Nyx POV
I woke to the pale pre-dawn light and the immediate awareness that Kael was already awake.
Through the bond, I felt him moving around in the next room. He was getting dressed, testing his injuries, preparing for the day ahead. His determination was palpable, edged with nervousness he was trying to suppress.
'He takes this seriously,' Frost observed. 'That's good.'
I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on the training clothes my mother had left folded on my chair—simple pants and a tunic, sturdy boots, my hair braided back. The legendary wolf binder, dressed like a farm girl about to do morning chores.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
When I emerged from my room, Kael was already in the kitchen. Someone—my mother, probably, had left out bread and cheese for breakfast. He was eating mechanically, his attention elsewhere.
"Morning," I said.
He looked up. "Morning. Ready?"
"As I'll ever be."
We ate in silence, both of us hyper-aware of what was coming. Through the bond, I felt his focus sharpening, his mind already running through lesson plans and training strategies.
Fifteen years of preparation, condensed into what? Months? Weeks?
No pressure.
We finished eating and headed outside.
The training yard was nothing impressive. It was just a cleared space behind the cottage where my father had once tried to train Finn. Dirt packed hard by use and weather, a few old practice weapons propped against the shed wall, morning mist still clinging to the edges.
Kael surveyed the space with a critical eye, then nodded. "It'll work. We don't need fancy facilities. We just need room to move."
"I don't think we can work with you tiptoeing around us." Kael said a little bit louder. I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion.
Finn walked into the yard and raised his hands up. "Don't worry about me. Just think that I'm not here."
"Finn. You promised."
"Fine I'll leave." He walked slowly then he paused and turned to point his forefingers at Kael, "My eyes are on you." Then he walked out.
We watched he walk into the house.
"I'm sorry about that." Kael shrugged.
He walked to the center of the yard and turned to face me.
"First rule of training," he said, his voice shifting into something more formal—instructor mode, I realized. "Honesty. If something hurts, if you don't understand something, if you're too tired to continue safely, you tell me. No pushing through pain to prove something. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Second rule. We start slow and build up. I'm going to assess what you already know, what you can already do. Then we'll build on that foundation."
"I don't know anything," I admitted. "I've never had combat training. Never held a weapon except kitchen knives. Never—"
"You survived a Council examination," he interrupted. "You broke through a locked door with ice magic. You transported yourself and me across town using Frost's power. You formed a life-bond strong enough to pull someone back from death. That's not nothing, Nyx."
The use of my name instead of "North girl" or just "you" caught me off guard.
"Now." He gestured to the open space. "Show me your stance. How you stand when you feel threatened."
I moved into what felt natural, weight balanced, hands up.
He circled me slowly, assessing. "Not bad instinctively. Your balance is good. But your hands are too high, leaving your ribs exposed. Lower them slightly. And widen your stance. You need to be able to move in any direction quickly."
I adjusted.
"Better." He moved in front of me. "Now, I'm going to come at you slowly, not actually attacking. I want to see how you react. Don't think. Just move."
He stepped forward.
My body reacted before my mind caught up. I stepped back and to the side, hands coming up to block.
"Good." He nodded. "Your instincts are solid. You favor your left side, which means you're probably left-handed?"
"Yes."
"We'll use that. Lefties have an advantage in combat. Most people train against right-handed opponents." He stepped back. "Now let's see your magic. Don't try to control it perfectly. Just call it forth. Let me see what we're working with."
I raised my hands and reached for the ice magic that had been humming under my skin since the bonding with Frost.
It responded eagerly, too eagerly.
Ice exploded from my palms, far more than I'd intended, coating the ground in a sheet of frost that spread rapidly toward Kael. He jumped back, avoiding it by inches.
"Sorry!" I pulled the magic back desperately. "I didn't mean—"
"That's exactly what I needed to see." He was smiling slightly. "You have massive power and virtually no control. The magic responds to emotion, your fear, your desperation rather than intention. That's normal for someone newly bonded to a wolf."
"Normal?" I looked at the ice now covering a quarter of the training yard. "That's normal?"
"For you? Yes." He walked to the edge of the frost, examining it. "Most people spend their entire lives bonded to ordinary wolves and never achieve power like this. You've had Frost for two days and you're already manifesting your magic. The challenge isn't making you stronger. It's teaching you control."
He turned back to me.
"So that's where we start. Not with weapons. Not with combat forms. With control. Learning to call your magic when you need it and restrain it when you don't. Everything else builds from there."
"How long will that take?"
"For most people? Years." His expression was serious. "For you? We'll have to see. But Nyx—" He paused. "You need to understand. This isn't going to be easy. Learning control means learning your limits. It means pushing yourself past what's comfortable. It means failing, over and over, until you don't."
"Sounds familiar," I said. "Isn't that what your training was like?"
"Yes. And I hated every minute of it." He met my eyes. "But it's also what kept me alive. What made me capable. You don't have to love the process. You just have to trust it."
I looked at the ice coating the ground. At the legendary power humming under my skin. At the boy standing across from me who'd spent his whole life preparing for a destiny that was now mine.
"I trust it," I said. "Or I trust you. Which amounts to the same thing, I suppose."
Through the bond, I felt his surprise.
"Then let's begin," Kael said.
And my training started.