The next morning as per usual attempt for visiting, she dressed in full regalia anyway—black coat with silver trim, sword and gun at her sides, hair tied back in the neat ponytail he used to tease her about—and marched to the checkpoint. The same guard stood there, older, grayer, the same sympathetic-but-firm expression she had memorized over the years.

  “Champion Clorinde,” he said before she could speak. “The Duke informed us. You may pass. Elevator is prepped. Straight to admin.”

  She froze mid-step.

  Just like that?

  No ledger check. No delay. No “not permitted today.” The reinforced doors hissed open behind him, revealing the familiar descent into the depths.

  Clorinde’s pulse roared in her ears. This was the moment she had trained for, bled for, written endless letters for—and now the path was clear, and she felt utterly unprepared.

  “I—” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat, forced steel back into it. “I need to confirm a detail first. I’ll return tomorrow.”

  The guard raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. “As you wish. The Duke will be notified of the delay.”

  She turned on her heel and left—fast—before the tremor in her hands could betray her.

  The letter arrived without fanfare, delivered by the same Melusine courier who had surfaced from Meropide more times than Clorinde could count. It was sealed with the Duke’s embossed mark, the paper thick and official. No envelope scent of tea or herbs—just crisp, bureaucratic white.

  She opened it in the dim light of her Palais quarters.

  Champion Duelist Clorinde,

  Permission to enter the Fortress of Meropide is hereby granted.

  Report to the surface checkpoint at 1400 hours tomorrow. Administrative level access approved.

  —Wriothesley, Duke of Meropide

  Straight lines. No greeting. No farewell. No apology. No warmth. Just the cold precision of a man who had spent years learning to keep everything locked behind bars—including himself.

  Clorinde stared at the words until they swam. After seven years of silence, after every letter returned unanswered, after every checkpoint rejection—this. So sudden. So final.

  She folded the paper once, twice, and pressed it against her chest as though it might burn a hole through her Champion coat. How could she face him tomorrow? After everything she had poured into those letters—anger, hope, frustration, quiet longing—how could she walk through those gates and look him in the eye without the words she had rehearsed a thousand times crumbling on her tongue?

  She couldn’t. Not yet.One more day. She needed one more day to remember how to breathe when she saw him.

  Meanwhile, beneath the waves, Wriothesley had already made peace with his own decision.

  Months earlier, Chief Justice Neuvillette had personally reviewed every report from Meropide since Wriothesley’s rise. The numbers were undeniable: corruption eradicated, production stabilized, rehabilitation metrics climbing. The Oratrice Mecanique d’Analyse Cardinale—Fontaine’s infallible arbiter—had been queried one final time.

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  Verdict: sentence served. Full exoneration. Freedom granted.

  Wriothesley could leave. He could walk the streets of Fontaine, feel sunlight on his face, taste rain that didn’t cycle through filters. He could live normally.

  But he hadn’t.

  The pardon document sat folded in the same drawer that had once held only Clorinde’s letters. He looked at it sometimes, then closed the drawer again.

  Sigewinne had asked him once, gently: “Why stay?”

  “Because someone has to keep the machine running,” he’d answered. “And because I’m not sure I remember how to be anything but this.”

  Fresh air felt like a foreign concept now. The metallic tang of recycled oxygen had become home. The idea of stepping outside—of living like everyone else—felt wrong. Like stealing something he hadn’t earned.

  So he stayed.

  And when the time finally came to face her, he wrote the shortest, most formal letter of his life. Anything more—anything honest—would have cracked open everything he had spent years sealing shut. Some things couldn’t be written. They had to be said face-to-face.

  The next day, Clorinde returned ready.

  She stepped into the elevator without hesitation this time. The descent felt endless, the hum of machinery growing louder, the pressure building in her chest like a storm about to break.

  The doors opened onto the administrative level: clean corridors, soft lighting, the faint scent of chamomile drifting from an open doorway at the end of the hall.

  She walked forward, boots echoing.

  She reached the office threshold and stopped.

  Wriothesley stood with his back to her, pouring tea from a kettle into two cups. He was broader now, scars visible on his knuckles, hair longer and pushed back. The black coat bore the subtle Duke insignia, but the way he moved—calm, deliberate—was achingly familiar.

  He turned.

  Their eyes met.

  The air between them ignited—years of silence, shame, unanswered letters, and buried affection colliding in a single heartbeat.

  “Clorinde,” he said. His voice was deeper, rougher around the edges, but the way he said her name still carried that old softness.

  “Wrio.”

  A long beat of silence.

  He gestured to the chair opposite his desk. “Tea’s ready. Sigewinne’s blend. Sit.”

  She remained standing.

  “You refused me for years,” she said quietly. “And then this. One letter. No explanation. Just permission?”

  He set the kettle down. “I read every letter you sent. Finally. All of them. And I realized I’d been hiding behind shame long enough. You deserved better than silence.”

  Clorinde stepped forward—slowly—until only the desk separated them.

  “You’re free now,” she said. “Monsieur Neuvillette has cleared it. The Oratrice had confirmed it. You could leave. Why are you still here?”

  He met her gaze steadily. “Because this place still needs me. And because I don’t know if I belong up there anymore. Fresh air feels like a lie after this long.”

  She studied him—the scars, the shadows under his eyes, the quiet strength that had always been there, even when they were children.

  “I waited,” she said. “I wrote. I climbed. I became Champion Duelist so I could walk through these gates and ask you one thing.”

  He waited.

  She drew her sword in a single fluid motion—not threatening, but deliberate—and laid it flat on the desk between them.

  “Fight me,” she said. “Properly. No holding back. No excuses. One duel. Like we promised when we were kids. Until one of us wins.”

  Wriothesley stared at the blade, then at her.

  A slow, almost relieved smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

  “You still think you can beat me, Clor?”

  “I think we both need this,” she answered. “To see what’s left. To see if anything survived the years.”

  He reached under the desk and pulled out a pair of mechanical gauntlets—his signature weapons, polished and waiting.

  “Pankration ring,” he said. “Tomorrow. No audience. Just us.”

  Clorinde sheathed her sword again. The tension between them didn’t break—it coiled tighter, electric and alive.

  “Tomorrow,” she agreed.

  Neither moved to leave.

  For the first time in seven years, they stood in the same room without bars between them.

  And for the first time, neither looked away.