“You did well,” he said, surprising her. “Your form is improving.”
The praise, however grudging, made her glow with pride. “Thank you.”
“You said warrior training helped you,” she said that night at dinner. “Can you teach me?”
He went completely still, his usual impassivity cracking into something that looked almost like shock.
“You want me to train you as a warrior?”
“I want you to teach me how to get stronger. If warrior training does that, then yes.”
“You’re human.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re female.”
“Also aware, thank you.”
“You’re—” He stopped, seeming to search for the right words. “You’re small. And soft. And completely untrained. Warrior conditioning would break you before it built you.”
“What if we modify it?” She held his gaze. “I’m not asking to become a Vultor warrior. I’m asking to become strong enough to carry a bucket of water without collapsing. Strong enough to survive whatever comes next.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said, his jaw tightening.
“Then tell me.”
“Pain. Exhaustion. Pushing your body past what it thinks it can bear. Morning drills in the cold. Exercises that will make your current soreness feel like luxury.”
“And at the end?”
“At the end, you’ll be stronger than you are now,” he admitted after a brief hesitation. “If you don’t give up.”
“I won’t give up.”
Another long pause. She could see him wrestling with something although she wasn’t sure what.
“This is madness,” he said.
“Probably.”
“You’ll regret asking.”
“I regret not being able to carry water. I’ll take my chances with the training.”
His eyes held hers for a breath, then two, then three. She didn’t look away, refusing to let any of the nervous energy churning in her stomach show on her face.
Please,she thought.Please give me this chance.
“We start tomorrow,” he said finally. “At dawn. And when you can’t move the next day, I don’t want to hear complaints.”
“You won’t,” she promised, and meant it with every fiber of her exhausted, determined being.
CHAPTER 7
“Again,” Rykan ordered, the command as automatic as breathing, and Ember dragged herself back into the starting stance for the twelfth time.
She was trembling. She’d been trembling for the last six repetitions, her slender legs visibly shaking beneath the oversized trousers he’d given her. Her breath came in ragged white puffs that spoke of muscles pushed past their comfort and into the territory of genuine strain.
