There is an inexplicable and enrapturing euphoria that comes with true resonance. I imagine it must be what a bird feels when it first takes flight, with true freedom finally within reach. Learning to harmonize with resonance is an experience that defies all sense of reason, and must instead be perceived as an anomaly of psions and all that we have learned about them. I cannot tell you how it felt, only that the moment I truly experienced it, the world felt dull and my movements stiff and uncertain by comparison.

  The days after Arthur and Circe’s trip to Pallikári passed with surprising swiftness, given the fact that when combined with the nights, each ‘day’ totaled an entire 96 hour cycle. The vast amount of that time was spent with the heiress, who—after their candid discourse at the Lion’s Pride—had thrown herself into her role as his teacher with remarkable gusto.

  He learned much in the nights and days that followed their eventful outing, ranging from the history of House Leos and its choice to remain based on the island, to the various different and convoluted noble factions against which Arthur would eventually have to do battle.

  His bond with Circe grew in ways he had not anticipated, thanks in large part to the disproportionate amount of time that ‘one week’ passed in the Hellenic timescale. The first change was that Circe had seemingly become determined to understand every facet of Arthur’s motivations and opinions, and would spend hours of each cycle grilling him about his beliefs, his views, and his underscoring desires for the future.

  Every time he would attempt to dissuade her or plead simplicity, she would attack him again with probing queries and her bright, beautiful jade eyes would delve into his own like spotlights intent on finding any secrets lurking in the dark.

  They spent the nights with her lecturing him on foods, artisans, local lore and religious beliefs. She instilled knowledge in him of poets, of philosophers, of great artists and the expressions of classical beauty that Graecia had employed.

  She explained to him the ideals that had led to the first colonists creating a society so heavily inspired by Bronze Aged antiquity, and elucidated upon Laconia, and Attica, and Macedonia, and the different natures of each supercontinent.

  She taught him about the planets of the System; of Ares, and Aphrodite, and Demeter, and Hades, and Poseidon, and Zeus, and Persephone, and Hephaestus, and the military doctrines of the Ascendancy.

  She educated him in the Hyperion Sector, in the Kings, in the Royal Houses of Laconia and Attica, and in why Macedoniawas largely apolitical and had neither a King nor true political force upon Hellas or within the greater Ascendancy.

  Most importantly, she taught him about the political counterbalances between Hellas and the rest of the planets controlled by the Ascendancy, taught him about the regular tours the Kings made across the controlled worlds, and how the Hellenic Parliament consisted of representatives from every city and town in the Ascendancy at large—not merely those on Hellas.

  She explained the function of the aristocracy, the feudal nature of Ascendancy politics, and the roles Hetairoi played both in wartime and peacetime.

  That, of course, was only what she covered at night.

  “I’ve never thought so much about the petty politics of such short-lived people. I have read so much, and still barely understand them,” he’d said to her wearily during the second night cycle, after enduring hours of study on the municipal politics of the Ascendancy.

  Her reply had been both quick and poignant.

  “If you do not understand them, Arthur, how can you expect to protect them?”

  The entirely justified shame her response created had motivated him to resume his studies with gusto. It had been one of the first times his Zacaris personality traits had emerged without him catching them, and the experience had worried him.

  He did not like the idea of regressing into what he had been.

  Their days, converse to their nights, were filled with more active pursuits. They trained their bodies, meditated, visited Pallikári to learn about the notable peoples, and made introductions where suitable in order to soothe worries over House Leos’ future where they could.

  Arthur’s recent altercation helped greatly with soothing much of the skepticism.

  More than a few people eyed their evident bond and closeness as a potential sign of engagement, but always Circe dismissed these enquiries—be they subtle or overt—with polite amusement and firm denial.

  She had taken to forcing him to teach her what he knew of the sword and unarmed combat, and had even joined him for rest in his quarters on occasion with no more issue than if she had been sharing a room with a maid or a statue.

  When he had expressed his concerns for how it looked, despite him sleeping on a comfortable bedroll on the floor and her taking the bed; Circe had simply explained—with perfect rationale—that it made little sense for them to sleep in separate rooms after an intensive training session, since they would be resuming upon awakening from their short rest regardless.

  He had almost pointed out the impropriety, but had thought better of it. For some reason, he had not been able to bring himself to make mention of it.

  When the time had come for the third short nap during the second day cycle following his arrival at House Leos, he had found himself not only used to, but comforted by her soft breathing and the quiet movements she made during her slumber.

  Her growing comfort with him, of course, only led to further changes.

  Another development was her faith he would successfully become the Leos Hetairoi.

  She had made it clear, two days after his street fight, that she believed in him.

  Arthur remembered with perfect clarity how she’d come marching into his quarters to rouse him on the third day cycle, and how he’d only just finished a shower and clothed himself in an off-the-shoulder chiton and sandals, albeit imperfectly, while seated on the edge of his bed.

  Circe had stepped forward and bent down smoothly, knocking away his hands before he could protest and easily undoing and redoing his right sandal. “You can’t go around looking improperly dressed,” she had chided him. “You’ll make me look like a failure.”

  “You don’t need to—” Arthur had begun, only for Circe to silence him with a hard look.

  Something about her manner in that moment had warned him not to interrupt again.

  “When you first arrived, I thought you were a weak, posturing peacock from the Fringe coming to lord your birth over us. Not even Lord Atreus’ words in your defense were enough to assuage my doubts after you fainted coming down the transport shuttle’s steps.”

  Arthur had raised his eyebrows at the candor and hard tone of her words, but he hadn’t objected.

  “Then you defeated me in this very room, demolished those assassins, and especially after these last few days…”

  Circe shook her head and returned her gaze to his sandals, deftly finishing the redoing of his right and setting to work on his left. “I was wrong about you. If your skills as a pilot are anywhere near as gifted as your psion density and talent for personal combat, you are the only thing that can help me ease my father’s sense of guilt and personal failure.”

  She finished the left sandal, took the crimson material of the cloak from his hands, and bid him to stand.

  He did so while still listening to her with rapt attention.

  “I am not a fool, Arthur. I know what pain my father’s accident has caused him. I knew, if you did not succeed in proving yourself as a worthy Hetairoi, what risking myself in a cockpit would mean for our family—especially given the lengths some of our enemies will go to in order to ensure I suffer a similar, perhaps even more fatal accident.”

  Her powerful arms lifted and she draped the cloak across his body from his right shoulder to his left hip before setting to work at tying it properly.

  “I have been on the beneficiary end of my own psions actively affecting those around me, Arthur. You’ve seen it, I know.”

  Her eyes had narrowed while she stared at the himation, as if she had been looking for an answer.

  To what mystery, he hadn’t known.

  “I have, by the gift of my own psion density, been mostly inoculated to others’ psionic effects,” she had continued, “and so to be taken by surprise in the way you have surprised me…”

  Circe smiled as if she had found a bittersweet realization.

  “In some ways, I suppose it could be called my just desserts for such a hasty presumption.”

  Her fingers had then shifted along the length of the crimson fabric to adjust its edges and folds while she chose her next words, and a sense of quiescent calm had settled onto her features.

  “I'm glad you came to us, Arthur. More glad than I will ever be able to express to you,” she said and finished setting his cloak while looking up at him, while something in her green eyes—like polished gemstones lit with inner fire—had turned his mouth dry.

  “So let me ask what I should have from the start.”

  Circe’s eyes had once more searched within his own while she spoke, and the mix of her effortlessly caressing voice’s confidence, sincerity, and the echo of remembered vulnerability had made Arthur’s heart spike all over again.

  “Will you help me protect my family, Arthur Magellan?” she had asked him softly. “Will you become the sword I cannot?”

  When she’d spoken, he’d seen past her beauty.

  He’d seen past her strength, pride, passion, and her ferocity.

  In that moment Arthur had seen a woman his own age struggling with a challenge that for all her strength, all her power, all her will, and effort, and determination; she truly could not overcome alone.

  And in that instant, he’d known his answer as if he’d waited to speak it his entire life.

  “Yes, Circe Leos,” he’d said without even an iota of lingering doubt. “It would be the greatest honor of my life.”

  Not even his memories as Zacaris had been able to offer disagreement.

  That interaction with Circe had defined much of what happened over the days that followed, and it had built an intimacy of purpose between them that had only grown with time. With that, of course, had come other challenges.

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  Circe had begun to shed her naturally trained demure modesty when around him.

  The Leos Heiress was not by her nature a shy nor falsely humble woman when it came to her physical beauty, and Arthur had noticed a steady shift in her sense of conservative propriety when they were alone.

  Where before she had retained a clear distance and separation in how she dressed, acted, and conducted herself—much of that separation had slowly eroded over the course of the long cycles.

  She had taken to walking close to him with no consideration for space nor distance, sometimes while holding his arm, or else leaning against him casually. She had started going for swims in her undergarments with no thought for proper bathing attire, and only him to stand watch over her within the private pool in her wing of the palace.

  She had also taken to attending their on-going armed and unarmed sparring sessions in tight-fitting tops that allowed her freedom of movement, but also did little to obscure anything other than her generous bust.

  Were it not for her skill, and the focus on their fights such skill demanded, he’d have been far more distracted by the lightly tanned flesh on display.

  Circe had also paired her chosen tops with form-fitting shorts, or skin-tight leggings, which revealed her powerful thighs, toned calves, and long legs in ways that eroded his sanity each time they did battle.

  Her flesh was like the richest silk, and smooth enough that when she did sweat during their workouts, each droplet rolled down the contours of her defined physique in a way that forced Arthur to mentally hit himself repeatedly and remind himself of their conversation at the Lion’s Pride.

  That wasn’t the worst of it, though, nor the most confusing part of it all.

  The most bewildering aspect was that Circe would only ever reveal such attire after arriving at the private, open-aired hilltop overlooking the ocean atop the estate’s plateau where she insisted they meet to spar.

  She would make her way to their sparring location wearing a modest chiton or pull-over dress, only to sashay out of it easily and place it aside the moment they were alone as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

  For all that he believed she had taken their talk at the Lion’s Pride to heart, and for all that she acted as if she had, part of Arthur had started to wonder. To question. To worry.

  He’d begun to think that perhaps Circe Leos wanted more from him than she’d said.

  He’d begun to worry that perhaps he wanted more from her than he’d said, as well.

  Things finally came to a head during the end of the final day of their Hellenic week.

  “I’m going to beat you, today!” Circe crowed competitively while her xiphos whined through the air to clash with his bastard sword, and send a clang of metal echoing throughout the courtyard.

  “Not at that speed,” Arthur responded calmly while stepping back to let her advance.

  Circe took the opening and pressed with an overhead strike, which Arthur caught with a procedural upward parry and transitioned into a diagonal blade-lock. His eyes flickered to Circe and focused on her when he did, and he momentarily let himself just feel her presence. He thought of her scent, her smile, her spirit. He thought of how he felt around her.

  Resonance flared through Arthur’s mind, and he knew what she would do.

  He tensed his muscles and shifted his footing in anticipation a moment later.

  Circe instinctively pushed her weight forward in an attempt to overpower him exactly two seconds after resonance had given him the insights, and Arthur used his pre-emptive change of footing and superior strength to firmly throw her backward and off-balance.

  It was the third hour of their sparring for the day, and neither of them had worked up more than a light sweat. Their genetic alterations, paired with their additional personal fitness, meant that they could continue at full speed for far longer than humans historically could. Where the average 31st century human might have been able to fight continuously at high intensity for two or three hours as they were, it would have resulted in exhaustion by hour four.

  Circe and Arthur could fight non-stop for close to twelve hours before they started to feel tired, if truly necessary.

  The clash of blades filled the air again while Arthur danced against Circe’s renewed attacks, and he acknowledged mentally that the heiress had improved dramatically since their first foray into sparring at the beginning of their week together.

  A particularly rapid slash at his shoulder forced Arthur to back-step and snap his blade up and to the left to deflect her sword away forcefully, and then he reversed his movement by using the exact moment of impact to redirect force.

  It wasn’t something most people could do, given the need for an almost instinctive level of combat intuition, but neither of them were ‘most people’.

  The result saw Arthur use the ‘bounce’ from her xiphos to sweep his blade down and stop just shy of the left—her right—side of Circe’s elegant neck.

  “Never overcommit against a more skilled opponent,” Arthur reminded her calmly.

  “That’s absurd!” Circe objected while slapping away his blade with her own. “Nobody can just redirect momentum like you do. I’ve tried doing it twenty-six times, and I still can’t figure it out! You expect other people to be able to pull off that trick? As if!”

  Arthur lowered his sword and smiled at her outburst. He’d learned to recognize her anger for what it was, with the amount of time they’d spent together, and he could see through the outward haughty indignance to the self-recrimination lurking beneath. Circe’s default was to obscure her feelings of failure or inadequacy behind pride and grouchiness.

  It was a tactic he remembered well from his life as Arthur Zacaris.

  In moments like their current one, he almost wanted to tell Circe everything.

  Perhaps in time he would. First, though, he needed to understand his purpose.

  Answers first, confessions after, and a steady ignoring of the guilt daily.

  “You cannot count on—”

  “People being incapable. I know. I know, Arthur,” she huffed while brushing a hand through her blonde-streaked black hair. “It’s disconcerting how easily you read my moves.”

  “I told you already,” he said patiently, “that it’s just me using our resonance.”

  “I’ve been trying that, though!” she retorted with frustration. “I can’t make it work.”

  “You’re thinking about it too much,” he explained with a shake of his head and a quick recollection of her past attempts. “Resonance is about instinct and about familiarity. You need to let it happen, you can’t force it to happen. It’s like breathing.”

  “You’ve said this before,” she growled. “‘The more you think about breathing, the weirder it is. If you forget and do it, it happens automatically.’”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then how can you do it at will?” she demanded.

  “Practice,” he said honestly.

  His life on Albion had forced him to learn, after all. His competition for the mantle of Heir had been his own half-siblings and cousins, and while resonance was impossible to predict, it did occur more frequently between relatives with high psion densities.

  Arthur had slain more siblings than many people even had, all because of resonance.

  “How do you do it with me?” she asked insistently. “Resonance. Explain it again.”

  Arthur sighed quietly but obliged her without objection. “I focus on you. I think of everything I know about you.” he said while ignoring the flutter in his stomach. “I focus on your eyes, your lips, your body, your smell, your spirit, your motivations—I think of every moment, every second, every iota of time we’ve spent together. Then, I just… let it come.”

  Circe stared at him quietly when he finished, and a little smile played along her reddish pink cupid’s bow lips.

  “What?” he asked more awkwardly than he should have felt.

  “Mm...” she hummed while brushing her hair behind her ear. “Nothing.”

  Arthur banished the warm feeling in his chest at her reaction and flourished his sword to focus himself. “Now you try it.”

  Circe focused her eyes on his with a nod and resetting of her expression, and narrowed her eyes in consideration when she did. He watched her gaze search his own, and noted the way she subtly tilted her head and her shoulders slowly relaxed.

  A little smile once again settled onto her features, and she nodded to him. “Okay,” she said simply.

  Arthur took a breath, centered himself, and launched an attack.

  Steel met steel, and the two of them launched into a rapid exchange of slashes, cuts, parries, and dodges that saw them dance back and forth across the grassy hill.

  The moment the spar started, Arthur knew something was different.

  Circe’s movements started out much the same, with the exact amount of aggression and mild impatience he remembered from their earlier contests. As they continued past the initial round of back and forth exchanges, though, something in her movements shifted. It wasn’t something overly blatant or a sudden reversal of her patterns, but instead it was an almost fluid calm that had been absent in previous encounters.

  His eyes stayed fixed on hers, as he’d been taught, and he noticed that hers stayed fixed on his in turn. Before, Circe had often found herself distracted by trying to visualize where her next blow would fall—and had betrayed it with subtle, almost unconscious eye movements.

  Now, however, she focused solely on him with unblinking attention.

  Arthur’s senses immediately sharpened when he felt the electricity in the air that came from her newfound intensity, and their exchanges ratcheted up in both speed and precision. His longsword clashed with her xiphos in ever-increasing, clanging echoes of steel on steel that obliterated even the distant sounds of the roaring ocean.

  Circe’s golden-streaked onyx hair was a whipping braid while they fought, and Arthur couldn’t help but to distantly admire the beauty of it. Her movements had become sure and ferocious, and every shift of her toned arms brought with it a subtle alteration of her stance.

  Their duel morphed slowly at the same moment as something seemed to spark between them. Not attraction, nor any kind of underlying desire—but instead something more profound. Something more esoteric.

  Resonance flared across Arthur’s mind in a slowly building wave, its flow growing with every clash of their blades. His eyes remained locked on Circe’s as hers remained locks on his, and their movements accelerated in tandem. She struck left, he pivoted right, she slashed up, he blocked down, she dodged a forward counter, and he pressed a smooth overhand blow against her already-rising parry.

  On it went, with ever-increasing velocity. Circe’s actions started to flow through his mind like a river of imagery, of instinct, of comprehension.

  He knew her. An epiphanous realization dawned on him while they dueled, and their weapons threw sparks from the sheer speed and power behind each impact.

  Circe ducked a quick thrust at her throat, retaliated with a short sweep of Arthur’s legs, and spun away with the rapid downward block that sent her away.

  She reversed her momentum with such ease that she made it look natural.

  Another slash at his shoulder followed, so Arthur blocked upward, and then Circe threw herself backward with the deflection.

  Euphoria rose in Arthur’s core. Understanding blossomed. He saw her in a way he never had. The Lioness, the princess, the warrior, the woman. He saw her in his mind, in his heart, in his soul. He connected to her with a tether of mysticism and knowledge that transcended immediate understanding.

  Circe Leos became part of him, in the same moment as he became part of her.

  What happened next he witnessed as much as executed himself.

  Arthur snapped his blade down and up, Circe raised her xiphos, and as if in unspoken agreement they charged one another.

  The pair met in a vicious, steel-clanging clash that sent peals of metallic thunder snarling across the hilltop. Gene-tailored perfection warred for primacy, and the speed of their duel accelerated to such a degree that Arthur no longer fought with thought, but instead with instinct.

  His blade parried her slash, her strike deflected his cut, his dodge eroded her stab.

  Circe threw a strike at his ribs. Arthur shifted his blade to defend. They spun away.

  Their bodies moved, their minds joined, their heartbeats synchronized.

  Arthur and Circe came back together in twinned spinning slashes.

  Their blades froze inches from each other’s necks.

  Circe’s eyes were fixed on his.

  Arthur’s eyes were locked on hers.

  The blades were dropped and hit the grass in tandem.

  His hands took hold of her waist while her arms looped around his neck.

  Arthur lifted her into the air, and Circe’s powerful thighs curled around his hips.

  “Circe, we shouldn’t,” he whispered with a thundering heart. “We can’t. We—”

  “Just once,” she pleaded while her heart hammered against his chest in kind.

  The desperate need in her voice shattered the last remnants of his resistance.

  When they kissed, time lost all meaning.