The first day of training began with a scream.
It was not a scream of battle-hardened fury. It was not a kiai of spiritual awakening. It was the sound of a woman realizing that there is no heater, the floor is 30 degrees, and she has to pee in a bucket because the pipes froze overnight.
Elara Vance emerged from the cabin wrapped in three blankets, looking less like the reincarnation of a celestial warrior and more like a sad, woolen burrito.
The clearing was bathed in the pale, misty light of a mountain dawn. The air was crisp enough to snap icicles.
In the center of the clearing, Li Wusheng was balancing on his index finger atop a mossy boulder. He was upside down. His eyes were closed. He looked irritatingly peaceful.
On the roof of the cabin, Aldren Valcour was doing one-armed pushups. He was shirtless. In near-freezing weather.
"Put a shirt on!" Elara shouted, her breath puffing out in white clouds. "You're making me cold just looking at you!"
Aldren paused mid-pushup. He flipped upright with defying gravity grace and landed softly in the mud next to her.
"My love," Aldren beamed, his skin practically glowing against the gloom of the forest. "The cold is invigorating! It tightens the pores. And I must maintain my physique. If I am to be your shield, I must be made of iron."
"You're made of ice," Elara grumbled, shuffling toward the fire pit where a pathetic pile of damp wood was smoking. "Is there coffee?"
"Li forbade the caffeine," Aldren whispered conspiratorially. "He says it disrupts the Qi flow. He brewed... pine needle tea."
Elara looked at the pot of pale green water bubbling over the fire. "I hate this. I hate the woods. I want a latte."
Li Wusheng flipped off the rock, landing silently. He smoothed his suit—which he was still wearing, somehow unwrinkled despite sleeping on a floor.
"Complaint is the leakage of the soul," Li stated. "To train, you must empty your vessel of desire."
"My vessel desires caffeine," Elara retorted. She poured a cup of the hot pine water. It tasted like drinking a Christmas tree. "Okay. Fine. I'm awake. I'm hydrated with forest juice. Let's do this."
She dropped the blankets. Underneath, she was wearing leggings and the oversized flannel. She tied her hair back with a rubber band.
"Teach me," she said. "I want to know how Valeriana killed that dragon."
Aldren and Li exchanged a look. The look was a mixture of pride and deep, terrified skepticism.
Lesson 1: The Way of the Bat
"We shall begin with evasion," Aldren announced.
They stood in the middle of the clearing. The ground was slick with mud and frost.
"The key to vampire combat is not strength," Aldren lectured, pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back. "It is speed. It is the ability to be where the enemy is not. You must flow like water. You must be lighter than the air itself."
"Okay," Elara nodded, bouncing on her toes. "Flow like water. Got it."
"I will now demonstrate," Aldren said. "I want you to hit me."
Elara blinked. "Hit you?"
"Yes. With all your might. Strike me."
Elara looked at him. He was tall, solid, and terrifyingly fast. But he was also the guy who threw a temper tantrum over Costco stroganoff.
"Okay," Elara shrugged. She pulled her arm back and threw a punch aimed at his chest.
She blinked.
Aldren was gone.
She stumbled forward, her fist hitting nothing but air.
"Too slow!" Aldren's voice came from behind her.
Elara spun around. He was leaning against a tree, twenty feet away, checking his fingernails.
"You telegraphed the movement," Aldren critiqued. "I saw the intent in your shoulder before your muscle even fired. You must strike without thought."
"How do I strike without thinking?" Elara asked, frustrated.
"Like this!"
Aldren picked up a pinecone. He threw it.
It wasn't a gentle toss. It was a fastball.
THWACK.
The pinecone hit Elara square in the forehead.
"Ow!" Elara yelled, rubbing her head. "What was that?"
"A projectile," Aldren said calmly. He picked up another one. "Dodge."
He threw it. THWACK. Shoulder.
"Stop it!"
THWACK. Knee.
"Move, Elara!" Aldren shouted, his voice losing the playful edge. "If that was a dagger, you would be bleeding! If that was a Shadow arrow, your soul would be severed! Move!"
He picked up two pinecones.
Elara scrambled back, slipping in the mud. "I can't move that fast!"
"Yes, you can!" Aldren roared. "You have the soul of a warrior who danced on the rigging of a ship in a hurricane! Find her! Where is Valeriana?"
He threw them.
Elara flinched. She didn't dodge. She just covered her face. The pinecones bounced off her arms.
"Pathetic," Aldren scoffed. He sounded genuinely angry. "Again."
"Aldren, stop," Li Wusheng warned from the sidelines.
"Do not interfere, Bamboo Stick," Aldren snapped. "She wants to fight? Then she learns that pain is the only teacher."
He scooped up a handful of pinecones. He blurred, running circles around her.
He threw them from every angle. Back, front, side.
Elara was getting pelted. It hurt. Her skin stung, bruises were forming. Panic started to rise in her chest. Not the heroic adrenaline of the dream, but the frantic, clumsy panic of a woman being bullied by a supernatural creature.
"Stop!" she yelled, swinging wildly at the air.
"Make me!" Aldren taunted, his voice echoing from everywhere at once. "You are the Key? You are the savior? You are a target!"
One pinecone hit her cheek, hard. It cut the skin.
Elara felt the sting. She felt the warmth of blood.
And then, she felt something else.
Anger.
Not annoyance. Not frustration. Rage.
It was a cold, sharp feeling in her gut. It tasted like salt water.
Aldren appeared in front of her, holding a large rock. He wasn't going to throw it, but he feinted as if he would.
"Dead," Aldren whispered.
Elara didn't think. She didn't plan.
Her right foot slid back into the mud, finding a solid anchor. Her hips twisted.
She didn't punch. She snapped a low kick, aiming not for his body, but for his balance point.
It was a dirty move. A bar-fight move. A pirate move.
Aldren, expecting a high guard or a flinch, was caught off guard. Her boot connected with the back of his knee.
It wasn't enough to hurt a vampire, but it was enough to break his stance. His leg buckled.
As he dipped, Elara spun. She didn't use a fist. She used her elbow, driving it upward.
CRACK.
Her elbow connected with Aldren's jaw.
The Vampire Lord stumbled back. He didn't fall, but he staggered. He touched his jaw. He looked at his hand. There was a tiny smear of blood where he had bit his tongue.
Silence descended on the clearing.
Elara stood there, panting, her fists clenched, her eyes wide.
"I said," Elara hissed, her voice dropping an octave, "stop throwing things at me."
Aldren looked at the blood on his finger. Then he looked at Elara.
A massive, terrifying grin split his face.
"Brilliant," Aldren whispered. "Absolutely brilliant."
He started clapping.
"She draws first blood!" Aldren laughed. "That was a knee-breaker! Valeriana used that on the British Admiral!"
Elara slumped, the adrenaline vanishing instantly. She clutched her bruised arm. "I... I hit you."
"You did," Aldren beamed. "It barely tickled, but the technique was flawless."
"Your form was sloppy," Li Wusheng interrupted, stepping forward. "You rely on rage. Rage is a limited resource. It burns hot and dies fast."
Li looked at Aldren with disdain. "Your teaching method is barbaric. You treat her like a brawler."
"She is a brawler!" Aldren argued. "She's a survivor!"
"She is a conduit," Li corrected. "And now, it is my turn. Elara. Sit."
Lesson 2: The Way of the Stone
If Aldren's training was painful, Li Wusheng's training was boring.
Excruciatingly, mind-numbingly boring.
"Sit," Li commanded.
Elara sat on the cold rock. "Okay. What do I do? Visualize a weapon? Summon the dragon?"
"Breathe," Li said.
"I am breathing. If I stop, I die."
"You are panting," Li corrected. "You breathe from the throat. Panic breath. You must breathe from the Dantian. The golden stove beneath the navel."
Li sat opposite her in the lotus position. He floated three inches off the ground.
"Close your eyes," Li instructed. "Feel the energy of the mountain. The trees have roots that go deep into the dark earth. The wind carries the whispers of the sky. You are the bridge between them."
Elara closed her eyes.
She tried. She really tried.
Roots. Earth. Wind. Sky.
My butt is cold.Did I turn off the stove?I wonder if Costco accepts returns on open bags of rice.Why does Aldren smell like cedar and arrogance?
"Your mind is noisy," Li said, his voice cutting through her thoughts.
"I can't help it," Elara snapped, opening one eye. "I have ADHD and trauma. My brain is a browser with 50 tabs open and 4 of them are frozen."
"Close the tabs," Li said calmly.
"I don't know how!"
Li sighed. He unfolded his legs and stood up. He walked over to her.
"Stand up."
Elara stood.
"The Void Sword," Li said, gesturing to the weapon strapped to his back. "Do you know why you could wield it in your past life?"
"Because I was strong?"
"No. Because you were empty," Li said. "The Void Sword is heavy because it contains the weight of karmic judgment. A normal soul cannot lift it because they are weighed down by their own ego, their fears, their desires."
He reached over his shoulder and unclipped the sword. It was wrapped in white cloth.
"Valeriana could lift it because in that moment, she desired nothing for herself. She only desired to save her crew. She became a vessel."
Li held the sword out to her. It was sheathed.
"Take it."
Elara hesitated. It looked like a normal sword. Maybe four feet long.
She reached out. She grabbed the hilt.
"Here goes nothing," she whispered.
She pulled.
It didn't move.
It wasn't that it was heavy. It felt like it was bolted to the core of the earth. She pulled harder. She put two hands on it. She grunted, straining her back.
Li Wusheng held it with one hand, his arm perfectly steady. He wasn't even straining.
"It's... stuck," Elara wheezed.
"It is not stuck," Li said. "You are heavy."
He pulled the sword back.
"You are full of fear," Li analyzed. "Fear of the Weaver. Fear of dying. Fear of failing your parents. Fear of choosing between us."
Elara froze. "What?"
"You think we do not see it?" Li said softly. "You carry the guilt of forty-six deaths. You think you are a burden to us. That weight... it anchors you to the ground. You cannot fly. You cannot lift the sword."
Elara let go of the hilt. She stepped back, rubbing her hands.
"So what?" she asked defensively. "I just stop caring? I become a robot like you?"
Li's eyes flashed. For a second, the calm mask slipped, revealing a deep, terrifying well of sorrow.
"I am not a robot, Elara. I feel everything. I feel the vibration of every leaf in this forest. I feel the heartbeat of the squirrel in that tree. And I feel your grief like a knife in my own gut."
He took a step closer.
"To be empty is not to feel nothing. It is to feel everything without holding onto it. Let the fear pass through you like wind through the branches. Do not build a wall to stop it."
He drew the sword.
SHING.
The blade was not steel. It was pure, translucent white light. It hummed with a sound that vibrated in Elara's teeth.
"Watch," Li said.
He moved.
It wasn't like Aldren's speed. Aldren was a blur, a glitch in reality.
Li Wusheng moved like a painting being painted in real-time. Slow, yet instant.
He swung the sword at a massive oak tree at the edge of the clearing.
He didn't touch the tree. The blade stopped three feet away.
But the air pressure shifted.
CRACK.
A branch, fifty feet up in the air, severed cleanly and fell to the ground.
Li sheathed the sword.
"That is the difference," Li said. "Aldren throws rocks. I cut the intent of the rock."
Elara stared at the fallen branch.
"Okay," she whispered. "That was cool. Teach me that."
"First," Li said, "You must balance on the rock."
Elara groaned. "We're back to the rock?"
The Spar
By noon, Elara was exhausted, bruised, and spiritually frustrated.
She sat on a log, eating a protein bar that tasted like chalk. Mr. Whiskers had ventured out of the cabin and was currently hunting a beetle near her boot.
"You have it easy, Whiskers," Elara muttered. "No destiny. Just naps."
Aldren and Li were standing in the center of the clearing. The tension between them, usually a simmering background hum, was boiling over.
"Your methods are stifling her," Aldren accused, wiping sweat from his brow. "She is a creature of passion! She needs to move!"
"Your methods are reckless," Li countered. "You are teaching her to react, not to act. She will run into a blade she does not see."
"I kept her alive for thirty years in the 19th century!" Aldren shouted.
"And she died because you hesitated!" Li shouted back.
The silence that followed was awful.
Aldren's face went deadly pale. His eyes glowed crimson. His hands curled into claws.
"Take that back, Monk."
"It is the truth, Leech. You hesitated to turn her. And the hunters found us."
"I wanted to save her soul!"
"You wanted to keep her human for your own selfish vanity!"
Aldren roared. He lunged.
This wasn't a training spar. This was real.
Aldren hit Li with the force of a freight train. Li blocked with a golden barrier, but the impact shattered the ground beneath them, sending mud and rocks flying.
"Hey!" Elara yelled, standing up. "Stop it!"
They ignored her.
Li retaliated with a palm strike that sent a shockwave of wind tearing through the clearing. Aldren turned into a swarm of bats, reforming behind Li and slashing at his back.
Li drew the Void Sword—not fully, just an inch—and the sheer pressure flattened the grass for fifty yards.
"You want to fight?" Aldren laughed maniacally. "Let's finish the duel from 1920!"
"I will exorcise you permanently," Li threatened, the air around him crackling with lightning.
They were destroying the clearing. A tree splintered. The fire pit exploded. Mr. Whiskers hissed and bolted up a pine tree.
Elara watched them.
The two most powerful beings she knew. The men who claimed to love her. They were tearing the world apart because they couldn't stop hating each other.
She felt the fear. They're going to kill each other.
Then she felt the anger. They're ruining my training.
Then she felt... the memory.
It wasn't Valeriana this time. It wasn't the Pirate.
It was Life #14: The Schoolteacher.
She saw a dusty room. Children fighting. A ruler in her hand. The absolute, unshakeable authority of a woman who deals with unruly toddlers.
Elara didn't think. She didn't plan.
She walked into the storm.
Aldren was winding up a punch that could crack a tank. Li was charging a spell that could level a building.
Elara grabbed the broom she had used earlier to sweep the cabin. It was a cheap, plastic broom with frayed bristles.
She stepped between them.
"ENOUGH!"
She swung the broom.
She aimed for Aldren first. WHACK. The bristles hit him right in the nose.
She spun. WHACK. She hit Li Wusheng on the top of his head.
It shouldn't have worked. They were faster than sound. They were invincible.
But they froze.
Aldren blinked, cross-eyed, looking at the broom bristles in his face.
Li Wusheng looked stunned, rubbing his head.
"Did you..." Aldren stammered. "Did you just hit the Lord of the Night with a cleaning implement?"
"Sit. Down," Elara commanded.
Her voice wasn't loud. But it vibrated.
For a split second, her eyes didn't look brown. They looked like swirling galaxies. A faint, silver aura pulsed around her skin.
The aura of the Keystone.
Aldren and Li felt it. The weight of it. It was heavier than the Void Sword. It was the command of the universe saying OBEY.
They both sat down in the mud. Immediately.
The silver aura vanished as quickly as it came. Elara stood there, holding the broom like a spear, breathing hard.
"You two," Elara said, pointing the broom at them. "Are acting like children. I don't care about 1920. I don't care about who failed who. I am here. I am alive. And I need you to stop measuring your... egos... and help me."
She lowered the broom.
"You say I'm the anchor?" she said. "Well, you're the sails. If the sails fight the wind, the ship sinks. Do you understand?"
Aldren rubbed his nose. He looked at Li.
"She hit me," Aldren whispered. "With a broom."
"She bypassed my spiritual defense," Li murmured, touching his head. "There was no killing intent. Only... disappointment. It was unstoppable."
Aldren started to chuckle. Then he started to laugh. A deep, genuine belly laugh.
"The Schoolteacher," Aldren gasped. "Life 14. I forgot about her. She hit me with a ruler once because I split an infinitive."
Li Wusheng smiled. "She made me write lines on a chalkboard. 'I will not float during arithmetic'."
Elara looked at them laughing in the mud. The tension broke. She dropped the broom.
"Are you done trying to kill each other?"
"For now," Aldren sighed, wiping mud off his cheek. "Though I maintain I would have won."
"In your dreams, Bat," Li said, standing up and offering a hand to Aldren.
Aldren looked at the hand. He hesitated. Then he grabbed it and pulled himself up.
"Okay," Elara said. "New rule. No fighting each other. Only fighting me. Or the bad guys."
"Agreed," Li said.
"Agreed," Aldren said.
Elara looked at the sky. It was getting dark. The temperature was dropping fast.
"And another thing," Elara said, clutching her stomach. "I am starving. If I have to eat stroganoff again, I will revolt."
Aldren's eyes lit up. "I saw a deer earlier. A majestic buck."
"We are not eating Bambi," Elara said.
"I can summon fish from the stream," Li offered. "But we have no spices."
"I saw wild onions," Elara said. "And... mushrooms? I think they're edible. Or they might kill us."
"If they kill you," Aldren said cheerfully, "I will simply bring you back as a ghoul. You would make a lovely ghoul."
"Not funny."
The Campfire
That night, they ate roasted trout (caught by Li's telekinesis) seasoned with wild onions and salt from Li's exorcism bag.
It was the best meal Elara had ever tasted.
They sat around the fire, huddled close for warmth. The cabin loomed behind them, dark and silent.
"You tapped into the Source today," Li said quietly, poking the fire with a stick. "With the broom. That silver light."
"I felt it," Elara admitted. "It felt... authoritative."
"It is the power of the Keystone," Li explained. "It is the power to command reality. The Weaver uses it to bind the worlds. You can use it to unbind them."
"Or to make two idiots sit down," Aldren added, picking a fish bone out of his teeth.
Elara looked at the fire. "Does it get easier? The memories? The power?"
"No," Aldren said honestly. "It gets heavier. The more you remember, the more you lose the illusion of who you are now. Elara Vance will start to blur with Valeriana, with the Princess, with the Teacher."
He reached out and took her hand. His skin was warm from the fire.
"But we will remind you," Aldren said fierce and soft. "I will remind you that you like bad reality TV and cheap wine. I will keep Elara here."
"And I," Li said, looking at the stars, "will remind you of your duty. So that you do not lose yourself in the trivialities."
"You're the buzzkill," Aldren told Li. "I'm the fun one. She needs both."
Elara squeezed Aldren's hand. She looked at Li and smiled.
"I do," she said. "I really do."
For a moment, in the cold dark of the mountain, everything felt manageable.
Then, Mr. Whiskers hissed.
It was a low, guttural sound from the darkness of the tree line.
Aldren stiffened. Li stood up instantly, kicking dirt over the fire to douse it.
"Quiet," Li whispered.
"What is it?" Elara asked, her heart jumping into her throat. "Bears?"
"No," Aldren said, his eyes glowing red in the sudden dark. "Not bears."
He sniffed the air.
"Ozone," Aldren hissed. "And sulfur."
Li Wusheng drew the Void Sword. The white blade illuminated the clearing in a ghostly pale light.
"They are here," Li said.
"Who?"
From the shadows of the forest, eyes appeared. Not two eyes. Dozens. Glowing purple.
And then, a voice spoke. It didn't come from the trees. It came from the sky.
"Found you, little mouse."
A figure descended from the canopy.
It wasn't a Shade. It wasn't a Hunter.
It was a woman. She floated in the air, wrapped in silk robes that seemed to be made of thunderclouds. She held a fan made of razor-sharp steel feathers.
Li Wusheng gasped.
"The Storm General," Li whispered. "General Lei."
The woman smiled. Lightning crackled around her teeth.
"Li Wusheng," she purred. "Traitor of the Heavens. And Aldren Valcour. The Abomination."
She looked at Elara.
"And the Battery."
General Lei snapped her fan shut.
"The Weaver sends his regards. He wants his toy back."
Aldren stepped in front of Elara. Li stepped in front of Aldren.
"Elara," Aldren said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Remember the pinecones?"
"Yeah?"
"Move faster than the pinecones."
General Lei raised her fan. Thunder shook the mountain.
"Kill them," she commanded the shadows.
The purple eyes in the forest surged forward.
The training was over. The war had arrived.