Page 33

She glanced up at him, unrepentant, choosing her words with care. “Your suffering”—she met his eyes—“means nothing to me.”

His wolf was extremely delighted by this.

Drayce examined the burn on his cuff — a neat edge, no damage to the jacket, just a palm-sized mark pressed lightly against the fabric. He then lifted the sleeve to assess the full extent. She watched him, staying calmly unbothered, likely hoping the evidence would support her.

“You extinguished it.”

“I’m aware.”

“Deliberately.”

She started to answer. Stopped herself. “I was trying to.”

“That’s the first time you’ve controlled an active manifestation.” He turned the sleeve back down. “Rather than preventing a surge from starting.”

She looked at her palms.

“The fire was moving,” he continued. “You pulled it back. That’s not containment. That’s control.”

“I aimed badly.”

“You aimed. And then you corrected,” he said. “Most people with active founding-line magic in their first month of use cannot do either. They can suppress or erupt. You did neither.”

She looked at the scorched mark on his sleeve like she’d earned bragging rights and had no intention of cashing them in yet.

He watched the moment she let herself be pleased — the slight shift as she let the reaction land instead of smoothing it away.

“Fine,” she said again—still the real version.

“Yes.”

They ran two more redirect exercises after the jacket. The fire at her palm came up cleaner each time. She was working with it now instead of fighting it — steering it to where she aimed, at the level she chose, and letting it go when she was done.

She set a scorch mark on a target stone at the perimeter. Clean arc. Good aim.

She set a second one six inches from the first.

He turned from the stones. “Stop.”

She looked up.

“That’s the second shot at the same target. You’re grouping.” He stepped beside her and looked at the two marks. “The first one told you the arc. The second confirmed it. Keep moving.”

She turned to the next stone and marked it.

She worked through five more targets. Her grouping was consistent. The fire went where she pointed it, at the level she set it, and stopped when she stopped. By the fifth stone, she wasn’t redirecting anymore. She was firing.

He called the session.

She lowered her hands and looked at the ring of scorched stones around the perimeter, slightly dazed, as if she’d arrived sideways and wasn’t sure what to call it yet.

“Thirty minutes.”

“That’s all that was?”

“Effective training tends to feel longer.”

She turned to him. Not the careful, measured attention she had given at the beginning of the session, the kind she reserved for herself. This one was more direct. “You knew I could do that.”