Thalira had summoned me to one of the smaller training halls.
There were no weapons or armor here, only a table, stands with parchments, metal plates, stones carved with symbols, and several bowls filled with paints and ink.
"Today we won't waste time," she said without introduction. "I want to know if what you showed on the battlefield can be repeated. And if it can be worked with."
I leaned against the table. "I don't need magic. I have a sword and enough strength to manage without it."
"Maybe," she replied, "but this is not ordinary magic. Your runes work completely differently. A normal mage needs to draw the symbol, carve it, or at least have a prepared object with it. You can summon it with just a thought. That is… impossible."
"And yet it happened," I shot back.
She showed me a metal plate with a simple fire symbol. "An average mage would need hours to prepare this. Try to activate it immediately."
I raised my hand and placed my palm on the metal. I focused only on the shape of the rune in my mind. In a second, flames burst forth so fiercely that she had to step back.
She looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "No words, no long concentration… and the power is three times the standard."
It went on like this for days. First simple runes—fire, ice, wind. Then more complex ones, the kind a normal mage would spend a week preparing. I triggered them instantly. We tested them on metal, stone, even water. Regular mages had to work with a physical symbol. I needed only the image in my mind.
"You don't draw them, you… create them," she said during one test, watching as a symbol glowed on a stone where moments earlier there had been nothing.
Over time, we stopped talking only about magic. When we rested between trials, we talked. She asked about the battles I'd fought, about the village I came from. I, in turn, listened to her speak about her study of magic, how she had spent years in the palace archives.
Gradually, I noticed that she was looking at me differently. Not as an experiment, but as someone she respected. Training with Thalira was supposed to last only a few days. It ended up being weeks.
Every morning I came to her chamber, filled with parchments, old metal plates, and stones inscribed with symbols I'd never paid attention to before. Sometimes we trained the whole morning, other times a single test stretched into the whole afternoon. And in between… we talked.
She studied my magic with eyes that lit up every time I did something that broke every rule. I listened to her explanations of ancient rune systems that regular mages had to draw on objects or carve into stone. "An average mage needs hours of preparation," she'd say, "you trigger it with a thought. As if the runes were already part of you."
In time, it stopped being just about magic. During breaks, I began telling her about the battles I'd been in. The noise of the battlefield, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth, the feeling of standing back-to-back with a comrade knowing both of you could fall at any moment. I spoke about Jered, about the dark elves in the North, about the look in the eyes of enemies when they realized they wouldn't survive.
Thalira listened with a strange intensity. Sometimes she asked for details, sometimes she just sat and looked at me, as if she wanted to remember me down to the last word.
"I'm beginning to understand what the other women see in you," she once said after I described the battle at the Northern Fortress.
"And what exactly do they see?" I asked, more out of curiosity than vanity.
"Intelligence. Charisma. And… that strange innocence. As if, even after everything you've been through, you've kept something pure. That… is rare."
I didn't know what to say to that. I just smiled and went back to the training table.
After a few weeks, we began tests against other mages. They put me against five at once. One controlled fire—I broke through his spell with my own rune before he could complete the first gesture. Another tried illusion—I tore it apart like old parchment. The third tried to freeze me—I triggered a lightning rune that threw him several meters back. The remaining two ended much the same.
Thalira stood aside, watching me with a smile that was more than professional approval. "You're a master of magic, whether you like it or not," she said when the last of them surrendered.
"I'm not. I just use it differently. I still see it as secondary."
"Maybe for now," she replied quietly.
From that day on, we spent time together outside of training. In the evenings, we went to the palace library, where she showed me old maps and legends of forgotten wars. Sometimes we just sat by the window and watched the city at night. For me, these were peaceful moments I had nowhere else. For her… perhaps something more, though I didn't see it—or didn't want to.
It wasn't the first time Thalira had stopped me after training, but this time it wasn't about magic or more trials.
"Tonight… come to my private dining room," she said casually, but in her eyes was something I hadn't seen before. "We won't talk about runes."
I agreed.
When I entered that evening, I was met with a surprise. The room was cozy, without unnecessary grandeur. A small table, candles that gave just enough light to see the other person but not the whole shadow behind them. On the table, two glasses, a bottle of red wine, and a plate of roast meat, bread, and fruit.
"Sit down," she said with a smile. "Tonight I won't be your teacher."
We started eating and sipping wine. I told her things I hadn't told anyone in the palace—about my childhood in Volaris, about my first battles where I had more luck than sense, about Jered and the time we ended up nearly naked in a river after our horse bolted during a ford crossing.
Thalira laughed so genuinely she had to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye.
"So the great hero of the kingdom has also had moments when he looked like a drowned chicken?"
"More than once," I admitted. "And some I'd rather never tell anyone."
The wine slowly loosened the atmosphere. Thalira told me how she'd grown up among scholars and mages who argued over theories but didn't even know how to hold a sword properly. She laughed when I joked that she should one day start a school where mages were also taught how to survive if they ran out of mana and were left alone against two bandits.
"You know, Aric," she said after a moment of silence, "with you, it's… different. You're different. Everyone here wants something—power, recognition, gold. You… want something else."
"The right things," I said without thinking.
"And that's why I enjoy talking with you," she added quietly, pouring me more wine.
We stayed there for a long time. The wine was strong, but not enough to cloud the mind. We laughed, teased each other, sometimes the conversation turned to serious topics about war, politics, the future of the kingdom.
When I left, she looked at me at the door. "Thank you for tonight. I truly enjoyed it."
"I did too," I admitted.
And I knew this was no longer just training or an official conversation. It was something… personal.