Chapter 165 - 163: Unforgettable Rival.

Chapter 165: Chapter 163: Unforgettable Rival.

Binny doesn’t have a counter for that. "Why though?" he presses instead, and although he trails off its clear what he wants to add.

You could have had anything you wanted. "...Because you want to," Khobi shrugs, like it’s really that simple, "Do I need a better reason?"

​Binny doesn’t need to know, but there is one. A big one, actually. Binny has never been afraid to see him as a person.

The first to, actually, for a long time. When he’d arrived here, Khobi had kind of forgotten what that felt like.

He’s not blind; he’s seen the way Binny watches the soldiers at training --like he wants, so desperately, to be one of them, and with skills like his, he thinks it’s high time he got recognised as more than just a servant.

​"You better not be late," Khobi adds, rolling over and closing his eyes to signal that he’s made up his mind and there’s no changing it, "Or Drogger will make you run laps."

If there weren’t already a grin stretched wide and bright across Binny’s face, the threat would have made him smile.

He knows. He watches soldiers run themselves into the ground almost every day. And tomorrow, if he’s lucky, he’ll get to run them with him.

​...

​That night, the candles of Crade burn long and late.

The moon starts its slow descent, and the party grows more boisterous as the occupants of the castle –at least, those who are afforded the luxury –warmed and charmed by handsome company and wine, eat and drink and dance until they’re stupid enough to forget their wives and their husbands and how secret their affairs are supposed to be.

Young sons overindulge, desperate to prove their worth, young daughters grow too bold. Fights break out in the halls as inebriated soldiers and nobility alike cross paths and exchange words, and then fists.

​Tonight, more than any other night, men stumble through the halls with their mistresses, and young lovers steal secret kisses in the dark, and nobles who usually know to hold their tongues find their lips all too loose.

​Tomorrow, their heads will ache and their words and their follies of the night will catch up with them, but tonight, they sleep well.

​All but one of them.

​Alone in his room, Loac Trent lies flat against his bedsheets, naked but for the bandages wrapped around him, his blue eyes wide and gazing blankly up at a crack in the roof above him; body restless, and mind reeling.

​It doesn’t make any sense.

​He can’t sleep, and he should be able to. He’s eaten his fill, drank his fair share, and had an adequate tryst with an eager bedmate; all things that would normally put him straight to sleep.

​Normally.

​Tonight, much like last night, sleep eludes him. He’d tried, gods he’d tried –his battered body had ached in places he’d forgotten could even ache –worn and torn in ways it hadn’t been in years –and it should have wanted nothing more than to let him sink into the weightless abyss of slumber, but for some reason, whenever he felt himself drifting off, his mind would send him right back there.

​Back in that ring.

​With him.

​Whenever he closed his eyes, he dreamed of that final moment; of a silhouette against the sky, and eyes that burned like wildfire. Around him, he knows there’s sound –roaring and screaming, and the blood rushing in his ears like a thousand drums –but even at the time, the moment Khobi had come flying towards him, it had all gone so perfectly quiet.

​In his dreams, the silence builds, and then that sound would ring out again –that unmistakable, climbing, final note of two swords sharing a single moment in time, and he would wake in a sweat, panting.

​Every time he closes his eyes, it’s the same moment, playing over and over.

​The ring, and a world of silence.

Red, against a bright sky.

​A single, piercing note.

​And then the pain.

Unbidden, the wound in his chest throbs.

​Sighing, Loac swings himself to the edge of the bed, sheets pooling around his waist as he searches for his clothes.

His body groans in protest at the jostling, and his steps are unusually ginger as he moves towards the nearest reflective surface.

It’s a certain stiffness that he’s been well acquainted with in the past, but that hasn’t plagued him in countless years –the kind that comes from the special breed of exertion where a man has reached his limit and forced himself onwards through sheer force of will.

​It had felt so good at the time. Being able to really go all out again. Calling upon all his strength and skill and not knowing if it was going to be enough until the last stroke fell.

He can’t remember the last time he’d been able to do that; the last time he’d felt the thrill of facing down an opponent that could draw out his full strength and not only let him fight the way he was born to, but begged him to.

That was what fighting was meant to be; what tournaments and events like them were meant to be about. It’s what he used to love about them.

And he’d entered every single one he could, whether Gurdet and Xena approved or not. Princes weren’t supposed to just go accepting duels with anyone, but back then, he just hadn’t been able to resist the thrill of a new fight and a new test, of chasing a new challenger and being chased.

​And then one day, it just...wasn’t the same.

The challenges just weren’t challenges anymore. Even the soldiers –and friends –who once posed a decent threat crumbled under him, or were sent to walk different paths.

And the challengers slowly stopped coming for him. And any that did just weren’t worth his time anymore.

Maybe it was because he was a prince, and they didn’t want to harm him; didn’t want to slight his family by challenging him.

Maybe it was because he was so terrifyingly strong, and they didn’t truly think they could win.

Either way, none of them were fast enough, skilled enough, or believed in themselves enough to ever get his blood pumping or his heart racing the way he wanted them to.

And if they couldn’t even do that, then they certainly couldn’t give him a reason to put in even an ounce of effort into fighting them.