Chapter 9 Nine

His mother opened the door before he even knocked.

"Kaien?" She stood there in her nightclothes, hair loose around her shoulders, staring at him like she wasn't sure he was really standing on her doorstep at this hour. "What are you doing here, it's the middle of the—"

He didn't let her finish. He crossed the last step and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in tight, and she went stiff with surprise for half a second before her arms came up around him too.

"Kaien." Her voice had changed, softer now, worried. "What's wrong?"

He didn't answer. He couldn't, not yet, not without his voice breaking on the first word. He just held on, face pressed against her shoulder the way he used to when he was small enough that this was easy, and breathed in the smell of her, home and tea leaves and the same soap she'd used his whole life, and let himself have this one thing without explaining any of it.

"You're shaking," she said, quiet, rubbing a slow circle between his shoulder blades the way she always had.

"I'm fine." His voice came out rough. "I just wanted to see you."

She pulled back just enough to look at his face, hands still on his arms, and whatever she saw there made her stop asking questions. She pulled him back inside instead, shut the door against the cold, and sat him down at the kitchen table like he was still nine years old and had come home sick from a training exercise.

"You've eaten?"

"I'm not hungry."

"You're eating anyway." She was already at the stove, moving with the easy efficiency of someone who'd done this a thousand times, and Kaien sat there and watched her back and thought about how close he'd come to never seeing this again.

He didn't hug her again right away. He wanted to. He kept catching himself reaching for her sleeve, her hand, any excuse to close the distance, and made himself hold back each time because he didn't trust himself not to fall apart completely if he let it show how much he needed this.

They talked for two hours. Nothing important. The tournament. A neighbor's new grandchild. A story about his father she'd told him a hundred times before that he asked to hear again anyway, just to keep her talking, just to keep sitting in this kitchen a little longer.

When he finally stood to leave, she hugged him at the door, and this time he held on longer than he meant to, longer than made sense for a boy just visiting his mother on an ordinary night.

"You'll come again soon?" she asked into his shoulder.

"I will." His voice cracked on it. "I promise."

He made himself let go first, because if he didn't, he wasn't sure he'd manage it at all.

He was three streets from the academy wall when he heard the footsteps.

Two sets, moving fast, closing in from opposite directions at once.

Kaien kept walking, didn't change his pace, but every part of him had already gone sharp underneath the calm. He felt his spiritual energy settle low in his chest, ready.

The first attacker broke from the alley on his left, blade already coming down in a wide arc. Kaien twisted sideways and felt the air split where his shoulder had been a heartbeat earlier. He didn't have time to be relieved. The second one was already on him from behind, and this time the blade found him, a hot line of pain tearing across his forearm before he even saw it coming.

He hissed through his teeth and drove his elbow back hard, felt it connect with something solid, heard the man behind him grunt and stumble off balance. Kaien didn't wait to see how much damage he'd done. He shoved a burst of energy into his legs and ran, cutting through a narrow alley, vaulting a low garden wall, weaving through a courtyard full of drying laundry he didn't recognize, until the footsteps behind him thinned out and finally disappeared altogether.

He didn't slow down until the academy wall came into view.

His sleeve was soaked through by then, warm and heavy against his skin, and his hands weren't steady as he climbed the old maintenance ladder near the eastern wall, the same blind spot he'd used to get out in the first place. He dropped down on the other side and pressed his back against the stone, chest heaving, listening.

Voices. Close.

"—swore I heard something over this way—"

Guards, coming from the near path.

Kaien pushed off the wall and cut through the shadow of the training hall instead, moving low and fast, and nearly collided with someone coming from the other direction.

He caught himself half a step from impact.

Lyra stood there, fully dressed despite the hour, and her eyes dropped straight to the blood soaking through his sleeve.

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

He waited for her to react the way anyone should, to call out, to step back, to demand an explanation he didn't have time to give. Instead she stepped closer and took his arm gently, turning it toward what little moonlight reached the courtyard, examining the cut like she'd done this before.

"You owe me," she said quietly, and let go.

The guards rounded the corner before he could say anything back.

"Who's there—" A lantern swept the courtyard and landed on Lyra standing alone, Kaien pressed into the shadow of the wall just behind her.

"Just me." Her voice came out light, easy, nothing like the focus she'd had a second before. "Couldn't sleep. Went for a walk."

"Disciple Vesperis." The guard lowered the lantern. "It's well past curfew."

"I know. Heard a noise and got curious. My mistake."

"You shouldn't be out here alone. Not with everything going on."

"You're right. I'm sorry." She bowed her head slightly, easy and unbothered, and the guard nodded, satisfied enough to let it go.

"Get back to your room."

"Of course."

She walked toward the dormitories without a single glance back at Kaien, and the guards fell into step behind her, escorting her partway before peeling off toward the far end of the grounds.

Kaien waited until the light disappeared before he moved.

He made it back to his room without anyone else stopping him, and sat on the edge of his bed tearing a strip of cloth from an old shirt to wrap the cut, hands finally steady now that the danger had passed. It stung worse than it had during the fight itself, now that there was nothing left to outrun.

He tied off the bandage and sat there a long moment, replaying it.

She hadn't asked what happened. Hadn't asked where he'd been, or why he was bleeding, or what he'd been doing outside the walls past curfew with no explanation ready. She'd just looked, covered for him without hesitating, and walked away with two words that told him nothing about what she actually wanted in return.

What did Lyra Vesperis want from him.