She lifts an eyebrow. Waiting.
Daring me to lie.
When I don’t answer, she sighs—loud, dramatic, like she’s been holding this in formonths.
“It’s about damn time! That man has been brooding over you for weeks, and I was getting sexually frustrated watching himnotmake a move.”
I choke. “Ly—”
“I mean, honestly. The way he’s been looking at you? The tension? The sheereffortit must’ve taken not to pin you during training? I wassuffering.”
I drop my head into my hands. “Please stop talking.”
She pats my knee with faux sympathy, grinning like the chaos goblin she is.
“Oh no, this is way too much fun. Thane finally decides to do something about it, and you’re sitting here acting like you didn’t see this coming?”
I lift my head just enough to glare at her. She just grins wider.
THANE
The last three days have been brutal. For her. For me.
Valen calls it preparation. Controlled surrender.Learning to leap.
But what I see is Amara pushed to her edge again and again—blindfolded, unarmed, stripped of every safeguard she’s ever known.
And still she rises. Still she breathes through it. Still she looks up, daring the world to throw more at her. She doesn’t complain. Not once. She breaks, yes—but only long enough to rebuild stronger.
It’s maddening, that relentless fire in her.
She’s not ready. Sheisready. She’s terrified. She’s already soaring. She is everything at once—and I can’t look away from her.
Especially not under that oak tree.
The place I’ve seen her go again and again over the months.
Sometimes she sits on the bench. Sometimes on the ground, back against the fallen log beneath the tree—a trunk split and toppled years ago, left undisturbed.
It’s hers now. She’s claimed it without ever saying a word.
Often she’s alone, knees pulled to her chest, staring out at the lake with that pensive look that’s become so familiar. Other times, she’s surrounded by her friends, laughing, loud,alive.
And once—just once—I sat there with her. She took my hand.
And I let her.
I remember the warmth of her fingers wrapped around mine, the quiet between us not needing to be filled. No armor. No Warlord and Spiritborn.
Just her. Just me.
And now?
I catch sight of her again from the edge of the training field. But she isn’t alone.
Kieran.
He’s crouched beside her like hebelongsthere. And she’s laughing—full and unguarded—at something he’s said. That same log at her back. That same breeze catching in her hair.
