Bab 203: Real

After Valeria's victorious fight, the exhilaration simmered beneath her calm exterior. She held her Zweihander with confidence, its gleaming edge still casting a faint sheen under the arena lights. Lowering it, she spared one last look at her defeated opponent, then scanned the crowd for that familiar smirk, fully expecting Lucavion's face to appear somewhere in the vast sea of spectators.

But he was gone. The spot where he had been lounging only moments before was now conspicuously empty, as if he'd vanished without a trace.

Valeria felt a faint flicker of irritation, one she suppressed just as quickly as it had come. Typical of him, she thought, her lips tightening. Always drifting in and out as it suited him, never quite where she expected him to be—and never entirely absent from her thoughts, even when she wished he would be.