Chapter 8 #3
“You’re letting me push through your guard,” Thane says, stepping back. “A real opponent won’t just stop after one strike. They’ll break through. Wear you down. So you don’t just absorb—you redirect.”
He steps in again, throwing another controlled jab at my ribs. I block, but too hard, too stiff. The impact sends me off balance.
Thane shakes his head. “Again.”
I set my stance, heart pounding against my ribs, sweat trickling down my back, following the lines of the tattoos that weren’t there days ago.
A few days ago.
How is this my life now?
Thane throws another strike. I block better this time, angling my forearm to deflect rather than just stop it.
“Better,” he says. “But you’re still too rigid. Defense isn’t just about strength. It’s about movement.” He circles me, watching, waiting. “Watch my shoulders, not my hands.”
I focus, tracking him, trying to see the next move before it comes.
“Your opponent’s arms move too fast,” he continues. “The chest, the stance—that’s where the attack starts. That’s where you read them.”
I nod, breath coming faster, sweat clinging to my skin. I see the shift in his shoulders before the punch comes. I start to move but hesitate. His strike lands. Not hard, not full force, but enough to send me stumbling back.
I hiss through my teeth.
You need to do better. You have to.
I reset. But the doubt creeps in—sharp, familiar.
I’m not supposed to be here. I was supposed to be home. But home is gone.
And so are they.
A sharp jab to my ribs snaps me back to reality. I barely block in time, my breath catching from the sudden impact.
“Still slow,” Thane says, stepping back.
I exhale sharply, anger curling inside me, but not at him. At myself.
“You hesitate,” Thane says. “That’s the difference between standing and falling.”
My jaw tightens. Valen said that too. Gods, do they rehearse these lines?
I swallow hard. I can’t afford to fall. If I don’t learn—if I don’t get stronger—then my parents’ deaths will have meant nothing. Not just my parents—everyone who died that night the village was attacked.
I tighten my fists. “Again.”
Thane nods once. And then he moves.
That evening, the mess hall hums with conversation. Laughter at one table, quiet talk at another. The clatter of bowls and wooden utensils fills the space, the now familiar scent of roasted meat, fresh bread, and simmering vegetables thick in the air.
I sink onto the bench beside Lyra, every muscle aching. My legs are lead. My shoulders burn. My hands—throbbing.
I reach for my cup. My fingers tremble. Just a little.
Lyra doesn’t say anything at first, just eyes me as she tears a chunk of bread in half. Then her gaze drops to my arms.
I don’t have to look to know what she sees—bruises forming beneath the surface, the deep ache settling into my bones after hours of blocking, dodging, and getting knocked off my feet.
She exhales through her nose, shaking her head. “You look like hell.”
I huff a quiet laugh, lifting my spoon to my lips. “Thanks.”
Lyra doesn’t return the smile. “You’re pushing too hard.”
I don’t answer. Because what’s the alternative?
She rips another piece of bread, eyes still fixed on me. “Let me guess—Thane?”
I grunt.
Lyra sighs, leaning forward, lowering her voice. “You’re not going to get stronger if you break yourself first.”
I sip my water, forcing my fingers to stay steady around the cup. “I don’t have a choice.”
Lyra’s jaw tightens. She doesn’t like that answer. Instead, she presses a chunk of bread into my hand. “Eat.”
I glance up.
She holds my gaze, refusing to let me slide.
She’s right. I sigh, rolling my stiff neck, taking the bread from her hand.
Lyra doesn’t look away, eyes sharp, watching me the way she does when she’s about to say something I won’t like.
Then, quietly but firmly, she says, “You won’t bring them back by killing yourself.”
The words land like a strike to the ribs—unexpected, jarring, deep.
I go still.
My fingers tighten around the bread, my breath caught somewhere in my throat. For a moment, all I hear is the sound of the mess hall around us—the clatter of bowls, the murmur of voices, the occasional burst of laughter.
But I don’t feel any of it.
I swallow, my chest tight, something dark curling at the edges of my mind. I know I won’t bring them back. I know. But if I stop—if I don’t push, if I don’t fight, if I don’t become stronger—then what was the point of surviving?
I don’t say any of that.
I just break the bread in half, forcing myself to take a bite, chewing mechanically, swallowing past the tightness in my throat.
Lyra doesn’t say anything else. She sits there, making sure I don’t disappear into the silence.
We both know she’s right, but I also know, I’m not going to slow down or stop.
I take another bite. The bread turns to paste in my mouth.
Before the quiet can settle too deep, a shadow falls across the table. I glance up to find Valen standing there, arms folded, his presence as calm and unmoving as ever.
“Amara,” he says, nodding once. “I want you to start meeting me earlier for training.”
I blink at him, swallowing my bite. “Earlier?”
He studies me the way he always does, his sharp gaze too knowing, too precise. “You’re learning the elements,” he says. “You’re learning to fight. But you haven’t learned why.”
I sit up straighter, muscles aching in protest. “I know why.”
Valen tilts his head. “Do you?”
Something about the way he says it makes my stomach twist. I open my mouth to argue, but I don’t know what to say. Because the truth is, I haven’t stopped long enough to think about it. I’m fighting because I need to dull the ache in my heart.
Valen watches me for a long moment, as if he can see the war in my head. Then, finally, he speaks again. “The realm needs you,” he says, voice steady. “But do you understand why?”
I feel Lyra watching me, but I don’t turn to her. Because the answer is simple—and not simple at all. I exhale, my grip tightening around the glass in my hands.
“When do we start?” I ask.
Valen nods. “At dawn. Join me for tea in my quarters—there you will learn the history of how the Shadow Wars came to be.” Then he turns and walks away, leaving me with the question still lingering in the air.
The barracks are quieter than usual that night. I stare at the ceiling, my body aching, my arms heavy, but sleep does not come easily.
Instead, I think of before.
Before my hands were wrapped in linen and bruised from striking a post. Before I knew the taste of exhaustion from wielding magics. Before I stood in a sparring ring I never asked to fight in.
When my nights were filled with softer things.
My mother’s voice, humming as she kneaded dough. The scent of turned soil clinging to my father’s clothes. The warm glow of lanterns in our home, flickering as the evening wind whispered through the cracks in the wooden walls.
That life feels like it belongs to someone else.
A girl who no longer exists.
I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing slowly, trying to release the weight in my chest. Eventually, sleep takes me.
The sun is high. Golden light spills across the fields, turning the wheat to honey.
The air is thick with the scent of sun-warmed earth, the faint sweetness of ripening grain, and the distant aroma of freshly baked bread drifting from the house.
The sky stretches endlessly, a brilliant shade of blue, streaked with wisps of white clouds that barely move in the heat.
Cicadas hum lazily, a rhythmic pulse that fills the air, blending with the distant chatter of village life beyond the fields.
Birds wheel overhead, their wings catching the sunlight, their calls sharp and bright.
The soil beneath my bare feet is warm and soft, broken and rich from planting season.
My hands sink into the earth as I pull weeds from between the rows of crops.
The wheat sways gently, bending with the breeze, rolling like golden waves in the midday light.
The leaves of the vegetable patches are broad and green, curling at the edges, the fruit heavy on the vines.
Somewhere behind me, I hear the familiar rhythm of my father’s axe splitting wood, the sharp crack echoing across the field. The steady creak of the old wheelbarrow follows, my mother pushing fresh bundles of harvested grain toward the barn.
I wipe the sweat from my brow, smearing dirt across my skin, but I don’t mind.
This is home.
The certainty of the seasons, the soil, the work, the life that grows from it.
I pause, lifting my face to the sky, feeling the breeze cool the sweat on my back.
I belong here.
I straighten, stretching the ache from my back. The sun is hot and steady, the fields swaying in the warm breeze.
Then, in the distance—movement. A dark shape against the bright summer sky. I squint, shielding my eyes with my hand.
A storm?
The black cloud billows toward the village, rolling low over the hills, moving with eerie precision. The breeze shifts, carrying something cooler. But I don’t recognize the scent of it.
Something feels off. I frown. It’s too low, too dense. And it’s moving too fast.
A prickle runs down my spine. Storms don’t move like that. Wind doesn’t carry clouds that way.
The wheat shudders around me, rustling as if whispering a warning. I take a step back, the warmth of the sun suddenly winked out. The cloud grows closer, spreading outward like fingers reaching across the sky.
And then, through the haze of shifting darkness, I see shapes moving within it.
Something is coming.
The black cloud surges forward, rolling over the distant hills like a living thing.
Then it breaks apart.
My breath falters as I see them. Hundreds of dark shapes tearing through the sky with an eerie, predatory grace.
Their wings stretch wide, vast and leathery, their long, ridged frames cutting through the air like blades. They don’t flap like birds—they glide, slicing through the wind with a silence that feels unnatural for something their size.