The Return Of The Exiled Villain

Gray stared at her for a few seconds.

The wind moved between them, carrying the faint scent of the altitude flowers, pulling lightly at Maelis’ hair.

Her sapphire eyes stayed on his face with an openness she showed no one else.

He turned his head.

”I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Her jaw tightened instantly as she reached out toward his arm.

He stood up.

”This date’s over,” he said, dusting off his coat.

”I’ll be heading out now.”

”Wait!”

Maelis was on her feet immediately, her hand catching the edge of his sleeve before he cleared the ledge.

But even if she caught his sleeve, Gray shook it off before walking away and completely ignoring whatever she wanted to say.

He didn’t have enough time to deal with this bullshit.

Maelis stood at the ledge with her hand still slightly raised, watching his back, her expression doing several things in quick succession that no one was present to catalog.

Then she pressed that hand against her own chest, very quietly, and looked out at the city instead.

”...Why me?”

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A few days passed quietly.

The academy’s rhythm shifted in the way it always did before a major event, subtly at first and then all at once.

Bulletin boards were updated with colorful announcement papers that hadn’t been there the day before.

Students who hadn’t spoken to each other across class boundaries were suddenly making plans in corridors and common areas, the particular social loosening that came when an institution decided, collectively, to stop being an institution for a few days and become something more like a celebration.

The Sword Festival had arrived.

The academy’s inner courtyard, which on normal days functioned as a transit space between buildings, had been transformed overnight into something that required a second or third look to fully process.

Vendor stalls lined every available wall, selling everything from grilled meat skewers and sweet pastries to mana-infused accessories, commemorative seals, and hand-painted banners in the colors of every participating academy.

The smell alone was enough to pull students out of their dormitories before their alarms.

Colored lanterns hung between the building rooftops on strings that stretched across the entire courtyard.

They weren’t lit yet, but were visible, probably waiting for the evening when they would turn the whole space into something more dramatic.

Performers occupied the courtyard’s open center.

A pair of traveling sword dancers moved through a choreographed routine while a musician nearby played something with a stringed instrument.

Every visiting academy had set up a small representative display along the eastern arcade, their students present in clusters wearing their own colors.

It was loud and warm and smelled extraordinarily good.

Lyra appeared at Gray’s side approximately four minutes after he stepped outside, her golden-brown hair loose and her expression carrying a bright amount of excitement of someone who had been looking forward to this.

”Come on!!!”

”Where are we going?” Gray sighed with a small smile.

To his words, Lyra beamed at him, closing her eyes as she spoke.

”Everywhere!” she excitedly declared, already pulling him by the wrist before he could form a follow-up question.

The courtyard hit them all at once, the smell first, grilled meat and sweet pastry and something floral from a vendor three stalls down that Gray couldn’t immediately identify.

Then the noise, vendors calling out, students laughing, a musician somewhere to the left playing something with enough rhythm that the crowd near him had unconsciously started moving to it.

Lyra stopped at the first stall with the decisive energy of someone who had already made this decision before arriving.

”Two,” she told the vendor, pointing at the skewers without reading the description.

”You don’t know what they are,” Gray warned.

”They smell good.”

”That’s your entire standard.”

”It’s a good standard.” She turned and pushed one into his hand.

”Eat.”

He looked at it.

”Lyra.”

”Gray.”

He ate it.

It was surprisingly good.

Flame-seared, with a faint mana-rich quality to the meat that sat warmly in the chest after swallowing, the kind of food that explained why the line for this particular stall was longer than its neighbors.

Lyra watched his face while he chewed with the focused attention of someone monitoring an experiment.

”Well?” she asked.

”It’s good,” he nodded.

She looked enormously satisfied by this, as if she had personally cooked it.

”See?” she made a proud face.

”My standard works!”

She bit into hers and made a sound of quiet contentment, her eyes closing briefly.

They walked slowly along the stall row without particular direction, Lyra eating with the relaxed enjoyment of someone completely at home in a crowd, and Gray following her pace, his own skewer mostly finished.

”Did you sleep well?” she asked, not looking at him, eyes drifting across the adjacent stalls.

”Reasonably.”

”I didn’t! I kept thinking about the festival, and then I couldn’t stop, and then it was somehow already morning.”

”You were excited about food stalls.”

”I was excited about today,” she corrected, glancing at him sideways.

”There’s a difference.”

He remained silent at those words.

Thump!

She bumped his arm lightly with her shoulder and looked away before he could respond to it.

”What’s that one?” She pointed at a stall ahead displaying small paper cones filled with something crystalline.

”Mana confections. Elemental affinity variants.”

She was already walking toward it.

”How do you know that?”

”I read the sign.”

”Oh...!” She squinted at the sign as they approached.

”I didn’t see it.”

”It’s directly above the stall.”

”I was looking at the colors.” She leaned forward to examine the cones with open curiosity, her hair falling over one shoulder.

”They’re pretty. Which one should I try?”

”Wind.”

She picked up the wind affinity cone and bit into it.

Her face went through several expressions in rapid succession. Anticipation, concentration, and then, a a slowly building personal offense.

”...It disappeared,” she mourned.

”Wind affinity.”

”I bit it and it just—” She gestured at the empty air.

”Gone.”

”That’s the point.”

”What’s the point of food that disappears?!” She turned to the vendor with genuine grievance in her expression.

”It just disappeared!”

The vendor, an older woman who had clearly had this conversation before, smiled patiently.

”Try the fire one next, dear.”

Lyra picked up the fire affinity cone with renewed determination.

”Don’t,” Gray warned her with a narrowed look.

”It’ll be fine.”

”Lyra—”

—Chomp!

She bit into it.

Three seconds of silence.

Then her eyes went wide, and she grabbed his sleeve with both hands, her face going red, tears forming at the outer corners of her eyes from the heat.

”WATER!!!”

”I told you.”

”GRAYYYYY!!!”

He produced his cup from the nearest beverage stall he had stopped at thirty seconds ago in preparation for exactly this outcome, and held it out.

She grabbed it and drank half without breathing, then stood very still while the heat passed through her system.

Then she looked up at him with the most betrayed expression he had ever seen on a human face.

”You knew,” she glared at him.

”I simply assumed.”

”You let me eat it.”

”You didn’t listen when I said don’t.”

”You could have been more convincing!”

”I said don’t.”

”MORE CONVINCINGLY, GRAY!!!!!!!!”

He looked away.

’Pfft...’

The corner of his mouth was doing something he preferred she not have direct visual confirmation of.

She noticed anyway.

”You’re laughing at me,” her eyes practically threw daggers at him.

”I’m not laughing.”

”Inside you are.”

”...”

She stared at him for another second, and then something changed in her expression, and she started laughing, with one hand pressed against her mouth and the other still holding his cup.

He looked at her with a faint.

”Pwahahaha, it really was spicy,” she managed between breaths.

”Fire affinity,” he repeated.

”You’re so annoying,” she smiled warmly, handing back his cup.

They kept walking until they eventually reached what seemed to be an exhibition stage. It had gathered the largest crowd of anything in the courtyard.

Lyra pulled Gray close enough to see over the heads in front of them.

Two sword dancers moved through a choreographed routine on the raised platform, their blades leaving colored mana trails in the air that held their shape for several seconds before dissolving, building layered shapes above the stage that overlapped and interacted, and occasionally produced secondary effects where they crossed.

Lyra went quiet immediately.

Her eyes tracked every movement with the wide, focused attention she brought to things she genuinely loved.

”The blue one,” she mumbled softly.

”Mm.”

”How does she hold the trail that long? She’s barely at the Intermediate Realm, no?.”

”Compression along the flat rather than the edge. She’s not releasing it during the swing. She’s releasing it at the endpoint and letting the trail form backward through the arc.”

Lyra was quiet for a moment, watching.

”That’s really smart,” she said.

”It’s efficient.”

”It’s beautiful... Both things can be true.”

He watched the blue dancer complete another sequence, the trail curving above the stage in a long, clean arc.

”...Both things can be true,” he agreed quietly.

Lyra glanced at him.

He was watching the stage.

She smiled and looked back at the performance and said nothing, her shoulder settling comfortably against his arm.