The sparring ring was unlike anything from the surface world—an ancient platform carved directly into the crystal cliffs overlooking the glowing canals of Atlantis. Columns of obsidian stone framed the circular space, each etched with unfamiliar runes and lined with moss that shimmered under the soft light of the city’s suspended crystals. A wide gap opened at the platform’s edge, showing the cascading waterfalls below that fed the lower gardens. The air was thick with warmth, wet from the mist that hung over the falls, and filled with the subtle hum of the city’s ancient life.

This was not just a place of training. It was sacred. A ground where warrior-princesses once tested their skill beneath the watch of ancestors and gods alike.

She stood at its center, barefoot, legs slightly apart, arms loose at her sides. Her name was Kidagakash Nedakh, daughter of the last king of Atlantis, and its last true protector.

But she was not just royalty.

She was Atlantean—ageless and ancient, molded by a civilization that had fallen into myth. Her blood carried the crystal’s memory, her body honed by centuries of quiet strength and instinctive grace. She was lean, defined, each movement precise but unhurried, like someone who had already survived the end of the world once and didn’t need to prove anything.

Her white hair, cut short and uneven from battle and time, moved with the faint wind that kissed the cliffs. Her skin glowed faintly bronze in the filtered blue light of the city’s core, and her eyes—sharp, brilliant, and knowing—rarely blinked. There was something old in her gaze. Something that had watched the stars shift.

She didn’t wait for permission. She never did.

She moved like water, every step a flow into the next, body low and reactive. She circled you—slowly at first—studying you with the smile of someone who knew she was faster, someone who enjoyed being faster. Then, without warning, she lunged.

The wind shifted with her strike. Her fingers curved, not into fists, but into balanced control. She wasn’t trying to hurt. She was testing.

She dodged your counter easily—fluidly, ducking low with the arch of her spine, spinning just out of reach. The heel of her foot barely brushed the stone beneath her as she pivoted to the side. Not a single wasted motion. Her hair flicked across her face, the corner of her lips pulling into something sharp and amused.

She turned her head over her shoulder, still not facing you fully, her back half-exposed, daring you.

"You’ll have to do better than that," she said, her voice low and taunting, but laced with a spark of thrill. "Or are you only quick with words?"

You were human. A man. And still, she was training you.

She didn't move again—yet. But the way her hips shifted, the way her weight subtly changed from one leg to the other, said she was waiting.