We circle again, petals crunching underfoot.
I feint left. He doesn’t bite.
I lunge and he steps inside my reach and drives his forearm into my throat, shoving me backward toward the pond. My heel skids on slick stone and I windmill, barely keeping my balance as koi scatter beneath the surface.
He comes at me again, relentless.
A fist to my kidney. An elbow to my shoulder. A knee that slams into my already wounded side hard enough to make my vision spark.
I hit back where I can—an uppercut that snaps his head, a sharp kick to his shin—but he absorbs it, adjusts, and counters. Every move I make, he’s already anticipating the next one.
Because he taught me how to fight.
And he taught me where I fail.
And for one stupid, treacherous second, my body remembers something it shouldn’t.
His hand at my shoulder years ago, steady and firm, turning me an inch to the left.
“Again,” he’d said, not unkindly.
Not a weapon. Not an asset.
A student.
A girl who believed him when he said he was keeping her safe.
I spit blood onto the gravel and laugh breathlessly. “You always did hate when I improvised.”
“And you always confused improvisation with strategy,” he snaps back, driving me sideways into a wooden bridge railing.
The bridge creaks as we crash into it. Water splashes below. Lanterns sway overhead.
He pins me there for a moment, forearm pressing into my throat, eyes hard now. No fondness left. Just certainty.
“You could have ruled beside me,” he says quietly. “Instead, you chose chaos.”
I headbutt him. “Rule that. Fucking asshole.” I mutter the last two words.
It catches his nose and makes him curse as he stumbles back a step.
Not far.
Never far.
I don’t chase him. I reset, stance tight, breathing measured, and he does the same. The moment stretches again, taut, and deliberate.
Then he advances.
One step.
I step back.
Another.
I give him ground inch by inch, letting him think he’s herding me, letting him believe he’s dictating the terrain. Gravel crunches under my heel, then stone, then smooth tile as the garden gives way to the hotel entrance.
The glass doors loom behind me, reflecting two bloodied figures locked in a familiar geometry. Teacher and student. Predator and prey. It’s impossible to tell which is which anymore.
