He led me past the main training ground, through a narrow gap in the stone perimeter wall I hadn't noticed before.
The space on the other side was smaller. A clearing carved into the hillside, enclosed by rock on three sides and screened from view by a row of dense pines. One weapon rack against the far wall. No benches. No spectators.
Cain's private training ground. I was still in yesterday's clothes, dried blood on my knuckles, pine dust on my boots from the main yard.
"If I hadn't stepped in," he said, his back to me as he walked toward the center of the clearing, "the ones on the ground would have been my warriors. Not you."
My pulse jumped. He'd seen through me. Not the punch itself, but the intent behind it, the positioning, the weight transfer. He knew that hit should've done mo
