CHAPTER 18:IN CONTROL

I returned to the training grounds three days later.

The air was colder. Or maybe that was just me.

The bandage on my ankle was tighter than the brace. Every step ached — not enough to stop me, just enough to remind me I wasn't the same.

But it wasn't just the pain.

The glances were different now.

Some recruits looked at me with curiosity. Others with something colder — like suspicion. Jealousy. Or maybe just the simple fact that I'd been carried by a prince.

---

Kael was already waiting, arms crossed, a familiar smirk on her face.

"Look who decided to stop playing the royal patient."

I rolled my eyes. "Someone has to keep you from getting soft."

Kael leaned in, voice low. "He carried you all the way to the royal wing, you know. Like something out of those sappy romance scrolls."

I ignored her.

Tried to.

But the heat rising in my face betrayed me.

It hadn't stopped echoing in my chest — the warmth of his arms, the way he'd looked at me. Like I mattered.

Not as a soldier.

As something else.

---

"Ready to spar?" Bastien asked. His usual arrogance was there, but dimmed.

I nodded. "I won't go easy this time."

He raised an eyebrow. "Did you, before?"

Instead of answering, I stepped onto the sparring mat.

My ankle protested, but I silenced it.

I needed to feel in control again.

---

The clash of blades rang out across the courtyard.

Bastien was faster this time. Smarter. But I was sharper.

I didn't hold back.

Strike. Block. Twist. Parry.

He lunged — I dodged — pain flared up my leg — but I pivoted and knocked the sword from his grip.

He blinked up at me from the dirt, breathless.

"You've been holding back a lot more than I thought," he muttered.

I stepped off the mat, chest heaving.

"Get used to it," I said.

---

Later, while wrapping my ankle tighter behind the barracks, Kael leaned against the wall beside me.

"He was watching you, you know."

I didn't have to ask who.

"He's always watching you."

I didn't answer.

Because it was true.

Even if Valen didn't speak to me that day… his gaze lingered. Always a little too long. Always when he thought I wasn't looking.

And every time it did, my heart stirred in ways the pain couldn't explain.