Chapter 57 Calista Cannot Feel Angry

Calista drove her practice spear into Ossian's shoulder for the fourth time, yet her face showed less anger than the first strike had earned.

The depot clock gave them thirty-one minutes before the planned rescue, while Ione's intercepted transport update had started counting down from thirteen.

'Damn, Solenne moved five prisoners early,' Ossian reset his feet before Calista's next strike, 'we need her anger before we need perfection.'

Calista stood inside the taped practice square with Glass Mantis covering half her face, her numb left hand hanging open beside the spear shaft.

She had asked him to provoke a real response after the mask erased her anger at leaving two people behind.

His first insult concerned her old guild, which earned a clean throw and no heat in her voice.

The second accused her of enjoying the mask's calm, bringing a harder lock around his elbow without any visible offence.

Odelia watched from the route table, recording which phrases changed Calista's grip and which ones produced only Mantis corrections.

Maelle had refused to participate after Ossian proposed using old injuries, warning that provocation without limits would become punishment dressed as diagnosis.

Calista set three limits herself: no lies about casualties, no threats against guild members, plus no claim that her choices belonged to Ossian.

By the third attempt, fear had stopped pretending it was a training problem inside Ossian's chest.

'If Calista can't hate the sacrifice, fear says she may watch me die with the same useful expression,' he caught the spear, 'say the ugly part.'

"Maybe Glass Mantis did you a favour," Ossian said, pressing the shaft down while her grip adjusted, "anger kept making you difficult to own."

Calista swept his ankle before he finished, putting his back against the mat with one knee beside his ribs.

Her pulse stayed level beneath the throat, even after he used the word she had built the guild to reject, "Again," she said, taking her weight off him without offering a hand.

Ossian rose through the ache in his old leg, while the system measured her stillness in language he had begun accepting too fast.

[A bonded hunter has suppressed wasteful resistance]

[Court stability has improved by 3%]

'The system calls her anger waste, and I read that without correcting it... noted,' Ossian rubbed his shoulder, 'break the calm without breaking her.'

He told her Mantis had made her safe to abandon, using the fear that had sat behind his teeth since the route meeting.

The words hurt him before they reached her, since Calista had returned for him through two collapsing routes when efficiency argued against it.

His fear ignored that record, taking one missing emotion as proof that every chosen act might vanish next.

The spear stopped one inch from his throat, and Calista stared at him without the anger he wanted to find, "Keep going," she said, though her right thumb pressed twice against the worn grip.

"You recommended two losses, then carried Adra back into danger after she was safe," Ossian said, stepping inside her reach, "I don't know which choice was yours anymore."

Calista struck his ribs with the shaft, turned his wrist, plus placed him on the floor through the most efficient line available.

He caught her numb hand before she withdrew, feeling cold skin that gave her no answer about his temperature.

'She can win every exchange while losing the reason to care... no, don't turn fear into cruelty again,' Ossian released her fingers, 'tell the truth.'

"I'm scared you won't care when I don't come back," he said, leaving his hands loose where she could see them.

Calista's spear lowered several inches, while the Mantis pattern at her temple tightened against the choice to answer, "That wasn't tactical concern," she said, watching his face instead of his stance.

"No," Ossian replied, shame arriving after the damage, "I used training to punish you for frightening me," while the admission made her jaw shift once, but the missing anger still left her movements too exact.

She ordered him into the square again, then removed Glass Mantis before taking her position at the opposite edge.

'No mask, bad leg, thirteen minutes... perfect time for feelings to require equipment,' Ossian raised both empty gauntlets, 'lose honestly if she earns it.'

Calista attacked with the unpowered entry they had rebuilt after Tavet, yet Ossian recognized the shoulder turn and stepped outside it.

He trapped her spear arm, placed one foot behind her ankle, plus waited for the clean finish Mantis would have chosen.

She changed direction into an ugly shoulder charge, driving both of them across the tape before her spear rolled under a shelf.

Ossian reached for balance, and Calista caught his coat with the numb hand that could not judge her grip.

They fell against a crate, knocking six sealed practice weights onto the floor in separate hard impacts.

One weight rolled under the route table, forcing Odelia to lift both feet while Maelle caught the medical case before it followed.

The interruption ruined every controlled shape in the spar, leaving Calista pinned by an accident neither fighter would have selected.

Calista landed beneath him, lost the exchange by every formal measure, then punched his shoulder after the danger had ended.

"You were cruel," she said, with anger roughening the words before her breathing settled.

'There, anger chose the useless hit... thank fuck for bad technique,' Ossian rolled away from her, 'don't smile where she can see it.'

"I was," he replied, sitting beside the scattered weights instead of standing over her.

Calista pushed herself upright, annoyed by his relief and more irritated that the emotion felt like her own.

"The attraction stayed," she said, placing the spear across both knees, "Mantis lost my anger, not that."

Ossian looked at the depot door, the clock, then every object except the woman close enough to touch him.

'She said attraction while Solenne moves prisoners... brilliant, my mouth picked today to forget employment,' he pressed his palm against one knee, 'answer her.'

"Mine stayed too," he said, forcing the words past fear, "I don't know what either of us becomes when the masks get worse."

"Neither do I," Calista replied, refusing the easy promise, "attraction isn't a cure, ownership, or an agreement about anyone else."

She took his right hand, turned the palm upward, plus placed it against her numb left one.

Her fingers closed by sight rather than sensation, while his stiff pair failed to straighten against the base of her thumb.

Inside his head, 'Her hand can't feel mine and mine can't open clean... still chosen, still here,' he held the contact without tightening it, 'remember the ordinary part.'

The depot alarm cut through the room before either of them moved closer, replacing thirteen minutes with nine on Ione's update.

Ossian wrote the admission time beside Calista's symptom record, refusing to let attraction replace the evidence that Mantis had erased anger.

Odelia entered carrying three route cards, while Maelle followed with Furnace fixed under Dreadweight's empty receiving space.

"Solenne split the final transport," Odelia said, placing two new locations over the old map, "Veyra is moving the prisoners now."

Calista released Ossian's hand, recovered her spear, plus met his eyes with anger still present around the Mantis calm.

Odelia preserved the failed provocation record beside the rescue map, since naming attraction had not repaired the emotional loss or removed its tactical danger.

Maelle packed the practice weights without commenting on their admission, though she moved Calista's medical kit to the top of the departure crate.

Ossian carried the route cards instead of reaching for Calista again, giving the new contact room to remain chosen after urgency ended.

"We finish this after the medical count," she said, taking the west route before the clock fell to eight minutes.

The unfinished argument travelled with them, no longer hidden beneath tactical language or mistaken for a solved wound.