Chapter Text
With the expedition finally over and most of the knights returning to Mondstadt, Lohen had arranged a training session in Wolvendom. Out on the road to Amsvartnir, they had certainly gotten practice, but most of their energy had been spent moving, packing, hauling, and unloading gear. There had been little time for anything else. So, in Lohen’s opinion, a quiet afternoon spent refining technique and testing unfamiliar equipment was not only useful, but necessary.
He stood at ease behind the firing line, arms loosely folded, his posture as unhurried as the breeze stirring the grass around them. Ahead of him, the Fifth Company’s arrows cut through the air in clean arcs, striking the distant targets with varying degrees of precision.
Lohen watched in silence, eyes following each shot. He noted the angle of every release, the set of every shoulder, the subtle shifts in stance that most commanders would have missed. Ursula’s arrows kept drifting to the right. There was no wind strong enough to explain it, which meant only one thing; her form was breaking down from fatigue.
“Ursula?”
She lowered her bow slightly. “Sir?”
“Take a few minutes. You’re wearing out your shooting arm.”
Ursula blinked, then nodded. “Understood.”
Only after she let the bow fall fully to her side did she seem to realize how tense her muscles had become. She rolled her shoulder with a faint grimace before stepping back from the line.
Lohen watched her go with quiet satisfaction.
Ursula loved to claim she was the company’s number one slacker, but her gear always betrayed her. The careful maintenance, the worn grip, the neatly repaired straps, all of it spoke of someone far more diligent than she liked to admit. So it was good to see her actually rest for once.
Another thwip cut through the air.
Then another. Lohen’s attention shifted as an arrow struck wide. His eyes narrowed slightly. These misses were not erratic like Ursula’s. They were consistent, each shot pulling off course in almost the same way. All arrows going just a bit off to the left.
“Gunther.”
The knight stiffened. “Yes, sir?”
“Ease your grip slightly. You’re torquing the bow.”
Gunther glanced down at his hand, then adjusted his hold with a sheepish nod. “Right. Sorry, sir.”
“Don’t apologize,” Lohen replied lightly. “Correct it.”
Gunther drew again. This time, the arrow flew straighter, cutting a cleaner path through the air before striking much closer to the center of the target.
Lohen’s mouth curved faintly. “There it is.”
Training resumed, settling once more into its steady rhythm. Bowstrings snapped in clean succession. Arrows hissed through the afternoon air. Orders were given, corrections made, and bit by bit, the Fifth Company began to tighten their aim. What had started as scattered practice gradually sharpened into something disciplined and precise, each shot landing closer than the last.
Eventually, Lohen lifted one hand. “Break.”
The order passed down the line with quiet relief. Shoulders dropped. Bows lowered. A few knights rolled out the stiffness in their arms while others moved to retrieve the spent arrows from the targets. Lohen chuckled, it was cute they thought that would be all for today. “Move them five meters further back. You’re getting too comfortable.”
A chorus of groans answered him, weary but obedient. No one argued. The targets were shifted deeper into the clearing, closer to the shadowed edge of Wolvendom, where the trees grew thick and old and the afternoon light thinned beneath their branches.
Lohen remained off to the side, watching the work unfold with the calm satisfaction of someone enjoying a peaceful day. His posture stayed loose, his expression mild. Then, without warning, his attention drifted. It was a subtle thing, but Gunther noticed.
At first, he thought Lohen was watching the targets. Then he followed the line of his commander’s gaze and found it aimed far beyond the training ground, past the trees, toward a distant cliff rising over Wolvendom.
Lohen’s head tilted slightly and Gunther lowered his bow, unease prickling at the back of his neck. “…Sir?” he asked carefully. “What are you doing?”
“I believe I’m having a staring contest with a Harbinger,” Lohen said lightly, his tone almost conversational.
“Ah. Right. Of course—” Gunther nodded once, automatic and obedient. Then the words caught up with him. “…Wait, what?”
Lohen hummed softly, as though confirming some minor observation. His gaze remained fixed on the distant cliffside, unwavering. “But don’t let me distract you. Focus on your shooting.”
Gunther stared at him for a moment, trying to decide whether this was a joke, a test, or the beginning of a very bad day. Knowing Lohen, it was probably all three. Still, discipline won out. Gunther turned back toward the target, drew, and released. The arrow flew cleanly, striking just shy of the center.
“Better,” Lohen said, despite not looking at him.
That, strangely enough, reassured Gunther. If the Vice Captain could still critique his form while apparently locking eyes with a Fatui Harbinger from across Wolvendom, then things had not yet gone completely wrong. Probably. Hopefully.
Gunther nocked another arrow and just as he began to draw Lohen raised one hand. “Hold.”
Gunther froze mid-draw. The single word cut through the clearing like a blade. Around them, the rest of the Fifth Company stilled as well, their earlier ease vanishing in an instant. Bows remained half-raised. Hands hovered over quivers. Every eye turned toward their commander. Lohen’s expression had not changed much. The faint smile remained, polite and pleasant, but his eyes had sharpened.
“New plan,” he said. “Take the company and fall back.”
Gunther’s brow furrowed. “Sir, I can’t just—”
The air split with a sharp, liquid hiss. A hydro-infused arrow tore through the space between them, its trajectory unerring, aimed directly at Lohen’s head, but he didn’t so much as flinch. At the last possible moment, he tilted his head ever so slightly, the projectile skimming past his cheek with a whisper of displaced air before dissipating harmlessly into the grass behind him.
Lohen exhaled, the sound more weary than startled. “You know, it’s considered rude to interrupt a training session. Worse still to interrupt a conversation,” he began, voice touched with mild exasperation as he tilted his head slightly, the motion quick and birdlike in its curiosity. “Do the Fatui not teach manners?”
A laugh answered him, bright, unbothered, and entirely too close. “Don’t be like that,” the stranger said. “I was just saying hello.”
Gunther spun sharply, his breath catching in his throat. Standing not ten paces away, as though he had stepped out of the air itself, was Tartaglia. His posture was relaxed. His smile was pleasant, charming, even, but every instinct in Gunther’s body screamed danger.
Lohen however turned to face the newcomer, and to Gunther’s surprise, his expression brightened with recognition. “Oh, you’re the one from Liyue, aren’t you? ” he said, almost cheerfully. “Caused quite the scene there, if I recall. Made things rather inconvenient for the Honorary Knight.”
His tone was light, almost conversational, but Gunther had served under him long enough to know the difference. The crimson glint in Lohen’s eyes looked deceptively close to amusement, close to the bright, delighted gleam he wore when something caught his interest. This however wasn’t glee; this was something colder. Lohen’s smile remained friendly, polished, and entirely false.
“Still, I was under the impression Her Majesty had already taken what she wanted from Mondstadt. So…” Lohen's head tilted slightly. “What brings you here?”
Tartaglia opened his mouth, a faint smirk already forming, but Lohen’s attention had already shifted.
“Gunther?”
The knight snapped to attention at once, spine straightening as though pulled by a string. “Sir?”
“Change of plans. Take the company and return to camp,” Lohen instructed, his voice measured and unhurried, as if he were discussing nothing more alarming than a change in the weather. “Inform the Grand Master that I’ll be occupied for a little while. Things here might get a bit… messy.”
Gunther hesitated. His grip tightened around his bow, knuckles paling beneath his gloves. His gaze flickered between his commander and the Harbinger standing only a few paces away. The air between them felt wrong, heavy and charged, as though the clearing itself were holding its breath. Every instinct he had screamed at him not to leave Lohen alone, but in the end an order was an order.
“…Understood, sir,” he said at last, keeping his voice steady despite the unease crawling up his spine.
Behind him, the rest of the Fifth Company began to move. Quietly. Efficiently. No one questioned the command, though more than a few cast wary glances over their shoulders as they withdrew.
Tartaglia raised an eyebrow, his smirk faltering by the smallest degree. “That’s a bit cold, don’t you think? Dismissing me like that.”
Lohen did not look at him. His crimson gaze remained fixed on his soldiers as they retreated, watching until the last of them vanished beyond the trees. Only once he was certain they were out of sight did he finally turn back to the Harbinger.
Then his expression changed. The false politeness softened into something almost disarmingly innocent, and his smile widened, bright and cheerful. “Sorry about that. Now, where were we?”
Tartaglia chuckled, though there was a faint edge to the sound now. “Ah, right. I was introducing myself and you, you were busy pretending not to care.”
Lohen pouted. “Such a rude assumption. I wasn’t pretending.” He straightened slightly, and the playful curve of his smile sharpened into something far more dangerous. “I simply didn’t care.”
Tartaglia’s smirk returned, though this time it did not quite reach his eyes. “Is that so?” he asked, his voice smooth, though something darker flickered beneath it.
Lohen nodded solemnly. “Very much,” he said and took a few slow steps forward. “You see, you may carry weight in Snezhnaya. You may be a Harbinger. You may have soldiers who lower their heads when you pass and diplomats who measure every word around you. But here in Mondstadt…”
He stopped just close enough for the air between them to turn sharp as his voice dropped to a near-whisper, the words cutting like frost. “You don’t outrank a single one of my men.”
For a moment, neither of them moved. The wind continued to slip through the grass, soft and indifferent, but the space between them had gone taut, pulled tight as a bowstring at full draw.
Then Tartaglia laughed. “Well, that’s a new one,” he said, exhaling the last of. “Most people at least pretend to respect the Fatui. You, though, you’re an interesting one. I’m not sure whether to call it bravery or stupidity.” His smile widened a fraction. “But you look almost excited.”
Lohen’s expression brightened at once, all false innocence and dangerous delight. “Aww,” he said, placing a hand lightly over his chest. “Caught already? What a shame.”
His smile curved wider, too sweet to be harmless. “Still, I’m offended you thought I’d run. You came all this way, after all.” His crimson eyes gleamed, bright and eager. “It would be terribly rude not to entertain you.”
For a moment, neither of them moved. The world seemed to hold its breath around them, the wind quieting in the grass, the trees standing still along the edge of the clearing. Then Tartaglia’s hand twitched, and the space between them erupted into motion.
The Harbinger lunged first, twin Hydro blades forming in a flash of blue light, their edges gleaming with lethal intent. Lohen moved before the first strike could land, slipping aside with almost careless grace as the blade cut through the space where his chest had been. The second came for his throat. He ducked beneath it, close enough that the gleaming edge stirred a few strands of pale hair, and laughed softly as he stepped just out of reach.
“Not bad,” Lohen said, his tone almost conversational, as though they were discussing sword forms over afternoon tea. “But a little predictable, don’t you think?”
“Says the one holding back.” Tartaglia’s grin sharpened as he pressed forward.
Lohen chuckled, retreating a single step as another strike split the air in front of him. “Of course I’m holding back. You’re a Snezhnayan diplomat. If I were to mortally wound you, I’d never hear the end of it. Besides the paperwork alone would be unbearable.”
Tartaglia froze for the briefest instant, his grin faltering as genuine offense flashed across his face. “Are you seriously telling me you’re holding back not because you can’t go all out, but because it would be inconvenient?”
Lohen tilted his head, appearing to consider the question with grave sincerity. “Well, when you put it like that, yes.”
For a heartbeat, Tartaglia simply stared at him. Then he let out a short, incredulous laugh, stripped of all humor. “That,” he said, his voice dropping into something low and dangerous, “might be the most insulting thing anyone’s said to me in a long time.”
Lohen’s smirk widened, his crimson eyes gleaming with quiet, unrestrained amusement as his free hand slipped behind his back. “I do try to leave an impression.”
The words had barely left his lips when something flashed in the sunlight. Tartaglia’s instincts screamed. He moved on reflex, Hydro blades snapping up to guard. The impact rang sharp and clear, but something cold and razor-thin still slipped past his defense, grazing his arm before vanishing into the grass behind him. He hissed and stepped back, gaze snapping to Lohen.
Lohen had barely moved. His posture remained relaxed, almost lazy, but his eyes were fixed on Tartaglia’s arm with keen interest. Following his gaze, Tartaglia looked down. A thin line marked his skin, so fine it was almost invisible. For a moment, there was nothing. No pain, no sting, only the faint awareness that something was wrong. Then a pulse spread outward from the cut, faint at first, barely there, before sinking deeper beneath his skin.
Tartaglia’s eyes narrowed. “…You poisoned me?”
Lohen’s face lit up with boyish delight, his crimson eyes gleaming with an unsettling mix of mischief and curiosity. “Glad you noticed!” he said, his voice light and almost playful as he took an unhurried step closer. “Don’t worry, it’s not lethal. Still, its effects should start right about… Now.”
Tartaglia’s brow furrowed, confusion flickering across his face. Then, without warning, his knees buckled. He caught himself before he could fully collapse, one hand bracing against the ground, but not before a sharp, involuntary laugh escaped his lips.
“Hah… how nasty,” he muttered, forcing himself upright with visible effort. “Didn’t think the Knights of Favonius stooped to underhanded tactics like neurotoxins.”
“Underhanded? Efficient? Same thing, no?” Lohen replied smoothly, his tone carrying the kind of casual indifference that only made the insult sting more. “Still it’s a newly developed one so I’d appreciate some feedback.”
Before Tartaglia could respond Lohen’s hand flicked, and a shard of ice tore through the air. It was thin, vicious, and unnaturally sharp, its edge catching the light in a way that made it seem almost alive.
Tartaglia twisted aside on instinct, the shard slicing past his shoulder close enough to stir the fabric of his coat before burying itself in the ground behind him with a soft, menacing hiss of frost.
“Oh, good, you dodged! Jean wouldn’t be particularly pleased if I damaged a diplomatic envoy beyond repair. But…” Lohen exclaimed, before his smile sharpened, the glint in his crimson eyes turning dangerous. “That doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun.”
“Fun, huh?” Tartaglia said, his voice low and edged with challenge. He rolled his shoulder, the faintest flicker of Hydro sparking at his fingertips. “You’ve got a rather twisted sense of fun.”
Lohen laughed, the sound bright and unrestrained. It might have been charming, even disarming, if his gaze didn’t stay fixed on Tartaglia with that bright, unsettling fascination. Like a scholar studying a rare specimen pinned beneath glass. Then he looked up and the deceptively polite grin was back.
“Well, you did attack me first, so technically, this is self-defense,” Lohen said, strolling forward with a grace that made his every step seem deliberate, unhurried, and faintly amused. “And besides, you can hardly blame me for enjoying myself. I’m usually only allowed to test my little experiments on the Wild Hunt.”
His hand rose lazily, gesturing toward Tartaglia as if presenting some rare specimen for examination. Crimson eyes gleamed with dangerous delight, and his smile curved into something unnervingly sincere. “But you…” he said softly. “You are a far more interesting subject. After all, you can still feel pain.”
For the briefest moment, Tartaglia’s confident grin faltered. It was not the fact that he was being analyzed. That much was familiar. Combat was observation as much as violence, and Tartaglia knew better than most how to read an opponent in motion. He understood calculation. He understood hunger for battle.
This was different.
Lohen’s gaze carried the wrong kind of interest. It was not the look of a warrior measuring strength, nor a duelist searching for weakness. It was colder than that. More intimate. More clinical. Like being pinned beneath a microscope, every nerve, reflex, and reaction noted with quiet delight.
Worse, it reminded him of another gaze entirely. Dottore’s. That same awful curiosity. The look he gave to something rare and useful, something he was already imagining split open, rearranged, and put back together just to see what would happen.
Tartaglia’s smile returned slowly, but it no longer sat quite right on his face. “Well,” he said, rolling his shoulder as Hydro crackled around his blades, “aren’t you a creepy little freak.”
Lohen considered the insult for a moment, as if weighing it for accuracy, then shrugged. “Eh, I’ve been called worse things.”
“By enemies?”
“By colleagues, mostly. Usually Varka.”
That made Tartaglia laugh despite himself, short and sharp, his grip tightening around the twin blades in his hands. “You’re not helping your case.”
“I wasn’t aware I had one to make.” Lohen’s eyes dipped briefly to the thin cut on Tartaglia’s arm, then to the faint tremor in his fingers. The smile on his face remained bright, almost pleasant. “How’s the motor control?”
Tartaglia’s expression flattened.
Lohen’s smile widened. “That bad already?”
The Harbinger surged forward without warning.
Hydro flashed through the clearing in a violent arc, carving through the space where Lohen’s throat had been only a heartbeat before. Lohen twisted aside, light on his feet, his coat snapping behind him as the blade passed close enough to scatter frost from his sleeve. Tartaglia followed at once with a second strike, faster and lower, not aiming for a clean kill so much as forcing Lohen’s balance open.
For a moment, it almost worked. Lohen’s heel caught in the grass, his weight shifting back half a step too far.
Tartaglia saw it, and his grin sharpened. “There.”
He drove in close, Hydro blades crossing in a scissoring slash meant to trap rather than cut, but Lohen’s eyes only gleamed. In the same instant, the grass beneath Tartaglia’s boots froze over. A thin bloom of frost spread from beneath Lohen’s heel, spiderwebbing outward in a pale, glittering sheet. Tartaglia reacted quickly, wrenching himself free before the ice could fully climb around his ankle, but the hesitation cost him. Lohen slipped inside his guard.
Tartaglia’s eyes narrowed with sudden interest.
Lohen’s hand rose, two fingers pressing lightly against Tartaglia’s wrist. It was barely a touch, almost delicate, and then Tartaglia’s entire arm went numb. The Hydro blade in his hand flickered unsteadily.
“Ah,” Lohen said softly, delighted. “There it is.”
Tartaglia snarled and drove his knee upward, but Lohen leaned back just far enough to avoid the blow, pale hair lifting with the motion. Then he retreated in a smooth, gliding step, as though they were dancing rather than trying to tear each other apart. Sensation returned to Tartaglia’s fingers in an ugly rush, pins and needles crawling beneath his skin as he flexed his hand once, then tightened his grip again.
“You’re really fond of cheap tricks,” Tartaglia said.
“Only the effective ones.”
“Do you ever fight directly?” He rolled his shoulder again, more carefully this time.
Lohen tilted his head. “Why would I?”
The answer came so quickly, so sincerely, that Tartaglia actually paused.
Lohen looked almost puzzled by the question. “Direct confrontation is useful when one has no better option. But you are faster than I am, physically stronger, and considerably more experienced in close-quarters combat against opponents of your own caliber.” His crimson eyes brightened. “So naturally, I have no intention of fighting you where you are most comfortable.”
Tartaglia stared at him. “You figured all that out already?”
Lohen gave him a look that bordered on disappointment. “You were very obvious on that cliff. Besides, I am the vice commander of the ranged company. If I couldn't discern that much, I’d be unfit for the position. Don’t you think?”
Tartaglia barked out a laugh before he moved.
This time, he did not charge in with the same reckless eagerness as before. His stance lowered, shoulders settling as Hydro curled around his arms in ribbons of shifting blue. The grin remained, bright and hungry, but the wildness in it had sharpened into focus.
Good, Lohen thought, and his own smile sharpened in answer. Very good.
Tartaglia vanished into motion. His blades struck from the left, then the right, each slash tighter and faster than the last, the water-forged edges cutting through the cold air with a hiss. Lohen gave ground, but never cleanly. He slipped around trees, over roots, through broken patches of shadow and grass, drawing Tartaglia after him through the clearing’s uneven terrain. Frost bloomed in the Harbinger’s path at carefully chosen intervals, not enough to stop him, never quite enough to pin him, but enough to steal a fraction of momentum here, a breath of balance there.
But Tartaglia adapted quickly.
Too quickly.
By the fourth feint, he had stopped following the route Lohen laid for him. Instead of shifting away from the frost, he cut straight through it. Hydro surged around his legs and shattered the thin ice beneath his boots as he came in low, fast, and vicious, his blade rising in a savage upward arc.
Lohen twisted aside, brows lifting as genuine surprise flickered across his face, but he was a fraction too late. The blade missed his torso, yet its edge caught his uniform and tore a narrow line through the cloth. For a heartbeat, there was only the sound of fabric splitting. Then red bloomed beneath the tear.
Tartaglia’s grin turned feral. “Well, look at that. You bleed after all.”
Lohen glanced down. The damage was small. Barely more than a shallow cut. Nothing that should have mattered in a fight like this. Still, for the first time, his smile faded.
Tartaglia’s eyes gleamed. “Oh?” he said, voice bright with interest. “Did I hurt your feelings?”
Lohen went very still, and Tartaglia’s instincts screamed before his mind had time to understand why. He threw himself back in a burst of Hydro, clearing half the field in a single breath as water flashed around him like a shield. Only once he landed did he realize Lohen had not followed.
The knight stood exactly where Tartaglia had left him, head slightly lowered, pale hair stirred by the faint breeze. He did not laugh. He did not tilt his head with that strange, mocking curiosity. He did not even move.
For a long moment, the clearing held its breath. Water dripped from Tartaglia’s blades, striking the frost-laced grass in slow, measured drops. His chest rose and fell with exertion, though his grin had thinned into something sharper, warier. The thrill of the fight still burned beneath his skin, but unease had begun to creep in at the edges.
His fingers tightened around his blades. “…Did I break you?”
Lohen did not answer.
“Come on,” Tartaglia said, forcing his smile wider. “Don’t tell me one hit was enough to ruin the mood.”
At last, Lohen looked up. His eyes were still crimson, but something behind them had shifted into a place Tartaglia did not like. Something quiet. Empty. Wrong. Then Lohen smiled. It was small, polite, and utterly without warmth.
The temperature began to fall.
Not sharply. Not dramatically. The cold seeped into the clearing with quiet inevitability, threading through the air and settling into the grass until every breath scraped against Tartaglia’s lungs. He glanced down just as thin white veins of frost spread beneath his boots, and realization struck a second too late.
The ice erupted outward in a sudden, intricate lattice, racing across the ground with terrifying speed. Tartaglia kicked off before it could catch him, Hydro surging beneath his feet as he launched himself into the air.
It was a mistake.
Above him, the air shimmered. Cryo threads snapped into existence from the branches overhead, impossibly thin and nearly invisible, visible only for the brief instant they caught the light. Tartaglia twisted midair, cutting through two with his blades. A third grazed his shoulder. A fourth wrapped around his forearm, cold biting deep enough to make his grip falter. He snarled and tore free, Hydro exploding from him in a violent burst that shattered the threads before they could close around him completely.
He hit the ground hard, boots skidding across frozen earth, and looked up just in time to see Lohen in front of him.
A knife came down with lethal intent, the blade catching the sunlight. Tartaglia crossed his Hydro blades to catch the blow, but the impact drove him to one knee. Ice cracked beneath him in a spiderweb of fractures, and frost raced across the surface of his weapons, crawling toward his hands with a biting chill. Lohen leaned into the pressure, crimson eyes fixed on him with quiet intensity.
Tartaglia grinned through the strain, teeth flashing in the cold mist between them. “That’s it. Now we’re talking.”
Lohen’s lips curved faintly. Then, without a word, he released the pressure. The sudden shift threw Tartaglia off balance for half a second. It was all Lohen needed. He pivoted around Tartaglia’s guard and drove the blunt end of his knife into Tartaglia’s ribs.
The blow landed clean. Air burst from Tartaglia’s lungs in a sharp gasp, and he staggered sideways, boots skidding over the frost as he fought to stay upright. He managed it, barely, but Lohen was already moving again.
There was no flourish now. No taunting, no bright laughter, no curious little remarks. Just strike after strike, each one aimed with surgical intent. Wrist. Shoulder. Knee. Side. Every blow hunted a weak point. Tartaglia parried the first, deflected the second, barely avoided the third, and took the fourth hard enough to feel something bruise beneath his coat.
And still, his grin widened.
Because there it was. The thing behind the mask. Not rage, exactly. Not madness. Not even bloodlust, not in the way Tartaglia understood it. This was colder than that. Sharper. Controlled with a precision that made it far more dangerous than any wild hunger for violence.
But it was hunger all the same. He had seen that glint before, the same lethal spark in Lohen’s eyes when he had watched him charge straight into the thick of battle in Nod-Krai, unflinching, as if the chaos had called to something buried deep within him.
Tartaglia laughed, bright and breathless, even as his chest rose and fell in uneven bursts. “Hah… so much for that little speech about not liking physical fights.”
Lohen paused. The blade in his hand lowered by a fraction. “You’re right,” he said, and the smile that touched his mouth was far too calm to be kind. “I do enjoy them. But given who you are I prefer other methods.”
He snapped his fingers and pain immediately shot up Tartaglia’s arm so violently that his breath caught. It wasn't the clean pain of a cut or the dull ache of a bruise. It was sharper, deeper, blooming beneath his skin as though something small and cold had awakened inside the wound and begun tearing outward.
His gaze dropped to the thin line Lohen had opened earlier, the one he had barely noticed. The poison had not simply entered his bloodstream. It had carried something with it. Tiny shards of ice. Dormant until Lohen detonated it.
His grin twisted into something closer to a snarl as the pain kept gnawing through his nerves like something alive.
For a moment, Tartaglia could not move.
Not properly.
His fingers spasmed around the hilt of one Hydro blade, the weapon flickering as his control faltered. The pain crawled from the cut in thin, branching lines, up his forearm and toward his shoulder, cold enough to burn and sharp enough to steal the rhythm from his breathing. It was not overwhelming, not yet, but it was precise. Deliberate. Designed to interrupt just enough.
To slow him.
To make him notice.
Lohen watched every twitch with open interest.
“Fascinating,” he murmured.
Tartaglia’s eyes snapped up.
There was no smugness on Lohen’s face now. No playful pout. No bright, needling smile meant to provoke a reaction. His expression had settled into something quieter and far more unsettling. Focused. Attentive. Almost tender in the way a scholar might observe ink spreading through water.
Tartaglia hated it.
Hydro surged around him in a violent burst.
The frost at his feet cracked. The ice inside his arm screamed in answer, and Tartaglia bit back a sound that almost escaped him. Almost. He forced his fingers closed, forced the blade in his hand to stabilize, forced his grin back into place even as sweat gathered cold along his temple.
“You really are full of surprises,” he said, voice rougher than he would have liked.
Lohen’s eyes flicked to his face. “And you’re still standing.”
“Disappointed?”
“Quite the opposite.”
Tartaglia lunged. It was not graceful this time. Not clean. It was fast and brutal and powered by irritation more than strategy, Hydro exploding beneath his boots as he crossed the space between them in a blur. His blade came down hard enough to split the frozen ground where Lohen had been standing.
Had been.
Lohen slipped aside by a hair’s breadth, pale hair lifting in the wake of the strike. His knife flashed up, not toward Tartaglia’s throat or heart, but toward his wrist again.
Tartaglia saw it coming.
This time, he let the strike land.
Lohen’s blade kissed the edge of his glove, cutting a neat line through the leather. At the same time, Tartaglia twisted his arm and caught Lohen by the sleeve. For the first time since the fight began, Lohen’s eyes widened.
Tartaglia’s grin turned savage. “Got you.”
He drove forward with his shoulder, slamming Lohen back. The impact carried them both across the clearing and into the trunk of an old tree with enough force to shake frost from its branches. Lohen’s breath left him in a sharp, startled sound, his spine striking bark, and Tartaglia pressed in before he could recover.
A Hydro blade hovered beneath Lohen’s jaw. Close enough to cut. Close enough that even the smallest shift would draw blood.
The clearing went still.
Tartaglia leaned closer, his breath visible in the cold between them. Pain still burned through his arm. His fingers still trembled. But his smile had returned fully now, bright and dangerous and alive. “There,” he said. “That’s better.”
Lohen blinked once.
Then, very slowly, he smiled. It was small at first. A faint curve of the mouth, almost fond. Then it widened, sharp and delighted, and Tartaglia felt something cold slide through the air behind him.
His instincts screamed.
He released Lohen and threw himself sideways just as a thin spear of ice punched through the space where his spine had been. It struck the tree instead, sinking deep into the bark with a brittle crack. Tartaglia landed in a crouch, one hand braced against the ground. His injured arm throbbed violently. The ice inside it pulsed again, answering Lohen’s will like a second heartbeat.
Lohen stepped away from the tree, brushing splinters and frost from his sleeve as though Tartaglia had done nothing more than wrinkle his uniform. “Very good,” he said.
Tartaglia stared at him.
Lohen’s smile turned almost apologetic. “Though I should mention, if you grab me again, I’ll probably let the next one hit.”
A laugh burst out of Tartaglia before he could stop it. It came out sharp and incredulous, edged with pain.
“You’re insane.”
“I’ve been told that too.”
“By Varka?”
“Among others.”
Tartaglia pushed himself upright. His injured arm hung lower than before, but Hydro still crackled around his fingers. The pain was getting worse. Not enough to stop him, but enough that he could feel every movement before he made it, every shift of muscle answered by cold needles biting deeper beneath his skin.
He had fought through worse. He had survived worse. And yet Lohen was watching him like he knew exactly how much worse it was going to get.
That was the infuriating part. Not the poison. Not the ice. Not even the cheap tricks. It was the certainty. The calm, precise confidence of someone who had already measured the battlefield, already counted the seconds, already decided which nerves to punish and when.
Tartaglia rolled his shoulder, forcing feeling back into his arm. “You know,” he said, his voice light despite the stiffness creeping through his body, “most people who try this hard to keep me at a distance are afraid of what happens if I get close.”
Lohen tilted his head. “And?”
“And you’re not.”
“No,” Lohen agreed.
Tartaglia’s smile sharpened. “So what are you?”
For a heartbeat, Lohen said nothing. The wind moved softly through the frozen grass, and somewhere deeper in Wolvendom, a wolf howled, low and distant, the sound threading through the trees like a warning. Lohen glanced down at the tear in his uniform, at the thin red line beneath it. His thumb brushed lightly over the blood, and something unreadable passed across his face before he looked back up.
“Irritated,” he said quietly.
Tartaglia barely had time to grin before the clearing erupted.
The frost beneath his boots shattered upward, not into spikes or blades, but into a storm of glittering fragments that filled the air between them like broken glass. Tartaglia threw up a wall of Hydro on instinct, and the shards struck it in rapid succession, each impact ringing sharp as a bell. Through the distortion of water and ice, he saw Lohen disappear.
No. Not disappear.
Move.
A shadow slipped through the fractured light. Tartaglia turned, blade rising, but the neurotoxin stole half a breath from his reflexes, dragging his arm just a little too slowly through the air.
Half a breath was enough.
Lohen appeared at his side and struck the back of his knee. Tartaglia staggered, balance buckling for an instant. A second blow snapped against his wrist, and the Hydro blade in his hand flickered. The third slammed into his ribs, precisely where Lohen had struck him before.
This time, Tartaglia made a sound.
A sharp, breathless gasp tore from his throat as pain ignited along his side. He swung blindly with his good arm, forcing Lohen back before the knight could drive in another blow. Hydro surged outward in a wide, violent arc, cleaving through ice, grass, and frozen air alike, but Lohen had already slipped beyond its reach.
Tartaglia bared his teeth, breathing hard. “I had you pegged as a proper fighter,” he rasped. “But no. You’re making me move. Letting it spread faster.” His glare sharpened. “You’re holding back.”
Lohen tilted his head, as if the accusation had only mildly interested him. “I am,” he said as an ice shard spun lazily between his fingers, catching the light in a cold, hypnotic glint. “But not because I don’t want to fight you.”
With a flick of his wrist, the shard shot forward, and stopped just shy of Tartaglia’s face. It hovered there, cruel and glittering, close enough for its frozen edge to kiss the breath between them.
“I’m holding back,” Lohen continued, his voice dipping lower, “because I hate paperwork. And every minute I spend filling out forms is a minute I’m not on the battlefield.”
The crimson in Lohen’s eyes gleamed like embers buried beneath frost. “And I hate being kept off the battlefield.”
Tartaglia’s grin faltered. Every instinct screamed at him to move, to dodge, to strike first, but his body refused to obey. The poison had sunk too deep, threading through muscle and nerve, rooting him in place as Lohen closed the distance. The knight pivoted on one foot with fluid, precise grace, then brought his leg down in an axe kick that fell with the finality of a guillotine.
The impact was savage.
Lohen’s steel heel connected with the side of Tartaglia’s head. For one suspended heartbeat, Tartaglia remained upright, eyes wide, Hydro flickering uselessly around his hands. Then his body gave out, and he crumpled to the frost-laced ground like a marionette with its strings cut.
Lohen lowered his foot to the earth, unhurried, as though the fight had been nothing more than a passing inconvenience. Around him, the icy mist blanketing the clearing began to thin, curling into the grass like a retreating tide.
For a moment, he simply stood there, crimson eyes fixed on the unconscious Harbinger sprawled at his feet. His expression settled somewhere between detached contemplation and faint irritation. “Well,” he murmured, mostly to himself, “there goes that training session.”
His gaze drifted past Tartaglia’s prone form, toward the distant tree line where the Fifth Company had disappeared. Silence stretched between the trees, save for the faint rustle of leaves stirred by the wind. Lohen’s lips pressed into a thin line as he weighed the situation. “Now they’ll be too preoccupied with the possibility of a Fatui ambush to focus properly.” He sighed, the sound heavy with resignation. “What a waste. I’ll have to run the drills all over again.”
He looked back down at Tartaglia, his brows knitting together as he considered the unconscious man at his feet. “It would be impolite to just leave him here… right?”
A low growl rumbled from the edge of the clearing, breaking the stillness. Lohen’s head turned, his gaze landing on a cluster of wolves half-hidden in the shadows of the trees. Their pale eyes glinted in the fading light, fixed intently on the unconscious figure before him. The largest of the pack stepped forward, its lips curling back to reveal sharp, glistening teeth
Immediately, Lohen softened into something apologetic. “I know,” he said soft and soothingly. “I’m sorry.”
The wolf growled again and Lohen glanced down at Tartaglia, then back to the wolves, looking very much like a man caught between etiquette and common sense. “Yes, he was very rude, and yes, he did trespass. But unfortunately, I can’t let you eat him. The diplomatic fallout would be… inconvenient.”
The wolf’s ears twitched, and it let out a low, disgruntled huff, the sound almost petulant.
Lohen nodded solemnly, as though in agreement. “I know. I’m disappointed too.”
With a resigned sigh, he crouched beside Tartaglia and slipped an arm beneath the Harbinger’s limp form. For all his grace in battle, the act of lifting an unconscious man proved to be a far less elegant endeavor. Tartaglia was taller, broader, and entirely uncooperative in the way only unconscious bodies could be. Lohen’s knees buckled slightly under the weight, and he paused, adjusting his grip with a faint grunt of effort. Finally, he managed to hoist Tartaglia over his shoulder, though the result was far from dignified. The Harbinger hung like a sack of wet laundry, one arm dangling limply down Lohen’s back, his coat askew and his boots nearly dragging through the grass.
Lohen tilted his head, critically assessing the awkward sprawl of limbs and wet fabric currently slung over his shoulder. It was, in every possible sense, rather unfortunate.
The largest wolf gave a low rumble from the tree line, not quite a growl, which somehow made it worse. There was an unmistakable note of judgment in it. Lohen shot the creature a wounded look. “It’s not my fault,” he said, with as much dignity as anyone could muster while carrying an unconscious Harbinger like a poorly packed sack of laundry. “He’s the one who decided to collapse.”
The wolf stared at him.
Lohen pointedly ignored it, adjusting his grip as Tartaglia’s weight shifted unpleasantly against his shoulder. “Now then,” he continued, more to himself than to the watching pack, “I suppose I should take him to the Church for healing?”
Several wolves tilted their heads in perfect unison, pale eyes blinking from the shadows. Lohen paused. Then he nodded, solemnly, as though they had raised a very reasonable objection. “You’re right. Sister Barbara will almost certainly scold me for bringing in a Harbinger.”
He considered this with genuine care. After a moment, a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, sharp with mischief. “But I’m sure she’ll understand… eventually.”
Tartaglia shifted again, limp and inconvenient, one arm dangling down Lohen’s back. Lohen glanced toward him with mild distaste. “Come on, then,” he said lightly, starting toward the path with a cheerful sort of resignation. “Let’s get you patched up before you start drooling on my boots.”