The days passed in a new, rigorous rhythm, marked by the rise and fall of the sun and the sound of focused effort. Training had commenced in earnest, carving structure into their uncertain lives. The small cottage clearing now hummed with the energy of disciplined practice.
Each teen had fallen into their own specialty. James spent his mornings in the dusty yard, his longsword flashing in the dawn light as he drilled forms Rowan had shown him—thrust, parry, slash—over and over until his muscles burned and the movements began to feel less like thought and more like instinct. Across the way, Kai stood with a borrowed bow, his brow furrowed in concentration as he learned to gauge wind, distance, and the subtle tension of the string. The soft thwip of arrows finding their straw targets became a steady percussion to their days.
Inside the cottage, or sometimes in the shaded herb garden behind it, Raya apprenticed under Lyrielle's quiet guidance. Her training was a dual path: learning the delicate, aura-infused art of healing—how to knit flesh and soothe fever—while also being drilled in the basics of hand-to-hand defense. "A healer on a battlefield must know how to not become a patient," Lyrielle would say, her voice calm but firm.
And then there was Koby.
His training was different, more intimate and infinitely more frustrating. Rowan worked with him separately, often at the forest's edge where the earth was soft. Here, the goal was not to summon great power, but to meticulously manage the faint, flickering trickle of aura his damaged pathways could still muster. The exercises were subtle, internal, and maddeningly difficult: feeling the energy move through his body like a faint thread of warmth, directing it to his hands, his feet, his eyes—not to unleash it, but to reinforce, to steady, to perceive. It was grueling, repetitive work that left him more mentally exhausted than physically spent. But he pushed on, the determination he'd found in the clearing with Aries now a quiet fire in his gut.
The culmination of each day came in the late afternoon, when the sun began its long slide toward the jagged peaks of Blackstone Mountain. They would gather in a wide, rocky clearing at the mountain's foot, a natural arena scoured by wind and shadowed by looming cliffs. Here, they would spar with Rowan.
It was less a spar and more a master class in humility. They would take turns, one by one, attacking him. And he, with a wooden practice sword or sometimes no weapon at all, would dismantle their efforts with infuriating ease, schooling them on every mistake, every opening, every flawed assumption. It was here, in the crucible of controlled combat, that their real lessons were forged.
This was one of those days.
The air in the clearing was cool and carried the sharp, mineral scent of stone. Kai stood at one end, nervously nocking an arrow, his gaze fixed on Rowan who stood perfectly still twenty paces away. James, Raya, Axle, and Koby watched from the sidelines, the recent memory of their own defeats still fresh.
"Whenever you're ready," Rowan said, his voice echoing slightly off the rock face.
Kai nodded, took a steadying breath, and drew his bowstring back to his cheek. His aim was true, his focus absolute on the center of Rowan's chest. But in the flash of an eye—a blur of motion that seemed to defy the space between them—Rowan was no longer twenty paces away. He was directly in front of Kai, the dull point of his practice sword already resting against the hollow of Kai's throat, leaving no room to draw, no space to breathe.
Kai froze, the arrow slipping uselessly from his string.
"You might think the bow's primary purpose is to kill from a hundred paces," Rowan said, his lecture beginning as he slowly lowered his sword. "You're wrong. Its first purpose is to create distance. To control the space between you and your enemy. When that fails…" He reached out and tapped the sturdy central curve of Kai's bow. "…its purpose is to become something else."
"What do you mean?" Kai asked, lowering his bow, confusion and frustration warring on his face.
"The bow is an excellent element of surprise from a distance," Rowan explained, stepping back to give him room. "But what happens when your opponent closes the distance? When they're in your face before you can even blink?"
"The… the bow becomes useless?" Kai ventured.
"No," Rowan corrected, his tone patient. "Then you have to redefine the weapon. The stave is strong, flexible wood. For every sword thrust, you can deflect, parry, create an opening." He demonstrated, miming a sword lunge and using an imaginary bow to sweep it aside, then twisting it as a lever. "It is no longer just a launcher. It is a staff, a barrier, a lever. Your mindset must change with the battlefield."
Kai tried to follow the demonstration, his movements awkward and uncertain. Rowan patiently corrected his grip, his footwork, the angle of the deflection. "Your hands here. Pivot from the hips, not the arms. Good. Again."
After several minutes of clumsy but earnest practice, Rowan nodded. "Keep at it. The instinct will come. Next."
Kai stepped aside, sweat beading on his forehead, and James stepped into the circle, hefting his practice longsword. A focused intensity settled over his features.
"You're a swordsman, like me," Rowan observed, picking up his own wooden blade. "So the principles should settle in your bones, if you let them. Ready?"
"I'm ready when you are," James said, raising his blade into a high guard, point aimed at Rowan's eyes.
Rowan mirrored his stance exactly, a perfect, silent reflection. Then he said, simply, "Go."
James exploded forward with a textbook-perfect lunge, his form clean and powerful. Rowan didn't retreat. With a minimal, almost lazy flick of his wrist, he used the very tip of his sword to tap James's blade, redirecting its course by a bare inch. In the same motion, he flowed inside James's extended arm, and his practice sword came to rest, once more, against James's neck.
"And you're dead," Rowan stated, stepping back. "You gifted me the chance to kill you twice. Once by overcommitting to a thrust I could read, and again by leaving your entire centerline open when you did." He resumed his stance. "Again."
James attacked once more, this time with a more aggressive, flashy move. He brought his sword high behind his head, muscles coiling, and swung down in a mighty overhead slash meant to cleave Rowan in two.
Rowan did not parry. He simply took one small, precise step forward, his body sliding just outside the arc of the descending blade. As James's sword whistled harmlessly past, Rowan tapped the hilt of his own weapon lightly against James's ribs.
"You're going to die in real combat if you keep using wide, committed swings like that," Rowan said, not unkindly. "Power is meaningless if it misses. Remember, your opponent is not a training post. They can and will counter. Hold that mindset in every fiber: always set up an attack, plan for the counterattack, and move your body to avoid what comes back at you. Defense is not just your sword; it's your feet, your torso, your head."
James straightened up, breathing heavily. "I have to think about all that? For every strike?"
"Yes," Rowan said. "Until you don't have to think anymore. With every strike, you must know its possibilities and predict the truest one. You must see the fight not as a series of moves, but as a river of cause and effect. You are trying to divert the current."
"What?" James asked, his face a mask of overwhelmed confusion.
Rowan offered a faint, understanding smile. "Just keep practicing. The understanding will come when your body learns the language. If you have questions, come find me anytime. We'll work it out." He motioned for James to step aside. "Axle. You're up."
Axle moved into the circle with a quiet, focused air. He held a wooden practice spear, its tip blunted. He and Rowan took their stances, and unlike the previous sessions, there was a palpable shift in the clearing's energy.
When Axle attacked, his movement was flawed, but not in the raw, fundamental ways of James and Kai. His mistakes were higher-level, the errors of someone who had already mastered the basics. In fact, for several breathtaking seconds, it seemed less like a student being schooled and more like a skilled apprentice holding his own against a master. Axle moved with a quick, fluid grace, his spear tip weaving a dangerous dance that stayed perfectly in tune with Rowan's sword.
Koby, Kai, and James watched, their earlier discouragement replaced by open amazement. Axle's footwork was a grounded, economical glide. He mastered his critical distance—that exact, lethal space where his spear point was a perpetual, whispering threat, always just at the edge of Rowan's lunging range. His movements were not frantic; they were the confident, deliberate brushstrokes of a practiced calligrapher. Each action had clear purpose, flow, and connection to the next.
He gave two quick, probing jabs high toward Rowan's face—a classic feint. As Rowan's guard rose minimally to deflect, Axle pivoted, the spear dropping seamlessly for a low, sharp thrust aimed at Rowan's lead leg. It was a beautiful, intelligent combination. Koby almost winced, expecting a clean hit.
But Rowan did not try to parry the low thrust. Instead, he exploded forward, covering the gap Axle had so carefully maintained in a blink. He was inside the spear's effective range, his left hand snapping out to clamp down on the shaft below the head. With a deft twist and a sudden kick to Axle's planted leg, he broke the younger man's balance. In one continuous motion, he used Axle's own momentum and leverage to hurl him through the air. Axle landed with a heavy thud several feet away, the spear still clutched in his hand, now useless.
Rowan stood calmly as Axle coughed and sat up. "You're getting better at this, Axle. The flow is there. You just have to stop sticking to your rigid ways."
Axle stood, dusting dark earth from his clothes, and walked back to retrieve his spear from where it had fallen. "Rigid ways?" he asked, his voice thoughtful rather than defensive.
"The feint was good," Rowan said. "The commitment to the low strike after was the rigidity. You saw the opening and decided it would land. You committed your mind to the success of the plan, not to the reality of the fight."
"I was sure it would work," Axle admitted.
"And when it didn't? The moment you saw me shift my weight to move, not block, why didn't you change your movement? Why complete the thrust into empty space?"
Axle was silent for a moment, processing. "I guess… I thought I wouldn't miss."
"That is the rigidity. You must strike each time believing your opponent will counter it. That they are faster, smarter, stronger. You prepare for that reality. That is how you win a fight—by assuming you are the underdog, even when you are not."
Axle gave a slow, deep nod, the lesson settling into him. He stepped away, his expression one of intense contemplation.
Rowan turned. His gaze found Koby, who was standing at the edge of the circle, a hatchet in each hand. Rowan tapped the flat of his practice sword twice on a nearby rock, the clack clack sounding like a starter's pistol in the quiet clearing.
"Koby," he said. "Your turn."