Author's note: Before you read this, just wanted to let you guys know that I uploaded the unedited version of the last chapter yesterday. It was blunder on my end, and I'm sorry. Nothing major but only a few dialogue changes were done in the edited version.

The staff cracked against Lucian's ribs before he caught the motion. A clean hit. Abnet stepped back in a smooth pivot, his stance easy and unreadable, as if the strike had cost him nothing.

Lucian let out a sharp breath and circled left. Sweat rolled down the back of his neck. The courtyard stones shimmered in the late sun. Abnet waited for him, calm as a man watching a kettle warm.

Lucian lunged.

The attack had speed but lacked something deeper. Abnet parried with a short twist, caught Lucian's wrist with the end of the staff, and tapped his forearm with enough force to sting. The feint fell apart as Abnet's counter caught his wrist, knocking his balance off.

"Again," Abnet said.

Lucian raised his guard, though his fingers shook under the strain.

He rushed in with a feint at the shoulder. Abnet read it before Lucian finished the arc. The older man shifted his weight and swiped his staff across Lucian's ankles. Lucian hit the ground with a hard thump that echoed across the empty yard.

He stayed there for a moment, staring at the sky.

Abnet planted the staff beside him. "Get up."

Lucian pushed to his feet. His ribs complained and legs felt heavy. His patience thinner than he liked.

Abnet studied him. "Your grin was fake again."

Lucian wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Was it."

"Yes." Abnet tapped the staff lightly against his shoulder. "You wear that crooked smile when you want me to think you are eager. It makes you predictable."

Lucian rolled his shoulders to settle the ache. "Maybe I'm predictable. Maybe you are too good."

"You keep reaching ahead of your own footing," Abnet said. "It makes every strike work against you."

Lucian snorted. "That doesn't sound much helpful?"

"It is the truth."

They moved around the yard in slow steps, collecting the practice staffs from where they'd scattered. Lucian rubbed his arm as he stooped for one, still catching his breath. Abnet set the others against the rack by the wall, checking each for cracks. The simple routine steadied Lucian's pulse, though his thoughts kept circling the fight.

Abnet clicked his tongue. "You're not here. Whoever I'm hitting right now isn't you."

Heat gathered under Lucian's ribs. He held the staff a little tighter. He told himself Abnet meant to help, yet the words landed wrong. Maybe it was the way the man said it, steady as if reading a ledger. Lucian wished he could hide the slip, wished he looked less rattled.

Heat crawled up Lucian's neck. He forced a grin, the crooked one that usually hid everything. "What does it even mean?"

Abnet didn't smile back. He stepped forward and caught Lucian's chin between his fingers, tilting his face up. His grip wasn't harsh, only firm enough to make Lucian meet his eyes.

"You know damn well what I mean," Abnet said.

Lucian's jaw tensed. He hated how exposed the hold made him feel, as if every uncertainty he'd kept tucked away had turned visible. He didn't want Abnet seeing that, not today.

He tried to pull away. Abnet held him steady.

"You move like there's trouble in your joints," Abnet said. "And your smile is a mask you carved in a hurry. You learn faster than anyone I've trained, but your impatience chains you to the floor."

Lucian exhaled through his teeth. The grip on his chin had hit a nerve he'd been trying to pretend wasn't there. He felt scraped thin, every mistake from the fight still raw in his ribs.

"You keep watching me like you're weighing something I don't understand," he said. "If you're trying to say something, then say it." The words slipped out rougher than he intended. He felt the sting of it at once, wishing he'd kept a better grip on himself.

Abnet released him with a short breath, then crossed to the rack to straighten the staffs they'd gathered. Lucian joined him, sliding the last one into place. His ribs ached with each inhale, but the small orderliness of the task steadied him. The courtyard felt quieter now, heat pressing at his shoulders while his thoughts ran ahead of him, already hoping this counted as the end of today's practice.

Abnet dusted his palms together. "Come." He started toward the side door.

Lucian followed him out, grateful the yard was behind them. The walk toward the outer corridor felt like the familiar end of any training day, the point where they would drift toward the next intersection and split off.

Abnet looked at the far wall as if sorting through things he would rather leave sealed. When he spoke, his voice quieted.

"When I look at you, I see a man running from the darkness in himself."

Lucian's fingers tightened around the staff.

"I've seen that before," Abnet said. "In someone I loved. And in someone I feared."

Lucian stopped breathing for a beat. Abnet continued without shifting his gaze.

"There was once a boy who smiled exactly the way you forced your smile a moment ago. Reckless, bright, sharp enough to cut his own skin. That kind of smile never means confidence. It means desperation."

Lucian let out a short laugh he didn't feel. "You're reading too much into me."

Abnet's eyes turned back to him. "You think you're unpredictable. But to men like me? Your kind is painfully predictable."

A thin, sharp heat slid up Lucian's throat. Predictable. The word lodged somewhere under his ribs, too clean, too precise.

He kept his face still, but something in him recoiled—not from Abnet's accuracy, but from the fact that a stranger had named something he'd been trying to outrun since Coriel-- no, maybe even before it.

He felt the weight of the branded skin on his palm, hidden by the staff he'd been carrying, the ache of it flaring like an ember each time Abnet looked at him too closely.

If Abnet kept pushing, Lucian wasn't sure which part of him would slip first—his composure, his illusions, or that thin line between who he was and who he pretended to be.

He swallowed once, the motion dry.

Running had been easy when people couldn't see him. Harder now, with Abnet's eyes pinned like a nail through the surface.

Lucian shifted his weight, glancing toward the corridor ahead. "I should get going. I've still got work to finish before evening." The intersection lay close. Slipping away felt reasonable.

Abnet's hand caught his shoulder, firm enough to halt him.

"You're not going anywhere in this state," Abnet said. His tone closed the matter. "You're coming with me."

"Where? I need to leave soon."

"You can spare a drink."

"I really cannot."

Today was the first day of his job as reader. He didn't want to go there drunk, not after making that disastrous first impression.

Abnet took him by the forearm, grip absolute.

He raised an eyebrow. "Then I will walk behind you and tell every street vendor you lost a fight today."

Lucian tried to pull free, and found he couldn't without causing a scene.

He let out a tired groan. "Fine."

Abnet steered him out of the training hall and through a side door that opened into the tavern building attached to the old barracks.

Afternoon light faintly warmed the timber walls. The common room sat half-empty, a few workers nursing meals. Abnet guided him to a corner booth tucked beneath a beam.

"Sit," Abnet said.

Lucian sat.

A server brought drinks without being asked. Abnet's reputation tended to smooth the world around him. Lucian pushed his mug aside. Abnet drank his in two swallows, then lifted Lucian's and drank that too.

"You're wasting coin," Lucian muttered.

"I'll waste more if that's what you need," Abnet replied. He poured a third drink and set it in front of Lucian. "Drink."

Lucian didn't touch it.

He rested his elbows on the table, hands folded tight enough that the knuckles whitened. The tavern's warmth should have settled him, yet every sound—the scrape of a chair, the clink of a spoon—felt sharper than it should.

His mind kept circling the fight, circling Abnet's grip on his chin, circling the way the man had looked through him as if peeling back layers Lucian had worked hard to glue in place.

He didn't know what irritated him more—Abnet's accuracy or his own inability to hide from it.

He shifted in his seat, jaw tight.

Leaving would've been smarter, safer. But walking out now felt like admitting Abnet had struck something true, and Lucian couldn't bear to give him that satisfaction.

The drink sat between them, untouched, heavy as a question he hadn't agreed to ask.

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