POV: Kai Riven
Night bled into morning before steel cooled in my hands.
Courtyard stones kept their chill even under sun; good—they’d pull heat from a body burning too bright. Ward-lights hummed at the perimeter, a low note threaded with older magic. Riven’s men ringed the roofline, silhouettes carved out of discipline. Below, in the square of cracked marble I’d ordered left unrepaired, Rena stood breathing hard, hair stuck to her temple, glow ghosting beneath her skin like dawn trapped under glass.
“Again,” I said, softer than the word deserved. “But slower.”
She swallowed, nodded, raised her hands. Luminous current coiled along her fingers, too eager, as if power had a heartbeat and it had found a new drum to follow. I stepped in, close enough that cedar and sweat and stubborn courage braided the air.
“Count with me,” I murmured. “Four in… hold… four out. Make the line, not the blast.”
“I’m trying,” she said, frustration fraying the edges of her voice.
“Trying is progress,” I told her. “Failing forward is progress. Again.”
She closed her eyes. Her lashes trembled. I could almost feel the shape of the decision inside her chest—fear at the door, resolve on the step, both invited in because she hadn’t learned to slam anything yet. The glow brightened, then steadied.
“Good,” I said. “Now draw from low, not high. Ground, not sky.”
“Low,” she repeated, adjusting her stance, knees soft, hips square. Beautiful. Dangerous.
A filament of white peeled off her palms and hung in the air between us, humming. The wards flickered in polite panic and then resumed their song.
“Hold it at the edge of your reach,” I coached. “Let it want, but don’t let it have.”
Her jaw tightened. “It wants everything.”
“I know,” I said, and I did. “Teach it your name.”
A breath, then another. The filament thinned to a thread. Pride cut through my ribs; I kept it on a leash. Too much praise too soon turns into a cliff.
A shadow moved at the balcony above the east arch. Auren leaned over the rail, elbows braced, eyes set. Pride and jealousy fought in his stare; pride won by a hair. He had chosen to stay; he hadn’t forgiven himself for it.
“Two more counts,” I said to Rena. “Then release.”
Her hands trembled. “It’s not listening.”
“It never does,” I said. “You make it.”
She exhaled, the thread shivered—and broke. Light snapped back into her like a rubber band. She staggered; I lunged. Arms around her before the stone could have her.
“Easy,” I breathed at her ear, feeling the hammer of her pulse under my hands. “Breathe. You’re getting stronger. Don’t give up.”
Her fingers fisted in my jacket, desperate and furious at herself. “I hate being bad at this.”
“You’re not bad at anything,” I said. “You’re new at something nobody alive has language for.”
“That sounds like a line you practiced.”
“It sounds like a truth I’m choosing,” I corrected.
Footsteps on stone above, then the quick rhythm of someone taking stairs two at a time. Auren crossed the courtyard, wiped the expression off his face, and kept the parts he could use.
“Your stance keeps pitching you forward,” he said to Rena, voice careful, aimed under my guard instead of at it. “When the surge rebounds, you don’t have enough heel to catch it.”
She eased out of my hold, a small, real victory, and faced him. “How do I fix it?”
“You don’t fight like a mage,” he said. “You fight like a wolf.” He stepped beside her, not in front, not behind. “Hips low. Spine long. Weight toward the earth. Think of your feet like claws you can set.”
“Claws,” she echoed, and her mouth twitched with something that might one day be a smile. She moved as he said, and her body remembered what her mind hadn’t learned yet.
I stayed close, half-turned toward threat I couldn’t smell, half-fixed on the precise angle of her wrists. “We build both. Power and control.”
“Kai can keep shaping the river,” Auren said, glancing at me without heat. “I can teach how to choose when to drink.”
“It isn’t a duel,” I said.
“No,” he agreed. “It’s a pack.”
Something in Rena’s shoulders dropped a fraction. She shook out her hands. The glow under her skin changed—less flare, more sun behind a cloud, present even when unseen. She set her feet the way Auren showed her, and I felt the ground notice.
“Again,” I said, stepping around her to the side, where a stray blast wouldn’t tangle with my bones. “Count. Hips low. Wrist soft.”
She lifted her palms. The white gathered with less greed. Auren moved to her other side, murmuring, “Let your wolf watch your hands. If Lyria wants to rip, ask her to hold. She’ll listen to a question better than an order.”
“She listens to you?” Rena asked, genuinely curious, as if the last week hadn’t taught any of us how loyalty looks under pressure.
Auren’s mouth twitched. “She listens to you,” he corrected.
A laugh hitched out of her and steadied her breathing. The filament rose again, thinner, finer, bright as a new blade. This time it didn’t wobble as much. She kept it at reach and it learned the taste of obedience.
“Release,” I said.
She let it go like a whisper. It dissolved into air instead of snapping back. She swayed and didn’t fall.
“Better,” I said, and allowed pride to be visible for one heartbeat. “We do ten of those in a row and I’ll consider you allowed to have coffee.”
“Cruel man,” she muttered.
“Effective,” I offered.
“Exhausting,” Auren supplied, smirking faintly.
“Together,” Rena said, and the word smoothed the tension just enough to breathe through.
We ran drills. Slow, then faster. Threads to lines, lines to nets, nets to nothing—let go, don’t hoard, shape and release. Each time she stumbled, I caught her. Each time she steadied, Auren stepped back half an inch, pride dragging jealousy by the scruff and telling it to sit.
By midday, a sheen of sweat polished Rena’s throat. Strands of hair stuck to her cheek; I pushed them back once and then did not do it again because control is a muscle I force to lift more than power. Her breaths got shorter; her count kept pace. The light under her skin learned cadence.
“Two more,” I said. “Then break.”
“No,” she said, stubborn and perfect. “Three.”
“Three,” I agreed, and Riven, watching from the inner arch, pinched the bridge of his nose because training a king and a luminous girl at once was rotting whatever patience he had left.
We pivoted to push and pull—her energy meeting my resistance, not with force, with shape. I made a plane with my hands; she pressed light against it like water against glass. I eased pressure off; she adjusted. Auren circled, eyes on her back and my front, seeing angles other men miss.
“Hold,” I said. “Don’t—”
The filament thickened. Her breath hitched. I felt the pulse turn greedy; she flinched. Power surged, too much too quick, panicked by fatigue and a thought she didn’t share. I stepped in, palms open.
“Rena—look at me.”
“I am,” she gasped, but her eyes had gone too bright, whites swallowing iris. Lyria snarled inside her chest. The plane I’d made wobbled as the pressure spiked.
“Breathe out—now.” I moved closer, arms loosening, ready to catch.
She tried. She did. But the line blew past intention and found panic. Light slammed to the edges of her; she clawed for it; it clawed back.
“Drop it!” Auren called, sharp. “Rena—drop—”
Her hands flew apart.
The shockwave hit like a bell struck by storm.
Sound slammed the courtyard. Air punched through armor and bone. A ring of white raced out from her center, catching everything dumb enough to be near. I saw it coming and still didn’t have enough space to be smart.
Impact lifted me off my feet.
Stone blurred. Sky blinked. For half a breath I was nothing but motion and knowledge—I would not move out of the way; I would eat this and call it love.
Back met wall.
Pain spiked—bright, clean, then distant, as if someone put it in another room and shut the door. I slid down the ancient masonry; the world tilted; Rena’s name formed in my mouth and didn’t make it to sound.
She was moving toward me, I think, mouth open, eyes blazing with horror and light, Auren already sprinting, Riven shouting orders too late to matter.
White bled to black at the edges of my vision, and weight left my limbs.
During training, Rena accidentally unleashes a shockwave that sends Kai flying backward into a stone wall—unconscious.