the rail. The wood is splintered where someone dragged a blade along it too often. Real, again, again. The panic that tried to bloom burns itself out quick, embarrassed to be seen. This isn’t a trial. The light can change without meaning to ruin me.
“George,” I tell the cat who refuses to look in the direction I’m looking, “if this is a trick, I’m going to be so mad.”
He yawns so wide I can count the tiny thorns on his tongue, then hops down and pads toward the ring like he owns it. Of course he does. Varo doesn’t look up when the cat takes his throne on the lowest rung of the fence. He doesn’t look up when I follow. He finishes the sequence he’s in as if nothing short of the roof falling would interrupt him, then resets his stance with a shift of weight that makes the lines of his body look like they were carved that way.The breath I’ve been holding slips out, and with it the last, thin thread of fear that I’m about to wake somewhere else.
I’m here. George is here. Varo is here. And it’s morning in Crimson, which means whatever comes next will come when it wants to, not when I think I’m ready.
“Fine,” I say again to no one and everyone, and duck under the fence to step into the ring.
Varo doesn’t break rhythm when he notices me. His head turns just enough to catch me in his peripheral, eyes flicking to mine before returning to the slow, deliberate movement of his arms. It’s not the flashy kind of fighting you see in the early rounds of the Rite. No lunging for the kill, no roar of impact. His steps are light and precise, each one ending in a controlled pivot. It’s… beautiful, in its own stripped-down way. The kind of thing I’d never notice when I’m too busy waiting for a sword to swing.
“Are you going to stand there all morning, or do you plan to shift your ass?” His voice carries just enough to reach me, cutting cleanly through the ring’s stillness.
I snort, pushing my hair behind my ear.
“I think I’ll pass. I’ve taken enough beatings lately.”
That earns the faintest twitch of his mouth. “You mean in Gilded?”
The bruise on my cheek aches. “You heard about that?”
“I hear everything.” He finishes his movement, twisting his torso in a way that should be impossible for a man his size, then faces me fully. “And yet you made it out because you pushed yourself, and another fighter might have gutted you for it. Don’t get lazy now.”
My mind flashes to the fight in the ballroom, the slap, the desperate scramble to drag people through the arch. I had been relying on instinct and adrenaline, not skill. Caziel’s training had been about survival, not mastery. Varo’s right. I hate that he’s right.
Still, I lift a shoulder. “I did fine.”
“Fine gets you killed in the later rounds.” He extends a hand toward me, palm open. “Come on.”
I arch a brow. “What, and give you the chance to throw me around the ring? Hard pass.”
His expression doesn’t change, but something shifts in the air between us.
“You’ll have to fight me eventually.”
I narrow my eyes, but my feet are already moving. George hops down from my lap in protest, flicking his tail and stalking to the edge of the ring. I step through the rope boundary and meet Varo in the center. His hand is still extended, patient and unyielding.
“Why eventually,” I say, slipping my hand into his. But Varo doesn’t answer. He pulls me forward—not hard, but enough to remind me he could crush me without effort—and positions me beside him.
“We’ll start slow. Hands up.”
The lesson is nothing like Caziel’s. Varo’s movements are precise and compact, each correction clipped and efficient. He doesn’t take it easy on me. Where Caziel would stop to explain the philosophy of a move, Varo just shows me again, expecting me to adapt. My shoulders burn within minutes.
“Your guard’s too low.” He taps the side of my arm, then hooks his foot around mine to correct my stance. “You’re giving me your centerline. If I wanted to, I could—”
I block his next move on instinct, and his mouth curves—not quite a smile, but almost.
“Better,” he says. “Again.”
We move like that for a while, me fumbling through adjustments, him refining them without ever raising his voice. It’s a strange sort of camaraderie. He is intense, but not impatient. Focused in a way that demands I meet him at least halfway. At one point, he shifts behind me to guide my arms through a defensive block. His palm brushes my wrist, and a flicker catches at the edge of my vision. I turn my head just slightly, and for the briefest moment, his skin… changes.
It’s not like when Caziel drops his glamor, when it feels like the air bends to make space for something bigger, more dangerous. This is subtle, almost accidental. A ripple that smooths out the second I blink. I realize too late that I’ve gone still in his hold.
