Chapter 1182: Settling Into Place

Valeria turned back toward the projection.

Lucavion moved with her.

She shifted her attention to the reservation schedule on the left, and he leaned into that side of her vision. When her gaze travelled toward the recovery facilities, he stepped around her with the innocent persistence of a man searching for the correct place to stand.

Valeria endured the first obstruction. She avoided the second by rotating the projection between them, only for Lucavion’s face to appear through the pale-blue outline of a cultivation chamber.

Her mouth tightened.

He changed sides again.

"Lucavion."

"Yes?"

"Stand still."

"I was trying to find an angle you liked."

"You have failed."

"Then some guidance would be appreciated."

Valeria returned to the map, but the corner of her mouth moved before she caught it. She pressed her lips together and lifted one hand toward the facility list with renewed concentration.

Lucavion stepped into view again.

A quiet laugh escaped her.

It lasted less than a breath. Valeria turned away at once, one hand rising toward her lips as though she might still hide the evidence.

Lucavion straightened, satisfaction spreading across his face. "Heh... Now we are talking."

"You are really intolerable."

"Yet considerably more successful than I was a moment ago."

He gave her no time to recover the severity she had lost. Shifting his case into his other hand, Lucavion stepped aside and followed the marker toward his assigned residence.

"Wanna tag along?"

The invitation came over his shoulder as he walked, with no ceremony attached to the answer.

White fur descended onto him before Valeria could provide one. Vitaliara landed across his shoulder with the effortless balance of a creature for whom permission had always been an optional courtesy, then settled her paws beside his collar and fixed Valeria with a pale stare.

Valeria had grown used to that stare during their time in Andelheim. Vitaliara had also learned to tolerate her presence, although tolerance had done little for the ancient creature’s manners.

"Grr..."

The sound vibrated against Lucavion’s neck as Vitaliara bared her small teeth.

Valeria regarded the display for a moment, dismissed the remaining projections and fell into step beside them. "She still does that."

"She is expressing the joy of reunion."

[Grr...]

"A powerful joy," Lucavion added.

Repeated exposure had taught Valeria that answering Vitaliara’s hostility encouraged Lucavion, so she left the comment alone and turned the conversation toward the surrounding facilities.

She had already inspected the closest practice halls, compared their reservation periods and discovered that the western recovery chamber remained available throughout most of the morning. The useful details came one after another while they walked, accompanied by small gestures toward adjoining courts and the passages connecting them. Whatever calculations had led her to inspect everything before reaching her room stayed with her.

Lucavion listened with growing amusement.

She had arrived, mapped the court and identified the best places to train before most freshmen had finished arguing with their luggage.

Some things truly refused improvement.

Their route carried them past an open board displaying the finalized Martial Arts Block standings. Several students had gathered before it, comparing individual results against the weighted ranking along the rightmost column.

Lucavion slowed long enough to find the names near the top.

Rowen occupied first place with 96.9, followed closely by Varen at 96.0. Both had dominated the mana, combat and weapon evaluations, leaving little room for the remaining students to challenge their positions.

Valeria stood fourth.

94.4.

Lucavion’s name appeared immediately beneath hers at 89.2. His written results had been respectable, but the forty beside his oral examination continued to look vindictive now that someone had granted it the dignity of an official record.

Perfect marks in combat and weapon handling had repaired most of the damage.

Lucavion glanced sideways at Valeria. "It seems you did rather well."

Her pace did not change, though her attention left the board. "You sound surprised."

"I am deciding whether fourth place requires congratulations."

"And what has your decision produced?"

He considered the matter with far more gravity than it deserved. "Concern, mostly."

"For me?"

"For everyone beneath you. You were already difficult when you had something to prove."

Valeria’s hand settled against the hilt at her waist. "You are beneath me."

"On that board," Lucavion agreed.

The qualification earned him a colder look, although the trace of laughter she had tried to bury earlier still lingered around her eyes.

Vitaliara’s tail brushed the back of his neck.

[Why are you giving this annoying woman the leverage to talk over you?]

Lucavion shook his head and resumed walking.

’I am not doing such a thing. And Valeria is not the type of girl to talk over me over mere grades.’

[That is what she just did.]

’Sure. We both know that is not the case, don’t we?’

Vitaliara answered by striking the back of his neck with her tail.

Valeria could be proud. She had been raised beneath a family name that treated discipline as both inheritance and duty, then spent most of her life earning the confidence others assumed had been handed to her. A place near the top of the Martial Arts Block would please her, and seeing Lucavion beneath her name would provide an entirely respectable amount of satisfaction.

She would never mistake a ranking for proof that she had surpassed him.

Written examinations, oral evaluations and ceremonial performances could arrange students neatly upon a board. Valeria preferred a simpler measure. Put weapons in their hands, place them within reach of one another and see who remained standing.

That had not changed.

She had loosened since Rackenshore. Andelheim had taught her that rules sometimes arrived too late, authority could fail, and Lucavion would continue doing whatever he considered necessary regardless of how severely she pronounced his name. She could accept an imperfect answer now without treating the imperfection as a personal affront.

The lessons had softened her edges. They had not altered the steel beneath them.

Valeria noticed his silence after several steps. "Now, you are awfully silent?"

Lucavion looked over. "Well, even I can stop talking sometimes."

"You can. That does not mean you do."

"...."

She glared at him.

The silence continued long enough to make clear that he was preserving it purely because she had objected. Valeria let him enjoy that small victory before returning her attention to the board behind them.

Her weighted score mattered less to her than the two perfect marks beside his name. She mentioned his results in weapon handling first, then combat, as though the Academy’s examiners had confirmed something she had already suspected and supplied two numbers for later reference.

Lucavion lowered his gaze toward the estoc at his side. "You will be able to test it sooner or later."

Valeria met his eyes. The challenge brightened them more openly than his arrival had. "I will be waiting."

"Do not worry."

His next step shortened.

SWOOSH!

Lucavion’s hand left his side without warning, two fingers cutting across the narrow space between them toward Valeria’s cheek.

THUD! 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

Her palm intercepted his wrist.

The impact stopped his fingers less than an inch from their target. Valeria held him there, her grip firm, while satisfaction settled plainly into her expression.

"I knew you would do that."

Lucavion looked from her hand around his wrist to the cheek he had failed to reach.

"Got caught."

Valeria released his wrist, and Lucavion let his hand fall without attempting to steal the touch after being stopped.

"You have gotten faster," he said, rotating the joint once. Her interception had arrived cleanly, without hesitation or wasted movement. "It seems you did not slack off while I was gone."

The praise caught her more cleanly than his fingers had.

Valeria’s posture remained straight, but a faint warmth entered her eyes. Then her lips curved. The smile spread softly across features so often held under discipline, like a flower opening in a place where spring had been forbidden entry.

Lucavion stared.

He had intended to behave.

The intention lasted admirably close to a second.

SWOOSH!

His hand flashed toward her cheek again.

Valeria reacted from the first twitch of his shoulder. She had already seen the attack once: the shortened step, the direct line and the fingers extended toward the same target. Her palm rose to meet his wrist at the point where she had caught it before.

That expectation was precisely what Lucavion had given her.

The first attempt had taught her a rhythm. This one followed it until the final instant, his hand travelling at the same speed while her guard moved into place. Then his rear foot pressed into the stone.

His body slipped half a step closer.

The acceleration came in the middle of the motion, where an ordinary strike had already spent most of its force. Lucavion still had more to give. He folded his elbow before Valeria’s palm could close, rolled his wrist over the edge of her hand and threaded his fingers along the outside of her forearm.

Valeria’s eyes widened.

His hand reached her cheek.

Lucavion caught the softness between two fingers and pulled it gently to the side, ruining the composed smile before she could hide it.

"But still." He winked at her. "Neither did I."