But him?
Nothing. Just control.
I probe for a reaction, searching for any sign of life beneath all that steel-hard discipline.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you manners?” I say, tone dry, baiting him.
For the briefest moment, I think I see it—a twitch at the corner of his lips, barely there.
Then: “They tried,” he says, voice even. “It didn’t take.”
I let out a quiet laugh, despite myself. Of course that’s hisanswer. But he doesn’t acknowledge it, just moves on like the exchange never happened.
“Put them on,” he says again, already stepping back onto the sparring mat.
“Why do I have to wear these?”
“Because you’re too easy to break.”
I scowl, but he doesn’t give me time to argue.
“Bracers protect your forearms,” he continues, gesturing for me to put them on. “In a real fight, you’ll be blocking more than just practice strikes. Steel, claws, fire—whatever your enemy throws at you, you’ll need to absorb some of it. The sooner you get used to moving in them, the better.”
I glance down at the bracers in my hands. I already feel slow, clumsy, outmatched. Now I have to relearn everything—how to move, how to fight, how to keep from tripping over my own damn limbs. But Thane doesn’t care about my frustration.
With a sigh, I start strapping them on.
A memory sparks, sharp and fast. My father, pulling his old bracers from a trunk in my parents’ bedroom. Turning them over in his hands like something sacred. I was maybe seven. Too small to lift anything with real weight.
He slid them onto my arms anyway. They covered me nearly to the shoulder. I paraded around like a warrior, believing I was invincible.
My mother walked in and laughed as I raised a stick I’d dragged in from the fields days earlier, demanding a duel. She yelped and darted behind my father, giggling, calling me her fierce little warrior.
I blink. The training room blurs. My fingers clench harder around the leather straps.
I shove the memory down before it can split me open.
I feel eyes on me.
When I look up, Thane is watching. His features areunreadable—except for the tightness around his eyes.
I look back down, forcing mine to stay dry. A few more blinks. A few steady breaths.
The bracers drag at my arms, making every movement feel just a little slower, a little heavier. My muscles are already burning, the morning’s training still lingering in my bones, but I force myself to ignore it.
Thane steps onto the sparring mat, rolling his shoulders as he flexes his hands, completely at ease, his posture loose, hands relaxed at his sides—as if we’re about to have a conversation instead of a fight.
“Before we start,” he says, lifting one hand. “Hold still.”
My skin prickles as the protective enchantment settles over me, an invisible force covering me like a second skin.
“This will lessen the impact,” Thane explains, dropping his hand. “It won’t stop the pain completely. Just enough so you don’t break anything.”
A beat. Then, flatly: “Yet.”
I exhale sharply, shaking out my arms. “I know, I know. You say that every time.”
Thane lifts a brow. “And yet, you still need it. Every time.”
