The sky over the Bastion was the color of a bruised plum as the third day of training reached its peak. The wind had picked up, carrying with it a fine, biting sleet that turned the stone plateau into a treacherous sheet of glass.
Elissa stood in the center of the ring, her breath coming in ragged, white plumes. Her hair had long since escaped its braids, clinging to her damp forehead in dark, tangled strands. Every muscle in her body felt as though it had been replaced by hot lead, and a sharp, throbbing pain in her right side told her that her ribs had taken one too many impacts.
Vane moved like liquid shadow. Even in the dim light, his movements were effortless, a stark contrast to Elissa's stumbling exhaustion. He circled her, the wooden practice blade held loosely in his hand.
"Focus, princess," Vane urged, though his voice lacked its usual teasing lilt. "Your feet are heavy. If you don't move, you're just a target."
He lunged. It was a standard strike, one she should have seen coming, but her reaction time was frayed to a thread. She tried to pivot, but her boot slipped on a patch of frost.
The wooden sword caught her squarely in the side, the crack of wood against bone echoing in the silent courtyard.
Elissa collapsed. She didn't fall gracefully; she hit the ice hard, her breath leaving her in a violent wheeze. She curled into herself, clutching her side, her face pressed against the freezing stone as she fought for air.
"Princess!" Vane's voice cracked. He dropped his weapon instantly, the wooden sword clattering away as he knelt beside her. His golden eyes were wide, flickering with a sudden, sharp guilt. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, Princess. I didn't mean for that strike to land so deep. I thought you were going to parry."
Dante was there a second later, his heavy boots crunching on the ice. He didn't kneel, but he reached down, his large hand hovering inches from her shoulder as if he wanted to pull her up, before he caught himself and pulled back. His jaw was set tight, his expression a mask of conflict.
"You're doing well, Princess," Dante said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that vibrated in her chest. "Better than most. You have the heart of a Northern soldier, truly. But..." He paused, looking down at her trembling frame. "But we have to keep going. The world outside doesn't care if you're tired. The men who injured Kaelen won't wait for you to catch your breath."
For a moment, the only sound was the howling wind and Elissa's jagged breathing. She looked small against the vast, dark architecture of the palace—a human girl breaking against an immortal world.
Then, her fingers dug into the ice.
With a low, guttural groan of pain, she forced herself to sit up. She looked at Vane, her mist-grey eyes bloodshot but burning with a defiant, silver light that made the vampire flinch.
"Don't," she whispered, her voice raw. She used her practice sword as a crutch, shaking off Vane's hand as he tried to steady her. "Don't apologize. And don't stop."
She pushed herself to her feet, her legs shaking so violently she nearly went down again. She spat a bit of blood into the snow and raised her wooden blade, her grip white-knuckled.
"If you go easy on me because I'm human, you're insulting my brother's memory," she hissed, her gaze hard and unyielding. "Kaelen never quit. Neither will I. Again."
Dante and Vane exchanged a long, heavy look. There was no more pity in their eyes, only a new, burgeoning respect that was far more dangerous. They recognized the look in her eyes; it was the same look Alistair wore before a slaughter.
High above, on the shadow-drenched balcony, Alistair stood motionless. His crystalline blue eyes were fixed on the girl below. He had seen the fall. He had heard the crack of the wood. His hand was gripped so tightly on the stone railing that a faint, violet resonance began to hum in the air around him.
He watched her stand back up. He watched the way she refused the help of his cousins.
He didn't move to intervene. He didn't call out. But for the first time, the "annoyance" he usually felt toward her was gone, replaced by a cold, simmering fire of recognition. She was no longer just a bride or a liability. She was becoming something else.
He turned away just as she raised her sword again, but he did not return to his maps. Instead, he made his way toward the royal apothecary, his mind already calculating the exact strength of the balm she would need tonight.
The evening of the fourth day brought a heavy, suffocating silence to the Bastion. While the rest of the palace settled into the predatory stillness of the night, a flicker of violet light pulsed from the high windows of the Prince-Regent's private study.
Inside, the air was unnervingly cold. Alistair sat behind a massive desk carved from the bleached bone of an ancient mountain beast. His crystalline blue eyes were fixed with terrifying intensity on a map of the Iron Ridge, his fingers tracing the jagged borders where the Southern traitors were rumored to be hiding.
The heavy iron doors creaked open as Dante and Vane entered. They didn't come with their usual stride of military confidence; they moved with a grim, shared purpose.
Alistair didn't look up. "Report," he said, his voice as sharp as a winter frost. "How is her footwork?"
"She can't go back out tomorrow, Alistair," Dante said, his voice flat and unyielding. He stepped into the light of the hearth, the flickering flames catching the tension in his jaw.
Alistair's hand stilled on the map. He slowly raised his head, the incandescent blue of his irises pulsing with a slow, rhythmic light. "She requested to be trained. She wants to be a weapon, Dante. Weapons do not take nights off."
"She is a human weapon," Vane countered, stepping forward to stand beside his brother. The usual charm was gone from his face, replaced by a sharp edge of frustration that bordered on insubordination. "Her right shoulder is a mess of purple bruises, her knuckles are split, and she's barely eating enough to keep her heart beating. If we push her again tomorrow, she'll break. Not just her spirit—her body."
Alistair leaned back, the bone chair creaking under his weight. He watched them both, his gaze piercing, searching for a sign of soft-heartedness. "You think she is weak? You think a few bruises are enough to warrant a retreat?"
"No," Dante replied firmly, meeting Alistair's gaze without flinching. "We think she's the strongest person in this palace. Any other human would have crawled back to the South by the second dawn. But even the strongest blade needs to be tempered, Alistair, not just hammered until it shatters. If you want her to survive the Western Seal later—if you want her to actually be of use—she needs to be able to stand."
The silence that followed was thick, broken only by the crackle of the violet wood in the fireplace. Alistair's mind flickered back to the images he had gathered from the ramparts over the last four days.