“Growth cuts both ways,” Professor Stark added.
Feyra slipped beneath the canopy and returned with a single thorn track along her cheek. Rhys walked heavily; the moss shied from his boots. Iri glowed the path awake, then it dimmed, kind but firm.
Orion knelt. A vine found his wrist and climbed, flowering bronze along his forearm. The sound that rolled through the cadets wasn’t quite a cheer.
Vaeryn stepped in, and the grove sighed. Leaves touched her ankles; a sapling shouldered up to meet her palm. She came back with petals in her hair and earth in her smile.
Then Thaelyn. The arch parted slowly as if weighing the decision. Loam cushioned her knees. She set her cut palm to the soiland emptied herself of watching eyes, of the small, mean voice that wanted this too much. At the edge of hearing, a root-whisper stirred. She reached. It slipped. A thorn curled and nicked her hand. No bloom rose. No vine bothered to climb. The ivy closed behind her without malice. Without welcome.
At the path, Darian brushed her knuckles. “You okay?”
“It wasn’t mine to claim,” she said, and tasted salt she refused to shed.
“Not yet,” he said.
Professor Stark’s gaze tracked her as she passed. She didn’t look up. Inside, something tightened, not grief.
Dawn came pale and cold, the sky the color of river slate. Frost slicked the training yard stones, glittering faintly where the first light touched. Thaelyn’s legs ached from the last two weeks of morning runs along the mountain slopes with Feyra. Thaelyn was back again. She had to train harder. She needed to keep up with the others. She had to get stronger for the remaining trials.
Vaeryn waited at the edge of the yard, calm as the earth itself. Her blond hair was braided tightly down her back, her bare feet planted on the frozen ground. A weighted staff rested across her shoulders.
“You look ready to break,” Vaeryn said. “Good, breaking means the weak parts are giving way.”
Thaelyn drew a shaky breath. “Feyra says I still lose my footing on turns.”
“You lose more than that,” Vaeryn replied softly. “You lose your center every time the wind shifts.”
She dropped one of the staves at Thaelyn’s feet. The wood was smooth, heavy.
“Pick it up.”
Thaelyn obeyed. The weight surprised her; it dragged her armsdownward, pulling at the tightness already coiled through her muscles.
Vaeryn stepped closer, eyes the green of wet stone. “You want control,” she said. “You want to stop falling, but you fight the ground as if it’s your enemy. Thaelyn, power comes from beneath your feet. Find it.”
Thaelyn frowned. “I’m not an Earth wielder.”
“No,” Vaeryn agreed, “but you’re human. You stand on the same soil as the rest of us. You breathe because the ground allows it.” She gestured to the yard. “Show me your stance.”
Thaelyn lowered herself, staff angled before her. Vaeryn circled, silent, then nudged her knee with a sharp toe.
“Too high.”
Thaelyn adjusted.
“Too tense. You can’t balance if you’re waiting to strike.”
“I’m not waiting. I’m ready.”
“Ready is still waiting.” Vaeryn’s voice held no mockery, only a stillness that made Thaelyn’s pulse sound too loud. “Feel beneath you,” she said. “The stones. The weight of your heels. Let the world hold you.”
Thaelyn closed her eyes. The air was icy against her skin. She felt the tremor in her thighs, the thud of her heart, the faint vibrations where her boots met the stones. Slowly, the noise inside her mind, anger, frustration, and doubt quieted.
“There,” Vaeryn murmured. “That is balance.”
Thaelyn exhaled. For the first time in weeks, her breath didn’t shake.
“Again.”
