Morning came grey and cold, and Damian was already waiting in the clearing when Amara stumbled out of the shelter, hair a mess, temper worse.
“You’re relentless,” she muttered.
“You’re late.” He tossed her the same branch from the night before. “Again.”
The training blurred into a rhythm over the next hour. Strike, block, correct, again. Amara’s body ached in places she hadn’t known existed, but somewhere underneath the exhaustion, something was shifting. Her hands stopped shaking between strikes. Her feet stopped forgetting where to go.
“Not bad,” Damian said, after she blocked a strike that should have knocked her flat. There was something almost like approval in it.
“Careful,” she said, breathless. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
They broke for wa
