Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 330

Chapter 330

Chapter 330

ARIA

The last thing I tried was simply holding the energy out rather than directing it – letting it exist as a sustained presence around my hands, the way it had happened involuntarily during moments of high emotion in the trials. Voluntary, controlled, deliberate. The texts called this *maintaining presence* and had described it as foundational for things that came later, which was their frustrating way of saying *do this until it’s easy before you try the next part.*

It wasn’t easy. It was actually the most tiring thing I’d tried – more draining than the burst, more than the beam, because sustained low-level output was apparently harder than a single larger release. I held it for what felt like two minutes and was probably ninety seconds before I let it drop, breathing slightly harder than the minimal physical exertion of standing still should have produced.

म

The drain was something to note. Something to build. Something the texts probably had aṇ opinion about that I’d read tonight.

I looked at my notes. At the cracked dummy. At the state of the training ground around me, which was exactly as occupied as it had been when I’d turned around post-burst but was once again conducting itself as though the wall were its primary interest.

I picked up my notes, tucked them under my arm, and walked toward the bench to collect my things. As I passed the nearest cluster of wall-watchers three adults and the eight-year-old who had somehow acquired a partner, another child about the same age who

interested in the wall

—

I stopped.

“Thank you,” I said. “For the space.”

—

Was also very

A pause that contained several people deciding what to do with being addressed directly.

The eight-year-old turned around first. Her expression was that specific combination of wanting very badly to say something and checking whether the adults around her were going to do it first.

They weren’t. So she said: “Can you do it again?”

“Lena,” one of the adults said, with the tone of a parent managing a child who’d said the thing everyone was thinking.

“She broke the dummy,” Lena said, with the complete logical consistency of a child who’d

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identified a relevant point and didn’t understand why acknowledging it was complicated. “I want to see her do it again.”

I looked at the child. Looked at the cracked dummy. Looked back at the cluster of adults who were studying their own feet with great attention.

“Come back tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll probably break something else.”

Lena considered this with the seriousness of an eight-year-old assessing a promise. “Okay,” she said.

She turned back to the wall. Extremely committed to the wall.

I walked toward the exit, and as I passed the front area where Kael and Ivory and Jordan and Elite and Nina had stationed themselves, I slowed without entirely stopping.

I didn’t look at them directly. They weren’t looking at me. Kael was saying something to Jordan about something that was definitely a real topic requiring his full attention. Ivory had found something on the ground near her foot that warranted examination. Elite had turned around to look at the entrance behind her.

“Ivory,” I said, without stopping. “The deflection one. The stone. Was that right?”

A pause.

“Yes,” Ivory said, to the ground near her foot. “The impulse was right. The control needs work.”

“The beam duration?” I said, still moving.

“Six seconds is fine to start,” Ivory said. “Longer tomorrow.”

I didn’t say anything else. Kept walking, out of the training ground and back into the main grounds, where the morning was fully arrived now and Shadowmere was doing its day.

I didn’t look back. Didn’t need to.

Behind me, the wall-watching would be winding down. People filtering back to their actual mornings. The eight-year-old and her friend probably being collected by whoever had brought them to the training ground in the first place and I made a note to think about who had brought an eight-year-old to a training ground at that hour and what they’d expected her

to see,

—

The pearl was warm in my pocket. Warmer than usual, with the specific quality it had developed when the power had been active like it was confirming something, the way a well-fitted thing settles when it finds the right position,

–

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+5 Free Coins

I had notes to review. A dummy to replace, probably. A list of things to try tomorrow that would require an audience of people who were definitely not watching to tell me whether the technique was right or whether it was going to put a stone into my own face.

Lena wanted to see something broken.

I would break something.

Tomorrow, and the day after that, and as many days as it took until the reflex became choice and the choice became capability and the capability became the thing that a Luna who held a White Moon Pearl was supposed to be able to do with it.

Shadowmere was watching. In the specific, dedicated, completely deniable way that Shadowmere watched things.

I was going to give them something worth watching.

The morning was clear and cool and full of work I was finally, genuinely ready to do.

I walked into it and didn’t look back.

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