“Drop your shoulders.”
Kellan’s bark cut across the training yard.
I snarled—mostly internally—and forced the muscles between my neck and arms to unclench.
We were working with staves today.
Not wooden ones.
Iron-cored.
Heavier.
More punishing.
“Your grip’s too tight,” he said, circling me. “You’re fighting the staff as much as your opponent. Loosen. Let it move.”
“If I loosen, I’ll drop it,” I gritted out.
“Then pick it up,” he said. “Again. Until you understand you’re not strangling a snake. You’re guiding a river.”
“That’s a terrible metaphor,” I muttered.
From where he leaned against the fence, Tiernan called, “It works for water elementals.”
“I’m not a water elemental,” I shot back.
“Not yet,” he said.
Ashra made an intrigued noise. *We could be. Steam. Boil. Freeze.*
*Focus,* I told her.
I stepped back into position, staff across my body, one end pointing at Eren, who was my unfortunate sparring partner of the day.
He looked as tired as I felt.
“Remember,” Tiernan said. “This isn’t about hitting harder. It’s about control. Footwork. Timing.”
“Tell that to my bruises,” Eren muttered.
“Bruises are love,” Brenna called from the sidelines, where she sat with Nana and a basket of mending. “Or so the warriors say.”
“Warriors are idiots,” Nana replied briskly, yet her eyes tracked my movements with hawk-like focus.
“Ready,” Kellan barked.
Eren and I squared off.
I inhaled.
Exhaled.
The staff felt awkward in my hands—too long, too heavy, not like the familiar weight of the kitchen ladles or the short training batons Kellan had started me on.
Ashra rumbled. *This is like a tree limb,* she said. *Imagine you are shoving someone away from our den. Not twirling a toy.*
That helped.
“Begin!” Kellan snapped.
Eren moved first.
He feinted left, then swept his staff low toward my legs.
I hopped back.
Too slow.
The iron smacked my shin.
Pain flared.
“Faster,” Kellan called. “Don’t dance away. Step in.”
“Easy for you to say,” I growled.
Eren came in again—an overhead strike this time.
I brought my staff up to block.
The clash reverberated through my bones.
We pushed against each other, wood grinding.
He had reach and experience.
I had stubbornness and newly awakened muscle.
“Use your hips,” Tiernan called. “Put your weight behind it. You’re not fencing. You’re brawling with leverage.”
I grit my teeth and shifted, letting my stance widen, my back foot anchor.
The staff moved differently with the adjustment.
Less strain on my arms. More power from my core.
I twisted.
Eren stumbled to the side.
I followed through, swinging the other end of the staff around toward his ribs.
He barely blocked in time, breath wheezing out.
“Better,” Kellan said. “Again.”
We went on like that for what felt like hours.
Strike.
Block.
Step.
Trip.
Recover.
Every misstep earned a correction.
Every success was met with a gruff, “Do it again.”
By the time Kellan called a halt, my arms burned. My palms were blistered despite the leather wraps. My thighs wobbled.
Eren collapsed on his back in the dirt, staff rolling away.
“I’m dead,” he announced. “Tell my mother I died bravely.”
Brenna snickered. “I’ll tell her you tripped over your own tail and knocked yourself out.”
“I hate you,” he groaned.
“You love me,” she sang.
Kellan rolled his eyes. “Water break,” he barked. “Ten minutes. Then we run circuits.”
A collective groan rose from the trainees.
I staggered toward the barrel of water, every muscle protesting.
Tiernan intercepted me halfway, a skin in hand.
“You did well,” he said, offering it.
I took it, too tired to argue, and drank greedily.
“You’re a liar,” I said between gulps. “I look like a newborn foal.”
“A foal with a big stick,” he said. “Very intimidating.”
I snorted.
He smiled, then sobered, eyes scanning my blistered hands.
“Let me see,” he said.
“I’m fine,” I started.
“Kaia,” he said quietly.
Something in his tone made me extend my hands without further argument.
The blisters were ugly—raw, raised bubbles where skin had rubbed against staff. One had burst, leaving an angry red patch.
Ashra hissed. *We should bite Kellan’s ankles.*
“He warned me,” I said.
Tiernan took my hands gently, turning them over.
“Elemental control can help here too,” he said. “You don’t have to just heal faster. You can…reinforce. Thicken skin. Spread impact.”
“You’re turning me into cooked meat again,” I muttered.
“Durable meat,” he corrected.
He traced his thumb lightly over one of the blisters, then pulled back.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
I obeyed.
“Feel the heat in your hands,” he murmured. “Not the pain. The warmth. Under your skin.”
I focused.
There.
A faint glow.
The same ember that lived in my chest, but smaller, localized.
“Now,” he said. “Instead of letting it flare and blister, imagine it weaving. Threads. Like Nana’s mending. Stitching tighter where it’s thin. Spreading out so pressure doesn’t land in one spot.”
“You make it sound so simple,” I said.
“It’s not,” he said. “But your mind likes images. Use them.”
Ashra hummed. *We like threads,* she said. *Webs. Nets. Catching blows before they land.*
I exhaled and tried.
The heat shifted under my skin.
Not surging.
Not burning.
Spreading.
It hurt.
Then…didn’t.
The throb in my palms dulled.
When I opened my eyes, the blisters were still there.
But less angry.
Less swollen.
Tiernan watched my face. “Better?” he asked.
“A little,” I admitted.
“It’ll take practice,” he said. “But if you can learn to spread your own impact, it’ll make you harder to break. Inside and out.”
“You talk about breaking a lot,” I observed.
He smiled sadly. “I’ve seen a lot of broken things.”
“So have I,” I said quietly.
We held each other’s gaze.
The bond hummed, steady.
Kellan’s bark shattered the moment.
“Stop flirting with the elemental and drink your water, Voss!” he called. “You’re running too.”
Tiernan flashed me a quick grin. “Duty calls,” he said, and jogged off to join the trainees.
I watched him go, something warm and heavy settling under my ribs.
Brenna appeared at my elbow.
“You were making eyes,” she said.
“I was not,” I protested.
“You absolutely were,” Eren added from his sprawl on the ground. “I felt the heat from here.”
Ashra snickered. *We *were* making eyes.*
“Traitors,” I muttered.
Nana Lysa chuckled from her chair. “It’s allowed, little bird,” she said. “To look at something good. After all the bad.”
“I’m not…” I flushed. “It’s complicated.”
“Of course it is,” she said. “The best things always are.”
She studied Tiernan as he fell into line with the trainees, his longer stride unconsciously adjusting to stay with us instead of loping ahead.
“He loves you,” she said matter-of-factly.
My lungs seized. “He…no. He doesn’t. That’s the bond. The Goddess. Biology. Whatever.”
“Those help,” she said. “But love’s in the choices. He could have taken one look at your messy wolf, your messy pack, and gone home. He stayed. That’s not biology. That’s stubborn heart.”
I swallowed.
“He has his own…baggage,” I said. “His father. His pack. His scars.”
“So do you,” she said. “The question is whether you’ll be brave enough to let your bags bump into each other instead of carrying them alone.”
Brenna made a gagging noise. “We’re talking about feelings again,” she said. “Can we go back to punching?”
I laughed weakly.
Then, sobering, I said, “Someone from Riverbend was watching me last night. Elemental. Callen.”
Nana’s eyes sharpened. “I heard,” she said. “The omegas talk.”
“What are they saying?” I asked.
“That you glowed,” Brenna said. “That Rhys nearly choked when Elyra toasted you. That some visiting alphas didn’t like it. That others did. That your ‘stalker’ looked like he wanted to lick your face and set you on fire.”
“That’s…graphic,” I said.
“Omegas are very descriptive,” Brenna said smugly.
“They’re worried,” Nana added. “About what comes next. About whose wolves will be pulled into whose war.”
My chest tightened. “So am I.”
Nana reached out and patted my arm. “Then you train,” she said. “You get strong. You learn your own edges. So when the war comes—and it will, in some form—you meet it with your teeth bared, not your back turned.”
“And if my teeth hurt the wrong people?” I whispered.
“Then you learn,” she said simply. “And you fix what you can. And you accept what you can’t. That’s all any of us can do.”
Ashra hummed approval. *Wise old wolf,* she said.
Kellan’s whistle cut through the yard.
“Move!” he shouted. “Unless you want double laps!”
I groaned.
“Go,” Nana said. “We old ones will sit and gossip about you.”
“Wonderful,” I muttered, but I smiled as I pushed off the bench.
Evening runs blurred into more staff drills, into scent work, into elemental exercises.
Days passed.
Tiernan remained.
Callen lingered on the edges of our awareness like a ghost—never overtly approaching, always present at gatherings, always watching.
The pressure built.
We all felt it.
Like the charged air before a storm.
Something had to break.
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