The library, typically silent, was broken by the sound of a not-quite-argument, not quite polite exchange of ideas between– unknowingly– what were likely the two most stubborn members of their year. Mercy sat, book open but by now long forgotten, and Casian stood, half-sitting against a nearby table, hands resting against it. He’d worn long sleeves today, which was atypical of him. But the library had a tendency to run a bit colder than the rest of the Academy’s mostly open grounds. He’d learned after his first visit that he would be more comfortable wearing long sleeves. He still tended to be uncertain of them, honestly.

  “–Certainly, you can’t intend to tell me that it’s purposeful.” Mercy continued her words, affronted.

  “It is. You can argue with the ethics, but you cannot argue with the results.”

  A deep, offended scoff sounded. “Results. Come now– how big of a difference can it make for it to be worth your half-life?”

  A beat of silence. Casian considered. “Do you know who the second most accomplished member of the Royal Guard is, by kill-count? At least, as of my great grandfather’s time– the publicly available information.”

  Mercy sent him a strange look, before shaking her head no.

  “It was a man by the name of Reynauld– he had an ice-based discipline. At the time, Royal Guardsmen were regularly being deployed to battlefields. He killed 314 men.”

  She boggled at the number, briefly, before quickly regaining composure.

  Casian mulled, for a moment, about his great grandfather– the man he had been told was so good at his job he had gotten his son almost single-handedly elevated to nobility. The man whose discipline, as his uncle had once told him, was the same as his. A man who went by the name Jabberwocky.

  “The most accomplished member was my great grandfather.”

  Mercy listened, astute and with her full attention. It was not often that Casian would offer much of any information about himself at all. He imagined it made the times he did it seem rather valuable– insight into his history and mindset from someone who was so constantly offended by it, who couldn’t fathom it.

  “He killed 1,578 men.”

  Her jaw dropped, slightly. That had been his reaction when he was told as a child, as well. The difference was staggering. Casian’s mind wandered, more than he typically allowed– the topic an old, old one to him. What was it that uncle had said…?

  “It is the difference between someone who wanders a battlefield killing to defend themselves, and someone who stalks through it to kill more.”

  Casian felt himself murmur the words with the recollection. Mercy started at that. She opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated, lips parting without sound. It was rare for her to be at a loss for words, rarer still for her to look at him when she was– not in the way someone would look at their opponent in an argument, calculative and thoughtful, but instead as though she was seeing him clearly for the first time.

  Casian watched as the weight of the number settled in her mind. 1,578. It was an impossible number, one that turned the act of killing from something that was an ugly necessity into something beyond understanding of the average person. Something rote, methodical. You would need to kill a person a day for over four years straight.

  When she finally found her voice, it was quieter than before. “And you admire that?”

  It wasn’t judgemental. Or even accusing. The tone was far too soft– too shocked.

  Casian tilted his head, considering. “I understand it.”

  Mercy seemed to look for her footing, scoffing. But it lacked any real derision, only something laced wholly with unease. “Understanding a thing doesn’t make it right.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But it does make it real.”

  Another pause. The library, once just background noise, now felt eerily still. He could hear the distant scratching of quills, the occasional far-off rustle of parchment, but in their little corner, away from listening ears, it was as though the world had folded in on the two of them.

  Mercy’s fingers curled against the edge of the page that she had not turned in what had likely been close to fifteen minutes. Tightening her hold, as if it was something keeping her moored in this conversation. “You say it like it was a choice,” she said, sharp again, now fully regaining her footing. “Like he chose to be a monster instead of a man– to abandon typical ways of thought to entirely embrace a mindset that would enable him to commit violence.” To commit murder, Casian silently corrected in his mind.

  Mercy was testy about murder as a subject. She had strong feelings about proper trials and necessity. Noblesse oblige. It was a wildly different perspective than the one he knew.

  Casian exhaled through his nose, feeling something almost like amusement. “That depends,” he started. “Do you think monsters are born, or made?”

  A trap, of course. He could see the moment she caught onto it, eyes narrowing, expression shifting as she realized there was no clean answer to the question– the challenge– he had presented her. There wasn’t a good argument that wouldn’t tangle the conversation back in the core problem, results. She was quick– Caisan would give her that, easily– but he had been thinking about this longer than she had.

  She took a breath, steadying herself, and in a move almost admired– because it was terribly like something he would do– she didn’t answer the question, dodging it entirely. Instead, she leaned forward just slightly, voice low and pressing.

  “Well– Then what about you, Casian?”

  She had, thankfully, stopped calling him by his last name at all after he had asked. He’d only needed to ask once, too.

  Casian tilted his head. “What about me?”

  “Are you wandering?” she asked. “Or are you stalking?”

  He met her eyes, silent. For a moment– he was reminded of the weight of the legacy that rested behind him. He’d asked himself that question before. More than once.

  He’d kept asking himself because he never liked the answer he got.

  Casian resisted the urge to frown and felt his fingers twitch. He deflected in the most classic manner he knew how.

  “I don’t know,” he said, faux-musing, voice the picture of someone genuinely and mildly curious. “What do you think, Mercy?” Her fingers twitched briefly at the namedrop.

  She stared at him for a long moment, her brow furrowing ever-so-slightly. Casian had expected a retort– quick, sharp, likely even cutting– but instead, she studied him, gaze searching, trying to peel apart every aspect of his words and answers.

  “I think,” she began, measured. “That you are too intelligent to not know the answer to your own question.”

  A beat.

  Casian smiled. It lacked joy. “Flattering.”

  Her lips pressed in a thin line. “Not particularly.”

  A flicker of something passed through her expression– annoyance, perhaps? There was also something else. Concern? He wasn’t sure– he knew Mercy’s expressions better than he did the average person’s, which was to say more than none, but it was not his well-catalogued mental index of Rosalinde’s.

  He tilted his head, again, curious. “If I already know, and you know, why ask?”

  “Because,” she said, voice sharpening with intent, “it matters if you’re honest about it.”

  He paused for a moment, and knew Mercy would catch it immediately after. She wasn’t like Rosalinde– she could not read his mannerisms effectively, or understand his thought-processes, but she was observant enough to realize that he did express things outwardly. He just did so differently than everyone else.

  Casian clicked his tongue. “What a terribly noble thing to say.”

  “Nothing about it is to do with nobility.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  Mercy sighed, exasperated, leaning back in her chair. Her fingers ceased tightening on the book. What a shame– he was hoping he could see her go on another rant. “Do you ever get tired of being evasive?”

  Casian thought about that. “Not really.”

  Her eyes narrowed at him. “That’s exhausting.”

  “For you.”

  “For anyone.” She exhaled sharply, rubbing her temple before letting the hand flow back and into her hair, pressing the long flat strands in a way that pulled them back and framed her face. “Why even tell me this if you’re going to deflect?”

  That was a good question.

  Casian had truthfully just gotten lost in the conversation– spoken without much thought. It was not something he thought of often, not anymore, but it had been a common train of thought in his younger years. At the very least, he supposed it was always interesting to see how she reacted to things.

  He shrugged in response.

  Mercy’s eyes only narrowed further, frustration evident, but lacking any real heat. It wasn’t a frustration born from anger– he had seen that enough in duels to identify it on others with ease– but likely from a deeper investment. Something made her care about his answers and thoughts in a way that most people wouldn’t.

  Casian found it interesting.

  She exhaled sharply through her teeth, a near-silent whistling sound. “You are insufferable.”

  “So you’ve said.” Many times, in fact.

  She scoffed and shook her head. “And I thought you were supposed to be clever.”

  Casian hummed, noncommittal. “I am.”

  Mercy leaned forward again, elbows pressed to the table as she looked up, considering him. Her hair had naturally flowed behind the ears from where she had pressed it earlier. Her lips furrowed into a focused pout– or a thoughtful line, and he watched how the motion made the stray strands of deep black hair move through the air. “Then stop avoiding the question.”

  There it was again– the insistence that he answer. The need for him to acknowledge something they both knew, chased doggedly. He had already done his thinking about this– he had thought about it relentlessly when he had finally returned home after those long, near three years of training. Done his best to dissect it the same way he had been taught to do anything.

  There was nothing ever pleasant about voicing it aloud.

  Casian drummed his fingers against the tabletop. “What answer do you want, Mercy?”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “The truth.”

  Her voice was firmer now, laced with something approaching exasperation, but still lacking any anger. Something else underneath it– determined.

  Casian tilted his head and stared at her, considering.

  The silence stretched. One beat, then two.

  Three.

  Casian let out a breath of air through his nose. He had been hoping she would switch tacks if it didn’t seem like he would answer.

  No such luck. “And if you don’t like my answer?”

  “That’s not the point.” Her gaze didn’t waver for a moment. He imagined the eye contact would make most people want to look away.

  He pressed his fingers against the tabletop. Felt how the wood pushed against him, offered him resistance. He listened to the distant scrabbling of quills, and almost mindlessly paid a deep attention to the air in his lungs. Deep pull in, hold-and-count, slow push out. Repeat. He felt his lip twitch downward.

  “I think,” he said, voice almost mindless, mind elsewhere. “That I stopped wandering a long time ago.” The admission made him feel distant, but at the same time– the walls felt a bit too close. No duels made him feel like this. Something in his chest clenched, a deep, heavy, almost painful sensation.

  He could distantly recognize the way Mercy stilled, and Casian didn’t think about it. He thought about the sensation of the grainy wood as his fingertips shifted with the force he put down. The smell of faint ink in the air, the way Mercy’s hair dangled– the color always did remind him of ink. Breathe in. Hold. Pause. Out. He could hear his heartbeat.

  Casian let out a deep breath. It was not shuddering, it was a slow and controlled release of air. A body working to perfection. He pushed regeneration through his body on instinct to make sure, doing his best to push his body to health despite how it was at a near-peak of it already.

  Mercy’s lips parted– and then she paused. The motion made something in him startle– not that he showed it outwardly. He felt his legs tense, feet firmly pressing against the floor to maintain footing. He opened his third eye, the second view of the library opening up to him. He was fine.

  Mercy had slowed, and seemed to be deeply considering. He wasn’t sure how the look made him feel.

  He resisted the urge to shift under her gaze.

  Something about the way she was looking at him– it wasn’t pity, but it was too careful for comfort. Mercy was not a careful person. She was sharp, decisive, relentless. She cut through pretense with ease while still maintaining a noble air, pressed on sore spots without hesitating. But she was being careful. He was the careful one of the two of them.

  Casian let out another breath, tilting his head and keeping the rest of his body still. The familiarity of the motion did more to calm him than he would ever admit or outwardly show. “You look like you’re thinking hard about something.”

  Mercy’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I am.”

  Casian exhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate. “And?”

  Mercy hesitated. She wasn’t someone who typically hesitated, and Casian knew it wasn’t due to uncertainty. It was deliberation. Picking her words carefully. That was even worse.

  Finally, she spoke. “I don’t think you’re a monster.”

  Casian blinked, momentarily caught off-guard. He had expected something cutting, prepared himself for a challenge or rebuke– a challenge to his intrinsic moral values, a put-down for his nature. Something sharp-edged that he could deflect or accept with ease.

  Instead, she’d handed him something he didn’t know how to hold.

  His fingers curled against the table. “That wasn’t the question.”

  “No,” she agreed. “It wasn’t, but it’s the answer I’m giving you.”

  His jaw clenched, just slightly. He knew what he was, was well aware of it– what he had been made into and actively participated in continuing upon himself. He remembered the name his uncle had told him he should one day take up– Vorpal. And, Mercy, for all her intellect, still believed in things like fairness and justice. The inherent nobility of the human condition and right to a certain form of treatment.

  He could almost scoff. “You’re assuming I care what you think of me.”

  Mercy’s lips quirked, just slightly. Not in amusement, but… something softer. “If you didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  Casian stared at her.

  Mercy leaned back, arms crossing, studying him as though she had all the time in the world. “You deflect when cornered. Lie by omission when you’re uncomfortable. You try to get ahead of every problem you possibly can. And yet–” She tilted her head. “You answered me.”

  Casian frowned. “You’re very smug for someone without a point.”

  She paused, looking at him. “You think you’re a monster because it makes it easier, doesn’t it? Able to move forward without having to seriously question yourself, surrendering yourself to it. But if you were truly what you think you are–” Her voice softened slightly, her gaze drilled into Casian. “You wouldn’t be bothered by the question.”

  Casian felt something tighten in his chest.

  He could argue. Twist the conversation away from himself, force her onto the defense. Target her terrible hypocrisies in regards to her beliefs on just treatment and the way nobility profiteered from the suffering of peasantry. He could make her regret pressing the issue.

  Instead, he inhaled deeply and leaned back, letting the moment settle. Thinking.

  Mercy didn’t press further. She merely held his gaze, unwavering, waiting.

  Casian let out a breath. “You’re wrong,” he said, but there wasn’t any true conviction. Just exhaustion. This conversation had turned out exhausting.

  Mercy didn’t look triumphant. “Maybe.”

  They sat in silence for a long moment.

  Then, Mercy sighed and reached for her book again, flicking to the next page at last. “I liked it better when we were just arguing about ethics,” she muttered.

  Casian let out a quiet laugh, small and genuine, shaking his head. “I’m sure you did.”

  For the first time in a long time, when someone barged into the library to tell him he was needed for a duel, he was thankful for the distraction.

  —-—

  Dante had called for another duel. There… wasn’t a crowd, which was suspicious. It put Casian on alert– if he hadn’t brought a crowd, it meant he likely wanted to be able to deny whatever happened. Or he was going to use a trick he didn’t want people to know he had, which likely meant it was dangerous.

  Dante was as relaxed as ever, still with the same ornate saber. Same braggadocious attitude.

  “Everstead!” He called out, like he was happy to see him. But- Casian had actually had recent opportunities to see people who were actually excited to see him, mostly the third prince (entirely the third prince), and it made expressly clear the many ways in which Dante’s words rang false.

  “I’ve been preparing for our rematch–” He flashed a smile, all teeth. “–I’m quite determined to put up a better showing.” It was also possible he had forgone a crowd to avoid any potential public embarrassment. Losing publicly multiple times couldn’t be good for one’s social health.

  Casian resisted the urge to click his tongue. He wasn’t in his armor yet.

  He called his armor to him. He would have assumed that Dante was performing this duel out of public sight for the sake of saving face– but…

  Rosalinde isn’t here. The only person here was a member of the academy. Not anyone in his personal circle. It sent a signal of alarm through him. This was deeply unusual behavior. He was getting very, very tired of individuals he thought he had pegged breaking away from proven trends to surprise him.

  It was deeply disquieting. A part of him realized it was likely because he typically did not face enemies that could put up a serious fight– and when he did, he had been trained to only ever need to fight them once. A dead enemy is an enemy that cannot learn to adapt to you. Duelling was restrictive, so– so restrictive.

  He did not often think of it as such. It was a facet of life for him. But it did not often end up being so disruptive to his rhythms.

  Casian let out a slow breath, the weight of his armor settling around him, the familiar pressure grounding him. The duel hadn’t even started, but there was something off. The way Dante stood, too casual. The way he smiled, too deliberate. The missing crowd, the lack of Rosalinde– everything about this was wrong. It set his instincts on edge, like the keening reverberations of incoming violence.

  Casian did not have many accurate social instincts. This was one that was impeccable. He knew trouble. “Ready, Everstead?” Dante’s voice was smug. Like this was over. Casian nodded. The poor, overworked Academy worker let their hand drop with a soft “Begin,” that was flat and devoid of any passion.

  Dante– Dante didn’t move. Casian could feel… something happening in the space around him. Bending out and pushing itself back in. Spreading. Air suffering from some sort of continuous reaction. Dante stepped forward, confident and saber in hand, towards Casian. He shouldn’t let this continue- it was spreading quickly.

  Casian teleported, crickets chirping. Senses on alert, he twisted space and shifted to the other destination, something happening with space at his destination as he did–

  Then– heat. Air warped as soon as he appeared, a haze forming in an instant, burning hot. The intensity of it pressed down on him like a weight. His armor swiftly began to heat up, he could feel himself beginning to sweat. He pushed more regenerative magic into his system.

  Regenerative magic would only work so long. It could restore air in his body from nothing, but if he went without for long enough it would adjust and stop doing so. He didn’t know how long he could use it to save his breath. He guessed he could do it for a minute, perhaps?

  Regardless– he understood now. This is what Dante had been waiting for. What made him so confident.

  Dante flourished his saber, the flames around it intensifying in a reflective flurry of deep and bright blues. “Did you think I wouldn’t be prepared, Everstead?” His voice was smug, mocking. It made Casian want to exhale from his nose, but he didn’t want to release his breath as he was.

  Fine. Casian stepped forward, performing another teleport, crickets chirping–

  Pain.

  Air flexed moments after his arrival. His body screamed as heat licked at his skin. His armor went from heating gradually to feeling like it was intensely suffocating in moments. The air itself burned.

  Ah.

  Dante had turned the entire arena grounds into a death trap.

  Casian locked his jaw. He could feel his teeth press against one another. He didn’t breathe. It wasn’t just fire; Dante had been learning how to control heat in and of itself. The space around him was suffocating, thick with something that made teleporting almost unbearable. If he targeted an end destination, Dante would likely just begin heating it up before his arrival. The odds of him cooling down from the maneuver were almost nil– completely leaving things up to the chance that Dante made a mistake.

  Entirely unacceptable. His mind whirred, cycling through options. If he couldn’t teleport–

  Dante lunged.

  Casian twisted, left foot shifting back as he pulled his upper body back and pulled on his core muscles. The saber’s burning edge let out a screech as it dragged against stone in a sound uncomfortably close to nails on a chalkboard. The heat was so intense he could feel the edge of the blade by the impression of the heat differential it left as it passed by his skin.

  He shifted stone, making a spike on his arm– almost a katar. He swung up, but Dante responded by blasting him with fire as he danced out of reach. Casian’s mind flitted through options– what weapon would suit this best? Greatsword, was his immediate thought, that Casian disregarded. A greatsword would be the weapon that would best kill Dante. Not clinch victory in a duel.

  He hadn’t slipped up like that in a duel in a long, long time. His thoughts were normally non-lethal first.

  Still- Dante was trying to force this into a battle of endurance. Dante thought that meant he had won.

  Casian adjusted his stance, mind decided. Fine. If Dante was set on forcing him into the close range and keeping him there, he would adapt. Casian formed a chain with stoneshaping, letting it loosely rest between his hands. No escape.

  Casian bursted forward, and swung the chain. He could see Dante’s saber seeking out the stone links– trying to burst them, break them, divert them before they could batter him. Ka-thunk, went stone on steel– a heavy, hollow sound. Casian let him, already winding up another swing and another step forward before he could recover.

  Dante parried, again, Ka-thunk. Casian felt with his third eye how his forward foot leaned forward slightly– this would be when the tempo of the fight would change, Casian had overcommitted with that swing, it would take too long for him to control the chain.

  It would. Casian pulled with stoneshaping, reducing the length of links in the chain in moments, like someone tugging it below water, then immediately increasing the length again as he had already begun his third attack. But it didn’t.

  His lungs hurt. Pressure pulling in, a slow, deep setting ache– he wanted to breathe.

  Fine. Casian felt the third impact of Dante’s saber, in a frantic as he parried, eyes wide in surprise and foot imbalanced. As it impacted- he moulded stone, letting links deform around the blade until it locked it in place.

  He yanked. He dug his feet into the floor with stoneshaping to stop himself from being the movable object in this exchange. The sword was sent flying, pulled from Dante’s hands with furious force. He let the chain disconnect– dropped it, mindless, forgotten in the moment.

  He lunged with his hands out, closing what had already been a close-up exchange into a violation of personal space and territory. He moved without remorse. Dante’s eyes widened further and Casian could hear his yelp as much as feel it, the faintest reverberations of space as sound left his mouth and traveled through air, as if he was almost imagining it.

  No escape. No one gets away.

  Dante exploded. Force and fire pulling him away from Casian. He could almost feel the scant few millimeters he would need to have his hands on him, just a little bit–

  Casian teleported.

  He burned. Suffocating, scalding. Like he had placed his body inside of an open oven. He didn’t care. He stopped looking with his eyes, closed them shut, sealed his helmet entirely to prevent Dante from flooding the opening with superheated air. A wordless snarl left his lips. Thought left him entirely.

  His hands finally closed around his opponent’s throat.

  He lifted him, feeling the minor strain as he pulled his opponent’s feet from the floor. Another obstacle.

  Casian squeezed, putting force on the throat, stopping airflow. Pausing the flow of blood to the head. He considered snapping his neck, pushing with a jagged motion that would misalign the spine from the head. It would not kill them instantly– a sufficiently motivated opponent would cast while paralyzed– but it would stop them from being able to hurt him.

  He held off. He wasn’t sure why. He pulsed regenerative magic.

  They gritted their teeth, furious. Another loser. They thought that he would be deterred by pain– but there were only two facets to battle, absolute victory and total defeat. Defeat was tantamount to death, beyond consideration. The question was never if one would lose, it was what you would sacrifice to win.

  Their hands scrabbled at his arms, scratching something that would never let them go.

  Then their arms lit alight, blue fire curling up their palms and arms. He stopped feeling his arms entirely as the temperature spiked an unfathomable amount over seconds. He poured regenerative magic like water from a fountain, filling his body. His head pounded. His teeth ached from how they pressed against one another.

  The flames slowly sputtered out. He endured.

  Their lips moved, desperately shooting spittle. What had moments ago been a spiteful smile, a last hurrah, lost its luster, their face purpling slowly. They hit on his arms, the heat receded entirely in moments. Casian’s arms didn’t feel right.

  A whisper passed from their lips, stuttering and forced out on the edges of breath.

  “I-I Ye-ild…” The words were familiar. A phrase he had heard thousands of times.

  Casian reduced the pressure. Right. He had been dueling Dante Alaric. The Narcissist.

  Dante took gasping breaths, heaving pulls of air. Casian dropped him, showing him the amount of due respect– none. He continued pouring regenerative magic into his arms. He needed to finish up healing so he could leave and relax properly. Maybe get some opiates or painkillers of some sort.

  …It didn’t fix itself. He didn’t panic. Something felt wrong with his arms. Distinctly and terribly wrong.

  He didn’t. Panic led to death.

  He opened his third eye, but everything felt harder to judge. His head was cloudy. The healing magic wasn’t making the pain stop. Not properly. He let his arms fall to his side– the motion feeling wrapped and off and sending spikes of pain through his eyes into his skull– and stared, blankly. He was vaguely aware of the sound of Dante scampering off– an additional set of soft footfalls shortly after he judged as likely being the Academy proctor. He twitched his arms. He showed no weakness.

  What was wrong? What was wrong? Something’s off.

  Casian didn’t move, staring. Healing. Time passed.

  He heard an additional set of footfalls. He instinctively opened his third eye, faintly recognizing something– a shape. Casian opened a slot for sound to pass from his helmet and spoke.

  “...Rosalinde?”

  “Not quite, I’m afraid.” Ah. Mercy.

  Casian poured more magic into his arms, and moved them. Pain poured from the sensation like a fountain, but he was beginning to adjust. Casian took a moment to center himself. Every motion sent a feeling of wrongness and pain so direct that it made his actual sight fail him.

  “I must impose.”

  “Really, that’s rather daring. What’s got you asking for something from me, of all people?” Her voice was centering. Familiar and sharp, demanding attention. He gave it.

  “I cannot navigate to the apothecary in my current state.” Technically not true. In his state, he could. It would just take an excessive amount of time, navigating mostly blind.

  “I– you what? What do you mean?” Her voice was as demanding as always.

  “What I said?” What was so difficult to understand? Casian moved his arms and felt the wrongness, the spike of pain.

  Mercy came over, speaking more, softly, the words falling over his ears in incomprehension, and he felt her hand gently place itself on his shoulder, exerting a force so light he could think that it would let her float on water. He let himself take a step in the provided direction.

  The realization came to him, finally.

  Ah. I shouldn’t have worn long sleeves today.