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Our blades collided repeatedly, clashes ringing out. And as we danced together around the stables, nothing else existed. She moved too quickly for me, demanded all of my attention so I could only anticipate where she’d attack next and where my sword needed to be to meet it.

“So you’re more than just a pretty face, then?” Mila murmured, spinning around my back.

As if tracking where she’d be by instinct alone, I whirled to meet her.

“You think I’m pretty?” I growled. “I’m honored, General.”

Her lips quirked into that feline smile again.

My body burned from the intense workout routines Mila had given me these past weeks, but it made me more aware of each placement. My ears were clear of their ringing, the rushing pressure gone.

And I did not want this match to end. A competitive spark ignited within me, feeble but trying to burn.

This was different from usual sparring. I didn’t know if it was because Mila was such a fluid opponent or because she was so easy to focus on, but I was figuring out her plan. Those workout techniques had helped me repair a disjointed connection within myself. My physical and mental states had been severed, but we were stitching them back together.

“I finally get it,” I panted. Sweat trailed down my spine, a light sheen along Mila’s forehead, too.

“What’s that?” she breathed. Our faces were close now, swords crossed between our chests. Arms shaking, straining. Pieces of her braid had come loose again, framing her high cheekbones.

I leaned forward, speaking low. “Those workouts. Starting me from the beginning.” She smiled. “It wasn’t only to get me back in shape. It was to make me aware of my physical skill.”

It was to reintroduce myself to positioning and tactics that had been drilled into the younger version of me, as she’d said.

But that boy had died in a dark, dirty cell. Perhaps he’d died atop the Spirit Volcano when his father revealed the twist in his game, or maybe even long before that, when he scratched a pen across a treaty, sealing his fate.

Spirits, it didn’t matter when. He was gone.

And he’d left a void I hadn’t bothered to fill. I’d refused to properly train, refused to look for a future where I might need to. I’d refused everything, really. Became a reclusive excuse for what I was once supposed to be, because it was easier to lock it all away.

Did I want to open that cage, though? Could I let this spark within me consume the past?

“And why would I do that?” Mila ground out, stepping back before attacking again.

She wasn’t letting me run away. She was taking the person I’d become and aligning him with a new future. Showing me how to get in touch with this physical routine again and realize I may be different now, but I wasn’t broken.

A piece of me relished being broken, though. It was easier than unpacking the heavy truths weighing down my mind.

“You want me to address what’s going on up here.” I tilted my head, using those words she’d offered when we made our deal. Success gleamed in her eyes.

“You’re meant for more than this bottled-up torment, Malakai.” Mila’s whisper clawed at my caged thoughts, too heartfelt for my warped mind to comprehend. Too good and striking such a deep nerve.

It sent me careening back into my cage, bars slamming shut.

“I’m not.” My voice cracked. My arms strained, our blades between us, and under the pressure, I admitted, “Half of me is him. Half of me is rotten.”

“Malakai—”

But I shook my head, pushing away from her. Surrendering the match. Letting the spark within me fade.

“I don’t want to fix it, Mila.”

I may have agreed to this—to hold a sword and learn how to fight again. I may have wanted to be helpful on a battlefield, but there were some battles I wasn’t ready to face.

“Giving up, Warrior Prince?” Mila called as I stalked toward the door, both of us breathing heavily.

I froze on the threshold, that familiar roaring back in my ears. It had been such a nice reprieve to fight without it for a few minutes.

“For today.”