The training didn't go well.
Kaelen had spent three days under the hermit's instruction, sitting cross legged on hard stone for hours trying to find the stillness the old woman insisted was the first step toward control, and every single attempt had ended the same way, frustration boiling over into something hotter, the mark beneath her collar flaring gold until Row had to physically drag her back from the edge of another uncontrolled shift.
"You're forcing it," the old woman said, not for the first time, watching Kaelen pace the small clearing outside the stone dwelling with barely restrained fury. "Fire doesn't answer to force. It answers to patience, and you don't have an ounce of that in you yet."
"I don't have time for patience." Kaelen's hands curled and uncurled at her sides, her
