Chapter 278. Charging Her for Therapy, One Teasing Remark at a Time

William didn’t offer platitudes. He didn’t tell her she was wrong or that she was overreacting.

Instead, he reached out, his hand warm and steady as he placed it on her shoulder, gently guiding her away from the training field and back toward the safety of the dormitory.

"You don’t have to turn it off tonight, Lia," he said, his voice patient, like a man speaking to a wounded animal that still feared the touch. "You just have to refuse to listen to it tonight."

"That’s enough."

She stumbled slightly, her resistance weakening under the simple honesty of his words. "How do you know that’s enough?"

"How can you be so certain that sitting still isn’t... isn’t surrender?"

"Because healing isn’t a straight line, Lia," William said, stopping just outside her doorway. "It’s not going to feel finished after one good week."

"It’s going to feel like you’re breaking..."

"You’ll have nights where you feel like you’re losing everything you’ve gained." William smiled. "But every time you choose rest over that voice, even when your pulse is racing, even when your mind tells you that you’re weak, you’re proving that the voice is a liar."

"You’re proving that you are more than just a weapon."

Lia didn’t answer. The silence between them stretched, taut as a bowstring.

But she didn’t pull away. She allowed him to guide her all the way to her door, her movements heavy with a fatigue that went deeper than bone.

Before she disappeared behind the heavy oak door, William asked the question that had become their nightly ritual—the question that carried no judgment, no expectation, only genuine curiosity.

"Did you enjoy today?"

Lia paused. Her hand hovered over the doorframe.

She didn’t answer immediately; she processed the question with the same tactical precision she used to analyze a battlefield.

She searched through the day’s memories: the taste of the honey, the sound of Kaela’s laughter, and the feeling of the sun on her skin.

"Yes," she said finally, her voice quiet but certain. "I think I did."

"Good," William said, offering a small, worn smile. "That’s all that matters tonight."

He asked her that same question every single evening, without fail. He never asked if she had been productive, if she had mastered a new technique, or if she had been strong.

He only asked if she had enjoyed herself. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, William watched the armor crack. Over the course of the week, her responses changed.

They stopped being measured tactical reports and started becoming something else: something honest. Something human.

Lia lingered at the threshold, her hand still gripping the doorframe. The moonlight caught the sharp angle of her jaw, and for a moment, she looked less like a swordswoman and more like someone who had simply forgotten how to exist without a purpose.

William didn’t retreat immediately. He leaned against the opposite wall, crossing his arms, watching her with a knowing smirk that cut through the lingering heaviness of her confession.

"You know," he said, his tone shifting from the gentle therapist to something more playful, more teasing. "I think I might have to start charging you for these sessions, Lia."

"You’re getting dangerously close to admitting you’re actually capable of pleasure."

Lia rolled her eyes, a genuine gesture of exasperation that made William’s heart lift. "Don’t push your luck, Instructor Wade..."

"I admitted to enjoying a pastry and some decent company... That doesn’t mean I’ve gone soft."

"Oh, I think you have," William countered, stepping closer, his eyes dancing with mischief. "I saw you back then."

"You weren’t just tolerating Kaela... You were actually engaging with her."

"I think the rumors might be true; you two might finally be becoming best friends."

Lia’s expression immediately soured, though there was no real heat behind it. "Best friends...?"

"With that walking disaster?" she scoffed, shaking her head. "She’s a liability, Instructor Wade."

"A loud, impulsive, sugar-addicted pain in my ass who has absolutely zero concept of battlefield formation."

"Every time she laughs like that, I half expect her to trip over her own feet and start a massacre."

"And yet," William pressed, stepping into her personal space, refusing to let her retreat into her usual defensive cynicism, "you didn’t threaten to put her in a headlock when she got crumbs on your sleeve."

"In fact, you didn’t even reach for your dagger."

"I was... distracted by the sheer absurdity of the situation," Lia muttered, though she couldn’t quite meet his gaze. "It was an anomaly... A temporary lapse in judgment."

"Lia, admit it. You had fun." William’s voice dropped lower, becoming warm and insistent. "I saw the way you two were sitting."

"You weren’t watching her back for threats; you were watching her to see what she’d do next."

"That’s not rivalry, you know~? More like a connection."

"It’s competition," she insisted, though the conviction in her voice was fraying at the edges. "She’s faster than she should be, and her instincts are infuriatingly accurate."

"She’s a rival I need to keep an eye on."

"A rival you also shared a plate of candied apples with," William teased, tilting his head. "Come on."

"Just once, let yourself believe that you don’t have to be the only one holding the line."

"Even rivals need to share a drink and complain about the weather. You both had fun today."

"I saw it in the way your shoulders finally dropped an inch when she made that ridiculous joke about the canteen instructor’s wig."

Lia let out a sound that was halfway between a groan and a genuine laugh, a short, startled noise that she immediately tried to stifle. "It was a ridiculous joke..."

"The canteen instructor looked like a startled cockatrice."

William grinned triumphantly. "There it is. That’s the crack in the armor right there."

"It’s not a crack," she whispered, though she finally let her shoulders relax completely. "It’s... a temporary structural weakness."

"Call it whatever you want," William said softly, stepping back to give her space to retreat but keeping his eyes locked on hers. "But don’t pretend you didn’t feel it."

"The lightness... The fact that for three hours, nobody died, nobody bled, and nobody had to die."

"You earned that, Lia. And so did she."

Lia looked at him for a long moment, her dark eyes searching his face as if looking for a trap, a hidden motive, or a tactical advantage. Finding none, she gave a single, stiff nod.

"Maybe. Just for that day."

"Just for that day," William agreed, stepping away from the door. "Sleep well, Lia. Try not to dream about sword forms."

"No promises," she called back, but as she closed the door, the click of the latch sounded less like a barrier against the world and more like the closing of a Chapter.

By the sixth day, the transformation wasn’t just visible to William; it was terrifying to Lia. She found herself, almost without noticing when the infection of feeling had taken hold, genuinely looking forward to each morning.

It wasn’t the training she missed, not exactly.

A part of her—the part forged in blood and expectation—still ached for the familiar, brutal discipline of steel against steel, the way the burn in her lungs felt like proof of existence.

But that ache was being drowned out by something else entirely. A strange, unfamiliar warmth that settled into her chest every time William appeared at her door.

He didn’t come with a blade or a list of flaws; he came with small plans, quiet walks, and a complete absence of expectation.

Walking behind him one evening, Lia watched the easy, confident set of his shoulders as they moved through the fading amber light of dusk.

Her mind was a storm of introspection. She was trying to dissect herself, to understand how the foundations of her identity had shifted so violently in less than seven days.

For the first time in her entire life, someone had truly looked at her and seen her as a person rather than as a weapon. He didn’t see the Valestria heir, the girl whose bloodline demanded perfection.

He didn’t see the prodigy who was expected to justify centuries of martial legacy. Most painfully, he didn’t see Seraphina’s lesser shadow, the girl forever sprinting toward an impossible standard that had been rigged against her from birth.

He just saw Lia.

Lia, who was clumsy when she tried to bake.

Lia, who had flour smudged across her cheek like war paint.

Lia, who had laughed until her ribs hurt at a festival game she should have been too dignified to play.

Lia, who had spent three hours discussing the migration patterns of shadow imps, not because it would make her a better fighter, but simply because she wanted to know.