Chapter 216. To Her, Useless Information Is Dangerous Information
The days that followed were an exercise in mounting desperation. William felt as though he were trying to teach poetry to a statue, or perhaps more accurately, trying to explain the concept of sunlight to someone who had spent their entire existence in a windowless dungeon.
Every attempt at connection felt like pushing against a wall of solid granite, smooth, unyielding, and utterly indifferent to his efforts.
He knew he couldn’t keep dancing around the edges of her trauma forever. If he wanted to reach the person beneath the soldier, he had to stop treating her like a delicate artifact that might shatter at a touch and start treating her like a person who simply lacked the vocabulary for being human.
A few days later, during a grueling session where the humidity hung heavy in the air like a wet shroud, William decided to abandon subtlety entirely.
They were in the middle of an exhausting footwork drill, a repetitive, punishing series of lateral movements designed to build calf endurance and spatial awareness. Lia’s breathing was controlled, rhythmic, almost mechanical, despite the sweat streaming down her temples.
"What’s your favorite color?" he asked.
The question was flung into the space between them, utterly apropos of nothing. It was a jarring intrusion of domestic normalcy into the sterile discipline of their training.
Lia didn’t just stop; she froze. Her boots skidded slightly on the gravel as she killed her momentum instantly, her body locking into a defensive posture.
She turned to face him, her dark eyes narrowing with an expression of genuine, unfiltered bewilderment. "Why are you..."
"Why are you asking me that in the middle of training?" Her voice carried a note of suspicion, as if he had suddenly switched from a sparring partner to an assassin using psychological warfare.
"Because it’s a simple question, Lia," William said, wiping sweat from his eyes.
He kept his tone light, though his own heart was hammering from the exertion. "And I’m trying to learn something about you that isn’t related to swordsmanship, or bloodlines, or tactical advantages."
Lia didn’t relax. If anything, her stance became more rigid.
"Is this... some kind of test?" she demanded. "A test of focus? Or maybe a test of reaction time?"
"It’s not a test, Lia... I promise you, there is no hidden trap here."
"Then I fail to see the utility," she countered, her brow furrowing. "I don’t understand the purpose of asking a question with no measurable outcome."
"What does knowing my preference in pigment accomplish for our training?"
"How does it improve my ability to parry a thrust or read an opponent’s intent?"
William felt a strange, hysterical bubble of laughter rising in his throat. He had to swallow hard to suppress it.
It was absurd, utterly and magnificently absurd. He was standing in a courtyard, drenched in sweat, trying to engage in small talk with a woman who analyzed conversation like she was dissecting a corpse.
’She’s not being difficult on purpose,’ he realized, a pang of sympathy cutting through his frustration. ’She literally doesn’t know how to process information that doesn’t have a survival value...’
’To her, useless kind of information is dangerous information.’
"There doesn’t need to be a measurable outcome, Lia," he said, forcing himself to speak with as much patience as he could muster. "That’s... that’s kind of the whole point."
"Some things exist simply for the sake of existing, while others are just... pleasant."
Lia stared at him. She looked genuinely troubled, her mind visibly churning as she tried to apply her analytical framework to his nonsensical request.
She looked like she was trying to solve a complex equation where all the variables were imaginary numbers. The silence stretched between them, uncomfortable and thick, punctuated only by the distant clatter of wooden swords from the other students.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of internal calculation, she spoke.
"Green, I suppose." Her voice was quiet, almost uncertain. "I don’t have a strong reason for it..."
"It simply... does not irritate my eyes."
William felt a small, unexpected surge of triumph. It wasn’t a breakthrough, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a crack. A tiny, hairline fracture in the granite.
"You don’t need a reason, Lia," he said softly, offering her a small, encouraging smile. "You’re allowed to just like something without having to justify it to the world."
Lia shifted her weight, her shoulders dropping perhaps half an inch, the closest she had come to relaxing in weeks.
"This feels deeply strange," she admitted.
There was no anger in her voice now, only a raw, unguarded honesty that made William’s chest ache. "Everything about this interaction feels... inefficient."
Despite the exhaustion and the frustration of the past week, William found himself grinning at the sheer, earnest confusion written across her face.
She was a creature of logic caught in a web of emotion, and for a fleeting second, she looked less like a weapon and more like a young woman who had been deprived of something fundamental.
"Yeah," he said, his voice warm. "I imagine it does."
"But we’ll get there, Lia. One question at a time."
...
The training sessions had become a strange ritual of attrition, a war of wills where William fought to reclaim Lia’s humanity while she fought to maintain her survival instincts. The air between them was always charged, a coiled spring of unspoken tension that neither seemed capable of fully releasing.
It was during one of these sessions, several days after the chilling confrontation with Seraphina, that the fragile equilibrium between them shattered. The afternoon sun was bleeding out across the training grounds, casting long, distorted shadows that made the courtyard look like a battlefield from a fever dream.
They had just finished a grueling greatsword drill. The physical exertion had been punishing; both of them were drenched in sweat, their muscles quivering with the kind of deep, bone-aching fatigue that only comes from pushing past the point of exhaustion.
William could taste copper in his mouth from a split lip, and Lia’s breathing was a series of ragged, controlled gasps.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the distant, metallic clang of swords from the other students. William began to wipe down his blade, expecting the usual curt nod of dismissal before she retreated to her solitary training chambers.
But Lia didn’t move. She stood several paces away, her silhouette sharp against the dying light.
She looked smaller than usual, her shoulders carrying a weight that had nothing to do with the steel she wielded.
"Instructor Wade..." Her voice was quiet, stripped of its usual military crispness.
He looked up, surprised by the unusual softness. "Yeah?"
"Could I stay somewhere near you tonight?"
William froze, the cloth halfway down his sword blade. ’What did she just say...? I better ask that again... just to clarify it.’
The question was so alien, so divorced from the transactional nature of their relationship, that he genuinely thought he had misheard her. "Sorry, what?"
Lia didn’t flinch at his confusion. She met his gaze directly, though there was something fractured in her eyes, something that reminded him of a blade that had been tempered too many times and was beginning to develop microscopic stress fractures.
"I want to be somewhere under the same roof as you tonight," she said.
Her words were measured, each syllable delivered with a careful, almost painful precision, as if she had rehearsed the phrasing for hours to ensure she didn’t sound... desperate.
"Just for tonight... and I do understand it is an unusual request."
William lowered his sword completely, his mind racing. ’What is happening?’
’Is this a trap? Is this Seraphina’s influence?’ But the look in Lia’s eyes wasn’t one of calculation; it was one of raw, unguarded uncertainty.
A flicker of genuine concern rose in his chest.
"That’s... well, it’s not that I mind, Lia," he said slowly, trying to navigate the sudden emotional minefield. "I’m just trying to understand why, though."
"Is something wrong? Did something happen?"
Lia hesitated. For a terrifying moment, William thought she would retreat, that the familiar wall of icy indifference would slam down between them, sealing her off once again.
He braced himself for the deflection, for the ’I am fine’ that meant ’I am drowning.’
Instead, she lowered her head, her voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to carry more weight than any battle cry.
"I don’t have a specific reason I can explain well." A muscle jumped in her jaw. "I just know that I don’t want to be alone tonight."
"And I don’t have anywhere else I feel safe enough to ask."
The admission hit William like a physical blow. ’Safe enough.’
The words echoed in his mind, hollow and devastating. For someone who could kill a dozen men without breaking stride, the concept of safety was clearly a foreign, terrifying luxury.
"You could stay in the dormitories, Lia," William said gently, though his heart twisted at his own obvious inadequacy as a solution. "You’re surrounded by people there."
"Guards and even students... you’re never truly alone, especially if you bring Kaela to live under the same roof with you for tonight."
Lia looked up, and for the first time, he saw the profound loneliness behind her eyes, a vast, empty space that no amount of training could fill.
"That’s not the same thing," she said.
The quiet vulnerability in her tone was almost unbearable; it was the sound of someone admitting they were breaking.
"I’d rather kill myself than be under the same roof with Kaela too."
"Yessh... that’s harsh," William sighed. "And don’t joke about killing yourself."