The third day of the Shadow Hunt Trials was winding down.
The Phantom Order, the Spirit Temple, and the Priest Temple had already finalized their top ten. The remaining matches were just deciding rankings.
Since Leo had the empty slot, he hadn’t gone to the Ironveil Order’s stadium at all. Instead, from early morning, he was waiting quietly at the same spot on the road where they met every day.
---
Inside the Assassin Temple’s competitor lounge, ten people remained.
Nine of them were staring at the tenth.
Lyra sat in the front row, her pale blue bamboo cane resting at her side, her expression completely calm. The other nine competitors watched her with a mixture of wariness and relief — the fifth-stage assassin who had torn through the preliminary rounds using Phantom Split. The clear favorite. The one person in this competition that none of them wanted to face.
After a long moment of silence, Lyra straightened slightly.
"I forfeit the remaining matches," she said, her voice quiet and even.
Nine jaws dropped simultaneously.
She was already standing, cane tapping against the floor — *du, du, du* — and walking toward the exit before anyone thought to respond. The door closed behind her, and the lounge sat in stunned silence.
---
Leo was leaning against the wall outside, watching the morning foot traffic, when the familiar sound reached him.
*Tap. Tap. Tap.*
He pushed off the wall immediately.
"Lyra."
She smiled — just slightly, the small version she kept for moments like this. "Were you waiting long?"
"Just got here," he said, reaching out and taking her hand before he’d really decided to. "Do you always finish this early?"
"Not always. But I wanted to be here sooner today."
He didn’t ask why. He already felt the answer somewhere in his chest — warm, and not entirely comfortable in the way that things you haven’t named yet tend to be uncomfortable.
His injuries from yesterday were fully healed. The battle against the fifth-stage knight had pushed something loose inside his cultivation, and a full night of quiet training had let it settle properly. His spiritual energy felt deeper, more refined — the Iron Will Charge method had done something to it that regular training couldn’t replicate. He was certain now: at this rate, he would break through to fifth stage within ten days.
But right now, none of that was what occupied his mind.
They walked slowly, side by side, the city moving quietly around them. The buildings along this road were heavily decorated in the style of the Holy City — old stone and carved archways, banners catching the morning breeze. The sunlight fell warm and even across the road.
Leo held her hand and tried not to think too hard about holding her hand.
After a moment, he took a breath.
"Lyra," he said carefully, "how long are you staying in the Holy City?"
She didn’t answer immediately. "Why do you ask?"
"I just—" He stopped. His ears felt warm. "I just wanted to know how many days I could walk you back."
Lyra went quiet.
They stopped walking without quite deciding to, standing in the middle of the road with the morning foot traffic parting around them. Leo’s palms were beginning to sweat in a way that had nothing to do with training or combat. He had faced a fifth-stage opponent two days ago without his heart rate doing this.
Lyra felt the change in his hand.
"I’m just a blind girl," she said softly, her head tilting slightly. "Is it really that important to you — walking me back?"
Leo opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"I... don’t know," he said honestly.
Lyra blinked.
It was not the answer she had expected. She had anticipated deflection, or reassurance, or the kind of cheerful non-answer that people usually gave when they didn’t want to say something real. She hadn’t anticipated complete honesty from someone who clearly didn’t know what to do with what he was feeling any more than she did.
She dropped her head slightly. "Are you tired of spending time with me?"
"How could I be?" Leo’s hand tightened around hers before he even processed the movement. He turned to face her, something close to panic moving through his expression. "Lyra, I—" He stopped. Floundered. And then, in the specific desperation of a fourteen-year-old boy who has absolutely no idea what he’s doing but knows he’s about to lose something important, he said the first thing that came into his head:
"Actually — actually, I’m very ugly. Someone as ugly as me, how could I ever deserve to turn you away?"
Lyra stared at him.
"...Very ugly?"
"Yes," Leo confirmed, with great conviction and absolutely zero dignity. "Very."
There was a pause.
Then Lyra smiled.
Not the small, careful version she usually allowed herself. Something warmer than that — genuine and surprised and trying not to be, her face turned slightly away from him in a way that might have been hiding something if Leo had known what to look for.
"So," she said quietly, her voice going soft at the edges in a way it hadn’t been before, "if I wanted you to always be there to look after me... would you be willing?"
The words came out careful and stumbling, like she’d rehearsed them and forgotten the rehearsal halfway through. The tips of her ears, just visible beneath her violet hair, had gone very pink.
Leo didn’t hesitate. Not even for a fraction of a second.
"Yes."
Lyra’s composure, which had survived enemy assassins and five-stage battles and an entire childhood of people underestimating her, did not survive this.
She pulled her hand back — quickly, the way you pull your hand back from something unexpectedly warm — and said, "I — I should go back now."
"Right," Leo said. "Tomorrow — tomorrow I’ll walk you back again."
"...Fine." She nodded once, very slightly, and turned toward her lodging.
Her cane was tapping against the ground at roughly twice its normal speed.
Leo watched her go. He stood there on the road for a moment, the warm morning light settling around him, and then a sound came out of him that he had absolutely no control over — a short, helpless laugh, the kind that happens when you’re happy and embarrassed and have no idea what to do with either.
*She said he looked like a pretty girl and he called himself ugly.*
Somewhere inside her, behind the composed expression she was reassembling piece by piece as she walked, a voice was noting this with quiet incredulity. *He said that to calm me down. He absolutely said that to calm me down. This boy who looks more like a girl than most girls—*
But the warmth in her chest didn’t go anywhere.
It had never been there before, not like this. And she found, to her own considerable surprise, that she didn’t want it to leave.
---
Leo was still smiling when he got back to his room.
He sat down, tried to begin cultivating, got about thirty seconds in before his mind wandered back to a particular quiet voice going soft at the edges, and gave up. He was just deciding to try again when someone knocked at his door — urgent, rapid, the kind of knock that has news behind it.
"Leo! Leo, open up!"
He crossed the room and pulled the door open.
Mira stood in the corridor, and she was an absolute disaster. Her armor had been punctured in at least three places. Her hair was half-escaped from its ties. There was a smear of blood at the corner of her mouth, and her clothes looked like she’d been through something that had serious opinions about her.
She was also glowing.
"I won," she announced, throwing her arms around him before he could react. "I won, I won, I’m in the top ten — Leo, we’re both going to the Shadow Hunt Squad, we’re doing it together!"
Leo grabbed her by the shoulders and held her back far enough to actually look at her face, which was shining with the particular joy of someone who has pulled off something they weren’t entirely sure they could pull off.
"Wait — seriously? You made it?"
"I made it!" She punched his arm. "I didn’t face any fifth-stage opponents today, the draw was kind to me for once, and I still had to fight for every single point of it, but I made it." She was bouncing slightly on her heels. "Father is going to lose his mind. In the best possible way."
Leo laughed — a full, real one this time. "Sister, you’re incredible. Congratulations."
Mira waved a hand like she was brushing off a compliment but was clearly storing it. "I know, I know. The only unfortunate thing is that since we’re both knights, we probably won’t end up in the same squad." She shook her head with exaggerated regret. "What a shame. It would have been perfect."
Leo smiled. "Doesn’t matter. You’ll always be my big sister."
Mira looked at him for a moment. Then she rolled her eyes in the specific way that meant she was actually touched but would not be admitting it.
"Sentimental little disaster," she said, and ruffled his hair.