Page 39 of Wings of Ash & Flame
“Well done,” Professor Hawthorne conceded, moving on to the next student.
Alaire shot again and again, each arrow piercing the bullseye. With each release, tension unraveled from her anxious mind, given over to the singular task that demanded her full concentration and left room for nothing else. The repetition and rhythm felt meditative. Her body remembered its old skills, the dormant prowess of her training before Grimstone.
Keeping her body in peak physical condition was imperative. Being both female and human made her vulnerable, an easy target for someone who wouldn’t hesitate to exploit weakness. She wouldn’t let that happen again.
Blake had taught her the importance of balance between strength and control, breath and motion.
With each draw of the string, she remembered how he’d returned day after day, teaching her how to weave physical conditioning and breathwork together.Every successfuldefensive and offensive maneuver originates from a strong core, he’d said.The two go together. If you can’t control your breath, everything else falls apart.
Blake had been a fae of few words—unless it involved critiquing Alaire’s strategy or drilling her for information. Yet somewhere between bruises and breathless sparring matches, they’d formed an odd friendship.
She recalled one particularly sweltering day, long after everyone else had retreated from the strangling humidity into the orphanage’s shade. Alaire had finally worked up the courage to ask him something personal.
“How do you know how to fight so well?” Sweat dripped down her temples as she rubbed her face with the back of her forearm.
Blake had sat down against the matte-grey fence that encased the property. “Had no choice,” he said curtly, his broad frame casting her in shadow. He ran a hand through his chocolate-colored hair, eyes squinting up at the sun.
“I was disowned when it was discovered I was a null.” His voice was flat, but something in the stiffness of his posture betrayed an old wound. “I had to find other ways to make myself valuable. To fae society, I was no better than a human. Learning how to fight was how I kept myself alive.”
Alaire had wanted to comfort him, to say something to ease the ache she heard in his voice, but that wasn’t his way. So instead, she’d given him a terse nod—the response he always gave her—and said, “Are you going to finish teaching me that combo or what?”
He’d given her the tiniest grin, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners.
For several years, they’d held standing training sessions every other week. Blake had brought different weapons eachtime, determined to ensure she could wield whatever was in her hands and, ultimately, become a weapon herself.
Then, without warning, their training had stopped when the vampire wars reignited. Humans and magicless fae alike had been conscripted after vampires breached Cielore’s defenses for the first time in decades.
Blake had been called to the front lines, deemed expendable by the Consortium.
Weeks later, she’d received a crumpled parchment, ink scrawled in short, uneven strokes, the edges worn and frayed as if clenched too many times:Keep going.I don’t want to come back to find out you’ve been slacking. Take care of yourself.
But he never came back.
She’d learned the truth of his fate, as so many others did, standing frozen in the main square of the human district, staring at the list of the fallen. His name was inked in stark finality: killed in action by a vampire. No warning. No goodbye.
Alaire honored Blake the only way that mattered—by keeping her promise and never letting anyone take advantage of her weaknesses. Someday, she would pay his kindness forward. Someday, his sacrifice would mean something.
The memory faded as Kaia’s voice pulled her back to the present.
“Trying to show us up,” she drawled just as Alaire let her final arrow fly.
It split the first arrow down the middle, a perfect shot that sent a genuine smile flickering across her face.
“It’s not that hard.”
“Ouch,” Kaia teased from across the field on the corked flooring near the balancing equipment.
Four quadrants divided the Crux: a field with archery targets; a climbing wall and tools for bodyweight training; cushionedmats for sparring along with the weapons wall; and an area with vaults, bars, balance beams, rings, and a pommel horse.
Encircling all of it was a track they were expected to run at the beginning and conclusion of each class.
Professor Hawthorne, an air elemental, retracted the egg-shaped skylight to dissipate some of the heat in the room. The clashing of blades, grunts of exertion, and pounding of flesh echoed off the walls.
“I think this is my favorite class.” Kaia grinned, watching a powerful figure twist sharply through two perfect rotations. Mid-air, the movements were graceful and poetic: legs tight, arms guiding the rotation before landing firmly with a slight knee bend to absorb the momentum.
The red-haired fae spread his arms wide in a T-shape after his magnificent landing and angled his head to get a better look at them.
“Did you just complete a double twist off the beam?” Kaia shrieked.
