Nevara
The morning sun was already brutal and unusually warm for this time of winter, hanging high and unrelenting above the training yard like it had something to prove. Sweat clung to my neck, my arms, my lower back as I slammed my palm into the padded post again and again—precision, not power, I reminded myself. Speed over brute force.
“Keep your elbows tighter,” Kael barked from a few feet away, his arms crossed and his usual disinterest cranked up to max. “You’re not throwing haymakers in a bar fight.”
“Thanks for the visual,” I muttered, adjusting my stance.
I went again—striking fast, controlled—when something in my periphery shifted. Movement. Not a trainee.
I slowed instinctively.
Michelle.
She was walking across the edge of the training yard, her arms crossed casually over
