We had slept seven times since the ritual.

A comfortable rhythm had embraced us and maybe resilience found our blood coursing through our veins but it had not felt terrible. Not at all.

Thinking about years of this was still complicated to acknowledge, but as I was walking through the different paths inside Maorat, searching for a good place to practice my fighting workout, I realized this was probably the least bad option I had had in a long time. Should being with Maors that despised me an unbearable recognition? Kendarians were not particularly fond of me either.

Nonetheless, the sun was the hardest aspect to give up. Even how excruciating the temperature had been, and probably still was, on Zelian’s ground, eternal darkness was complicated. I felt like my eyes could not see properly, my body and mind couldn’t function to the full extent of their capacities. Explaining my need for familiarity.

Once I entered an area, made of grass and trees, it startled me again how incredibly impossible this place was. Being inside a tremendously large mountain but surrounded with an outdoor environment. Completely surreal.

As I advanced inside, I could hear sounds of breathing and punching. Not many insects lighted the room, yet I could discern the edges of it not being very large. But the lack of light also emerged Kâl into total darkness, when she had stood close all along once I had spotted her. She hadn’t. Her figure blended so perfectly around the nooks and crannies of the Shadows, the black contours a second nature, second skin.

On a tree trunk, she had placed a sort of large cushion, to retain her blows and protect her feet and hands while sending hits. She was wearing lighter gears, and must have been going on for a while, since she was covered in sweat despite the chill of the endless night.

Her weapons were on the floor and as she finished her set with her bare hands, she turned my way to grab a dagger. She watched, scanned me up and down as I had also opted for lighter garments and focused back on the tree in front of her without a word.

Her worries during the ritual had disappeared and the resentment from our fight inside the library had persisted, not that I had tried to talk to her again about it, not since my nocturnal confession. She had seemed detached, but the way she was treating me at the moment and her usual body language would tell otherwise. “Am I interrupting?” I said as the sound of her punches and regular breaths filled the silence.

“Not one bit.” She answered harshly.

“Can I join?” I insisted. She jabbed right, left, right, holding the dagger by the shaft, the blade following the curve of her forearm, then took a second to reply.

“Do what you want.”

Her words were spikes at the tip of a spear. I found myself a spot nearby to execute my exercises. Starting with push-ups, I could also feel her stare falling onto me from time to time, even with my head facing the floor. Once I hit fifty, I changed positions and waited for thirty seconds. “You’re still pissed,” I declared, fixating her. The way she was throwing her punches was close to perfectness. She was a fighter. Even with my extended force, she had other qualities and a tactician mind that was used into searching for all the possible outcomes. Close, but not completely, because she had something perturbing her.

“Is that a question?” she answered in a distraught breath, sending a powerful kick with her foot that would have reached my sternum.

“You know it isn’t.” I bent my head to the side, before resting in a plank position, turned myself so I could watch her if I wanted.

“You think you know better than myself what I’m feeling?”

“It’s just written all over your face,” I threw back, annoyance slowly creeping inside.

“And I’m so easy to read.”

“Then, tell me, please, what is going on?”

The seconds grew longer and longer as my abs and shoulders burned through the effort. I had to concentrate on my breathing. She slashed the protection from one side to the other with the speed of her movement and faced me as she replied. “I’m pissed.”

I huffed and lost my balance, obligated to drop one knee on the ground, lifted my body just enough so my face would be at the same level as her hips. “You just hate it when I’m right, don’t you?” I exclaimed, a false smile stretching my mouth. Her frown was almost endearing.

“You’ve been an ass.”

“I know. And I’ve apologized.”

“When?”

I spoke too fast. “I am now.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

“I’m sorry, Kâl.”

She had her hands over her hips and grinded her teeth while watching me from above. Her breath was harsh and powerful, the glistening of her sweat glinting as the few lights reverberated over her. I was ready to open my mouth again when she ordered. “Get up.”

“For what?” I wondered but nonetheless obeyed.

“We’ll settle this down with a fight.”

My eyes were about to pop out of their socket. “Are you serious?”

“Afraid to lose?” She dried the sweat out of her forehead with one swipe of her knuckles and dropped her dagger on the floor next to the other weapons.

“That is not the point.”

“With our hands, until one of us forfeit.”

“I could hurt you.”

“And I could kill you. So?”

I stayed silent, mouth wide open, bewildered in front of her stubbornness. But I could see what she needed. I could understand too much why this was the best way for us to make things better. We were warriors. Fighters. This was our daily routine. This was how the majority of our missions ended. Maybe there was more, maybe she needed to prove herself of something, I couldn’t know unless she would tell me. “You want to see me eat the dirt that much?”

“You have no idea,” she hit the air with both her fists, rolling her shoulders back. “When you’ve been rewarded with all the credit, been feared and recognized throughout the city while I had to rot inside my despicable apartment, forced in the shadows when I was the one stabilizing the chaos with the slaughter of the Jalyons. I’ve wanted a fight with the Weapon for a long time.”

“We are no longer these people,” I tried to decipher what she was engaging in before the worst would happen, but she wasn’t inclined to accept.

“You think? Come on. Show me what you’ve got.”

And then I had one second to put myself in a defensive stance because the punch that grazed the front of my face could have broken my nose. “Kâl.” I pleaded, my hands now close to my head and my body moving right to left.

“You forfeit?” she smiled, for the teasing was giving her such a boost she could have fought for hours.

“That’s not my kind.”

“Then fight me.” She launched another shot that I dodge with a quick step to the left. And while she was finishing her movement, I bent enough for my arms to wrap her middle and push her on the ground with my shoulders.

Her back over the floor chased the air out of her lungs and the grimace she bore only reflected the anger building up inside. With one hand, I pinned both her wrists above her head. It was like seeing myself in a mirror. It was like fighting my own alter ego.

I lost focus for a second and she took that opportunity to cradle my waist with her thighs, locking them behind my back with her feet, and use the force of her femurs to crush my bones. I hissed under my teeth, the pain of my ribs being crumpled powerful enough to make me use both my hands to force her legs out of my body. Only she did not hesitate, for her fists free of my grasp, to throw a strike over my jaws.

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The sharp ache temporarily blinded me and I rolled on the side, searching for time to avoid this whole stupid plan. “You are serious about this.”

“I am.”

But the rage filled my every pores instead and I decided that she would not accept no for an answer, despite anything that I could say. “Fine.” I stretched my arms, circled around her as she did the same. “If this is what you want, I’ll give it to you.”

And the smile that cracked over her face was pure amusement.

The tension had filled the place and it seemed like the insects were only floating around us now, as I could see every feature over Kâl’s visage with shocking details. So concentrated on her, I almost didn’t see the kick she tried to place over my groin. “Playing dirty already?” I said, dodging one second before disaster.

“Using everything to my advantage. Not my fault you have such a sensitive target right between your legs.”

I feigned a right hook only to imitate her kick, sending a fierce bash on her private parts. “Because this isn’t painful to you?”

She winced, let a low growl of annoyance escape her throat, but kept her legs open, fighting off the pain for better balance and I was the one smiling. “You can abandon whenever you want,” I teased, focused on every part of her body moving.

“I won’t fold that easily.” She dashed to the right and I turned to face her, before she smacked the top of my shoulder, aiming for the neck but missing by a few inches. With a quick motion, I tried to grab her wrist and twist to have her back over my front, but she withdrew her arm fast enough I had clenched my fist around the air. Our breath started to get caught. I wanted to watch her positions, analyze her reactions but she had decided to drain my energy as fast as possible. Every time I succeeded in dodging her attacks, she was throwing me something else. So, our eyes were locked, and within them I tried to anticipate her next blows.

In vain.

She kept her proud smug on her face, even when I managed to hit her in return. She grabbed the back of my neck and launched with her fist toward my nose, but I pivoted and slipped from her grasp, found myself in her back and landed a kick at the end of her kidneys, almost sending her to the ground. She put her hand to the floor and jumped to absorb the power of the blow. I could have rushed to her before she would even stand back up but I preferred staying away, my defensive stance perfectioned.

Punches after punches, each of us had received a fair share of hits but none of us wanted to be defeated. She reached for my knees and I blocked her with my elbow to her neck. My fist had reached for her diaphragm, only she had seen it coming and sidestepped to use my open defense, placing another jab under my chin. My head bent backwards and I had to take a few steps to gain balance. She grabbed the opportunity to punch my stomach, chest, stomach again and when I had no air left in my lungs, she finished with a right hook sending me to the floor. I spat the blood out of my mouth. “This is ridiculous,” I said between hard inhales. “We should be searching for a way out of here.”

“You’re saying that because you’re losing.” She wiped the blood from her nose, and put her foot over my chest.

“I’m saying that because it is the truth.”

“Fight me, Nolis.”

“I don’t want to!” She straddled my chest so her knees would press over my shoulders and before I could swing my arms away, she had her whole body weight pushing on my deltoids. My knees tried to reach for her back but she had positioned herself perfectly out of my reach. “Fuck… Kâl, come on.”

“Do you yield?” her eyes were glistening with a delighted expression.

“Why do you need this? Why do you want to fight so damn much, it can’t be just because you haven’t had the recognition you deserved in the city.”

“Because I missed it.” She admitted in a relieving whisper, like she finally received the shot of drugs she had needed for years. “Because I needed action. I need the thrill. I needed something else than reading books and waiting for a fucking miracle to happen.”

I wriggled under her retention but she didn’t seem to care. “You could have just asked for an amicable fight.”

“That’s what I did.”

I laughed from exhaustion. “You’ve got what you wanted.” I managed to bend my arms and rest my hands over the small of her back, as she withdrew a bit of her weight. “Can you get off me now?”

“You didn’t really fight, did you?” The disappointment lingered and exploded on her features, shooting a pang directly to my heart. The pain was much more powerful than all the hits I took from her.

“I told you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You don’t understand,” she stood up and I could hear my muscles groan.

“Of course I don’t, you won’t explain to me.”

“But you should,” she turned around, close to her weapon. “We’re the same, you and I, don’t you get it? Proud, powerful fighters with a need for violence.”

“That is not what you said in the library, remember?” I stood up also, approaching her slowly. “Meticulously, prepared.”

She stopped me with a lift of her hand. “That is just how I proceed to do my missions. It doesn’t change who I am deep inside.”

She wiped her face and massaged her wrists, her gaze on the floor. “I really don’t want ten years of this, Nolis. Your rage that time only echoed with mine and I was forced into being the bigger person because these two reactions were fighting off each other at the same time and you had already chosen anger. When all I wanted to do was yell and scream and tear that whole place apart for the trick that they’ve pulled under our noses. And then you said it was my fault.” Her stare was fire incarnate. I could feel the burning sensation as she wiped her eyes up and down my body with a disgusted expression on her face.

“All these years I have learned not to expect anything from anyone. I have been alone, in my apartment, by myself with my darkest thoughts. You and I, it’s a first. Being a partner to someone, it’s a first. And I’m learning basic socializing concepts. In a span of a few days, I have experienced want, envy, jealousy, and disappointment.” We were inches apart. If only I had gathered the guts to talk to her while she was awake that night. But I didn’t. “And I don’t know how people manage to bear these terrible sensations in a lifetime because one disappointment later, I had firmly decided you wouldn’t break the walls I had erected back up. The walls I had time to carve and shape around the curves of my body for they had been there with me since I was a child, and lost my parents in front of my eyes.”

She was torturing me. And this was way worse than a fight with bare hands, this was what I had tried to avoid for as long as I can remember. When we had been so similar, she was spilling all that she had to say and I couldn’t even open my mouth. I didn’t really know if she needed me to do the same, but the feelings that were engulfing my mind and soul right now were too much to analyze. Could I even analyze them? Most of the socializing concepts I was foreign to, as she had said. I only noticed it was in my stomach, and my heart. “The anger had taken the best of me and I wanted, needed, to take it out of my system. When you showed up here… it all came back. This was the best I came up with.”

Her now soft irises showed remorse and I wanted to shout at her that this was stupid, that she shouldn’t be the one to feel like that. She shouldn’t regret anything when I had treated her so poorly, had expressed my emotions while she had been unconscious and had continued my days as if nothing happened, hoped she would come around, hoped the Shadow wasn’t like the other humans and their feelings. But we were like the others. We had been deprived of so much, this was hitting us with even greater force because of it. And instead of staying both in the unknown, we could actually learn this new life together. As friends.

“When I said I was sorry, I meant it.” I started replying, the memories of her hating being touched stronger than the need to reach for her at this moment. “I was so angry I forgot what the real problem was, and who the responsible were. You had answered so insensitively I thought you didn’t care. And I was wrong. I know that now. I’m not as good as you are when it comes to talking.”

“I heard you that night.” She admitted and it cut my train of thoughts completely. My mouth stayed open and my brows frowned. “I was so pissed at you, I had listened but didn’t want to hear your apologies. You said you would come up with a way to make it up to me but you haven’t and it made me even more pissed.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“You have apologized enough.” She shook her head and turned around to gather her things but I wasn’t satisfied.

“I wasn’t really fighting because I knew I would lose. I figured if I was holding my punches, you would too, and I wouldn’t die at twenty-five years old.”

She snorted. “Now, you are just saying that because you want to make me happy.”

“You really are gorgeous when you smile. But I’m telling the truth. It’s no competition of course, but… You would win.” She showed her teeth and my own face had to imitate because her beam of joy was reflecting on every square of the room to the buzzing insects flying more eagerly than they had seconds ago. Even her cheeks reddened, and not from the jostle we had, but from the compliment she must have received for the first time. “You might have been invisible to the population but you have existed in everyone’s mind. I had expected to find you at every turn during my escapades. You are a symbol.”

“Stop, you are making me embarrassed now,” she looked away, her cheeks all red, and the feeling that she was immersed in something completely unfamiliar.

“Not used to receiving compliments, I see?”

“It’s always nice. But no, it didn’t happen often.” Before she asked the question, I positively knew where her head had wandered. “You have your mind on someone, you said?” I recalled my monologue from that night and swore to myself.

“It’s complicated. One of my secrets.”

“Ah… the long list of secrets, you have.” She smiled, lifting her head up so our eyes would meet. And the need to gently stroke her hair was too much to resist. She didn’t flinch when my fingers rubbed a strand out of her bun. “We have much to learn, don’t we?” her face was strict and serious, suddenly.

“About what?”

“Friendship. Relationship. Intimacy.”

I nodded. “Can we make a deal?” I asked, grabbing her hand. “Should we need anything, we swear to communicate with the other.”

She returned the stare for a long time, the whirls of the engine inside her mind troubling her focus. Indiscernibly, she bit the inside of her cheek and I thought she would refuse, or confess something else to me, but she firmly held my hand and shook it, as an oath taken between two friends. “Deal.”