Chapter 180. Someone Who Had Already Died Inside While Their Heart Was Still Beating
William gestured toward the vast, empty expanse of the training ground. The heat shimmered off the stone tiles like a fever dream, emphasizing how deserted the area was.
"Why don’t you come grab lunch with everyone? Kaela’s probably back by now, bragging about her kill count and the size of whatever rabbit she gutted."
"Catherine and Ellie made something that’s either artisanal bread or some kind of culinary science experiment gone wrong... well, I honestly couldn’t tell which from the smell drifting from the kitchens."
"Just... give yourself a break, Lia." William shrugged. "Even the sharpest blade needs to be oiled and put away occasionally."
Lia’s expression shifted fractionally. For a heartbeat, something almost apologetic flickered in her eyes, a ghost of the girl she might have been before the training became her entire identity.
But her posture remained rigid, a statue carved from stubbornness and exhaustion.
"I appreciate the invitation, Instructor... I truly do," she said, her voice carrying that same brittle, hollow quality. "But I still have roughly two thousand sword swings to complete before the sun sets."
"And I haven’t even begun the second set."
William felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. "What did you say...?"
"Two thousand?!" The number felt absurd, a quantity reserved for machines or fanatics, not human beings.
"That’s the daily requirement," Lia stated matter of factly, as if she were reciting the obvious laws of physics.
"Whose requirement, Lia?" William asked, his voice dropping to a dangerous, quiet register. "Because I didn’t authorize this."
"The academy didn’t authorize this as well, and this isn’t part of any curriculum I’ve ever seen!"
Lia paused. For the first time since he had approached her, the mask of perfect discipline cracked.
Something flickered across her features, not anger, not defiance, but something far more unsettling: genuine, raw confusion. She looked at him as if he had asked her why water was wet or why breathing was necessary.
"Mine," she said finally, the word landing between them like a stone dropped into a still pool. "It has always been mine."
William stood frozen. A cold prickle of recognition ran down his spine, not the adrenaline of a fight but the grim, instinctive vigilance he reserved for soldiers who had begun to believe their own propaganda, the ones who had crossed the line from discipline into self-destruction.
He saw the way her fingers trembled against the hilt of her practice sword, the way her knuckles were white from gripping it too hard, as if she feared that letting go would mean she would simply cease to exist.
He didn’t leave. He knew that walking away now would be a concession to the madness she was cultivating.
Instead, William moved with deliberate, unhurried calm. He settled onto a low stone bench at the far edge of the training ground, the same spot students claimed when they needed to escape the instructors’ gaze during breaks.
He simply sat there, his arms crossed, his presence becoming a silent, immovable fact in her peripheral vision.
Lia watched him, her eyes darting toward him with obvious discomfort. She clearly expected him to either escalate the confrontation, repeat the invitation with more pressure, or simply dismiss her and walk away.
When he did neither, her confusion deepened into irritation.
"You don’t have to babysit me, Instructor Wade," she snapped finally.
The words had some bite to them, but beneath the venom lay a layer of exhaustion so profound it made the insult sound weak.
"I’m not babysitting anyone," William replied without looking at her.
His gaze was fixed on the horizon, though his entire being was focused on her. "I’m resting."
He jerked his chin toward the empty space on the bench beside him. "It’s a rest day, remember?"
"The entire academy is observing it... and this... counts as participation."
He let the silence stretch between them, heavy and charged. He wouldn’t force her to stop, but he wouldn’t let her suffer in isolation either.
He would sit there like a whetstone, silent, present, and waiting for the moment she finally broke.
Lia hesitated, her knuckles white where they gripped the hilt of her practice sword. She glanced at the empty training yard, then at William, weighing the cost of compliance against the cost of defiance.
Apparently deciding that sitting nearby cost her nothing and perhaps that his presence was less threatening than his absence, she lowered her sword with a stiff, jerky motion and settled onto the far end of the stone bench.
She kept a careful, deliberate distance between them, as if any proximity might compromise her discipline.
William maintained an effortless posture, leaning back on his elbows, though his eyes remained sharp, cataloguing every minute detail of her posture.
"So," he said, keeping his tone light, almost idle, the way he might open a conversation with a stranger in a tavern where nothing was at stake. "What do you normally do on your days off?"
"Before the academy, I mean... Back when you were younger."
Lia went quiet.
It wasn’t the brief half-second pause of someone simply organizing their thoughts before speaking. This silence stretched, growing heavy and uncomfortable, filling the space between them like rising water.
William watched her closely. He noticed the way her gaze drifted toward some middle distance, not the distant horizon of a dreamer, but the hollow stare of someone looking into an empty room.
She looked like she was genuinely searching for an answer that refused to present itself, as if she were digging through a collapsed building looking for a relic she had forgotten she owned.
"I train," she said finally.
The answer was clipped and automatic.
"Right, but I mean it after that," William pressed, undeterred. "Once training’s done for the day, once the sun goes down and you’ve put the weapons away, what do you actually do?"
"Train again."
William huffed out something that started as a genuine laugh, the kind of amused sound that usually came naturally when confronted with Lia’s characteristically dry, unflappable seriousness. "Okay, sure, fair enough."
"But I’m asking about actual downtime, Lia..."
"I mean it as in real human stuff... Everybody’s probably got something like a hobby, a favorite food, some stupid game they like, and something they do just because it makes them feel alive."
Lia just nodded, hearing that from William.
"So..." William smiled. "What’s yours?"
"I’ve never really thought about it."
"Come on, don’t be shy... I won’t laugh, even if it’s the most ridiculous thing ever," William nudged, though his chest felt tighter. "Everyone has at least one thing."
"Even the most dedicated soldiers have a vice or a comfort."
Lia turned to look at him directly for the first time since sitting down. The sun caught the sweat on her brow, but it was her eyes that stopped him.
There was an honesty in them so raw and terrifyingly blank that William’s easy smile faltered before he could catch it. "I’m serious, Instructor Wade..."
"I’ve never really thought about it, and I don’t know what I would do if I weren’t training."
The words weren’t a boast. They weren’t even a challenge, and they were a confession of emptiness.
"Okay, well, what about when you get tired?" William asked, his voice losing its casual edge. "Everyone hits a wall eventually... Even you."
"What do you do when your body simply refuses to move?"
"I haven’t really thought about that either."
The smile slipped entirely from William’s face now. The heat of the afternoon suddenly felt oppressive, the silence of the academy grounds feeling less like peace and more like a tomb.
"Lia... You must get tired."
"It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when... Everyone breaks."
"I suppose I must," Lia said.
Her voice remained disturbingly clinical, discussing her own exhaustion as if she were describing the weather or the structural integrity of a wall. She spoke of her own potential collapse as an abstract concept, something that might happen to some other person, rather than a lived experience that was currently ravaging her body.
"I’ve just never really paid attention to it."
William stared at her, a cold current of unease slithering down his spine. He had seen soldiers die with their eyes open, their minds still locked on the mission even as their blood soaked into the dirt.
But he had never seen someone who had already died inside while their heart was still beating.