Arthur turned to Circe fully and met her green eyes with his blue, opting to remain silent and listen while she spoke.

“While this is a duel intended to test you, and one which I have no intention of taking lightly—I have to ask that you do not treat it entirely as a simple exhibition.”

Arthur found himself blinking at her words, and frowning a moment later while he attempted to discern her exact intention. “I don’t think I fully understand your meaning.”

“I want you to fight me as if this were a real duel, Arthur.” she said with an intake of breath. “I know you have no intention of hurting me, and I know what my father thinks is necessary; but I need more than that. I need to know that you are the man I think you are. I need to know that I can trust this—” she waved her hand around them “—all to you. Our fates. Our future. Our legacy. I need to know, Arthur.”

Arthur turned to survey the hangar in silence at her words, and let his eyes roam over the interior. In a previous era long gone, the gantries and crew areas may have been filled with people. In their new era of automation and artificial intelligences carefully shackled to the will of mankind, such considerations were no longer an issue.

Even entirely empty, though, the hangar was never devoid of life.

It lay within the core of the machine intelligences that gave it purpose.

“What you’re asking could result in your father’s wrath.” Arthur said while turning back to her. “Atreus’ wrath, for that matter. If I fight you for real, Circe, I could seriously hurt you. We both know that there are things not even modern medicine can fully heal.”

“I’m not that easy to hurt.” sShe said confidently. “And regardless, I need to see your true capabilities, Arthur. If I don’t, then I can’t shed this weight. I can’t really step out from under this burden I’ve been holding on my shoulders.” her expression softened, and she spoke more quietly. “I want—No, I need to believe you can deliver my family from its situation, Arthur.”

Circe looked away at that and took two steps toward the inert form of the Pallas Athena before turning back to him, her expression open and her need for him to understand writ large across her features.

“I know that my privilege and power may make me sound like a spoiled child, and ignorant of the realities of the common people of the Humanosphere. I know that my need, my desperation to secure my bloodline’s standing and legacy may seem conceited and vain, especially when measured against the vast difference in wealth we possess when compared to the common person.” she lifted her arms and opened her palms as if to encompass the entire hangar around them. “But this? This is all I know. This is my heritage. This is everything to me.”

She had already said as much to him, of course, in different and more subtle ways across the breadth of their hours together. Everything from small inflections on the honor of her ancestry and the sacred nature of her obligations to her people, to passionate entreaties for him to help her gain strength, and speed, and skill with which to defend those people.

Arthur watched her in silence and consideration while she lowered her arms and stepped forward, her flight suit’s boots tapping faintly against the hangar floor until she came to a halt before him.

Circe’s eyes stayed fixed on his, and she settled her gloved hands with unthinking familiarity upon the soft layer of ballistic padding on his chest.

“Please.” she said with her eyes searching his. “Please, Arthur. For whatever this inexplicable connection we share means. For whatever this insane, fantastical, utterly mad level of magnetic polarity between us is… fight me. Fight me like you mean to kill me.”

Her fingers tightened on the material of his flight suit.

“Show me what my enemies will see, so I can shelter in your shadow without regret.”

The distance between them was so small that Arthur could feel the heat from her gene-enhanced body. He could taste the different elements of her perfume, and identify the subtle notes of herbal and fruity ingredients within her clean breath.

He could see the breathless way her chest subtly expanded and contracted with nervousness.

In that moment, his hard-won self-control momentarily vanished as the connection between them bloomed almost automatically, and Arthur found himself drinking her in.

He saw the results of her genetic manipulation, the complete lack of flaws anywhere along her artificially symmetrical features. The utter smoothness of her skin where otherwise clogged pores or flawed blemishes may have made their appearance. She had been as perfectly crafted as any human could be, and in that moment, Arthur found himself unable to think of anything but her proximity.

Her body’s enticing curves and distracting heat.

Her dark lashes and brilliant green eyes.

The way her chest moved with every breath.

He wanted to kiss her. Psions and sense and common rationale be damned.

He knew he was being affected by her. He knew it was the work of her charisma, her genes, the way her pheromones affected him and her psions ingratiated her to him, and the way their resonance seemed to roar to life unbidden and unsummoned. She was seducing him without even intending to. Her lack of intention, in fact, only made it worse. It made it harder to resist. Sincerity only heightened the effect of her emotional aura.

Arthur reached out to place his hand upon the curve of her hip.

Circe lifted slightly onto the balls of her feet.

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His head lowered almost of its own volition.

Hers rose toward him, her eyes sliding shut.

His lips parted.

Whoring herself to acquire a weapon.

The thought penetrated his fog of desire like a blade, and Arthur froze.

“Please stop this.”

The words left him before he could think long enough to regret them, and his hands rose from her compelling hips to instead firmly pry her fingers from his chest.

“We can’t do this, Circe.”

“Arthur?” she asked with a bewilderment that wounded him. “I don’t understand.”

“This isn’t what you want.” he said with rapidly returning control.

“Of course it’s what I want,” she objected, “it’s what we want—”

“No.” he cut her off more firmly, while simultaneously grasping at his Zacaris-born control once more. “It isn’t. It’s what our connection tells you we want. It’s what this undefinable bond demands us to want. Our gene-tailoring sings at us to find the perfect mate, and so we draw together like magnets. We are being controlled by imperatives and instincts that are like tidal waves when amplified by our resonance, but it isn’t right Circe.”

“I… I don’t…”

“There is lust, and there is duty.” he said while studiously crushing his desire to say love instead. “We have a duty. We have an obligation, Circe. You spoke to me for so many hours about Pallikári, about your people, about your legacy. You just now told me of your earnest desire to protect your House—and I know you. I know you, Circe Leos. Those words came from your heart.”

He took a step back and pushed down her hands while taking a deep, steadying breath from the distance as his focus sharpened further.

“You are everything I want, Circe Leos,” he admitted with an ache in his heart which he viciously crushed. “You are warm, and smart, and strong, and beautiful beyond comparison. You drive me mad, but that is why we must be true to what we know. This is not love, Circe.” the lie cut him even when he said the words. “This is not our destiny. This is an animal need. This is subsuming lust. It’s our genes, and our resonance, and our prolific psion densities magnifying each other’s feelings. It’s—”

“Instinct.” she whispered with eyes that misted. “Compulsion. Genetic imperative.”

“Yes.” he responded as steadily as he could.

Her hands pressed in on her stomach, and she took a shuddering breath.

“I’m sorry.” he said quietly.

Circe took another shuddering breath and stepped back, and one of her hands rose to her forehead. She closed her eyes for a moment and seemed to just focus on calming herself, which Arthur did not begrudge her. Some small, shielded part of him was screaming at his active mind for being an idiot, a liar, and a fool—but he barely noticed it. This wasn’t about him. It wasn’t about what he felt or what he wanted. None of that mattered.

His duty was to protect her. Arthur understood that implicitly.

The truth of the matter was that, within himself, Arthur knew he loved her.

But in turn, that meant he needed to protect her by shielding her from that truth.

To do anything else would be to ruin her, and destroy all that made her Circe.

“I… this doesn’t change my original point.” Circe eventually said while swallowing back audible emotion. Confusion and pain danced on her features, but she turned back to him with a determined look in her green eyes. “I need to know, Arthur. I need to be able to trust you with everything. Whatever… whatever is between us, we can deal with it later. Right now, what I need is certainty.”

“I understand.” he said with a careful nod. “I can give you your fight.”

“And… and you won’t hold this against me?”

Her voice was so fragile at that moment, he wanted to rush to her.

Instead though, he remained fixed and stood still.

“Never.” he said fiercely. “As I hope you won’t hold it against me.”

“Never.” she agreed quietly. “How can I? I’d be a hypocrite, and a fool besides. You… you were strong in a way few others may have been. You could have had me, right here. Deflowered me.” her cheeks flamed with the words, but her eyes remained steady while she spoke. In many ways, he knew she was right. He had felt her willingness to give herself to him. “I… I would have been ruined.” she whispered. “You stopped me when I couldn’t stop myself.”

“It was a matter of honor.” he said with more sincerity than he could ever convey.

“Not many would have let that stop them.” she said with a bitter smile.

“Perhaps not.” he conceded. “But that is my duty as a Knight.”

Circe’s gaze searched his own, and she bit her lip while reaching up to wipe away unshed tears. “Promise me one thing, though.”

“What would that be?”

“Maybe we aren’t in love, Arthur. Maybe you’re right. But I don’t care.”

“Circe—” he began warily.

“Friends.” she cut him off. “I—we can be friends, Arthur. Can’t we? This past week, isn’t that what we became? Friends? Companions, even?” her voice was earnest when she said it. “I have no true friends of an age with me. You’re the first, and after this… I can trust you, Arthur. I can trust you to not compromise me.”

Arthur settled his eyes upon her, and locked away the thoughts of her naked body beneath his, of her lips on his own, their limbs entwined, and her cries echoing in the night.

He locked away all possibility of her being his, and resigned himself to duty.

“Friends.” he said at last. “Yes. I think we can manage that.”

“Thank you.” Circe said with a genuine smile.

“I’m sorry for—”

“Please don’t.” she said with a shake of her head and slight tremble of her lip. “No more apologies, and no more discussion. I don’t want to think about it right now.” she took a deep breath, and forced a smile onto her lips. “Let’s just get in the Eidolons. Gods know I’m mortified enough as is, and dwelling on this madness is only going to make me angry instead of sad, and then I’ll probably try and hit you again.”

Arthur smiled wryly at her words.

“That sounds good to me.” he said gently. “By your lead, Lion Maiden.”

Circe smiled at him weakly, and pointed at him with a half-hearted warning.

“If I’m the Lion Maiden, they’ll call you the Lion Knight before long.”

Arthur couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

“If they do, it’s only because you pushed them into it.” he said accusingly.

Their shared mirth filled the hangar right up until they entered their cockpits.