Soren’s breathing was ragged, his face streaked with crimson and yellowing bruises as he lay splayed out in the dirt. “Damn it,” he muttered, wincing as he touched a hand to his cheek, the deep split in his skin evident even to his calloused fingertips. 

His own healing spell was insufficient to fully mend the damage, but he closed his eyes and murmured the incantation beneath his breath anyway. The tightness in his skin easing mildly as his magic closed up the exterior of the wound. 

He glared up at Antoine, who was looking down on him with narrowed golden eyes and crossed arms. “I don’t know what I was expecting,” his former mentor said dryly, nudging Soren’s shoulder with the toe of his boot. “But I see your magic control is still dogshit when you’re worked up. I doubt it’s a habit we can break in the two and a half days we have remaining.”

Soren grabbed a handful of dirt, half-heartedly throwing it at the older man. He scowled as Antoine deflected it with a wave of his hand and a conjured breeze, draping his forearm over his face. If he weren’t still panting for every breath, he’d have been cursing his former mentor’s name. 

Antoine snorted. “At least you’re still uselessly stubborn,” he said, offering Soren a hand. 

Soren sighed, exasperated, but accepted the lift, his ribs protesting sharply as he was yanked back up to his feet. He pressed his hand to his side, which was every bit as tender as he’d anticipated. “A hand, please?” he asked, glaring at Antoine. 

“I just gave you one.”

Soren glowered.

To his surprise, Antoine didn’t actually fight him on it or gate-keep the privilege, simply lifting his hand and lazily rolling the incantation off of his tongue, “Heal.” 

There was a distinct crack and pop in his ribs as they mended, and a forceful pressure as the bruised and split flesh of Soren’s cheek fully mended. “Just like that?” Soren asked, looking skeptically at his former mentor.

Antoine’s ocher eyes glimmered with dark amusement. “How else are you going to make it through evening training?” 

“Of course there’s an agenda,” Soren muttered. In short order, any evidence of their spar—if it even be called that, because the second Antoine bothered to use his magic it was hardly a balanced fight—was erased. Antoine had always been and remained a tour de force, with whom only Gerard de Vanquise could keep pace. 

Soren touched his cheek experimentally and felt nothing but the pressure of his own fingers. For such a skilled battle mage, it had always struck him as odd that Antoine had such a strong command over healing magic. But it was hardly a shock. After all, the former heir of the Vanquise family had always been heralded as a prodigy—more so even than Soren, whose talents were limited to swordsmanship and physical mana ability.

“Better?” Antoine asked, tossing Soren another training sword. 

Soren snatched the sword from the heir and backed off a few paces, his wary gaze fixed on his former mentor. 

“Relax,” Antoine said, glancing towards the main house. “It’s going to be difficult to do partner exercises without your partner. Valkyrie will sniff her out and drag her down here soon enough.”

Soren paused, his shoulders going rigid. Valkyrie was one half of his discomfort with the equation, but the other was, “Partner exercises?”

Antoine gave him another flat, unimpressed look. “You really think every battle is going to be one on one at the Academy? You’re going to be a registered defender, not a knight dueling for his lady’s honor.”

“You can’t honestly mean to drag Lady Elana down in the mud like this—”

“Get it through your head,” Antoine said, jabbing a finger at his temples for emphasis. “It’s ‘dragging her down’ or leaving her for dead. Do you really prefer the latter?”

Soren clenched his jaw, his violet eyes narrowing. That wasn’t even a question, and Antoine knew it. It had been over a decade that he’d dedicated his life and training to the youngest Vanquise child’s benefit. He owed her a debt that could never be repaid, but he intended to spend his life paying it back anyway. 

If the options were to get his hands dirty—and hers—to keep her alive, or to leave her in her glass castle and watch her perish, he would gladly drag them both through the mud. 

Elana stabbed at the remnants of her dinner, which might as well have been ash for all that she was capable of enjoying it. After last night’s nightmares she’d been bone-tired and on edge, and the day‘s events had done nothing but compound that. Her conversation with her father had yielded more questions than answers—and she’d already had questions. She sighed heavily, propping her chin up against her knuckles—a rare breach of etiquette, but she was having a meal to herself, in the comfort of her own room. 

One which, to add insult to injury, the Maker was determined to prevent her from getting through in peace. A sharp rap rattled her door, but the person on the other side didn’t wait to be granted entry. Before she could open her mouth, the door was thrown abruptly open. Elana jolted, reflexively shoving herself back from the table. 

Valkyrie tore into her room like a hurricane, accompanied by a handful of scrambling servants attempting—presumably—to dissuade the snarling woman from doing exactly that. Their protests fell on deaf ears. 

“Get up!” Valkyrie barked, slamming her hands against the table hard enough to send Elana’s cutlery clattering to the floor. 

Her presence was still unsettling enough to raise the hair on the back of Elana’s neck. Hours had passed, but the wild-eyed woman still had blood streaked across her face and clothes—as if it were no less a part of her ensemble than jewelry was to a noblewoman. Elana’s stomach churned as the redhead glowered at her. 

She glanced at the servants who had been trailing Valkyrie, two of whom had gone scampering off—no doubt in hopes of alerting someone who could handle her. Elana could tell on instinct, just as she had that morning, that unless they ran straight for her father, help wasn’t going to make a difference. That left Elana to deal with her, alone. 

She inhaled deeply through her nose, steeling her nerves. From what she’d observed, Valkyrie was single mindedly loyal to Antoine. And Antoine didn’t want her dead yet—or she would already be six feet under. And if Valkyrie’s intention had been to attack, well, she seemed unhinged enough to have done so already. 

Whatever Valkyrie’s agenda was, she could reasonably infer that it didn’t include Elana’s head rolling on the floor. That was as close to a promise of survival as she was going to get—and it was enough to put some iron in her spine. 

“Good evening, Valkyrie,” Elana said, injecting each carefully enunciated syllable with the arctic, unflappable politesse that Marlena had spent years drilling into her. “Can you first tell me to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” 

“Stand up,” Valkyrie snarled, bringing her scarred face within a few scant inches of Elana’s. “Now. Antoine is waiting.”

Elana could feel sweat beading her palms and goosebumps running down her arms—but at least her attire would disguise that from Valkyrie. The crimson-eyed, blood-streaked woman didn’t need to know that Elana’s heart was hammering in her chest or that she was at risk of losing the contents of her stomach. She was going to have to get used to moments like this at the Academy, where she would be surrounded by hostile parties—most, if not all, of whom would be stronger than her in more than one capacity. 

This was as good a chance as any to test her mettle. Elana squared her jaw and straightened in her chair. “Excuse me?” she asked, channeling Marlena’s arctic diplomacy and narrowing her eyes at Antoine’s apparent right hand. “I don’t recall you being given any authority over me.”

Valkyrie’s sharp bark of laughter split the air before she snatched the neck of Elana’s blouse, hauling her to her feet. “That’s not a bad game face. You might make an Academy brat think twice about going toe to toe with you,” she said, baring her teeth at the younger girl. “But let me break it to you now—I outrank you, runt.”

Outranks me? Elana’s question caught in her throat when Valkyrie’s face was shoved right up in hers, the woman’s scarlet eyes burning with bloodlust. 

“And even if I didn’t,” Valkyrie said, her lips splitting in an ear-to-grin, her iron grip on Elana’s shirt tightening, “only fools and children pick fights they can’t win. And we both know you can’t take me.”

A shiver ran down Elana’s spine. Who is she? Even Gerard had had a visible reaction to her when he’d laid eyes on her, asking Antoine why he’d brought her with him as if she was subhuman. Perhaps the question wasn’t who Valkyrie was, but what she was.