Raul and Victor took eleven days to get back on their feet.
Not eleven days of bedrest, exactly, both of them were stubborn in their own ways, but eleven days before they could move without wincing, breathe without pain pulling at their ribs, and sleep without waking up feeling like Rasir's spear was still chasing them.
Arin healed faster. His arm was still bound, movement limited, but the fracture had set cleanly. His right arm stayed bound against his chest. So he trained with what he had left, awkward at first, careful every time the pain warned him not to push too far.
So he focused on training Mina first.
She showed up the morning after Raul and Victor were declared "not dead anymore," standing near the training space with a borrowed spear in one hand and a small, round shield in the other.
The shield was too big for her.
The spear's grip was wrong in her hands, unfamiliar, heavy in a way magic never was.
Arin noticed all of that immediately.
"You sure?" he asked, glancing at the weapons. "Your talent's more on the magic side, isn't it?"
Mina nodded back. No hesitation. "I don't want to just stand behind you."
That was all she said.
They borrowed the gear from Rasir's armory. Nothing special, just a plain spear with a dull edge and a battered shield that had seen better days.
The first session was… rough.
Mina held the spear too tight; her shoulders were stiff, movements delayed by a half-second of thought before every action. When she tried to step forward, her feet tangled. When she tried to block, the shield lagged behind her body instead of moving with it.
She dropped the spear twice in the first ten minutes.
Once, she nearly fell flat on her back.
Arin didn't comment.
He remembered his own first weeks with a sword. The blisters, the frustration, the way his body refused to move the way his mind wanted it to.
So he corrected gently. Adjusted her grip. Showed her how to keep her weight centered. Let her fail without stepping in every time.
From a distance, it probably looked pathetic.
Mina moved like someone who had never learned how to trust her own body. Which, Arin realized, wasn't far from the truth.
She had been avoided ever since she awakened. Kept at arm's length. No sparring partners, no play fights, no reason to push herself physically.
Living alone does that to a person.
But progress came slowly, painfully slowly.
Days turned into weeks. Raul and Victor recovered enough to watch, to comment, sometimes to tease. Victor tried to help once and ended up making things worse, overcorrecting, overwhelming her with advice until Arin told him to back off.
Mina never made a fuss about it. Even when she was sore and marked up, she still showed up the next day and picked the spear back up.
By the time a month had passed, she still wasn't good, but she wasn't clumsy anymore.
She could keep her stance. She could move the shield without thinking. She knew where the spear was pointing even when she wasn't looking at it.
She hasn't unlocked the basic mastery skill for either spear or shield. But she was building a foundation for it.
Also, that month marked something else, too.
A full year since Arin awakened, his sixteenth birthday.
No one mentioned it. No one knew.
He forgot about it, too, at first.
It came to him late that evening, sitting under the shade of a half-collapsed shed, watching the sun drag itself lower across the sand.
Roasted river fish.
The thought came out of nowhere.
Anne standing over a fire made of scrap wood and broken crates. Complaining about the smell. Pretending she wasn't excited. Always burning one side a little too much.
He hadn't celebrated birthdays back then. But every year, without fail, she made that dish.
He swallowed his saliva.
The slums had been brutal, Cold, Hungry, Unforgiving.
But those evenings, those moments, had been warm.
He was still a nobody now, in the grand scheme of things.
But a year ago, he'd been nothing.
No strength, no future, no one relying on him.
Now he had a talent no one else did. Friends who trusted him with their lives. People who followed him not because they had to, but because they chose to.
The thought felt unreal for a moment. Like looking at someone else's life from a distance.
He leaned back against the wooden post, closed his eyes, and let the heat sink into him.
The desert was cruel. The sun merciless. Sand everywhere, getting into skin, clothes, lungs.
And yet… people lived here. Laughed here and endured life.
What is the meaning of life? He always wondered, not only in Solkara but on Earth too.
He'd asked that question to Anne once.
Back when he still believed answers existed.
He remembered Anne stopping what she was doing, hands still damp as she wiped them on her apron. She hadn't answered right away. Just looked at him for a moment, quiet, like she was weighing something heavier than the question itself.
Back then, he hadn't understood why she'd taken so long.
Then she smiled. Not the bright kind, something smaller, tired, and real.
"Life doesn't really come with a meaning," she'd said. "You don't find it lying around either. You give life meaning, not the other way around."
The memory was uneven now. Her face blurred where time had worn it thin, the kitchen fading into something shapeless and warm. He couldn't remember the sound of her voice clearly anymore.
But he remembered how it had felt hearing that answer.
He let out a slow breath and smiled.
"Where are you staring like that?" Mina's voice cut in.
He opened his eyes. She was standing a few steps away, spear resting against her shoulder, hair damp with sweat. She looked… relaxed, unguarded.
"Nowhere," Arin said. "Just looking at sand."
She squinted. "Looking at sand and smiling like that?"
Raul's voice chimed in from the side. "Heat finally got him."
Victor snorted. "Nah, that's the face he makes when he's thinking about a girl."
Arin blinked at Victor. "How did you know?"
Victor nearly inhaled a piece of dried fruit. "Wait, seriously?"
Raul stared at Arin as he'd just confessed to treason. "I thought the only thing you loved was Lord Coins."
Mina just looked at them.
Blank and flat. The kind of look someone gives when they're too tired to be disappointed.
Then Arin laughed, not quietly or politely.
He laughed until his ribs hurt.
Mina recoiled. "Great, He has lost it now."
Raul joined in the laughter, then Victor too.
For a moment, there was nothing else. No training, no plans. Just laughter echoing against sunbaked walls.
Mina shook her head, hiding a small smile. "You're all idiots. I'm going back to training."
She walked off, spear tapping lightly against the ground.
Arin watched her go.
She wasn't the same girl who had opened her door weeks ago, guarded and withdrawn.
She moved differently now. Stood differently. Spoke more easily.
Not because she'd changed who she was.
But because she wasn't carrying everything alone anymore.
The day ended quietly, too quietly.
And somewhere far beyond the sand and heat, something was moving.
Slowly.
Patiently.
Unnoticed, for now.