Chapter 52: Lie

When she was younger, she didn't like displays of affection, especially out of fear of stealing Eva's father. Then, as she grew older, she had wanted them—but never without that weight, that ambiguity. Every touch had always been restrained, bounded by invisible limits she never dared cross.

But now, while she had been living hell, slicing goblins apart... she just wanted, for once, to let go. To stop holding herself back. To abandon the constant control that had kept her upright for so long.

She slowly relaxed. He tightened his hold. Her body responded despite herself, finding in that closeness a raw form of comfort—almost dangerous in how unexpected it was.

"You wouldn't have any memory of it anyway. So what would be the point of warning you? But I wonder... why did you burst into tears when you saw me? You didn't know who I was, did you?"

Blanche remained silent. Lying would serve no purpose. He wasn't speaking, so why should she? Her heartbeat echoed in her temples, fast, unsteady, betraying everything she was trying to hide.

Their closeness suddenly became almost unbearable. She felt her breathing unconsciously syncing with his—slow, deep—as if he were imposing a rhythm her body instinctively obeyed. His fingers brushed her arm as he released her, a fleeting contact, but enough to leave a burning trace on her skin. Blanche held her breath, acutely aware of every centimeter still separating them, of that suspended tension refusing to fade.

He understood she would not answer.

" I'm so sorry, Blanche. I know being married to my alter ego is not what you would have wanted... especially since you already love someone else. But we cannot interact with the other side."

Blanche stiffened, struck like by lightning itself. His words hit violently, impossible to ignore. He felt it and fully let her go. The emptiness left by his absence was almost as brutal as his touch.

" You are far too good for an old man like me, " he added.

A tear fell. She turned away, wiping it away harshly, arms crossed. The storm seemed to have moved inside her, rumbling with the same intensity.

Her eyes drifted briefly to his lips before she forced herself to look up again, unsettled by herself. One step closer, and she could have closed the distance. Just one. The thought crossed her mind with unsettling clarity, immediately pushed away—but too late to erase its echo.

Something had changed between them. Something dangerous.

"Your ring. If you didn't marry Eva's mother... who gave it to you?"

She met his gaze defiantly. She knew she had given hers to Aaron. Both rings shared the same alloy, the same aura. Hers. She had been the one who forged them, even if she did not know when or how. She had become a blacksmith.

Kiyan lowered his eyes to his ring.

"My wife gave it to me," he said simply. "I was married once. It's a long story. I'll tell it to you someday."

" Don't you have a photo of her, by any chance?"

He startled.

" I... no."

A lie. She would bet her life on it. His eyes had betrayed him for a fraction of a second.

" Liar, " she hissed.

An eyebrow lifted, a barely visible gesture, yet full of unsettling confidence.

"Why?" she snapped suddenly. "Damn it! I'm not a child anymore. You want me to use "tu" and call you by your first name, and the next moment you belittle me. The problem is—you don't trust me!"

He stood there, speechless. Thunder rumbled again, punctuating her words like an echo.

She took the opportunity to flee upstairs. Her footsteps echoed on the stairs, quick, almost frantic, as if she were trying to escape something far deeper than a simple conversation.

Furious, unable to sleep, she waited. An hour passed. Absolute silence. But inside her, nothing was silent: it rumbled, it boiled, a dense, burning anger that tightened her chest and stole her breath.

Each minute stretched her rage, made it sharper, more cutting, like a blade slowly being honed. She stared at the ceiling without seeing it, jaw clenched, fingers gripping the sheets, imagining a thousand scenarios, each more unbearable than the last.

She went back downstairs, activating her Shadow ability. More to test her invisibility. No—this was an excuse: she wanted to see, to understand, to catch him off guard. The house seemed to be holding its breath, immersed in a strange stillness, almost complicit.

Her footsteps made no sound, swallowed by the darkness she blended into perfectly. The office door was open, the light on. The pool's light was on as well. A bluish, shifting glow reflected on the walls, casting liquid patterns that danced like specters.

In an instant, she understood: his pants were lying on a lounge chair. Thrown there carelessly, like an abandonment. The air carried a faint scent of chlorine, warm, humid, enveloping. The pool stretched before her, vast, smooth at first glance yet rippled with steady tremors. The water caught the light and shattered it into thousands of shimmering fragments, revealing every movement beneath.

He was swimming.

On his back, with almost insolent ease. His body glided effortlessly, perfectly aligned, carried by the water as if he belonged to it. Every movement was fluid, controlled, precise: his arms rose slowly, tracing a graceful arc before slipping back in without a splash. His shoulders surfaced from time to time, carving clean lines under the light, while his muscles moved subtly beneath his damp skin.

He wore a simple dark swim brief, sharply contrasting with the luminous pallor of the water. There was something almost indecent in his nonchalance: that ease, that control, that way of moving without tension, as if nothing else in the world existed but this water and his own body. His legs kicked gently, steady and sure, propelling his form with quiet elegance.

Blanche, hidden in the shadows, felt her fury shift shape without fading. It still burned, but differently—more complex, more dangerous. Her eyes couldn't pull away from him, despite herself, as each ripple in the water seemed to feed both her anger and something more confused, more unsettling.

She tore herself away from the sight reluctantly. Watching him swim... that was something.

She slipped into the office, and saw what she never could have imagined. She had forgotten that Shadow revealed what was hidden.