[Evelyn’s POV]

Sera pairs me with senior warriors. These are structured tactical drills, designed to integrate moonlight abilities with conventional combat formations.

We practice two-person flanking sequences, shield-wall disruption patterns, and coordinated strikes that use light distortion to create openings a partner can exploit

“You’re not a solo fighter anymore,” Sera tells me before the session begins. “You’re a tactical asset. That means learning to fight alongside people, not in front of them.”

The first pairing is Brennan, who grins through every combination and treats the moonlight flares like fireworks at a festival.

The second is Seren, precise and analytical, asking sharp questions about timing and radius. The third pairing is the one that stops my breath.

Torren. He walks into the ring with the rigid posture of a man fulfilling an order he didn’t request. His scarred face gives nothing away.

He doesn’t greet me, doesn’t acknowledge the strangeness of what we’re about to do — just raises his shield and settles into a guard stance.

“Flanking combination seven,” Sera calls from the side. “Evelyn leads with distortion. Torren, you exploit the gap.”

We begin. The combination is complex — I generate a localized light distortion on the target’s left, bending the air to create a visual displacement that makes my position appear two feet from where I actually stand.

While the target adjusts to the false image, Torren drives through the exposed right side with a shield bash and blade strike.

The first attempt is mechanical. Torren’s timing is half a second late — he doesn’t trust the distortion, keeps checking my actual position with peripheral glances instead of committing to the gap.

“Again,” Sera says.

The second attempt improves, and the third is even better. By the seventh, Torren had stopped checking and started trusting the technique.

His shield bash lands with conviction, his blade follows clean, and the wooden target takes the strike exactly where the combination intends.

We drill for two hours. The conversation between us is entirely tactical, consisting of phrases like “hold the distortion longer” and “shift the angle left” and “the gap closes faster than I can reach it.”

Nothing personal passes between us, nothing warm. The exchange is professional in a way that feels deliberate, like a wall built from careful bricks of military protocol.

Near the end, I notice something in his guard. The way he angles his shield during the combination leaves his left shoulder slightly exposed, not enough to matter in a conventional fight, but the light distortion amplifies visual errors.

If an enemy adjusted to the false image, the exposed shoulder would be the first thing they’d target.

“Torren, your shield angle, drop it two inches on the left during the distortion phase. The light bends perception, and your current angle puts your shoulder in the opponent’s corrected sight line.”

He stops and studies me with that unreadable expression. Then he adjusts the shield angle, runs the combination again, and the correction works.

The shoulder disappears behind the shield edge, invisible in the distorted light.

He nods once, a single curt dip of his scarred chin. That nod is worth more than any speech in this compound, carrying the acknowledgment of competence from a man who respects nothing except skill earned under pressure.

Sera calls the session. Torren sheathes his blade, inclines his head — the formal gesture he’d offer any drill partner — and walks toward the barracks.

I’m reaching for the water barrel when a shadow falls across my path.

Finn.

He stands three paces away, arms folded across his chest. His jaw works — muscles bunching, releasing. He’s been watching from the yard’s edge, probably the entire session.

I waited until he was ready to speak. Not pushing him out of his comfort, enough to let him know I was still there to listen.

He came, he asked, and he listened. When he walked away, his shoulders weren’t carrying the rigid fury they held when he arrived. And that was enough for now.

The rest of the afternoon passes in the haze of physical exhaustion and emotional depletion.

I clean my blade, strip my training leathers, wash at the barracks basin, and make my way to the mess hall.

The hall is half-full. Warriors cluster at long tables, conversations low — war preparations, supply runs, fortification schedules.

I take a plate and find the empty seat at the far end, the spot I’ve occupied since the revelation. The seat nobody contests because nobody wants it.

Three bites into the stew, someone sits across from me. Mira.

She doesn’t announce herself and doesn’t make a speech or offer a reconciliation or explain what changed. She sets her plate down, picks up her fork, and starts eating.

Her red hair falls across her face, and her expression is the practical calm she wears when she’s decided something and isn’t interested in discussing it.

My eyes sting. The heat rushes from my chest, presses behind my lids, and my vision blurs before I can stop it.

Mira looks up with her fork paused mid-air.

“Don’t you dare cry in the mess hall,” she says. “Eat your food.”

I laugh, the sound is wet and broken and ridiculous, and then I eat my food. Mira eats hers. Neither of us says another word, and the silence between us holds more forgiveness than any conversation could carry.