“I’m trying to understand,” Zara said carefully. “But you’re not giving me anything to work with.”
“It’s complicated.”
Her expression flickered with hurt, frustration, restraint. “Everything is complicated. That’s not an answer.”
“I just don’t want this turning into something it doesn’t need to be.”
“And how am I supposed to know what that is if you won’t talk to me?”
He said nothing.
That was the worst part.
Zara exhaled sharply, shaking her head. “I’m trying here, Hektor. But I can’t understand you if you keep shutting me out.”
He stood there, caught between wanting to pull her close and wanting to retreat entirely, and for the first time that day, the roar of the stadium felt very far away.
He hated that she had to assemble the truth from fragments, from overheard context and pointed glances. He hated even more that he had been the one to leave those gaps. It hadn’t been malice or manipulation. It had been avoidance. He told himself it hadn’t mattered because Eleonora was firmly in the past, because his feelings for Zara were real and immediate and consuming. But standing there, watching Zara’s expression tighten as she tried to reconcile what she was seeing with what she’d been told, he realized intent didn’t erase impact.
There was also fear threaded through it, low and sharp. Not fear of losing face or of gossip or of Nyxion’s shadow. Fear of naming things too soon. Fear that if he said the wrong thing, or said too much, he would tip something fragile and new into a shape it wasn’t ready to hold. Loving Zara felt inevitable to him in a way that was deeply unsettling. It made him want to protect her, yes, but it also made him want to protect himself. To keep certain doors closed until he was absolutely sure he wouldn’t fail her by opening them.
So he shut down instead. Defaulted to silence. Control. Distance.
And as he stood there, watching her wait for him to meet her halfway, he knew that instinct might cost him far more than any careless word ever could.
He also didn’t know where to begin.
All the versions of the explanation tangled in his head the moment he tried to shape it. If he started with Eleonora, it sounded like history that carried more weight than it deserved. If he started with Nyxion, it felt political, strategic, like he was justifying alliances instead of acknowledging feelings. And if he started with Zara, with what she meant to him, the words pressed too close to truths he hadn’t fully spoken aloud even to himself.
How did he explain a past that he now knew hadn’t been about love? A relationship built on what was supposed to happen rather than what he chose? How did he tell her that Eleonora had never occupied his heart the way people assumed, that what lingered was not emotion but obligation, habit, and the echo of a path he’d assumed he had to walk? He feared that any attempt would sound like minimization, like he was dismissing something that, to Zara, clearly mattered now.
Worse, he didn’t know how to explain himself. His silence. His instinct to compartmentalize. The way Drakkon culture had taught him to endure, to carry weight alone, to speak only when words were final and unchangeable. He was used to handling conflict with action, not confession. With control, not vulnerability. Zara asked questions that required him to open his chest and let someone see the mechanisms inside, and he wasn’t practiced at that. Not with someone who could actually be hurt by what she found there.
So he stalled. He let the moment slip because he didn’t trust himself to say it right. He finally looked at her, really looked, and the emotion hit him all at once. Not the sharp heat of jealousyor the tight coil of anger, but something heavier and more dangerous. Care. The kind that loosened his grip on himself.
For once, he let his mental blocks drop. Not all the way, but enough that the noise quieted and the truth pressed close. He was still confused, still sorting through years of instincts and unspoken rules, but he knew one thing with aching clarity. He didn’t want to lose her by hiding.
“I need some time,” he said quietly. Not an excuse. A request. “Just…a little time to get my head straight. To say this right.”
She searched his face, reading more than his words, and then she nodded. No dramatics. No accusations. Just that soft, steady understanding that made his chest tighten.
“Okay,” she said simply.
And somehow, that single word carried more trust than he felt he deserved.
A Drakkon stumbled up to them with a drink sloshing dangerously close to the rim of his glass. His scales were flushed, his smile a little too loose to be polite. He squinted at Hektor, then broke into a wide grin.
“Hektor,” he said loudly, clapping a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Didn’t think I’d see you back so soon. Last time you skipped one of these, it was because of Eleonora.”
Hektor froze.
The Drakkon kept going, oblivious. “She used to hate these races, you know. Said the dust got everywhere. Funny how things change.” He laughed at his own joke, then finally noticed Zara. His gaze lingered a beat too long. “Oh. New company?”
Zara smiled, polite and distant. Hektor felt it immediately, the way her body shifted just slightly away from him. “This is Zara,” he said, voice controlled. “You’ve had enough.”
The Drakkon blinked, then chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. Right.” He leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Still, seeingNyxion here with Eleonora and all…brings back memories, doesn’t it?”
Hektor stepped forward, effectively blocking Zara from view. “Go find some water.”
