CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Coven training was unlike anything Olivia had experienced.
No combat drills, no physical conditioning.
Instead: meditation, visualization, breathing exercises that seemed pointless until they suddenly weren't. The Covens taught her to sense the energy around her—to feel the "threads" of reality that connected all things, to see the spaces between atoms where the Veil was thinnest.
"You are small," her instructor, an elderly woman named Morwen with a mask of an owl, explained. "This is not weakness. Small things fit through gaps that large things cannot. You can move between threads, slip through the spaces between, go where others cannot follow."
"I'm not a ghost."
"No. But you can be... elusive. Difficult to grasp. Like water, like smoke." Morwen demonstrated, her hand passing through a solid wall as if it were mist. "The physical world is mostly empty space. You simply need to align yourself with the emptiness."
Olivia practiced for hours. At first, nothing happened. Then, on the third day, she felt it—a loosening, a shift, the sensation of her hand passing through a table without touching it. She yanked back, startled, and nearly fell over.
"Good," Morwen said. "Again."
By the end of the second week, Olivia could phase through thin barriers—doors, walls, fences. She couldn't maintain it for long, and thicker obstacles required more energy than she possessed, but the potential was staggering.
"Imagine," Lucas said, watching her practice, "slipping through a locked door. Escaping a trap. Reaching places no one else can."
"Imagine assassinating someone who thinks they're safe," Olivia countered. "This power is dangerous."
"All power is dangerous. It's the wielder who matters."
She practiced more. She also continued her Vanguard training, her combat drills, her spear work. The combination was exhausting but exhilarating—physical mastery and metaphysical potential merging into something uniquely hers.
Sable watched her progress with those glacier eyes, saying little but noting everything. On the last day of Coven instruction, she found Olivia in the storage shed, practicing phasing through a sheet of plywood.
"You've grown," Sable said.
"Thank you."
"I don't mean your skills. I mean you." Sable leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. "When you arrived, you were angry. Desperate for validation. Furious at a world that didn't see you."
"I'm still angry."
"Yes. But now you're something else too. Confident. Centred. You know who you are, what you can do, what you won't do." Sable's voice softened. "I recognize that journey. I took it myself, years ago."
"What happened to you?" Olivia asked. "Before the Vanguard."
Sable was silent for a long moment. Then: "I was a dancer. Ballet. I spent fifteen years training for a career that ended when a car accident shattered my hip. The doctors said I'd never walk properly again."
"But you did."
"I did. Because the awakening came, and with it, healing beyond what medicine could provide.
But more than that—I refused to accept the diagnosis.
I trained anyway. I hurt. I fell. I got up.
And eventually, I walked. Then ran. Then fought.
" Sable's blue eyes met Olivia's. "Your body is not your limitation, Olivia.
Your mind is. And yours is extraordinary. "
"Thank you," Olivia said, meaning it.
"Don't thank me. Thank yourself. I'm just... recognizing what I see." Sable straightened. "One more thing. The Sovereign. Our intelligence suggests it's preparing to manifest physically. To cross the Veil in its true form, not through proxies or servants."
"When?"
"Soon. Weeks, maybe. The signs are accelerating."
"Then we need to be ready."
"We will be." Sable's smile was sharp. "And Thornwood? When the time comes, I want you at my side. Not behind me. At my side."
Olivia felt something warm expand in her chest. "I'd be honoured."
"Don't be honoured. Be deadly."