Chapter 283

AURELIA’S POV This wasn’t training. The moment their swords met, I knew it. Every strike, every dodge, every brutal clash of muscle against muscle—there was nothing measured in it. Nothing careful. It was war. Kael moved like fire, fast and reckless, his eyes burning with something I didn’t understand. Darius, steady and relentless, countered every blow with lethal precision. The yard rang with the crack of wood, then the dull, sickening thud of fists when their swords splintered. I tried to tell myself this was just how warriors fought. That it was natural, expected. But I knew better, I wasn’t a fool they both treated me as. This was about something else. Something has changed in the past few weeks, between us and between them too. When Kael hissed something I couldn’t catch, Darius slammed him into the dirt with a ferocity that made my stomach turn. Kael got up, spitting blood, and came at him again. And again. And again. Until Darius finally knocked him down hard enough that Kael s