Chapter Fourteen
The third morning arrived cloaked in haze.
Fog clung to the windows of the training room and what little light filtered through was thin and cold, casting the mats in soft gray shadow.
Cassara entered with as much indifference as she could muster.
Today her hair was pulled back in a ponytail that sat low at the nape of her neck and the sleeves of her training uniform were pushed to her elbows in display of casual defiance.
Her ribs still twinged if she twisted too fast, but she could breathe again without it catching, which was a relief. Especially since after yesterday’s session, breathing around Auren had become its own challenge.
Today he waited by a resistance post, arms crossed, expression severe. The fog-filtered light outlined his silhouette, casting his features in shadow and relief. It shouldn’t have made him more striking, but it did.
“You’re late.”
“By one minute.”
“Which is still late.”
She moved to the mat without comment, aware of how his eyes tracked her movement. He tossed her a baton, slightly heavier than before.
Cassara caught it clean, the weight settling into her palm like an extension of herself.
“Three strikes. Forward, sweep, pivot.”
She launched into the first drill. Crisp. Controlled. Her steps were sharper today, less fluid. More force than finesse. Auren didn’t stop her.
“Again.”
She reset.
Strike. Sweep. Pivot.
“Your weight’s off-center.”
“I know. I’m compensating.”
“Then fix it.”
Cassara wanted to snap back, but instead she struck again. The exertion brought heat to her face, a flush she was grateful he couldn’t see in the dim light.
He moved around her without comment, silent corrections in every step he didn’t take. She could feel the scrutiny, his gaze a tangible weight that traced her form with maddening precision. It made her chest tight, her movements sharper, more deliberate.
“Back foot’s dragging.”
“I noticed.”
“Then correct it.”
Her baton slammed against the strike post with a sharp crack. “Gods, do you ever say anything nice?”
“When it’s earned.”
She turned on him. “Earned? You won’t even say good when it is.”
His expression didn't change, but his eyes grew darker, more intense. "You don't need praise."
“Why not?” she snapped. “Because I’m a legacy and I’m supposed to already be perfect?”
“No,” Auren said quietly. “Because you’ll cling to it instead of fixing the next mistake.”
Her breath caught. Fury bubbled fast behind it, complicated by the fact that she was suddenly acutely aware of the space between them—how little there was and how easily it could disappear.
She stepped closer despite knowing full well that she should just walk away before her frustration got the better of her.
But the heat in her chest was raw and she was tired of being made to feel small.
“That’s what you’re trying to do, right? Knock me down before someone else does it better?”
He didn’t move. Just stood there, watching her with that infuriating stillness that made her want to reach out and shake him, to provoke some reaction, any reaction, that proved he wasn’t entirely unmoved by her.
It wasn’t fair that he was so unaffected while she felt like she was drowning.
“I didn’t ask for this,” she went on. “I didn’t ask for your drills, your orders, your disdain. I don’t even want to train with someone who gets people killed.”
The words tumbled out before she realized what she was saying and Cassara felt her heart stop. What the hell was she thinking?
Auren’s posture shifted, almost imperceptibly. His gaze grew colder.
For what felt like an eternity, he looked at her. Not through her, not over her, but at her. The intensity of it made her want to step back, or move closer, she couldn’t say for sure.
“Do you think I wanted this?” he asked, his voice carrying an unexpected edge. “To be stuck training a spoiled, pampered princess who throws herself into danger just to prove… what exactly are you trying to prove?” He turned his back and crossed the mat to the rack without looking at her again.
"You don't get to call me pampered." Her voice cracked on the word. "You don't know what I'm fighting against. What happens to me if I fail here, if I'm not strong enough to—" She cut herself off, fists clenched at her sides. He didn't get to know. Didn't deserve to know.
"Everyone here is fighting something," he said without turning around. "Reset your stance."
Cassara didn’t move.
The heat in her throat pulsed sharp. Her pride twisted beneath it, bruised and howling. She grabbed her towel off the bench and turned.
She made it halfway to the door.
“I didn’t take you for a quitter.”
Her grip on the towel tightened. She didn’t stop walking.
“Arrogant… impulsive, reckless,” Auren continued behind her. “But not a coward.”
Cassara stopped cold.
“Coward,” she echoed, turning slowly to face him.
Auren didn’t look smug. He wasn’t smirking. Just watching her in his usual measured and intolerably calm way.
“You want everyone to think you’re above being shaken,” he said. “Fine. You’re good at that. But don’t walk out now and expect me to believe you’re walking out on me. You’re walking out on yourself.”
She stared at him. A storm building in her chest and nowhere to send it.
“You think you know me,” she said.
“I know what you show.”
“You don’t see a damn thing.”
He stepped toward her then.
“You want me to tell you you’re special?
” he asked quietly. His voice had dropped, the controlled baritone sending a shiver down her spine.
“You are. You’re the best I’ve seen in years.
Maybe ever. But you’re also brittle. You break harder than you bend, and the moment someone sees the cracks, you lash out. ”
Cassara’s hands curled into fists. “And what do you do, Instructor? Hide behind drills and dead-eyed silence until no one can remember you used to matter?”
She knew she was going too far, overstepping boundaries that she shouldn’t. But she didn’t care. If he was going to cut her open, examine her like a specimen in Professor Marlowe’s anatomy class, she’d return the favor.
He didn’t flinch, but for the first time, she saw a crack in his composure, a flash of genuine emotion that made her breath catch.
She kept going, ignoring every bit of instinct that screamed at her to stop before she dug herself any deeper.
“I know why you’re here and not in the field,” she said, breath shallow now. “I know about your squad.”
The silence that followed wasn’t just heavy, it was suffocating.
Cassara’s heart beat hard in her ears and she became very aware of how alone they were in the training room, how the rest of the world seemed to have fallen away.
Auren didn’t speak right away. He held her gaze for a breath. Two. His eyes had narrowed, the usual mask slipping to reveal raw emotion.
“And what is it you think you know?” His voice was unexpectedly quiet.
Cassara had expected fury, shouting, and would have preferred it over the quiet accusation threaded through a seemingly simple question.
“That I got them killed leading them into a fight they weren’t prepared for? That I was chasing glory? That I sacrificed them for personal gain?” He offered a grim smile. “The truth is, I did nothing, and oftentimes inaction is the worst offense of all.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. The vulnerability in his admission stripped away her anger, leaving complicated feelings in its place.
He stepped back, turned his attention to the mat.
“This is the part where you leave, if you’re going to.”
She didn’t look at him, she looked past him, at the sparring marks on the floor, the faint scuff from her last strike, the imprint of her boot still visible in the chalk-dust line.
Auren hadn’t moved.
Cassara hated him for that, for standing there like she hadn’t just torn into a festering wound. She hated herself more for being exactly what he had accused her of being.
She turned halfway and stopped, letting the silence settle.
Then, she made a choice. “Reset the markers,” she said as she stepped back onto the mat. She didn’t look to see if he would acknowledge her, she didn’t need to, she felt him move.
He was quiet for a long moment. "Good." The word was soft, almost to himself, before he moved to reset the markers. "Let's go again."
At some point the tension between them had shifted. It felt like more than just pride or determination, but a dangerous recognition.
By the time Cassara reached the dorms, the hallway noise had thinned to a low murmur. The aches from training hadn’t fully set in yet. Those always came later, once the adrenaline left her body, but the bruises were blooming warm beneath her ribs.
What lingered more persistently was the memory of Auren’s voice, low and raw with admission. The rare vulnerability in his eyes when he’d spoken of his squad. The charged space between them that neither had been willing to cross.
Her skin still hummed with awareness, as if some part of her remained in that fog-wrapped training room, suspended in that moment of recognition.
She pushed open the door to the common room and stepped inside.
Liri was curled in the corner armchair, blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a throne, holding a cup of tea that was probably too sweet, knowing her, and talking in low, animated bursts to Sonia.
They both glanced up at her entrance.
“Look who’s returned from the underworld,” Liri said, raising her cup in mock salute.
Cassara lifted a brow, forcing her thoughts back to the present. “What?”
“Your training sessions with Veth,” Liri explained, leaning forward. “Half the first-years think you’re being punished. The other half think you’re being groomed for something classified.”
“I’m just training,” Cassara said flatly.
Just training. As though lying to herself would make it any more true.
Sonia traced the rim of her mug with one finger. “Not according to Jace Kingston. He says Nareen’s never assigned private sessions this early in the term.”