The blade should have missed him.
My footing was wrong, weight off, angle too wide.
But it didn’t.
It connected—fast and clean—across Cassian’s forearm, drawing blood before either of us registered the hit.
We both froze.
I still had my arm raised, breath caught mid-motion, pulse racing.
Cassian looked down at the cut, then at me.
He didn’t speak.
Didn’t need to.
Because we both felt it—that snap of electricity between muscle and movement. That moment where instinct kicked in, not trained, but *remembered.*
It wasn’t something I’d learned from him.
It was older.
Mine.
Cassian slowly lowered his arm, blood already drying. “That wasn’t luck.”
I nodded, my chest rising and falling fast. “I know.”
We circled each other again, slower this time. Less like teacher and student.
Mor
