I manage to block the first one—barely—the impact jarring up my arms and making my teeth rattle. The second one catches mein the ribs. The third sweeps my legs and I hit the ground hard enough to see stars, sand puffing up around me.
"You're supposed to block those," Miranda says mildly.
I get up. She knocks me down again. And again. And again.
I can hear it happening around me—the sounds of the other students sparring, the crack of staffs colliding, Marigny barking corrections. Nobody else seems to be having this much trouble. Nobody else's partner seems to be actively trying to kill them.
"Rotate!" Marigny shouts.
Now I'm attacking. It should be better—I'm the one on the offensive now, right? Except Miranda's defense is airtight, and every time I swing, she redirects my staff and uses my own momentum to send me stumbling. I'm starting to get dizzy. My hands are shaking.
"What's wrong?" Miranda tilts her head. "I heard you tackled Atlas on a rooftop. This should be easy for you."
"That was spite-fueled," I grit out, swinging again. "I'm running on fumes right now. Though keep shit talking me, maybe I’ll find the energy to take you down too."
She smiles and sweeps my legs again.
This time I go down wrong. My arm catches on something as I fall—a rusted bracket sticking out of the base of the equipment rack that I've been backed into—and I feel it tear. Not a scratch, not a scrape. A rip, elbow to mid-forearm, deep enough that I can see the white flash of something I really hope isn't bone before blood floods in and turns everything red.
The sound I make isn't a scream. It's more of a sharp, involuntary gasp that cuts through the noise of the room like a knife. Blood is sheeting down my arm, soaking into the sand, dripping off my fingertips.
Miranda steps back. To her credit, she looks startled—this wasn't what she intended, or at least not this badly. "Shit. Marigny—"
"Hold position," Marigny calls, already crossing the room. She takes one look at my arm and her expression tightens. "That needs healing. Where's—Ashford!"
She's looking over my head, toward the far side of the room, and I follow her gaze to where a small commotion has broken out.
A Mors boy—first year, I think, silver blazer too big on his thin frame—is sitting on the ground clutching his hand, looking pale. Scraped palm. He was partnered with a Sanguis girl who clearly pulled her swing too late.
And Ren Ashford is already there.
I watch him kneel beside the kid with a calm, unhurried grace. His ritual knife appears from somewhere—small, elegant, a dark gem set in the hilt—and he pricks his own finger without flinching, then presses the spilled blood to the boy's scraped palm. Red light pulses, brief and warm, and the skin knits together like it was never broken.
"There," Ren says softly, and the boy stares at his healed hand like it's a miracle. "You're fine."
He stands. Turns. And his eyes find me across the room.
I'm still on the ground. My arm is still bleeding—freely now, soaking through the sleeve of my training shirt, pooling in the sand beneath my elbow. I'm pressing my other hand against the wound and it's not helping, the blood squeezing between my fingers in hot pulses.
Ren looks at me. Directly at me. Those warm brown eyes take in the blood, the gash, the way I'm trying not to shake, and something crosses his face. Something I can't read—not fear, notanger, not the cold calculation I've gotten used to from Callum. Something that almost looks like pain.
Then he steps over me.
Not around me. Not past me.Overme, his shoe landing inches from my blood-soaked hand, and he walks toward the exit.
"You should be more careful," he says without turning around.
And then he's gone.
The room is very quiet for a moment. Then Marigny says, "Son of a bitch," and starts barking orders for the first aid kit.
Miranda hasn't moved. She's staring at the doorway where Ren disappeared with an expression I can't place—shock, maybe, or something more complicated. Even for Nyxhaven, what just happened was cold and cruel.
Marigny crouches beside me with gauze and antiseptic. "Hold still. This is going to sting."
"More than the giant hole in my arm?"
"You'd be surprised." She wraps the wound with efficient, unsympathetic hands. The gauze turns red immediately. "You need stitches. I'm sending you to the infirmary."
