Adam watched Quintella hit her head on the metal bar in her eagerness. After a few failures, she narrowed her eyes as she did when she had conquered the numbers with her shiny quill. The bar was not metal now, but a darting spear she had to dodge no matter what.
Focusing on survival, she slowed down and tilted her head left. To brand the movement into her mind, she stepped forward, weaving right with deliberate speed.
Adam nodded after a handful of repetitions, when her movements grew sharper. The weight of the exercise settled on her trembling legs. He watched her hair cling to her sweaty forehead and heard her gasping at the morning's cool air, as if drinking water after a drought.
He chose this moment to stop her with a clap of his hand. After healing and letting her experience how mana knit strength into her muscles, he brought her to the weapon racks that formed a square around the practice dummies.
