Xiodan had seen much in his time. He’d witnessed the rise and fall of hundreds of minor guilds and dozens of major ones. He’d been summoned to witness challenges and officiate more duels to the death than he could count. Some of the warriors he’d seen bore such might that an entire guild of Adepts wouldn’t have lasted more than a millisecond before their might. He’d born witness to mages with power to twist the earth and shatter the skies to rain hellfire down on entire armies. He’d seen guilds vanish in the blink of an eye, and he’d seen them rise just as quickly. And, in his time, Xiodan had learned that few things generally went according to plan. He was personally partial to avoiding plans entirely. It was impossible for things to go wrong if he’d never had a semblance of how they would go right. As long as he survived, he considered any night a success. But this — what he had witnessed tonight — this was a failure of colossal proportions. A grin pulled across his lips. It was something he’d seen before, of course. He doubted anything this far to the reaches of the Kingdom could properly surprise him. Not everything interesting had to be surprising. Jessen, for example, had been interesting. The man was a miserable creature. He’d been so caught up in the games he played that he’d completely lost any semblance of the value of human life. But, in spite of that, he was competent. Jessen had pulled together an entire guild, all for the sole purpose of feeding every single last one of them to his Wyrms. It had been a rather genius strategy. Push weaklings to higher tiers to get them to recruit more weaklings. Keep the cycle until he had a huge number of bodies waiting to be fed, then bring them to the Wyrms and kill them off in swathes before anyone noticed. The ones that survived would think themselves special. They would have met the same end as the others, just after the Wyrmlings had fed. Then feed the Wyrmlings to the Wyrms as well. In the end, the only ones remaining would have been Jessen and his Wyrms. “We’re alive,” Arwin said in a startling display of observance. “Astute. And we’re… ah, entangled.” She made no move to extract herself. They were both silent for a moment. Arwin wished he could have dragged that moment on forever, but he snuffed the desire. He’d made a promise, both to himself and to Lillia. Jessen was dead. The Wyrms were too — and he had no excuse to give himself any longer. No excuse other than Lillia wanted to say something too. I should hear it out first, just in case she wants to tell me something that runs opposite to my own feelings. It would save us a lot of hassle. “I suppose now is as good a time as any, isn’t it?” Arwin asked. “You said there was something you wanted to tell me.” “You said the same thing,” Lillia said hurriedly. “You can go first. I don’t mind going after.” “No, I wouldn’t want to intrude. You can speak first.” “You don’t have to be polite,” Lillia said. “You go.” “I have my reasons. You should go first.” “As do I,” Lillia replied. “Just go,” they said at once, then promptly both broke down in suppressed laughter. “Has anyone ever told you how damn stubborn you are?” Lillia asked. “I was about to tell you the same thing,” Arwin replied. He drew in a small breath, trying to convince himself that it was to steady his nerves and not to smell Lillia’s hair, then let it out with a huff. “Fine. I can go first.” “If you’re really that adamant about it, I won’t make you,” Lillia said. “I can go first if you really want me to.” Arwin glared. He couldn’t see Lillia, but she could see him just fine. He was rewarded with a sheepish cough. “We’re never going to get through this at this rate, are we?” “No, we aren’t,” Arwin agreed. “What if we just say it at the same time?” “Not the best way to make sure your point is heard clearly,” Lillia pointed out. She paused for a second, then cleared her throat. “That’s perfect, actually.” “Okay. Ready?” Arwin asked. “We can do a countdown.” He felt Lillia nod. Arwin steeled his nerves. His heart was pumping in his chest like a runaway horse. He was pretty sure he was more stressed about this than he had been for a fair number of fights he’d been in. “Ready?” Arwin asked. “Yeah. Just do the damn countdown already,” Lillia grumbled. “I’m going to die of old age before we get this over with.” Arwin did the countdown. He practically spat the last numbers out in his haste to get to the point. “I think I’ve fallen for you,” Arwin said, his cheeks burning so bright that they could have lit anything but Lillia’s impenetrable darkness. “I have romantic feelings for you,” Lillia said at the exact same time. A second ticked by as they both processed what the other one had said. Another one followed it. Arwin became even more vividly aware of Lillia’s body completely pressed against his than he had been moments before, and that was saying a lot. “Wait. That was what you were waiting to say?” Arwin asked in disbelief. His mind bounced around in his skull, jumping from elation to bafflement. “Yeah. I didn’t want to put anything at risk by causing a distraction or making things awkward between us,” Lillia muttered. “Why didn’t you say anything?” “Same reason.” Arwin started to laugh. “I think we might both be a bit stupid.”