Elena had survived a kidnapping, chain-wielding psychopaths, cracked ribs, a concussion, and Soren's emotional whiplash.
Obviously the next logical step was: Learn to fight.
A terrible idea. A wonderful idea.
A terrible, wonderful idea.
One she was absolutely going to pursue.
So she went to the training yard the first morning she could stand without swaying.
Eris, to his eternal misfortune, had been assigned to watch her. Which meant he was now assigned to watch her… attempt self-improvement.
He looked worried.
He often looked worried around her.
"My lady," he said carefully, "His Highness asked that you rest."
"And I am resting," she said proudly. "Resting my soul by becoming less kidnap-able."
Eris blinked slowly. "…That is not what rest means."
"Eris, I nearly escaped twice during the kidnapping."
"You did not escape."
"Nearly."
"You did not nearly escape."
"Well, I felt nearly escaped," she insisted.
He exhaled through his nose like a man aging a decade per sentence.
"Fine," he relented. "We will… begin lightly."
Eris handed her a wooden practice dagger.
Elena held it up, triumphant.
"I'm armed."
"You are… holding a training stick," Eris corrected gently.
"It's symbolic," she argued.
He pressed his lips together — the expression of a young knight realizing his career had taken an unexpected turn.
"Very well. Show me your stance."
She planted her feet.
Elena's stance was many things:
• wide
• proud
• aggressively confident
It was also wrong. Very wrong.
Eris stared long enough for her to get offended.
"…My lady… why are your feet shaped like that?"
"This is a stance."
"It is a stance," he agreed in the tone of someone identifying an unfamiliar insect. "Just not a useful one."
"Oh."
They adjusted. Sort of.
Eris moved her arms a little. Then her feet. Then her arms again because her feet somehow ruined everything.
"Lower your center," he instructed.
She bent her knees.
"Lower."
She bent more.
"Lower."
"…Eris, I am about to sit on the ground."
He sighed. "Then stop lowering."
After some negotiation, Elena achieved something that looked vaguely like readiness. If one squinted.
"Now," Eris said, stepping back cautiously, "strike me."
Elena raised the dagger. Took a breath. And lunged.
What followed could not be called wrong so much as it could be called a crime against physics itself.
Eris dodged so violently he nearly tripped over his own boots.
"My lady! You aimed for my throat!"
"I panicked!"
"You lunge when you panic?!"
"I'm new to stabbing!"
A beat of horrified silence followed.
Eris stared at her as though trying to calculate how to report this to Soren without dying.
"Again?" she asked brightly.
"No," Eris said immediately. "Absolutely not. We will work on footwork. Perhaps balance. Or—gods help us—breathing."
"Breathing I can do," she said confidently.
She then promptly forgot how to breathe as Soren's voice cut across the yard:
"Elena."
Eris paled.
Elena jumped.
Soren stood at the edge of the training circle, arms folded, expression grave enough to silence the entire courtyard.
"Good morning," she tried, chipper.
His eyes lowered to the dagger in her hand.
Then the stance.
Then Eris.
Then—slowly, painfully—back to her.
Soren didn't blink.
"Elena," he said, voice low and cold enough to frost steel, "why are you holding a weapon?"
"It's wooden," she said hopefully.
"That is not an answer."
"It's… symbolic?"
Eris made a faint strangled noise behind her, the sound of a man watching his future flash before his eyes.
Soren's brows lowered into something dangerous. "You are meant to be resting."
"I am resting," she insisted. "Resting my soul by becoming less easy to kidnap."
Silence.
The terrible, you-just-signed-your-own-death-sentence silence.
Soren stepped into the ring.
Eris stepped out of it with the survival instincts of a deer who had just smelled smoke.
Soren came to stand before her, gaze sweeping over her healing injuries—her cheekbone, her ribs, her wrists. Beneath that assessment was something dark, coiled, and barely controlled.
"Tell me," he murmured, "which part of you believes you can fight right now?"
"All of them," she said stubbornly.
His eyes sharpened like a blade being unsheathed.
"Elena," he said quietly, "you can hardly lift your arm without wincing."
"That's not—" He lifted her elbow gently. She winced. "—relevant."
"Eris," Soren said without looking, "you are dismissed."
Eris vanished.
"Coward," she muttered.
Soren exhaled—a slow, controlled release of a man choosing not to punch a wall.
Then he stepped closer.
Too close.
Close enough she could smell snow and steel and something darker on him.
"Why," he asked softly, "do you want to fight?"
"Because I can't rely on everyone else forever," she said. "Because I don't want to be helpless again. Because—"
"Because of what was done to you," he finished for her, voice quiet—and deadly.
Her throat tightened.
"Yes," she whispered.
Something feral flickered in his eyes.
"Elena." His voice lowered to something that felt like a hand around her spine. "If you want training… if you insist on learning to fight… then I will be the one to teach you."
Her pulse shot up.
"That sounds… dangerous."
"It is."
"So you're saying no?"
His gaze darkened.
"I am saying," he murmured, stepping closer still, "you do not put yourself in danger unless I am there. Right beside you. Controlling the field. Controlling the fight."
Her lips parted. "Why? Because you don't trust me?"
"I don't trust the world not to take you again," he said. "And I don't trust you not to run toward danger yelling 'resting my soul.'"
"That happened ONE time—"
"Elena," he warned.
She straightened her shoulders. "You'd be the best teacher."
His jaw flexed.
"That," he said, "is the problem."
"What? Why?"
A slow, terrifying smile touched his mouth—beautiful and dark enough to make her knees wobble.
"Because," he said, stepping behind her, breath brushing her neck, "I don't train gently."
Her pulse skittered.
He lowered his voice to a whisper only she could hear.
"And I don't handle you gently."
Her breath hitched.
He took the dagger from her limp hand.
"And Elena?"
She swallowed.
"If you ever attempt to stab someone like that again," he murmured, "I'll have no choice but to keep you in my chambers. Constantly. Under guard."
Her body went hot. Too hot.
"What—what kind of guard?"
He leaned in, lips ghosting her ear.
"The kind," he said softly, "you're nowhere near ready for it."
Her brain short-circuited.
He stepped back, expression composed again—but the hunger hadn't left his eyes.
"Training begins," he said, "when you can look at me without blushing."
She blushed harder.
Soren smiled.
A slow, devastating, terrifying smile.
The kind that meant Elena had just started a game she had no hope of winning.