Lara had been at it for nearly an hour when Raveth finally started swearing in earnest.
The training ring at Veylira's castle was open to the morning sky, a square of black stone set in the middle of an inner courtyard where heat gathered fast and mercy came late.
No weapons. No magic. No excuses. Just sweat, bruises, and the kind of hand-to-hand brutality Raveth called character building and everyone else called a cry for help.
Lara liked it.
Or rather, she liked what it did to her thoughts.
Because if she was not fighting, she was thinking. And if she was thinking, then inevitably she was thinking of Sarisa in white silk, of that wedding drawing nearer with every hateful sunrise.
So she fought.
Raveth came at her again, fast and low, aiming for Lara's ribs with the sort of accuracy that only came from years of battlefield experience and a deep personal enjoyment of other people's suffering.
Lara twisted, caught the strike on her forearm, and drove her shoulder forward hard enough to shove Raveth back two steps across the stone.
"Again," Raveth barked, grinning through a mouthful of blood where Lara had split her lip ten minutes earlier.
Lara did not answer. Sweat ran down her spine, across her bare chest, over the old scars that cut through muscle and memory alike.
Her hair was tied back badly, already half escaping in damp strands around her face. Her knuckles were bruised. Her breathing was hard and even.
Raveth circled left.
Lara followed.
The morning light flashed across the courtyard wall. Somewhere beyond the arches, a servant hurried past, took one look at the state of them, and wisely kept moving.
Raveth feinted high.
Lara did not take it.
She saw the real strike coming a breath too late, a sweep toward her knee, but anger made her fast. She jumped, landed wrong, recovered, and slammed an elbow into Raveth's shoulder with enough force to make the older woman snarl.
"Better," Raveth said, almost approving.
Vaelen's face rose in Lara's mind anyway.
That neat, calm face. That measured voice. That infuriating certainty that he could simply wait long enough and eventually the world would arrange Sarisa into his arms by force of ceremony and persistence and the quiet violence of being acceptable.
Lara hit harder.
Raveth caught a fist to the stomach and actually laughed, bent over with the impact. "There she is."
Lara went for her again, grabbing the front of Raveth's shirt, driving a knee up, shoving her sideways, using the momentum to force her down toward the stone.
Raveth caught herself with one hand, twisted, and took Lara with her in a brutal tangle of limbs and curses that ended with both of them on the ground, Raveth's forearm pressed against Lara's throat and Lara's knee dangerously close to ending the fight in a way the household would never stop mentioning.
"Yield," Raveth said.
"Fuck off."
"Excellent answer."
Lara bucked hard, rolled, and in the same motion caught Raveth's wrist, pinned it, and slammed the older woman flat onto her back. Her other hand landed at Raveth's throat, not choking, just there. A claim. A finish.
The courtyard went still.
For one beat all Lara could hear was their breathing.
Then Raveth slapped the stone twice. "Great. You win."
Lara let go and rolled away, chest heaving.
Raveth stayed where she was for a second, sprawled on the hot black floor, glaring up at the sky like it had personally betrayed her. Then she sat up with a groan and wiped blood from the corner of her mouth.
"Great," she repeated. "Now let's fucking stop. I'm tired of being your punching ball."
Lara, flat on her back beside her, let out a laugh that was more breath than sound.
"You offered."
"I offered a sparring session. Not to be used as emotional therapy every morning."
Lara sat up slowly, dragging her forearm across her face. "You're very comforting."
Raveth snorted. "I'm not here to comfort you. I'm here to make sure you don't go kidnap a bride before breakfast."
"That was one conversation."
"That was one terrifyingly serious conversation."
Lara got to her feet and held out a hand. Raveth took it with the sort of grim dignity that suggested she was already planning revenge in the next round. Lara hauled her up.
By the time Raveth was steady, Veylira had entered the courtyard.
She did not rush. Veylira never rushed. She stepped beneath the arch in deep violet silk, sunlight glancing off the silver clasp at her throat, and looked at the two of them with the weary expression of a woman who had long ago accepted that everyone she loved was at least a little feral.
Lara knew that look.
It usually preceded either excellent advice or a very elegant insult.
Veylira took in the scene in one sweep. Lara shirtless and sweating. Raveth bleeding and irritated. The state of the ring. The state of Lara's face, which was probably giving away more than she meant it to.
Then she said, "Lara. You don't need to come here every day."
Lara looked away first. "I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
Veylira crossed the courtyard, slow and controlled, and stopped just outside the ring. "We will tell you when there is advancement. For the moment, it is going well."
That should have soothed her.
It didn't.
Because going well was not done. Going well was not four weeks dissolved and Sarisa safe in her arms and a queen left with nothing but ashes and excuses.
Going well was a phrase people used when they wanted patience from someone who had none left to give.
Lara bent, grabbed the towel Raveth had kicked aside earlier, and dragged it over her shoulders. "Yeah," she said. "I know."
Veylira waited.
Lara hated when she did that. That quiet, terrible patience. It always dragged the truth out of people by making them hear how small their own evasions sounded in the open air.
So she said it.
"Can you just be a bit faster?" She looked up, frustration burning right through her exhaustion. "I want to save the love of my life."
The words hung there, stark and ridiculous and completely sincere.
Raveth barked out a laugh from beside her. "Subtle."
Lara shot her a look. "Shut up."
Veylira, instead of reacting the way any sensible mother probably should have, rolled her eyes with slow, magnificent disapproval.
"So much for being your mother," she said.
Lara stared at her.
Then, because the line was so petty and so perfectly timed that it cut straight through the tension, she laughed. Really laughed.
Head dropping, shoulders shaking, towel hanging loose around her neck while the sound escaped before she could stop it.
Raveth laughed too, though hers came out rougher, full of bruises and satisfaction.
Veylira looked deeply unimpressed by both of them.
"I mean it," Lara said when she finally caught her breath. "I know you're doing everything you can. I do. But every day that passes, it feels like they get one more step closer to putting her in white and calling it inevitable."
Veylira's face softened, just barely.
"I know," she said.
That hit harder than comfort would have.
Lara dragged the towel through her hair. "I hate waiting."
"Yes," Veylira said. "You always have."
Raveth crossed her arms and leaned one shoulder against the ring post. "Then don't waste the waiting. Train. Think. Stay dangerous."
Lara gave her a deadpan look. "You say that like I've ever been anything else."
"That's the spirit."
Veylira stepped closer then and, with the sort of dry maternal practicality only she could manage after watching her daughter beat the life out of someone for stress relief, straightened the towel over Lara's shoulders as if Lara were still fifteen and terrible at self-care.
"Go wash," she said. "Then eat. If you collapse before the wedding, all this melodrama will have been for nothing."
Lara opened her mouth.
Veylira lifted one brow.
Lara closed it again.
"Yes, Mother."
"Good." Veylira turned away, already done with the conversation now that she had won it. "And Lara?"
Lara looked up.
"We are moving as fast as we can." Veylira's gaze sharpened. "So when the time comes to save your love of your life, try not to be too exhausted to stand."
That left Lara with no answer worth giving.
So she watched her mother walk out of the courtyard in silk and authority, listened to Raveth mutter something about dramatic fools under her breath, and stood there in the heat with her pulse still running high, thinking that four weeks was far too short and far too long all at once.
She just hoped they would have enough time.