Ariane:
That was how those weeks passed—training with Evie all day and being with Seris at night.
Each sunrise bled into discipline. Each sunset softened into devotion. And in between, I was remade.
The first week was agony.
Evie trained me like someone who’d never known mercy.
She made me feel my limits and taught me how to break them, grind them to ash, and shape the smoke into something more substantial. The Hall of Mirrors didn’t forgive weakness, and neither did she. But that didn’t mean she was cruel.
“Again,” she’d say as I writhed in the sandpit, chest heaving, limbs shaking from failed technique.
“Again,” she said when my palms bled from rope climbs, and my knees buckled on impact.
And I did it, I listened, soaking in every word like a sponge thrown in water. I had listen
