Chapter 13
Talia
Torren refused to train me until the healer cleared my shoulder.
I learned this after appearing on the Fifth Wing’s terrace at dawn in my new training uniform and finding him halfway through a set of sword forms.
He stopped the moment he saw me.
“No.”
“I haven’t asked anything.”
“You wore that uniform deliberately.”
“It was in my wardrobe.”
“So were several robes. You didn’t choose one of those.”
He rested the blunt practice sword against one shoulder. Sweat darkened the collar of his sleeveless shirt, and the morning air carried more heat around him than the weak sunlight provided.
I tried not to look at his arms.
The terrace runes turned gold.
Torren glanced toward the carved railing.
“They do that outdoors too.”
“I had hoped they wouldn’t.”
“You were looking at me.”
“I was looking at the sword.”
“It’s in my right hand.”
My gaze had been considerably farther left.
“I was observing your stance.”
The runes shifted toward orange.
His mouth moved at one corner.
I crossed the terrace and held out the note I had brought from the infirmary. “The healer cleared me for light physical activity.”
He took it.
His eyes moved down the page, then returned to the first line and read it again.
“Light activity.”
“I know what it says.”
“No impact to the shoulder. No overhead lifting. No shifting.”
“I don’t shift.”
“Then that rule should be easy to follow.”
He handed back the note and walked toward the weapons rack.
I followed. “You told me I needed to prepare.”
“I told you preparation might keep you alive while the academy determines your status.”
“The review has already lasted two days.”
“The First Trial nearly collapsed.”
“And Malcolm has spent those two days arguing that I caused it.”
“Which is why you should avoid giving him evidence that you’re reckless.”
“I’m not asking you to throw me off the terrace.”
He looked at the drop beyond the railing. “That wasn’t under consideration until you mentioned it.”
“I need to learn something useful.”
The words came out sharper than I intended. I had spent years making myself useful in quiet ways—cataloguing, translating, noticing what people with louder gifts overlooked. None of that would stop a blade.
“You already did.”
“What?”
“You coordinated four elemental paths under pressure.”
“I read the runes.”
“You kept your head.”
“While sitting on the floor.”
“An underrated survival position.”
The answer might have reassured me if I hadn’t watched the others complete the assessment.
Leander could freeze an entire chamber. Rafe controlled wind strong enough to rotate metal vanes, Sebastian moved Shadow through solid stone, and Torren fused a broken bridge while standing over a trench of fire.
I could read.
Being useful inside one malfunctioning Trial did not make me prepared for the next.
“Teach me how to defend myself,” I said.
Torren studied me.
The teasing disappeared from his expression. “Against what?”
“Anything that reaches me before one of you can.”
“That is a long list.”
“Then start with the most likely.”
He returned the practice sword to the rack.
“No weapons?”
“You’re not ready for one.”
“I have held a sword before.”
“Ceremonially?”
“Master Orin makes every keeper learn how to move the weapons in the relic collection.”
“That isn’t the same as using one.”
“I know.”
Torren selected two padded gloves from a storage chest and tossed one pair to me.
“Hands up.”
I put on the gloves and raised my fists.
He stepped closer.
“No.”
“You say that often.”
“Because you do things wrong often.”
“I’ve been standing here for less than a minute.”
“And your stance is already trying to injure you.”
He nudged my right foot wider with the side of his boot. “Your hips are square. Turn.”
I adjusted.
“Not that far.”
He put one hand at my waist.
He came around behind me rather than reaching across my injured side. His other hand hovered near my right shoulder, close enough to guide but careful not to touch.
The restraint was somehow more distracting than contact would have been.
Heat passed through the fabric of my uniform.
The terrace runes turned gold again.
Torren removed his hand.
“You’re doing that deliberately,” he said.
“I am not controlling the walls.”
“You’re controlling the reason they react.”
My face warmed. “You touched me.”
“To correct your stance.”
“And they reacted.”
“So did you.”
The gold deepened.
I turned my hips without his help. “Like this?”
His gaze moved over my stance, slower than before.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Your hands are still wrong.”
He lifted my left glove, positioning it closer to my cheek, then adjusted the right below my chin.
“Protect your face.”
“I assumed the goal was to avoid being hit.”
“Everyone assumes that. Then they get hit.”
He stepped back and raised his hands. “I’m going to reach for your shoulder.”
“Which one?”
“The injured one.”
“That seems unfair.”
“Attackers are known for it.”
He moved.
I tried to block him with my left arm.
His fingers touched my right shoulder before my glove reached his wrist.
“Again.”
The second attempt ended the same way.
On the third, I stepped back rather than blocking. He followed easily and tapped my shoulder.
“You’re taller than I am.”
“So will many people trying to kill you.”
“How reassuring.”
“Again.”
We repeated the exercise until I stopped watching his hands and began following the movement of his shoulders. The first time I successfully turned away from his reach, satisfaction rushed through me.
There was a language to this too, I realized—not written in ink or carved into stone, but carried in the tightening of a muscle and the angle of a body before it moved. Once I began reading it that way, Torren’s reach stopped seeming impossibly fast.
On the next attempt, I slipped aside before his fingers reached me.
The runes flashed gold.
Torren nodded. “Better.”
“Only better?”
“You want praise after avoiding one hand?”
“I want an accurate assessment.”
“Better is accurate.”
He reached again.
I moved too soon.
His hand changed direction and caught my waist. He pulled me off balance, turning until my back rested against his chest.
His forearm crossed my middle. His other hand remained raised near my uninjured shoulder.
Even while demonstrating how completely he could trap me, he had arranged the hold so no pressure touched the wound.
“An attacker can mislead you,” he said beside my ear. “If you commit before he does, you give him control.”
The heat of him surrounded me.
I knew I was supposed to break the hold. He had shown me where his balance rested and how little pressure he needed to keep me against him. I should have dropped my weight, turned toward his elbow, or driven my heel into his foot.
Instead, I noticed the roughness of his forearm through his glove and the even rise of his chest against my back.
His breath warmed the loose hair beside my ear. Every point where we touched became suddenly, unhelpfully precise.
The runes turned red.
Torren released me immediately.
I stepped forward and faced him.
Neither of us looked at the walls.
“Again,” I said.
He hesitated before lifting his hands.
The training continued.
Torren taught me how to break a wrist hold, how to protect my ribs when I fell, and how to use an opponent’s forward movement instead of trying to overpower him. I failed more often than I succeeded, but every correction gave me something concrete to improve.
We stopped when the breakfast bell rang.
I heard it.
I pretended I didn’t.
“Enough,” Torren said.
“I can do another set.”
“No.”
“I’ve almost learned the turn.”
“You learned it twenty minutes ago.”
“Then I need to repeat it until it becomes instinct.”
“You’re dropping your right arm.”
“I’m compensating for your reach.”
“You’re protecting your shoulder.”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
He stared at me.
“Much,” I added.
“Training is over.”
“If Malcolm keeps me in the Trials, I won’t be able to stop because something hurts.”
“If you damage the shoulder now, it won’t heal before the next Trial.”
“We don’t know when that will be.”
“That strengthens my argument.”
I raised my hands. “One more.”
“No.”
I moved anyway.
Torren caught my left wrist. I twisted exactly as he taught me, but when I turned, pain pulled through my right shoulder.
My balance failed.
He caught me around the waist before I hit the stone.
My feet left the ground.
For one disorienting second, he held all of my weight against him. I gripped his shoulders, and his hands tightened at my waist.
“Put me down.”
“When you’re steady.”
“I’m steady.”
“You’re trembling.”
“So are you.”
His eyes met mine.
The runes surrounding the terrace turned red again.
Not orange. Not the deep gold of amusement.
Red.
Torren lowered me slowly. My body moved against his until my boots touched the floor, but his hands remained at my waist.
Neither of us stepped away.
He looked at my mouth.
My breath caught.
This time, the walls had nothing to do with it.
I had spent two days being examined, doubted, and discussed by people who looked at me and saw a mistake the academy had not corrected. Torren had looked at me and seen someone worth keeping alive. He had believed my warning inside the Trial when winning required him to ignore it.
I rose onto my toes.
Not because he had caught me. Not because he had defended me. Because I wanted him, and for once I refused to reduce my own wanting to a debt that needed explaining.
His head lowered.
Only a small distance remained between us when he stopped.
Torren’s fingers loosened.
He stepped back.
The sudden loss of his heat left the morning air cold against my damp skin.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
His expression hardened. “Don’t apologize.”
“I misread—”
“You didn’t.”
I stared at him.
“I wanted to kiss you,” he said.
The directness left me with no prepared response. “Then why didn’t you?”
“Because you’re injured, exhausted, and grateful.”
“I know the difference between gratitude and attraction.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Yesterday, you believed you had no place in the Trials. Today, I’m the person offering to help you remain in them.”
“That doesn’t make my judgment disappear.”
“No. It makes my position matter more than it should.”
I crossed my arms and immediately regretted the pressure it put on my shoulder.
Torren noticed.
Of course he did.
“You’re making a decision for me,” I said.
“I’m deciding what I will do. You still control your answer.”
“My answer was obvious.”
“Make it again when you aren’t standing because I caught you.”
Anger rose quickly enough to turn the terrace runes orange.
“You think I would kiss you because you kept me from falling?”
“I think you’ve spent your life believing care is something you earn by being useful.”
The anger stopped.
I looked away.
He had known me for less than a week. He had no right to understand that.
Torren removed his gloves and placed them on the weapons rack.
“When you kiss me,” he said, “I don’t want you wondering afterward whether you owed me.”
“I don’t owe you.”
“Good.”
He walked toward the terrace door.
I stayed where I was, breathing harder than the training justified.
Torren stopped at the threshold and looked back.
“Tomorrow. Same time.”
I blinked. “You’re still training me?”
“You still need it.”
“I thought I did better.”
“You did.”
The smallest hint of a smile appeared.
“Better is accurate.”
He left.
The terrace runes turned gold.