The days blurred into a relentless rhythm of training and exhaustion. From dawn to midday with Torvin, a brief rest, then evening sessions that pushed me past every limit I had thought I possessed. My body became a machine of survival, moving through the forms even when my mind was too tired to direct it. The bruises healed and were replaced by new ones. The muscles ached constantly, a background hum of discomfort that I barely noticed anymore.
But through it all, one absence grew more pronounced with each passing day.
Kaelen was gone.
Not physically—he still slept in the fortress, still presided over the evening meals, still appeared at council meetings and strategy sessions. But the Kaelen I had known, the man who had found me on the balcony under the stars, who had held me after the trial, who had looked at me with pride blazing in his winter-gray eyes—that Kaelen had retreated behind a wall of duty and preparation.
