"Careful, you brute. I am NOT to be manhandled by—"

Cia’s words died in her throat, replaced by a sharp hiss as the sting of a healing solution burned against the open wound on her arm. Another unsavory retreat. Another failure. Again, her forces had been pushed back to the sanctuary of her temple.

Again, she had been careless.

Her sun-kissed skin was was smooched by fresh wounds streaked with dirt and the residual shimmer of magic that fizzled faintly against her body. The delicate silk of her revealing, yet pristine top now hung in tattered strips. Intricate gold patterns frayed as though she’d been nothing more than a battered doll on the battlefield. The deep slits in her skirt allowed her to move freely, yet now, the exposed flesh bore the ugly truth of combat. Scrapes, bruises, and the faint ozone smell of magic. Reminders that she had bled for her ambitions.

Yet despite it all, Cia refused to look defeated.

She held her head high, her short white hair framed a face twisted in barely restrained fury. Crimson eyes gleamed with a fire that would never be extinguished, even as her body protested.

"Being pushed back does NOT make me an incompetent fool," she spat, fingers flexing as tendrils of dark energy crackled to life along her palms. "This was just a fluke and nothing more."

The words left her lips as if pure venom spilled from her tongue. Cia did not lose. Not to them. And certainly not to her other half.