Chapter 30
Training
Isleep well into the following afternoon and wake to find two trays at the foot of the bed—what was breakfast and what is now lunch—and a neat pile of clothes. I eat until the trembling in my hands flees, then dress.
Supple leather pants hug my hips and thighs like they were cut specifically for my body, laced at the sides in a ladder of silver eyelets. The top is a leather corset with flexible boning that still lets me breathe and move.
When I roll my shoulders, the leather answers like a second skin. I look like the rumor they whisper about me. Fire with teeth.
I turn to find Keiren stepping back in, dressed in leathers and gloves that perfectly match mine. The shirt clings unfairly to him, the leather molded like poured shadow. Light skims the planes of his arms, highlighting the quiet command of his stance.
“I hope you enjoyed the peace and pampering,” he says, flipping a short training sword in one hand before offering it to me hilt-first, “because that ends now.”
I blink. “What?”
“If you’re going to survive the final Trial in a few months, you’ll need more than a sharp tongue and blind luck.”
“Oh, stars,” I mutter, rising and taking the blade. “You’re seriously going to train me right now?”
“No.” He steps in close—close enough that I have to lift my chin to hold his gaze. “I’m training you every day until further notice.”
Danger laces his deep voice.
Then he turns on his heel and strides for the door. “Come on. Let’s see what you’re made of.”
Keiren leads me past the armory, deeper into the keep than I’ve ever dared venture.
The air cools and the light thins as we step into a vast chamber carved from the mountain’s heart.
Enchanted torches gutter along the walls, throwing steel and shadow across racks of weapons.
Training dummies stand like mute witnesses.
“This is where I come to bleed,” he says, stepping into a painted circle. “Figured you might want a turn.”
“Comforting.”
He tosses me a pair of leather wraps. “Hands.”
When my wrists are bound, he nods once. “Show me how you move.”
I square my stance and lunge—too eager, off-balance. He slips aside with infuriating ease. Already frustrated, I swing at him, but he ducks without missing a beat.
I grit my teeth and strike harder, faster. With every strike, he meets me with the flat of his blade or an effortless twist of his wrist. Not a bead of sweat dots his brow even as mine glistens.
“You’re fast,” he says, circling, “but not focused.”
“Says the man who keeps dodging instead of fighting,” I accuse him, hoping to rile him up.
“Oh, Fire…” His voice drops. “This isn’t fighting.”
He lunges.
Steel and motion swallow the next breath. His blade knocks mine from my hand, sending it skittering across the stone floor. He steps in, all heat and leather, one hand bracing my back, the other beneath my jaw, tilting my face up.
“This is dancing.”
My breath catches. For a heartbeat, we don’t move. Then I shove him—hard.
He stumbles—just one step back, but it’s enough. I snatch my blade and drive forward.
We clash. Steel meets steel. Sparks leap. My braid whips my back, and sweat slicks my spine.
Faster, I tell myself. Harder.
Still, he turns me aside again and again until I’m panting and flushed, chest heaving.
He catches a wild swing and twists, disarming me. His free hand gracefully catches my waist when I nearly fall.
We freeze. His hand lingers as our faces hover inches apart.
“You’re improving,” he murmurs, eyes flicking—traitorously—to my mouth.
I want to punch him. Or kiss him. Maybe both.
Instead, I tear my blade free and step back. He lets me.
We circle. This time, I find rhythm. Focus. Fury. I wait for the opening and take it—strike, pivot, sweep.
His sword clatters away across the stone.
I expect a scowl, but instead, he smiles. Not smug. Proud.
He lunges and sweeps my feet out from under me. I hit the mat with a grunt, knocking the wind out of me. He’s over me in an instant, eyes bright with the game. My fingers fumble for the dagger in my boot.
In one reckless, stupid move, I wrench it free and drag the tip up beneath his guard.
It kisses his skin—a shallow cut, thin and hot. Blood beads.
“Keiren—” I choke, horror flattening me. I jerk the dagger away from his throat, but he doesn’t even flinch.
Instead, with a calm that makes my chest hurt, he captures my wrist in his hand and lowers his neck, closing the distance and gently pressing my hand back to the bleeding line at his throat.
I look away, horrified, my breath coming in shallow pants.
“Look at me.” His thumb brushes my knuckles, a paradox of tenderness and command. “Breathe. Four in.”
My breath trembles.
He lets the weight of my hand rest there, safe in his, and begins to count. “One, two, three….”
He continues like that for a minute until my breathing steadies. His eyes beg the question, Shall we continue?
I nod, ever so slightly.
“From this position, if you have daggers, use them.” He guides my fingers so my blade moves from his throat to his back.
“The kidneys are quite an effective target, as is the liver. If your opponent is wearing armor, there are usually gaps here”—he guides my hand to the joint at his shoulder—“and here.” He brings my hand lower—just inside his hip, near that area.
“And what if I don’t have a blade?” I ask, still a little shaky.
“Well, you can’t throw me off with sheer force, so try to use your center of gravity, not your arms. If you step inside my reach and hook your leg behind my knee, you can shift my base. If you drop your weight and twist your hips, my balance will break.”
He demonstrates the move. He’s taller and heavier, but when he tilts, I feel the subtle physics—how a small pivot can collapse an otherwise solid stance.
He lets me practice the motion slowly, my knee sweeping where he indicates.
Once I’ve mastered that, he resists, then gives way, then resists again until the motion becomes muscle memory.
“Use soft spots to make space,” he instructs me, leaning so close that I can sense the scrape of his breath against my cheeks.
“The armpit, the inner thigh, the base of the ribs—push, shove, create an opening. If you have a dagger, use it as a point of control: Press, shove, then exit. Always create distance.”
With a quick, controlled twist, he takes my wrist and flips my grip, showing me how a smaller opponent can leverage a larger one’s mass. He demonstrates how to control his head by cupping the base of his skull and using my shoulders to unbalance him—then lets me try.
I fumble, he steadies me, and I try again—and again—until I’m able to flip and straddle him. It’s then that I notice the spot where I’d cut him is no longer red but black.
“Keiren!” I blurt.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, sitting up, his hands now cupping my face, eyes full of concern.
“Your neck. Did I do that?”
He sighs a breath of relief. “No, my Fire—well, yes, you did, but I’m alright.” He takes the dagger from me, bringing his palm up.
“Don’t!” I scream, but then watch in fascination. The blood is already darkening, turning from red to something deeper—black as ink—before rippling into a sheen of small, metallic scales. They glint in the torchlight before fading back into skin.
“Scales?” I whisper.
He nods. “A part of the curse. My life is tied to the dragon’s.”
“So, every time you’re hurt, you heal?” I ask.
“Not instantly, but yes. The scales form, creating another armor of sorts.”
“My mother told me that nothing can penetrate dragon armor.”
“Nothing natural, no.”
“So, as long as the dragon is alive, you can’t—” I pause, realizing I might have crossed a line. I shouldn’t be asking these kinds of things.
“No, Fire. I can’t die. Not until the curse is broken.”
“You say it as though you’ve tried. As though you want to.”
His gaze falls from mine to our now-joined hands.
“Keiren?”
When he finally looks up, there’s a storm in his eyes, a whirlwind of pain, a past—six centuries of suffering—and it shatters my heart into a million pieces.
“What other moves can you show me?” I ask, hoping to shift the mood.
“From this position? Plenty,” he says with a wink.
It’s then that I suddenly remember I’m straddling him. I roll my eyes and rise to my feet; he does the same. The training room smells of oil and sweat and something dangerously like a promise.
“Let’s go,” I say, and the word is both an order and an invitation. He smiles and tosses me my dagger.
That night, every muscle aching and exhausted, we return to his chambers in silence. Once I’m inside, he leaves to see to his duties, giving me much-needed privacy to clean up.
When I emerge, a nightgown waits at the foot of the bed. The fire burns low, casting ribbons of gold across stone. The silence here feels kind, like a breath held just for me.
The massive, velvet-draped bed takes me whole. Though he hasn’t slept there in days, his scent still clings to the pillows.
I close my eyes, but peace does not come.
The nightmare finds me quickly. Kat screaming. Burning. Reaching. I run and run and never reach her.
“Kat!”
I bolt upright, face wet, breath ragged.
Keiren is there in an instant. He drops to his knees and cradles my face, brushing sweat from my cheeks and wiping tears away with his knuckles. He presses a gentle kiss into each cheek.
“You’re safe,” he murmurs. “She’s safe.”
His eyes—storm-dark, ringed with gold like the last light before nightfall—catch mine and hold steady.
Something in me cracks.
“You’re shivering,” he whispers, his thumb circling the back of my hand.
“No shit,” I mutter, voice shaking. “Your room’s a cave.”
His mouth curls into a glimmer of a smile. “May I?” He nods at the bed, and I nod back.
Without hesitation or expectation, he climbs in beside me, heavy with heat and strength and quiet protection.
He pulls the covers over us and wraps me in his arms, his chest firm against my back, one arm tucked beneath the pillow, the other drawing me close.
His fingers find mine beneath the sheets and lace them together.
“You’re freezing,” he murmurs.
I carefully turn to face him, tucking my head beneath his chin. His breath is warm on my skin. His body is a furnace of steady calm.
I didn’t mean to notice how close we are. Or how the press of him softens every sharp edge in me. But I do.
“I—I’m warm now,” I whisper. “You can go back to the floor.”
“This is my bed, you know.”
“Yeah, well, someone wouldn’t let me sleep in my own chambers.”
“I told you, it isn’t safe there. Besides”—his voice dips—“what kind of king would I be if I let my lady be cold?”
My lady.
I should be repulsed, but I’m not. My traitorous little heart stutters. Heat prickles under my skin as he traces a lazy line along my arm and presses a soft kiss to my shoulder.
“Don’t,” I breathe, half warning, half plea.
“Don’t what?” he asks, amused, and ghosts another kiss below my ear.
He shifts downward until we’re face to face, a breath apart. “If you want me to go,” he says softly, “I will. Just say the word.”
The space between us hums.
When I don’t answer, he kisses my forehead, his touch soft and reverent. Then lower, just beneath my ear. Then the bare slope where his shirt hangs loose on my shoulder. His breath stirs the hair at my neck. His hand draws slow circles along my arm—not demanding, but grounding.
“Bastard,” I murmur, turning to give him my back.
Big mistake.
His laughter rumbles through his chest into me, a second heartbeat under mine. As I turn my head back, his hand finds my jaw, thumb brushing my lower lip. My breath falters.
“Tell me what you want, Fire.” His voice is rough velvet.
“I want—” I start. I mean to say, to go. Or to be alone. Something safe.
But the thought of him gone feels like breaking.
“To sleep,” I whisper quickly. Then, smaller: “But… not alone.”
His arms tighten, drawing me in—no hesitation, just warmth—wrapping me like a promise I didn’t know I still ached for. His legs tangle gently with mine beneath the sheets, anchoring me in heat. In him.
He doesn’t speak again. But I feel it anyway, in the way he holds me: You’ll never be alone again.
The realization spears something deep in me. Deeper than the dragon. Deeper than death. Because that’s the fear, isn’t it? Not burning, not failing, but being alone. Unseen. Unloved.
And with five unspoken words, he offers me what I didn’t know I still needed to believe.
Keiren isn’t just a king. He isn’t just a curse.
He’s a man.
And from the moment we met, he’s offered me more than a throne or survival or anything so shallow. He’s offered me a place by his side. A shield between me and the dark.
Not just tonight, but all the nights to come.
I let out a shaky breath and close my eyes. In the quiet of his hold, wrapped in the shelter of him, I finally drift off, not into dreams, but into peace.