My throat tightens.
“This was always meant to happen,” I say. “Me. All of this.”
Valen’s voice softens—not with sympathy. With certainty.
“It’s already happening.”
I’d thought the war ended before I was born. But maybe it didn’t end at all. Maybe it’s beenwaiting.
I glance back at the page. The script. The prophecy. The pattern.
“So if a seer saw this at the end of the Shadow Wars . . . then the war never really ended. Did it?” I pause. “If the Shadow Forces were only contained, and the wards are weakening, and more are slipping through—”
My voice lowers. “We’re still in it. Aren’t we?”
I stare at him, my throat tight. The world isn’t breaking.
It’sunraveling.
Valen meets my gaze without flinching. “I believe we are, Amara.”
Two hours later, we are at the far training field. Valen gave me a break to join Lyra for breakfast, but now we’re back at it. The morning sun has fully risen by the time Valen and I leave his study and make our way toward the outer fields.
Unlike the usual training grounds near the outpost, this one is farther out, isolated, with nothing but open land and sky stretching around us. The grass is drier here, the soil cracked in places from past scorch marks. Evidence of fire training.
I know why we’re here.
Valen stops a few paces ahead, turning to face me. “You’re tense.”
I exhale through my nose. “I’m always tense when we do this.”
He tilts his head slightly, silver-blue eyes gleaming in thesunlight. “And why is that?”
I swallow hard, the dry air thick in my throat, my breath uneven despite the steady morning breeze.
I don’t want to do this. The last time I wielded Fire—truly wielded it—it nearly consumed me. The raw, untamed power. The hunger of it—the way it wanted to take more.
I lost control and nearly set Valen ablaze. If Thane hadn’t stepped in—hadn’t redirected it at the last second—I don’t know what would have happened.
I shake my head. “I nearly set you on fire.”
Valen actually smirks. “That was an inconvenience at best.”
My head snaps toward him. “An inconvenience?”
His smirk doesn’t fade. “You think that was the first time I’ve had to dodge a wildfire?”
I blink, thrown off balance by his calm.
“Fire responds to emotion,” he says. “Fear makes it wild. Resistance makes it violent. But understanding—”
He steps back. Gestures toward the open space.
“Understanding lets you command it.”
Valen watches me. Reading thoughts I haven’t spoken. He doesn’t press, but I can feel it. He’s thinking about how emotional I have been lately—tears during lessons, the earth rumbling during a training session with Thane. He knows I’m still carrying it. All of it.
Instead he gestures to the open space between us. “Let’s begin.”
