Chapter 198: Choosing Sides

Aria’s arrow cut through the air first.

Damon no longer reacted as before. There was no surprise, nor that minimal delay between realizing and acting. He moved almost at the same time as the shot was fired, his body sliding to the side as the leather capsule passed where his shoulder had been.

He didn’t react immediately.

He waited.

Aria noticed.

A brief smile—almost imperceptible—appeared on her face.

“She’s learning not to take the bait,” she thought.

She shifted her position, stepping carefully between exposed roots, using a tree trunk as partial cover. Damon followed the movement without turning his head completely. Instead, he adjusted his feet, his body weight distributed more loosely, more… prepared.

Don’t search. Feel.

He took a deep breath.

He fired.

The arrow wasn’t intended to hit Aria. She passed close to the tree behind which she was moving, forcing her to advance to a less comfortable angle.

Pressure.

Aria lunged forward, firing almost on the move.

Damon rolled forward this time instead of backward—a new reflex. The arrow passed over him, and before he even finished rolling, he was already on his knees, bow raised.

Released.

The impact struck Aria on the side of her thigh.

Not hard enough to knock her down.

But hard enough to leave a mark.

She stopped.

For a full second.

“Better,” she said loudly.

Damon didn’t relax.

He knew that second wasn’t a gift. It was a test.

Aria moved again, now closer. More aggressive.

She deliberately closed the distance.

“You noticed, didn’t you?” she said, as she advanced. “The bow doesn’t force you to keep your distance. It gives you a choice.”

Damon responded with two quick shots, one high, one low.

Aria dodged the first and partially blocked the second with her forearm, absorbing the impact with a controlled grunt.

She was smiling now.

“That’s it.” She turned and fired sideways, almost without aiming. “Start thinking like a predator, not a sentry.”

The arrow struck Damon in the flank.

This time, he didn’t fall.

He absorbed the impact, took a misstep… and kept advancing.

Aria’s eyes widened for a moment.

“Interesting.”

Damon fired point-blank.

The arrow struck her bow, knocking it off its perfect line of fire.

Aria took two steps back, genuine surprise in her eyes.

“You accepted the damage,” she commented. “Instead of avoiding it.”

“Because avoiding it isn’t always possible,” Damon replied, breathless. “But moving forward… sometimes it is.”

She watched him silently for a few seconds.

The wind swept through the clearing, carrying the scent of damp earth and crushed leaves. The distant sound of birds contrasted with the almost palpable tension between them.

“You’re changing,” Aria said finally. “Faster than I expected.”

Damon lowered his bow for a moment.

“I have no choice.”

“Yes, you do.” She tilted her head. “It’s just that you don’t like the alternatives.”

He let out a short laugh.

“None of them.”

Aria returned to her initial position and pointed at him with the tip of her arrow.

“Let’s stop for today.”

Damon blinked.

“What?”

“If we continue now, you’ll hurt yourself more than necessary,” she said. “And you’re going to need your whole body functioning in the next few days.”

He didn’t argue.

The fatigue was truly starting to creep in now that the adrenaline was subsiding. Each previous impact seemed to take its toll all at once.

He set the bow down and took a deep breath.

“Morgana will arrive,” he said, more as a statement of fact than a question.

Aria nodded.

“Yes.”

“And Arven doesn’t send someone like that without a clear intention.”

“No,” she agreed. “They send them to gauge, to pressure… or to provoke a mistake.”

Damon closed his eyes for a brief moment.

“She’ll try to talk to me like before.”

“And that’s what worries you most?” Aria asked.

He opened his eyes.

“It’s what could make me mess up the most.”

Aria walked over to him and stopped a step away.

“So remember who you are now,” she said firmly. “Not Arven’s knight. Not the academy student. Not the shadow of anyone’s name.”

She lightly touched his bow.

“You are someone who survived. Who chose. Who left.”

Damon stared at her.

“And if that’s not enough?”

Aria smiled—not provocatively, but with something more solid.

“Then you learn even faster.”

She turned and began to gather the arrows scattered across the clearing.

“Tomorrow we train with real obstacles. Uneven terrain. Continuous shooting.”

Damon grimaced.

“You hate my spine.”

“I value your life,” she corrected him.

He watched as she took a few steps back, then spoke:

“Thank you.”

Aria didn’t turn around.

“Don’t thank me yet,” she replied. “When Morgana arrives… training will stop being physical.”

The weight of those words hung in the air.

Damon looked at the line of trees beyond the clearing, imagining the road leading to Wykes Manor.

Arven was moving.

Morgana was coming through it all.

And, for the first time since leaving the dukedom, Damon realized he wasn’t just preparing to fight.

He was preparing to choose a side.

Damon remained motionless for a few moments after Aria disappeared among the trees.

The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it was heavy. Laden with everything that had been said… and, mostly, with what hadn’t yet been said. The wind gently rustled the treetops above, and the clearing seemed larger now, as if the space had expanded without the constant presence of movement and impact. Damon took a deep breath, feeling the air enter with difficulty, his muscles finally protesting what they had endured.

He lowered the bow slowly.

Morgana was coming.

Arven was moving.

The past knocked at the door with the subtlety of a battering ram.

Damon closed his eyes.

For a brief instant—just one—ancient images threatened to rise to the surface.

Cold chains on his wrists.

The smell of rust and fear.

The empty gaze of men being valued like merchandise.

A price being decided.

He tightened his fingers around the bow until the knuckles turned white.

“No…” he murmured, almost inaudibly.

He owed nothing to Arven.

He owed nothing to the academy.

He owed nothing to the name they were trying to force back onto him.

Damon opened his eyes and exhaled slowly, as if expelling something old from his chest.

“I don’t choose old sides,” he said to himself quietly. “I choose who chose me.”

Elizabeth.

The memory of her came clear. Not as a distant noblewoman, but as the woman who had looked at him not as a weapon… nor as an object.

As someone.

She didn’t ask how much he was worth.

She didn’t try to bend him with empty promises.

She didn’t put him on a golden leash.

She took him off the market.

Off the table.

From the destiny that others had decided.

A favor that charged no interest.

Damon let out a low, tired, almost bitter laugh.

“Choosing Arven would be like going back to a cage,” he murmured. “Only more elegant.”

He turned his face, staring at the path that led back to Wykes Manor. The road was simple, almost banal… but at that moment, it seemed more solid than any promise of power or prestige.

“I’ll stay,” he said, as if someone were listening. “With the one who gave me a choice.”

The bow rested on his shoulder with an automatic gesture. Each step he took out of the clearing seemed to push away a little more of the weight Arven was trying to throw on him.

There would be no going back as an obedient knight.

There would be no kneeling before an ancient coat of arms.

There would be no pretending that the past could be reused as a political tool.

If Morgana came, he would speak.

If Arven pressed him, he would resist.

But his side… was already decided.

Damon sighed one last time, long and deep, like someone accepting an inevitable war—but not on the enemy’s terms.

Then he turned his face completely, leaving the clearing behind, and headed toward the manor.

For Elizabeth.

For the gift he had chosen.

And for the future that, for the first time, would not be imposed.

…

Far from Wykes Manor, far from the silent forest and the disciplined training, there was a place where the air was too heavy to breathe deeply.

The black market.

There, the torchlight didn’t illuminate—it only revealed enough to remind everyone where they were. Shadows creaked across the stone walls, and the smell of sweat, dried blood, and cheap incense mingled in a nauseating combination. Empty cages creaked in the subterranean wind, some still stained with recent scratches.

In the center of a large hall, a man paced back and forth.

His steps were quick, uneven.

He was nervous.

Very nervous.

“GONE!” the man roared, kicking a chair that flew against the wall and shattered. “A whole succubus! Alive! Marked! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF THE VALUE OF THAT?!”

The men around him lowered their heads. Merchants, hunters, middlemen. People accustomed to cruelty… but not to that tone.

The man ran a hand through his greasy hair, his eyes red, veins bulging on his neck. A black metal necklace with runes pulsed weakly against his chest—a control artifact, now useless.

“She didn’t run away on her own,” he continued, growling. “Someone took her from there. Someone entered my territory, broke my chains, and walked away as if nothing had happened.”

He stopped suddenly, staring at one of the men in front of him.

“Do you know what this means?”

Silence.

“It means someone disrespected me.” His hand clenched tightly, and the necklace made a dry crack, splintering slightly.

“I’m going to kill everyone involved,” he said, with a feigned calm that only made the threat worse. “One by one. Slowly.”

He turned, facing the back of the hall, where maps were spread out on a stained wooden table.

“I want immediate tracking,” he ordered. “Witnesses, footprints, residual magic, rumors. Bribe whoever you need to. Kill anyone who doesn’t cooperate.”

One of the men swallowed hard.

“Sir… what if the one who took the succubus is someone important?”

The man smiled.

But there was no humor in that smile.

“Then it will be even more fun.”

He leaned over the table, his fingers pressing on a specific point on the map.

“No one steals from me and simply disappears.” His eyes gleamed with hatred. “I want names. I want routes. I want to know who thought they could challenge me.” He straightened up, his voice low and venomous:

“Bring back my succubus…

or bring back the heads of those who tried to save her.”

The torches flickered.

And, somewhere far away, the invisible thread of the hunt began to unravel.

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