The door had closed between them, and nothing… nothing had happened.

  Althéa remained motionless, frozen in a taut silence. Her eyes stayed fixed on the closed door, as if she could force it open again through the sheer violence of her will.

  A quiet breath approached behind her.

  Lucanis.

  He stopped beside her, shoulders rigid, jaw clenched as if he were holding something back.

  “There’s something wrong with Kael,” he said in a voice too flat to be natural.

  Althéa did not even turn her head. She only gave him the slightest movement of her eyelids to show that she had heard.

  Lucanis went on, his voice slightly lower:

  “My instincts react whenever he gets too close. In the arena, I ignored it, but just now…”

  he paused, searching for his words,

  “…just now, I really felt it.”

  A tension pulled at the muscles in his neck. He seemed to be struggling against his own sensations.

  “My whole body tenses when I touch him. When I took him in my arms, I had the feeling my body wanted to push him away on its own.”

  He inhaled sharply.

  “I had to force myself to stay in control.”

  Althéa, still staring at the door, simply said:

  “What makes you say that?”

  Lucanis raised his hand before him, staring at it as if he were discovering it for the first time.

  A dull unease crossed his green irises.

  “My Dominant Trait,” he answered. “I’ve had two days to understand how it really works.”

  He took a long breath.

  “My instinct tells me when there is danger. It aligns with my reactions, sharpens my reflexes.”

  He lowered his hand.

  “I feel the same thing when I’m close to Velara… and now to the Seven of the Celestial Laws as well.”

  A shiver ran across his skin.

  “But the worst… it’s really Kael.”

  He went still, as if he had to convince himself the words deserved to be spoken.

  “When I’m near Velara, my Dominant Trait clearly tells me that she’s dangerous. But it stops there. Probably because I know she won’t hurt me. Not willingly.”

  A slight tremor passed through his voice.

  “But Kael… I feel a deep sense of revulsion. As if something in me is trying to pull me away from him. As if… something in him represents a real danger.”

  His skin broke out in gooseflesh. A dry shiver ran up his spine, as if his own body were trying to warn him of a peril he did not yet understand.

  Althéa had finally turned toward him, attentive.

  Lucanis swallowed, as though every word he was about to speak cost him something.

  “I lived in a small hunter’s village before I became ‘Lord Velcrann.’”

  He paused briefly, his eyes drifting somewhere behind her, as if he were seeing the faded silhouettes of his past again.

  “We survived through fishing, hunting, gathering. A simple life. Predictable.”

  A breath escaped him, almost imperceptibly.

  “I lived alone with my mother. I had no friends… and I saw no use for them.”

  At last he raised his eyes to hers. There was something more fragile in his expression now, though still contained.

  “Until I met Kael.”

  A smile brushed his lips, awkward and too brief to hide the edge of nostalgia clinging to his voice.

  “Our first meeting was disastrous. I threatened him with a weapon while he was drinking from a spring like some thirsty animal.”

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  Althéa smiled in turn.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  She started walking again.

  “Come with me. And continue your story. It interests me.”

  They climbed the stairs leading to the throne.

  The throne room was now empty, the echo of their footsteps resounding through the deserted vastness.

  Lucanis resumed:

  “After that… we got chased by lycaons, and we fled together.”

  He let out a brief laugh, more nervous than amused.

  “Honestly, I was planning to abandon him. He was slow, not built for survival. I thought he would only slow me down.”

  Althéa watched him from the corner of her eye, silent.

  “But in the end… he managed to follow me all the way to a cliff. The lycaons were right behind us. We had only one option left: jump into the lake below.”

  Their footsteps matched, steady, in the great empty hall.

  “That’s when he pushed you?” Althéa asked, faintly mocking.

  Lucanis nodded, an almost amused sigh escaping him.

  “Yes. He pushed me… and jumped right after. He could have left me there. He could have jumped alone and let me get devoured.”

  He clenched his fists slightly.

  “But he didn’t.”

  He paused.

  His gaze drifted away, and a shadow of shame crossed his features.

  “And that’s not even the worst part. Once we were in the water… I thought it was over.”

  He inhaled, his breath unsteady.

  “I can’t swim.”

  Althéa arched an eyebrow.

  “The man who kept us alive for a week against an Class-S can’t even swim?”

  “Yeah,” he breathed, slightly embarrassed.

  “And instead of letting me sink to the bottom…”

  His voice dropped lower,

  “…he came after me. Even though I wasn’t even moving. I had accepted that it was over. But he dragged me back to the surface with the strength of his arms… and brought me back to shore.”

  He drew in a deep breath, as if trying to release the tension that had built up in his chest.

  “He didn’t have to. Nothing forced him to. I had threatened him. Despised him. I had tried to abandon him the moment he slowed me down.”

  He shook his head slightly, still astonished by his own story.

  “And him… he risked his life for a stranger.”

  His words softened.

  More vulnerable.

  But Lucanis did not tremble: his emotions passed through him like a restrained blade, never quite breaking free.

  “So I asked myself: what would he do for someone he truly considered a friend?”

  A small silence fell between them.

  “I think that was the moment, right then, when he became my friend.”

  A breath, almost strangled.

  “My first friend.”

  He stopped dead. As if his own thoughts had suddenly blocked his path. His fists clenched in spite of himself, his knuckles whitening with tension.

  Althéa immediately turned back toward him.

  Lucanis looked away. His green irises—usually as steady as blades—had lost all firmness.

  They trembled slightly, as if he were afraid she might read in them what he could no longer keep contained.

  “I… I’ve only known him for a month,” he murmured, throat tight.

  His words were breaking apart before they even came out.

  “And I’ve only spent a week with him. And yet…”

  He inhaled, a harsh, badly controlled breath.

  As if he were fighting something inside himself.

  “He has stood by me so many times… far too many for… for someone I barely just met.”

  His eyes nearly shut beneath the weight of the pain within.

  “I hate feeling what I feel when I look at him now.”

  Althéa stepped closer, and in a soft but firm voice—a voice that did not coddle, but upheld—she said:

  “Lucanis… if you hadn’t been there during the survival course, Kael and I would be dead today. You don’t need to belittle yourself.”

  He inhaled, but the air seemed to remain trapped in his lungs.

  His shoulders trembled slightly, not from weakness—just from a truth too heavy to bear.

  “Now… when I look at him, all I see is danger.”

  His eyes were fixed on some invisible point far behind her.

  “But he’s my friend.”

  He paused, long and painful.

  His throat tightened until his lips turned pale.

  “And yet… touching him disgusts me beyond measure.”

  He lowered his head, ashamed, almost on the verge of sinking.

  Then he raised his eyes again—like someone apologizing for something he could not control—broken, but lucid.

  “And I can’t bear that…”

  His voice dwindled to a breath, almost inaudible.

  “I… I’ll never be able to be a good friend to him if I feel that…”

  Althéa listened without flinching.

  Not a movement.

  Not a blink.

  She absorbed every word… then let them die in an icy silence.

  And at last, she cut through it:

  “So what?”

  Lucanis lifted his head, caught off guard.

  She stepped forward. Only one step. But enough to crush all the space between them. Her aura changed—dense, oppressive, as if the temperature in the room had suddenly dropped.

  He felt her breath against his face.

  “Your instincts are one thing.”

  She placed a finger on his chest, just above his heart.

  A slow, precise, perfectly controlled gesture.

  “And your heart is another.”

  Each word fell like a verdict.

  Without the slightest softness.

  “If you truly want to be his friend, then be better. Stronger than your instincts. If your instincts flare up when you see him, ignore them. If it insists, silence it.”

  She paused.

  Her amethyst eyes hardened, cold as metal drawn from the forge.

  “And if that is impossible…”

  She pressed her finger harder against his chest.

  “Then learn to silence it.”

  Her gaze held a severity that did not forgive.

  “The only creatures incapable of mastering their instincts are animals.”

  A ray of sunlight passed through the great door and slid across her white hair, revealing an almost royal aura—sovereign, undeniable.

  She stepped back half a pace, just enough to look down at him.

  “So, Lucanis…”

  She let the silence stretch—heavy, cutting, implacable.

  “…are you an animal?”

  A breath.

  “Or a man?”

  He remained silent.

  He took it in.

  His throat knotted, his gaze uncertain.

  Althéa still did not move.

  Motionless like a statue of justice, hands clasped behind her back.

  Her voice resumed, as cold as a freshly forged blade:

  “We still do not know what Kael did during his Trial. We do not know how he managed to come out of it without a Trame. What we do know… is that he broke the very rules of the universe.”

  She stepped forward again, almost forcing him to hold her gaze.

  Lucanis struggled to breathe.

  “And you… are complaining because you can’t rise above your instincts?”

  An icy breath.

  “Him, an Ombrevu without education, without resources, without support…”

  She briefly closed her eyes. Then opened them again, amethyst and sharp:

  “…a boy who had nothing.”

  The emptiness of the hall amplified her voice.

  Every word rang out like a sentence.

  “I’ll say it again, Lucanis: are you an animal… or a man?”

  She did not ask for an answer.

  He raised his eyes, trembling, like someone finally accepting judgment.

  Althéa remained straight, sovereign.

  “Then rise to his level.”