Training theory is not theory.
That’s the first thing I learn.
The room they take me to isn’t a sparring hall. No weapons racks. No sand pits. No dramatic atmosphere. Just a long table, a wall of pinned maps, and a board covered in names, sigils, lines of connection.
It looks like a courtroom and a battlefield had a child.
I love it immediately.
Orion stands at the head of the table, sleeves rolled, posture relaxed in the way predators relax when they already own the territory. Silas leans against the wall, arms crossed, eyes half-lidded but tracking everything.
“Sit,” Orion says.
I do.
Not because he ordered me to.
Because I’m ready.
Silas taps the board with a piece of chalk. “This,” he says, “is how you were almost taken.”
I don’t flinch.
He draws a slow circle around a clus
