"Love and violence are just different words for the sa devotion."
***
The infirmary slled like antiseptic and old blood. Lyra had learned to recognize that combination in darker days, before her Master had pulled her from the gallows. The academy’s dical wing tried to hide it beneath clean linens and dicinal herbs, but so scents never truly faded.
Her Master lay propped against starched pillows. His torso wrapped in white bandages that pulled tight with every breath. The dic had done her work well. Two broken ribs set properly. Pain dulled to a manageable throb by whatever potion they’d forced down his throat.
Lyra sat on the edge of a wooden chair. Her black hair fell forward to fra her face as she leaned over a small ceramic bowl. Steam rose from the herbal mixture she stirred. Mint and sothing sharper. More dicinal.
Her hands wanted to shake. She wouldn’t let them.
She gripped the wooden spoon until her knuckles went white, though the stirring motion itself remained smooth. Unhurried. A perfect servant’s composure that had taken years to build and three weeks under his guidance to perfect.
"The dic said you could return to your room tonight." She kept her voice in that careful servant’s tone she used around others.
But they were alone now. The infirmary stretched empty around them. Other beds vacant in the afternoon light that filtered through tall windows. Dust motes drifted through the golden shafts. Suspended in the still air like tiny stars.
"Good." Her Master shifted against the pillows. Winced as the movent pulled at his ribs. "How long was I unconscious?"
"Six hours."
Lyra set down the spoon and finally looked at him. Really looked.
His face was a ss. Split lip. Swollen eye. Bruises darkening along his jaw where Vance’s fists had found their marks during the chaos of the fight. He looked like exactly what he’d intended to look like.
A beaten, pathetic third son who’d gotten exactly what he deserved.
The sight made sothing dark twist in her chest.
"The entire academy’s talking about the match," she said. "They’re calling it the most pathetic display in academy history."
Her Master smiled. Despite the split lip. Despite the pain it clearly caused.
"Perfect."
Lyra’s eyebrows drew together. She studied his battered face, cataloguing each bruise and cut. Her fingers itched to touch them. To morize each mark that had been placed on what belonged to her.
"Master, I still don’t see how humiliating yourself serves our purpose. You could have—"
"Could have what? Defeated Vance cleanly? Impressed the crowd with hidden skills?" He shook his head carefully. "That would have drawn attention to . Made people wonder where a failure like Kaelen Leone suddenly learned to fight. Questions like that are dangerous. Questions like that get people killed."
She dipped a clean cloth into the bowl. Tested the temperature against the delicate skin of her inner wrist before wringing it out. Water dripped back into the ceramic container in a soft, rhythmic patter.
"But now they think you’re even more worthless than before."
"Exactly." The word ca out rougher than intended as she began unwinding the bandages around his torso. Her fingers were cool against his fevered skin.
"The best hiding place for a predator isn’t in shadows. It’s in plain sight, wearing the skin of sothing harmless. Let them laugh. Let them point and whisper about the pathetic Leone third son who couldn’t even take a beating properly." He paused. Drew a careful breath. "Every snicker, every dismissive glance, is another layer of armor they’re unwittingly wrapping around ."
Her hands stilled at his words. Sothing flickered in her chest that she couldn’t quite na.
Then she resud her careful work. The bandages fell away to reveal the spectacular bruising that covered his left side.
Purple and blue dominated the landscape of his flesh. Rimd with the angry red of the impact’s epicenter. Darker patches of near-black marked where the deepest damage had occurred. Blood vessels ruptured beneath the skin in patterns that looked like storm clouds gathering.
Lyra’s breath caught.
Her hands trembled where they rested against his ribcage. She couldn’t stop them this ti.
"Master..."
"It’s worse than it looks." He studied her face as she stared at his injuries. "The ribs will heal. And I got what I ca for."
She folded the bloodstained bandages with movents that had beco chanical. The white cloth had turned rust-colored in patches. Evidence of the price he’d paid.
"The skill."
"Power Strike. E-rank, but functional." Her Master flexed his right hand experintally. Sothing shifted behind his grey eyes. Satisfaction, perhaps. Or calculation. "My first stolen ability."
"Was it worth this?"
She gestured at his battered torso. Encompassed the entirety of his injuries. The bruising. The broken ribs. The split lip and swollen eye.
Her voice ca out tight with barely suppressed emotion. She hadn’t ant for it to sound like that. Hadn’t ant to let him see how much his pain affected her.
But she couldn’t hide from him. She’d never been able to hide from him.
"Ask again when we’re standing over the corpses of our enemies."
The cloth she’d prepared was warm against his skin as she began cleaning around the edges of the bruising. Her touch was gentle but sure. The movents of soone who’d tended wounds before. Perhaps her own, in darker days before their paths had crossed.
A particularly dark patch of damaged skin made her jaw tighten. A muscle jumped in her cheek. She couldn’t stop that either.
"You’re angry," he observed.
"No, Master. I’m—"
"Don’t lie to , Lyra."
Her hands stilled against his ribs. The warmth of her palms seeped into his bruised flesh. For a long mont, she didn’t speak.
The silence stretched between them. Distant sounds filtered through. Footsteps in corridors. Muffled voices. The occasional chi of bells marking the passing hours.
Then: "I’m furious."
The words ca out barely above a whisper. But the intensity in them could have set stone ablaze.
"Not at you. At them. At this place that forced you to break yourself for scraps of power. At a world where soone like you has to hide and sche and bleed just to survive." Her voice dropped lower. Darker. "At noble sons who think they can put their hands on what’s mine and walk away breathing."
Her Master reached out and caught her chin with his fingers. Tilted her face up to et his eyes. His skin was warm against hers. His grip gentle but firm.
"And what would you do about it?"
The question hung between them.
Lyra felt the fire that always burned just beneath her surface surge upward. Felt the darkness she’d carried since childhood unfurl like wings.
"Burn it all." The words ca without hesitation. "Every last stone of this academy. Every noble house that thinks they own the world. I’d reduce it to ash and build sothing new from the ruins."
Her crimson eyes t his grey ones. Held them.
"I’d start with Vance Thorne. I’d peel the skin from his flesh strip by strip, and I’d make him thank for each piece I took."
Most n would have stepped back at those words. Would have scrambled for the door. For distance. For anything that put space between themselves and the predator wearing a maid’s uniform.
Her Master just smiled.
"Patience."
He released her chin and settled back against the pillows. The movent sent fresh waves of pain through his torso. She could see it in the tightening around his eyes. But his expression stayed neutral.
"This kingdom wasn’t built in a day," he said. "And it wasn’t destroyed in one either."
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