Chapter 9
FRIENDS
NINE
We have seen some resistance in the capital, which is to be expected.
When a myth becomes flesh, it’s easy to question if that myth will equal their expectations.
Will she be able to bear the weight of their hope?
From dawn to dusk, from dust to discipline, she is proving to be a force that shall rise.
—VALEN’S JOURNAL
AMARA
After the midday meal, I drag myself to the training room to meet Thane.
As usual, it’s just the two of us, and for that, I am pathetically, overwhelmingly relieved.
I don’t want the others to see me—not yet.
How I fumble my stance, how my grip on a weapon is clumsy at best, laughable at worst. Watch me flinch when I should strike, hesitate when I should move, lose before I even begin.
I am not a warrior. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
For now, at least, I can fail in peace.
Thane stands in the center of the training room, arms crossed, his expression impassive.
“Today, you’re sparring with bracers,” he says, skipping any kind of greeting entirely.
I blink at him, then let out a slow breath. “Hello, good afternoon, Thane. How are you today?”
The sarcasm’s obvious, but it slides right off him.
He tilts his head, unimpressed. “Put them on.” He tosses a pair of thick, reinforced bracers my way.
They hit my palms harder than expected.
I watch him, adjusting the bracers in my grip. Every time I’ve trained with him, he’s been like this. All precision, no excess.
I still haven’t decided if that’s just who he is, or if it’s something he’s had to become. Most warriors, even the serious ones, have some edge of arrogance, some fire that flares when challenged.
But him?
Nothing. Just control.
I probe for a reaction, searching for any sign of life beneath all that steel-hard discipline.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you manners?” I say, tone dry, baiting him.
For the briefest moment, I think I see it—a twitch at the corner of his lips, barely there.
Then: “They tried,” he says, voice even. “It didn’t take.”
I let out a quiet laugh, despite myself. Of course that’s his answer. But he doesn’t acknowledge it, just moves on like the exchange never happened.
“Put them on,” he says again, already stepping back onto the sparring mat.
“Why do I have to wear these?”
“Because you’re too easy to break.”
I scowl, but he doesn’t give me time to argue.
“Bracers protect your forearms,” he continues, gesturing for me to put them on. “In a real fight, you’ll be blocking more than just practice strikes. Steel, claws, fire—whatever your enemy throws at you, you’ll need to absorb some of it. The sooner you get used to moving in them, the better.”
I glance down at the bracers in my hands. I already feel slow, clumsy, outmatched. Now I have to relearn everything—how to move, how to fight, how to keep from tripping over my own damn limbs. But Thane doesn’t care about my frustration.
With a sigh, I start strapping them on.
A memory sparks, sharp and fast. My father, pulling his old bracers from a trunk in my parents’ bedroom. Turning them over in his hands like something sacred. I was maybe seven. Too small to lift anything with real weight.
He slid them onto my arms anyway. They covered me nearly to the shoulder. I paraded around like a warrior, believing I was invincible.
My mother walked in and laughed as I raised a stick I’d dragged in from the fields days earlier, demanding a duel. She yelped and darted behind my father, giggling, calling me her fierce little warrior.
I blink. The training room blurs. My fingers clench harder around the leather straps.
I shove the memory down before it can split me open.
I feel eyes on me.
When I look up, Thane is watching. His features are unreadable—except for the tightness around his eyes.
I look back down, forcing mine to stay dry. A few more blinks. A few steady breaths.
The bracers drag at my arms, making every movement feel just a little slower, a little heavier. My muscles are already burning, the morning’s training still lingering in my bones, but I force myself to ignore it.
Thane steps onto the sparring mat, rolling his shoulders as he flexes his hands, completely at ease, his posture loose, hands relaxed at his sides—as if we’re about to have a conversation instead of a fight.
“Before we start,” he says, lifting one hand. “Hold still.”
My skin prickles as the protective enchantment settles over me, an invisible force covering me like a second skin.
“This will lessen the impact,” Thane explains, dropping his hand. “It won’t stop the pain completely. Just enough so you don’t break anything.”
A beat. Then, flatly: “Yet.”
I exhale sharply, shaking out my arms. “I know, I know. You say that every time.”
Thane lifts a brow. “And yet, you still need it. Every time.”
I scowl, shifting my stance. “One day, I won’t.”
And for half a second, I swear I see it again. That almost-smirk, that small flicker of something in his expression before it smooths out again.
“One day,” he agrees. He raises his fists. “But not today.”
I clench my fists and shift my stance. The braces are heavy, throwing off my balance. I roll my shoulders, trying to shake the weight—not just the thick leather, but the memory of my father and mother.
“You ready?” Thane asks.
No.
Not even close.
But I nod anyway.
“Good,” he says. And then he moves. “Keep your hands up,” he says, circling me, his eyes steady, reading me.
I strike first—a quick jab, aimed at his ribs.
He deflects it with a simple shift of his forearm, redirecting my momentum as if I barely put in any effort at all. “Better,” he says, stepping to the side. “But predictable.”
I grit my teeth and try again, this time, feinting left before aiming a strike at his shoulder. It doesn’t matter; he orchestrates a series of moves and suddenly the world tilts.
The impact slams through my spine, the breath ripping from my lungs as I hit the mat. For a moment, I stare up at the ceiling, dazed, my pulse thudding in my ears.
Thane stands over me, a hand extended.
I grab it, letting him haul me back to my feet, the ache already settling in.
“Your footwork’s sloppy,” he says. “You’re focusing too much on your arms. You need your whole body behind your strikes.”
I shake out my arms, breath still uneven. I know he’s taking it easy on me, which only makes the frustration worse.
“Again,” Thane says, already stepping back into position.
I’m starting to hate that word.
I grit my teeth. Reset.
After wielding fire and training with bracers, I sleep hard. And I dream again.
The voice is calling to me. That same female voice—familiar in a way that tugs at something buried deep, but also not.
Only this time, another joins her. A male voice, deeper, steadier. His voice folds into hers. I hear them both—distinct, but somehow woven together.
“Amara, our starlight. You are the chosen one. The one who will decide the fate of this world. You are strong. You are brave.”
I follow the voices.
I’m walking through a forest, the kind I know from memory more than life. Ancient trees rise tall around me, their leaves a curtain of green above me. Sunlight peeks through the canopy in broken, golden beams.
Birdsong flits through the canopy, distant and warbling.
“There is darkness in this world. It will test you. You will falter. But you will rise.”
The words wrap around me like a cloak still warm from another’s shoulders. It’s not home, but it feels like home. Or a memory of one.
I move forward, drawn by this feeling.
The trees grow sparser, their branches pulling back as the light sharpens—brighter, almost too bright, gilded and strange.
The path opens into a wide clearing.
And that’s when the birds go silent.
The sky has begun to darken, like a shadow eating the sun, bleeding gold from the edges.
I take another step. And stop.
The ground drops away and I am standing at the edge of a cliff.
Far, far below—a churning sea of shadow. Thousands upon thousands of them. All moving in time with one another, like a single living thing.
Shadow Forces.
“There are those who will take from you. Who will use your name against you and your purpose.”
The voices fade into the wind. And the cliff begins to crumble.
I wake with a gasp, the dream clinging to the back of my throat. Pale light begins to shift at the windows, soft and gray—dawn brushing the edge of night. My heart pounds, too loud in the silence.
I already know I won’t fall back asleep.
I slip from the bed, trying not to disturb Lyra snoring in the bunk below. I pad barefoot to the bathing chambers and splash cool water on my face. The chill helps. A little. I change into my training gear, moving on instinct more than intention. I just need . . . air. Something to ground me.
The halls are empty at this early hour. Outside, the grounds stretch wide and untouched, the sky above still cloaked in a faint wash of silver.
These dreams mean something. I know they do.
They always have.
My dreams have led to real things before—visions of moments that came true hours or days later. A warning or a sign.
But this one feels different.
I don’t recognize the voice, and yet, when I heard them, I felt at ease. As if I’ve known them all my life. As if something inside me remembers.
The Shadow Forces are clear enough. That part doesn’t need decoding. That’s my path—my purpose. The whole reason the Spiritborn exists.
But, the rest . . .
I don’t even realize where I’m walking until the air changes and something familiar presses at the edge of my awareness.
I slow to a stop.
The temple.
It rises before me, silent and half-swallowed by vine and time. I remember passing it when I first arrived while walking the grounds with Thane; the day I made the choice to stay.
Without thinking, my hand lifts. Fingers curl around a thick vine and I gently draw it aside. The leaves rustle softly, revealing what waits beyond.