She had always believed that the opposite of pain was peace. And that the opposite of happiness was sadness, but neither were true.

Eleya just felt numb.

Like a leaf adrift in the wind, she went through the motions that had become routine to her. Luckily for her, the High Senator could draw on years of experience. She didn't need to feel emotion toward something to know how she would normally react to it. Eleya just searched her memories for a suitable comparison and acted on it.

She kept herself busier than usual, because every free moment she had was spent pondering the same question.

How could it happen to her twice?

Eleya hadn't broken the bond yet, but she didn't see how they could take back everything that had already gone wrong. Calling your fated mate a blind fool wasn't usually the start of a beautiful relationship.

She worked long into the night, just to make sure she would fall to bed too tired to lay awake, tossing and turning. Missing Xaven.

Eleya had doubled her training sessions as well. Anything to make sure she was too tired to contemplate how much she wanted to start everything all over.

Unfortunately, there were still some events she couldn't avoid as much as she would have liked to.

The tourney to find the next leader of Briolina's militia was one of them.

Mostly because Eleya had declared it.

The last High Lord had been killed hunting rogue warriors who had wanted to start a rival academy for warriors. Blasphemous ideas like overthrowing the rule of the Elders had made them the number one target of the Militia, whose job was to keep order on the home world while the generals were away.

Considering the galaxy they lived in, it was very rare for any of the generals to be present on the planet, so the High Lord needed to be strong.

Eleya had deemed all possible successors unworthy, but for the sake of appearance, she couldn't say that out loud. Instead, she'd announced a tournament, hoping that a more fitting candidate would appear.

"How are the lists looking?" Eleya asked Towaren, sitting in her balustrade overlooking the grand arena where fighters were preparing for the initial rounds.

"Good," her aide said, checking the enlisted names of the warriors contending for the position. "It's a massive turnout, as could be expected."

Eleya nodded, frowning.

"That's the price we pay," she said. "I wanted to make sure no candidates were missing because of a technicality, but there's always the danger it attracts some powerful psycho. Any red flags?"

Towaren gave her a quick look that never boded well.

"Gods," Eleya breathed. "Let me have it. How bad is it?"

"As bad as it gets," her aide admitted. "Moroven enlisted this morning."

Eleya groaned, clenching her fists and trying to keep her expression as impassive as possible. The balustrade she was sitting under was well visible from every point of the arena and at any moment, a thousand pair of eyes at least were watching her. She couldn't show weakness and anger was by far the worst weakness there was.

"Moroven," she repeated. "Didn't I send him away? For this exact purpose."

The warrior in question was one of Eleya's most bothersome and prevailing nightmares. As the High Senator of a planet where every child bore the potential to become a world conqueror, Eleya had to deal with a lot.

Brions as a species were dutiful and honorable, if a little sharp – more often than not literally. Most importantly, though, they were manageable. Eleya used the fact a lot to calm down the Galactic Union, always watching the warrior species with badly disguised fear.

The average Brion could be reasoned with. Moroven wasn't average by far.

As her luck would have it, the man was born to wield a blade in his hand. Eleya had kept an eye on him for a long time now. She'd hoped to push the warrior toward a suitable position, but had quickly found that Moroven was a very specific type of out-of-control.

First and foremost, he was an extremist. Eleya suspected that he was behind the death of the last leader of the Militia – the position Moroven would now be fighting for. And even if he wasn't guilty of that, the warrior had so much innocent blood on his hands that she wouldn't have given him control of his own breakfast.

Eleya was thinking quickly, drumming her fingers on the armrest of her seat.

"Do we have anyone?" she asked at last, speaking honestly with Towaren, one of the few people she trusted not to betray her confidence. "Moroven can't win this. He'd turn the Militia into a private army and I'd die before letting him do that."

She couldn't refuse giving the victor their prize. Brions didn't follow many rules, but the one that worked its way into every single aspect of their lives – whatever a Brion won was theirs to keep.

Towaren was looking through the tablet in his hands, searching for the answer to her prayers. It was taking him longer than it should have and Eleya started going through some back-up plans, each worse than the other.

She knew exactly what the problem was. Moroven was a brute, a force of nature with his massive ax. It said a lot that the warrior had never bothered to wield the traditional spear.

"I have one," Towaren said and Eleya let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.

"Alright," she said. "One is a good start. Who do you have in mind?"

She guessed the answer from the strange look in Towaren's eyes before the aide named the only warrior capable – and insane – enough to take on Moroven.

"Xaven," the young warrior said. "He's here."

* * *

Eleya was walking through the arena's support rooms as quickly as she could without actually running. It occurred to her that she hadn't been free to do something as simple as that for a long time now.

Generals didn't run, unless it was toward an enemy. Neither did High Senators.

Her lips curled into an amused grin when she considered how much more was permitted to a child than the people who ruled Briolina.

The rooms were filled with waiting warriors. Eleya knew most of them. The warriors all looked at her curiously. Some gave her a slight bow, others simply honored her by stepping out of the way. And as ever, there were a few whose looks promised her that she would have to deal with them at a later time. At the back of her mind, Eleya noted it all down.

Xaven was standing alone, leaning against the wall of a weapons room, his eyes closed. He looked to be concentrating very hard on something.

When Eleya approached, the captain's lips curled into a smile unlike any she'd seen on him before.

"My gesha," he said.

Brionese was an incredibly complicated language. It morphed and changed constantly. Every word depended on the others, on the speaker's tone and rank and so on.

Right now, Xaven had called her my love. It was implied in the term for a fated anyway, but Eleya heard it loud and clear this time, in every syllable that rolled off Xaven's tongue.

The warrior opened his deep dark blue eyes and looked at her.

Eleya had the strange feeling that she'd never met the man before despite all evidence to the contrary.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "I thought you didn't want to be tied up in a position of power."

"So did I," Xaven admitted, nodding pensively. "Until I realized what a mistake I'd made. Until I realized that the only thing in world that I truly want is to be tied to you."

The grin on the warrior's lips spread wider for a moment.

"Perhaps in more than one way," he added.

Eleya banished the ideas of that from her head, but she couldn't keep her valor squares pulsing desire before she regained control of herself. Xaven's eyes flashed with lust.

"You don't have to prove anything to me," Eleya said, wondering how they had gone so smoothly from not talking for a week to acting like nothing had happened at all.

"Two sides of the same coin," Xaven said, pushing himself off the wall when the first call for fighters sounded. "In a bond, everything must be given freely, but since you are my gesha, I want to give you everything. It's complicated, wouldn't you agree?"

Eleya grabbed his arm as the warrior moved to join the others.

"Moroven is here," she said.

"I know," Xaven replied, his deep voice growling. "I saw him earlier. Don't worry. I know he can't win. I'll bring you his head."

Eleya felt words clogging up her throat, trying to get out. Foolish words, hopeless words, sappy and angry words, all together. There were so many things that they needed to talk through, but for some reason she didn't feel like doing that. In fact, Eleya got the sense that they just had.

Fateds didn't need to agree on everything. They didn't even have to like everything about each other. That was the type of fairytale lie she'd fought so hard to abolish. The only thing that truly mattered was the other and she couldn't even figure out how to say that.

The second call sounded and the room was empty except for the two of them.

Xaven's smile resembled the one that had charmed Eleya on the day they'd met. If possible, it was even more honest, and freely given.

"You don't have to say a word," he said.

She knew that, but it was still nice to know. Perhaps that was why it was so easy to reply.

"Don't die out there," Eleya said. "Don't you dare die now when I finally know that I love you."