Leon did not move.
His head was turned toward the trunk Kaen had slipped behind. Not exactly toward him — slightly off. As if he had sensed something without knowing where to look. His right hand had drifted down, mechanical, to the grip of the saber at his hip. Not drawn. Resting.
Kaen stayed still.
'He doesn't see me.'
Not yet. Leon had the instinct — not the precision. His head moved, slow, sweeping the trees around. He was searching. He was not finding.
Kaen could have stayed. A few more seconds, and Leon would give up. He would continue on his way, and Kaen could continue on his. No confrontation. No risk.
But Leon was not moving.
He stood there, hand on the grip, head turned. Patient. As if he had all the time in the world. As if he knew there was something there, even if he couldn't see it, and he was ready to wait.
'He'll end up finding me.'
Kaen weighed it a second longer. Then he chose.
He stepped out from behind the trunk.
Slowly. No abrupt movement. Hands visible, half spread. Not as a sign of peace — as a sign of neutrality. Not a threat, not a victim either.
Leon saw him immediately.
The black gaze passed over him. One second. Then something changed in his face — not a smile, not quite, but the beginning of one. Recognition.
"You."
His voice was clear, steady. No tension.
"You were in the final."
Kaen did not answer.
"Against Seraphina Morningstar."
Leon took a step forward. Not to threaten. To see better.
"I was in the stands. I watched you."
A silence.
"You fought against a princess. You didn't die. That's not nothing."
Kaen still didn't answer.
But inside, his mind was running fast.
There was nothing aggressive in Leon's voice. Just that steady curiosity of a country boy discovering something new. He was watching, he was filing it away. He was trying to understand.
'He wondered why.'
Of course he had wondered. Leon was not stupid — that was precisely what would make him, later, the weapon he would become. When someone gives up in a few seconds while his stance, his guard, his eyes say otherwise, people notice. And Leon had noticed.
"What's your name?"
"Kaen."
"Kaen what?"
"Kaen Celestain."
"I'm Leon. Leon Vesper."
Not Vesper-of-something. No bloodline, no estate, nothing tagged behind. The bare name of a man who had only his name.
He took another step toward Kaen.
"Show me."
"What."
"What you hid back there."
Kaen looked at him.
'He won't drop it.'
"I didn't hide anything."
"Yes you did."
Leon was half-smiling now. Not mean. Playful. The smile of someone who knows he's right and doesn't need to argue.
"Come on. Just one exchange. To see."
And without waiting for a reply, he moved.
No warning. No polite heads-up. Leon's step became a lunge, and his saber left its sheath — drawn short, sharp. Not the gesture of a trained swordsman. The gesture of someone going on instinct.
The blade came at him.
Kaen pivoted.
Not a wide parry — a minimal shift, almost nothing. A quarter step to the side, the shoulder fading back. The blade passed in front of his chest by a few centimeters, and Kaen, in the same motion, set his open hand on the flat of the saber. Not to grab it. To guide it — to finish the momentum already underway, to send it where Leon did not want it to go.
Leon had a fraction of a second of surprise.
He recovered fast — his body knew how to adapt. The saber came back, sharp, on the reverse this time. Faster.
Kaen stepped back. Twice. He avoided.
Not by returning blows. Just by avoiding.
Leon strung together three passes — each one sharper, each one read by Kaen a fraction of a second before it landed. Not by magic. Not by spatial sense. By reading. By watching the shoulders, the weight, the eyes. Something that didn't come from this body, or from this life.
On the fourth strike, Kaen finally raised his hand and blocked the blade — flat palm against the side of the steel, not the edge. A block he could hold for only a second, but a second was enough.
He pushed.
The saber deflected. Leon lost his balance for half a step.
Kaen stepped back.
Distance regained. Not a single blow returned.
Leon did not resume the attack.
He stood there, saber lowered, breath a little short, looking at Kaen with an expression that had nothing left of the playful smile. Something denser. More attentive.
"You didn't strike back."
"No."
"You could have."
"Maybe."
Leon watched him a long moment.
Then he lowered the tip of the saber toward the ground. The universal sign. Done.
"You fight better than they say."
Kaen said nothing.
Leon kept watching him, and his face changed. The player faded. Something simpler took its place — something that looked like I want to understand, but stopped before becoming a question.
He sheathed the saber. Slowly.
"This place is moving."
Kaen looked at him without answering.
"The biomes are shifting. I've seen it twice already — a wall of trees fading behind me and reforming somewhere else. You must have felt it too."
Leon took a step back, as if to show he was no longer a threat.
"You can stay alone if you want. But if there are two of us, we last longer."
A brief smile.
"And besides, you seem like a decent guy."
Kaen did not move.
His mind, on the other hand, was running at full speed.
'Alliance.'
The idea had no precedent in his plan. He had not foreseen Leon. He had not foreseen walking with someone. But Leon was not just anyone — and the simple idea of getting closer to Azriel without being alone, without carrying every step like a secret, had something efficient about it. Leon learned fast. Leon clearly knew the dimension. Leon, later, would become a protagonist — and a protagonist had trajectories the others did not.
But Leon was also the hero of the novel. The hero. The one whose arc, whose choices, whose acts were written. And walking beside him meant putting Kaen — the intruder, the hijack of the story — on that same trajectory. A bad idea for someone trying not to be noticed.
'If I say yes, I become his side character.'
'If I say no, he'll keep looking at me like that for the rest of the trial.'
Kaen opened his mouth.
He didn't have time to answer.
Somewhere, far away, at the heart of the dimension — toward the center, where she had to be — something exploded.
A rumble. Deep. Long. Shaking the ground beneath their feet, trembling the still leaves, traveling through the fabric like a string struck at full force.
Not a ripple. Not a shift.
A tear.
Leon spun around.
Kaen, for his part, was no longer breathing.
'Too early.'