“You cannot count on—”

“People being incapable. I know. I know, Arthur.” she huffed while brushing a hand through her blonde-streaked black hair. “It’s disconcerting how easily you read my moves.”

“I told you already,” he said patiently, “that it’s just me using our resonance.”

“I’ve been trying that, though!” she retorted with frustration. “I can’t make it work.”

“You’re thinking about it too much.” he explained with a shake of his head and quick recollection of her past attempts. “Resonance is about instinct, and about familiarity. You need to let it happen, you can’t force it to happen. It’s like breathing.”

“You’ve said this before.” she growled. “‘The more you think about breathing, the weirder it is. If you forget and do it, it happens automatically.’”

“Exactly.”

“Then how can you do it at will?” she demanded.

“Practice.” he said honestly.

His life on Albion had forced him to learn, after all. His competition for the mantle of Heir had been his own half-siblings and cousins, and while resonance was impossible to predict, it did occur more frequently between relatives with high psion densities.

Arthur had slain more siblings than many people even had, all because of resonance.

“How do you do it with me?” she asked insistently. “Resonance. Explain it again.”

Arthur sighed quietly but obliged her without objection. “I focus on you. I think of everything I know about you.” he said while ignoring the flutter in his stomach. “I focus on your eyes, your lips, your body, your smell, your spirit, your motivations—I think of every moment, every second, every iota of time we’ve spent together. Then, I just… let it come.”

Circe stared at him quietly when he finished, and a little smile played along her reddish pink cupid’s bow lips.

“What?” he asked more awkwardly than he should have felt.

“Mm...” she hummed while brushing her hair behind an ear. “Nothing.”

Arthur banished the warm feeling in his chest at her reaction and flourished his sword to focus himself. “Now you try it.”

Circe focused her eyes on his with a nod and resetting of her expression, and narrowed her eyes in consideration when she did. He watched her gaze search his own, and noted the way she subtly tilted her head and her shoulders slowly relaxed.

A little smile once again settled onto her features, and she nodded to him. “Okay.” she said simply.

Arthur took a breath, centered himself, and launched an attack.

Steel met steel, and the two of them launched into a rapid exchange of slashes, cuts, parries, and dodges that saw them dance back and forth across the grassy hill.

The moment the spar started, Arthur knew something was different.

Circe’s movements started out much the same, with the exact amount of aggression and mild impatience he remembered from their earlier contests. As they continued past the initial round of back and forth exchanges, though, something in her movements shifted. It wasn’t something overly blatant or a sudden reversal of her patterns, but instead it was an almost fluid calm that had been absent in previous encounters.

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His eyes stayed fixed on hers, as he’d been taught, and he noticed that hers stayed fixed on his in turn. Before, Circe had often found herself distracted by trying to visualize where her next blow would fall—and had betrayed it with subtle, almost unconscious eye movements.

Now, however, she focused solely on him with unblinking attention.

Arthur’s senses immediately sharpened when he felt the electricity in the air that came from her newfound intensity, and their exchanges ratcheted up in both speed and precision. His longsword clashed with her xiphos in ever-increasing, clanging echoes of steel on steel that obliterated even the distant sounds of the roaring ocean.

Circe’s golden-streaked onyx hair was a whipping braid while they fought, and Arthur couldn’t help but to distantly admire the beauty of it. Her movements had become sure and ferocious, and every shift of her toned arms brought with it a subtle alteration of her stance.

Their duel morphed slowly at the same moment as something seemed to spark between them. Not attraction, nor any kind of underlying desire—but instead something more profound. Something more esoteric.

Resonance flared across Arthur’s mind in a slowly building wave, its flow growing with every clash of their blades. His eyes remained locked on Circe’s as hers remained locks on his, and their movements accelerated in tandem. She struck left, he pivoted right, she slashed up, he blocked down, she dodged a forward counter, and he pressed a smooth overhand blow against her already-rising parry.

On it went, with ever-increasing velocity. Circe’s actions started to flow through his mind like a river of imagery, of instinct, of comprehension.

He knew her. An epiphanous realization dawned on him while they dueled, and their weapons threw sparks from the sheer speed and power behind each impact.

Circe ducked a quick thrust at her throat, retaliated with a short sweep of Arthur’s legs, and spun away with the rapid downward block that sent her away.

She reversed her momentum with such ease that she made it look natural.

Another slash at his shoulder followed, so Arthur blocked upward, and then Circe threw herself backward with the deflection.

Euphoria rose in Arthur’s core. Understanding blossomed. He saw her in a way he never had. The Lioness, the princess, the warrior, the woman. He saw her in his mind, in his heart, in his soul. He connected to her with a tether of mysticism and knowledge that transcended immediate understanding.

Circe Leos became part of him, in the same moment as he became part of her.

What happened next he witnessed as much as executed himself.

Arthur snapped his blade down and up, Circe raised her xiphos, and as if in unspoken agreement they charged one another.

The pair met in a vicious, steel-clanging clash that sent peals of metallic thunder snarling across the hilltop. Gene-tailored perfection warred for primacy, and the speed of their duel accelerated to such a degree that Arthur no longer fought with thought, but instead with instinct.

His blade parried her slash, her strike deflected his cut, his dodge eroded her stab.

Circe threw a strike at his ribs. Arthur shifted his blade to defend. They spun away.

Their bodies moved, their minds joined, their heartbeats synchronized.

Arthur and Circe came back together in twinned spinning slashes.

Their blades froze inches from each other’s necks.

Circe’s eyes were fixed on his.

Arthur’s eyes were locked on hers.

The blades were dropped and hit the grass in tandem.

His hands took hold of her waist while her arms looped around his neck.

Arthur lifted her into the air, and Circe’s powerful thighs curled around his hips.

“Circe, we shouldn’t.” he whispered with a thundering heart. “We can’t. We—”

“Just once.” she pleaded while her heart hammered against his chest in kind.

The desperate need in her voice shattered the last remnants of his resistance.

When they kissed, time lost all meaning.