That no amount of grinding, no number of levels, no tonnage of blood on her gauntlets would close what she had just felt open beneath her. She had spent a hundred and fifty years building herself into a weapon for exactly this kind of fight, and the man pinning her to the moss had learned hand-to-hand combat as an afterthought.
Her wrists strained once against his grip, then stopped.
"You're a truly amazing fighter-" Quinlan began after lifting his hand from her throat, seeing the fight leave her.
"Don't." It came out of her hoarse and final. "Don't give me that bullshit."
Quinlan looked down at her for a beat. Then he nodded to her once, released her wrists, and stood. "I understand."
The dome fell in a single exhale, thinning to mist and then to nothing. The courtyard opened around them, and the afternoon light settled back in warm and gold.
Quinlan returned to his previous spot and moved his focus back toward the line.
