Steven’s POV
By morning, the guilt still hadn’t gone anywhere.
It just felt cleaner now.
Less like panic. More like something solid and ugly sitting in the middle of my chest, refusing to move no matter how much breakfast, warmth, or Aqua’s calm voice tried to soften it.
I leaned both hands on the kitchen counter and stared out through the window toward the trees behind the house.
“I need to find Dylan.”
Aqua looked up from where she was rinsing a cup in the sink.
Her hair was still a little damp from earlier, the ends curling softly against her shoulders. She had changed into one of the dresses she liked wearing around the house here—something light and pale blue that made her look like she belonged near water even when she was standing in a kitchen.
“I thought you might say that.”
I exhaled through my nose.
“I have to apologize.”
Aqua dried her hands on a towel and turned toward me fully.
“Yes,” she said gently. “I think you do.”
That should not have sounded so reasonable.
I dragged a hand through my hair.
“I just don’t know where he is.”
Fang, stretched across the back of one of the dining chairs, lifted his head.
He may not wish to see you.
“That’s fair,” I muttered.
Aqua tilted her head slightly then, as if listening to something farther away.
I frowned. “What?”
She looked toward the French doors, then past them, toward the lake beyond the hidden edges of Worthington.
“I think he’s near the water.”
I blinked.
“You can tell that?”
Aqua glanced at me, then away again in that soft, evasive way she used when she technically answered without really answering.
“I have a feeling,” she said. “His aura feels... close. That way.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You can just sense people now?”
Aqua’s lips twitched.
“Sometimes.”
That was not a full explanation.
I knew it.
She knew it.
Apparently, we were both choosing to live with that.
I pushed off the counter.
“Okay,” I said. “Then let’s go before I talk myself out of it.”
Aqua smiled faintly.
“I was hoping you would say that.”
---
The walk to the lake felt longer than usual.
Not because it was actually farther.
Because I spent the whole way trying to figure out what I was supposed to say once we got there.
Sorry I lost control and nearly blasted you through your own shield?
Sorry I proved your dad right?
Sorry I acted like an emotionally unstable idiot after you spent a whole week trying to help me not be one?
None of it sounded better in my head than it did out loud.
Aqua walked beside me quietly, not pushing, not filling the silence just because it was there. That was one of the things I loved most about her. She knew when words helped and when they just made everything heavier.
But somewhere between one step and the next, another thought started pressing in under all the apology rehearsals.
Salizar.
Not like I had forgotten him.
That would have been its own kind of stupid.
I still wore the necklace.
I still knew what was trapped inside it.
I still remembered every warning Fredrick had given me about what Salizar was, what he had done, and what it could mean if I ever let the wrong thing get too close to the surface.
But lately, with everything else closing in, I had started thinking about him like a later problem.
My dad felt like the bigger threat.
My mom felt like the bigger pain.
Training felt like the bigger need.
Getting stronger.
Protecting Aqua.
Protecting what I had left of my family.
Getting to the point where I could actually do something instead of reacting after disasters had already happened.
All of that had taken up so much space in my head that somewhere along the way, I had started treating Salizar like something I would deal with once I had more control.
Once I got stronger.
Once I had time.
Now, after the field, that felt unbelievably stupid.
Because what if Salizar was not waiting quietly in the background for his turn to matter?
What if he had already been there yesterday?
Not fully.
Not openly.
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But close enough to make my anger feel like permission.
Close enough to make the worst part of me sound right.
My stomach tightened.
That was the part I hated most.
Not the guilt.
Not even the embarrassment.
The not knowing.
How much of that had been me?
How much of it had been grief, anger, pride, all the ugliest parts of me getting louder at once?
And how much of it had been something else leaning in when I was weak enough to let it?
I didn’t know.
I didn’t even know if I wanted the answer yet.
The thought sat in my chest all the rest of the way until the trees finally opened.
The lake came into view in a wide sheet of silver-blue under the late morning light.
And there he was.
Dylan stood near the dock with his hands in his pockets, looking out over the water like he had been there long enough to forget he lived anywhere else.
For a second, I stopped thinking about Salizar entirely.
Because now the apology was standing right in front of me.
Aqua noticed him too.
Then she noticed something else.
“You are in the same clothes,” she said as we approached.
Dylan turned at the sound of her voice.
There was the smallest pause when he saw us both standing there.
Not alarm.
Not annoyance.
Just brief surprise.
Then his face settled back into that usual reserved calm.
“I came here straight after waking up,” he said.
Aqua’s brows lifted slightly.
“You did not shower first?”
Dylan looked back toward the lake.
“I was planning to get in anyway,” he said. “There didn’t seem much point.”
That was the most normal thing I had ever heard him say.
Somehow that made me feel even more awkward.
Aqua stepped a little to the side, looking between us once before softly saying, “Steven has something he wants to tell you.”
And just like that, the whole reason we came was standing directly in front of me with nowhere left to hide.
Dylan’s attention shifted fully to me.
He didn’t cross his arms.
Didn’t brace.
Didn’t say anything.
He just waited.
Which was worse.
I rubbed a hand through my hair and looked anywhere except directly at his face for a second.
The dock.
The water.
The edge of the reeds.
Then I made myself look at him.
“I’m sorry.”
Dylan remained still.
So I kept going.
“For what happened,” I said. “At the field.”
The words felt stiff coming out at first, like my own pride was trying to catch them and drag them back down my throat.
I forced myself past it.
“You were trying to train me,” I said. “And yeah, you were pushing me on purpose, but that doesn’t matter. I lost control. You didn’t deserve that.”
Aqua stayed quiet off to the side.
I appreciated that more than I could explain.
I looked down at the dock boards.
Then back at Dylan.
“I know saying sorry doesn’t undo it,” I said. “And I know I could’ve hurt you worse than I did. I just...” I exhaled hard. “I needed to say it.”
Dylan watched me without interrupting.
That somehow made it easier and harder at the same time.
So I said the rest too.
“The truth is, I’ve had a lot in my head lately.” My jaw tightened. “My dad. My mom. Everything Fang told me. All of it.” I swallowed once. “You hit a nerve. A lot of them, actually. But that still doesn’t make it okay.”
The wind moved softly over the lake between us.
Dylan’s expression shifted by barely anything at all, but I could tell he was listening.
Actually listening.
“I remember being angry,” I said quieter now. “Then more angry. And after that...” I frowned. “It’s like everything just turned into needing to prove something. Like if I hit hard enough, I wouldn’t feel weak anymore.”
I looked away for half a second.
“That sounds pathetic when I say it out loud.”
“It sounds honest,” Aqua said gently.
I glanced at her.
Then back at Dylan.
“Still pathetic,” I muttered.
For one long second, nobody said anything.
Then Dylan finally spoke.
“You did lose control.”
I nodded once.
“Yeah.”
“And you could have done much worse than you did.”
That landed hard.
Because it was true.
Not dramatic.
Not cruel.
Just true.
Dylan looked out across the lake once before continuing.
“But you came here.”
I frowned slightly.
“What?”
His gaze shifted back to me.
“You came to apologize,” he said. “Most people don’t when they’re ashamed.”
That was not what I expected him to say.
I looked at him for a second, thrown off by how direct it was.
“I should’ve.”
“Yes,” Dylan said.
That almost made me laugh.
Not because it was funny.
Because apparently that was the part Dylan had no problem confirming.
But something in the edge of the tension loosened anyway.
I rubbed the back of my neck.
“So... are we okay?”
Dylan tilted his head slightly, considering.
“We are not back where we were before,” he said.
That sounded fair.
Then he added, “But I’m not interested in holding it over you.”
I stared at him.
“That’s your version of being nice, huh?”
The faintest almost-expression touched his face.
Maybe amusement.
Maybe not.
“Probably.”
Aqua smiled softly to herself.
I noticed and immediately pointed at her.
“Don’t.”
She blinked with complete false innocence.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was thinking something supportive.”
“Highly suspicious.”
That got a quiet breath of laughter out of her, and to my complete surprise, Dylan’s mouth moved too.
Not a full smile.
More like the idea of one passing through and deciding not to stay.
Still.
It counted.
I looked at him more carefully then.
There was still a slight stiffness in the way he held his left side. Not dramatic. But there.
“You’re still hurt.”
Dylan glanced down like he hadn’t thought about it in a while.
“A little.”
“That was my fault too.”
“Yes.”
I dragged a hand over my face.
“You really don’t know how to soften anything, do you?”
“No.”
That answer came so fast even Aqua laughed this time.
I looked between the two of them and shook my head.
Unbelievable.
Then, because the question had been sitting in the back of my mind since the field, and because the air no longer felt sharp enough to cut me open, I asked, “What tier are you at, anyway?”
Dylan looked at me.
I shrugged.
“What? Your father told us you’re around our age, but clearly you’re way more trained than I am, so I’m asking.”
Aqua looked interested too now.
Dylan was quiet for a second.
Then he said, “I recently reached Tier Four, Shade Two.”
That made me blink.
“Recently?”
Dylan nodded once.
I frowned a little.
“So you advanced after... you know. After the field?”
He understood the question before I finished it.
“Yes.”
That sat in my head for a second.
I looked at him differently after that.
Not just because he was stronger than I thought.
Because somehow it made the whole thing at the field feel more real in a different way. Like the fight had changed both of us, not just wrecked me for a day and bruised him on the side.
Aqua looked between us.
“That is good, isn’t it?”
Dylan’s expression stayed neutral, but I caught the slight shift in his posture anyway.
He was pleased.
Just not loudly.
“It’s useful,” he said.
I snorted.
“That means yes.”
Aqua smiled.
“I thought so too.”
The breeze moved over the water again, softer this time.
Nobody seemed in a hurry to leave.
And maybe that was what made Aqua say it next.
“Well,” she said lightly, “since we are already here...”
I looked at her immediately.
That tone meant she was about to try something.
Aqua folded her hands in front of her and smiled at both of us.
It was the same dangerously gentle expression she used right before suggesting things neither of us knew how to reject without sounding rude.
“We are all working together now,” she said. “And I think it would help if we spent a little time together when you are not only trainer and student.”
I blinked.
Then turned toward her fully.
“What,” I said slowly, “you want us to become friends now?”
Aqua tilted her head.
“Well,” she said, “it is a start.”
I stared at her.
Then at Dylan.
Dylan looked at Aqua.
Then at me.
Then out at the lake.
His face gave away next to nothing, but the fact that he didn’t shut it down immediately was already suspicious.
Aqua smiled a little wider.
“I think it might be nice,” she said. “For all of us.”
I pointed at her again.
“You really plan things in your head before saying them out loud, don’t you?”
“Sometimes.”
“That means yes.”
“Yes,” Aqua said.
I looked at Dylan.
“Well?”
Dylan kept his hands in his pockets and his attention on the water for another second before answering.
“I have no objection.”
I stared at him.
“That sounds like the closest thing to enthusiasm I’m ever getting out of you.”
“Probably.”
Aqua laughed softly again.
Then she took a few steps closer to the dock, looking out over the lake like she could already see the version of this place she wanted us all to have someday.
“Then maybe another day,” she said. “When no one is apologizing and no one is injured.”
“That sounds specific,” I muttered.
“It was meant to be.”
Dylan looked toward the water again, quieter now.
I followed his gaze for a second.
The lake stretched out calm and blue under the light, almost too peaceful for how awkward this morning had started.
Then I looked back at him.
“I really am sorry,” I said again, this time less because I needed him to hear it and more because I needed him to know I meant it.
Dylan met my eyes.
“I know.”
And for some reason, that simple answer did more for the knot in my chest than anything else had since the field.
Aqua seemed to feel the shift too.
Her shoulders loosened.
Her face softened.
Like some part of her had been waiting this whole time for the two of us to stop standing on opposite sides of the same wound.
I glanced toward the lake.
Then back toward Dylan.
“So,” I said, because apparently my mouth liked ruining sincerity before it could sit for too long, “do you always come out here to brood dramatically, or is that just today?”
Dylan looked at me.
The tiniest pause.
Then:
“I wasn’t aware it looked dramatic.”
That got a real laugh out of me this time.
“Wow,” I said. “Okay. Maybe there’s hope for you after all.”
Aqua smiled like that was exactly the outcome she had wanted from the beginning.
And standing there beside the dock, with the apology behind me and the lake calm in front of us, I had the strange feeling that maybe this wasn’t the end of something awkward.
Maybe it was the first step toward something less sharp.
Not friendship.
Not yet.
But not just obligation anymore either.
And for one morning, that was enough.