Celeste was waiting for her in the training yard with her hands behind her back and a grin that Ashara was learning to be suspicious of.
"Good, you're here." Celeste nodded toward the far end of the yard. "I brought someone."
Sable Corvain stepped out from behind one of the weapon racks.
She was wearing her usual all-black, her dark hair tied back, her sword on her hip. Her face was blank, but her eyes were sharp and locked on Ashara.
Ashara looked at Celeste. Then at Sable. Then back at Celeste.
"When you said 'someone talented,' I was hoping you meant, like, a training dummy. A really talented training dummy."
"Sable here is probably the most naturally gifted fighter in your entire class," Celeste said. "She agreed to help."
Sable gave a small nod. She didn't say anything. Her hand rested on the hilt of her sword out of habit.
"Hand-to-hand only," Celeste continued. "Sable, sword stays sheathed. Ashara, this isn't about winning. This is about learning what real combat feels like and understanding where you need to go."
"So I'm going to lose."
"Yep. You're going to lose hard." Celeste stepped back and folded her arms. "Whenever you're ready."
[... Great.]
Ashara squared up. Feet shoulder-width. Weight centered. Knees bent. The stance Celeste had drilled into her. She raised her fists.
Sable mirrored her, hands up, loose and easy, her weight on the balls of her feet. Even without a sword she looked dangerous. Her body was still, but the kind of still that could explode in any direction at any moment.
Ashara moved first.
Step, jab. She closed the distance and threw her lead hand at Sable's face. Sable tilted her head an inch to the left and the punch sailed past her ear. Before Ashara could pivot into the hook, Sable's palm hit her in the sternum and she stumbled back three steps.
[Shit, she's fast.]
She reset. Tried again. Step, jab, this time she feinted and went for the hook early.
Sable read it. She dropped under the hook, came up inside Ashara's guard, and shoved her. Ashara's feet went out from under her and she hit the dirt on her back.
"Up," Celeste said.
Ashara got up.
She pushed mana into her arms. Not too much, just enough to add some weight to her strikes, the way Celeste had taught her. She threw a jab, a cross, then pivoted into a hook with everything she had.
Sable blocked the jab with her forearm, slipped the cross, and caught the hook on her palm. She held Ashara's fist for a second, their eyes meeting. Sable's expression was calm. Focused. Not mocking, not bored. Just... present.
Then she twisted Ashara's arm and swept her legs out.
Ashara hit the ground again.
[... Celeste wasn't lying, this girl really is talented.]
"Up."
Third time. Ashara was breathing hard now. She tried to be smarter about it, circling, looking for an opening instead of charging in. Sable circled with her, patient, waiting. Ashara threw a testing jab. Sable parried it. Ashara followed with a low kick she'd improvised on the spot, something between a dance sweep and an actual combat move.
It almost worked. Sable had to hop back to avoid it, her eyes widening just a fraction.
[There. She didn't expect that.]
Ashara pressed forward. Jab, jab, pivot, hook. She poured mana into the hook and felt it crack through the air the way it had in Celeste's training room.
Sable ducked it. The reinforced fist passed over her head and Ashara was overextended, off-balance, all her mana dumped into an arm that had hit nothing. Her reserves dropped hard. Her legs went heavy.
Sable stepped in and put her palm flat on Ashara's chest. A light push. Ashara's tired legs couldn't hold it. She went down.
Fourth time on the ground.
"Up," Celeste said.
Ashara lay there for a second, staring at the sky, breathing hard.
[Get up.]
She got up.
Her arms were shaking. Her mana was running low, that familiar hollow feeling in her chest when her reserves started scraping the bottom. She raised her fists anyway.
Sable looked at her. For the first time, her expression shifted. Not much. Just a flicker in her dark grey eyes. Something like respect.
Ashara went in. She threw everything she had, a messy combination of punches, a kick, another punch. No technique, no patience. Just swinging.
Sable weaved through all of it. She dodged, blocked, redirected. She moved around Ashara's strikes the way water moves around rocks, never where Ashara's fists were, always where they weren't.
Then Sable stepped forward, grabbed Ashara by the wrist, and hip-threw her.
Ashara hit the dirt for the fifth time. The wind left her lungs. She lay there, staring up at the darkening sky, her arms dead at her sides.
"That's enough," Celeste said.
Sable stepped back. She wasn't even breathing hard.
[... Five times. She put me down five times and she wasn't even trying.]
Celeste walked over and stood above her. Ashara looked up at her from the ground.
"So," Celeste said. "What did you learn?"
Ashara thought about it. She thought about the first punch that sailed past Sable's ear. The hook that cracked the air and hit nothing. The kick that almost landed. The final flurry that Sable had moved through like it wasn't there.
"My combos are predictable," Ashara said, still on her back. "I... I think I telegraph my punches too much. I dump too much mana into single strikes and gas myself out. And when I get frustrated, I stop thinking and start swinging."
Celeste's eyebrows went up.
"That's... a very good assessment, actually."
"I watched myself lose five times. It wasn't hard to spot the pattern."
"Hm." Celeste crouched down next to her. "You have raw talent, Ashara. Your aura is exceptional. Your mana pool is enormous. Your body moves better than most fighters I've trained. But talent without discipline is just potential, and potential doesn't win fights."
"..."
"So I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer honestly." Celeste looked her in the eye. "Do you want to keep going?"
Ashara stared up at her. She thought about the troupe. About Delara, Lysa, Maren. About the dire wolf that had torn through the village and the claw marks on her arm that were still healing. About standing behind a wagon, useless, watching other people fight.
She thought about Sable's calm eyes and the way the girl moved like combat was breathing.
She sat up.
Ashara wiped the dirt off her cheek with the back of her hand and grinned.
"If I was going to quit, I would've stayed down the first time."
Celeste studied her face for a long moment. Then she smiled.
"Good answer."
She stood up and offered Ashara her hand. Ashara took it and Celeste pulled her to her feet.
Sable was standing a few feet away, arms at her sides. She looked at Ashara. Her mouth opened, like she was going to say something.
"..."
Then she closed it, gave a short nod, and walked away.
[That girl and words are not friends.]
"Rest up tonight," Celeste said, brushing the dirt off Ashara's shoulder. "Tomorrow, we're going into the field. There's an area near the city, low-rank monsters, F-class. Manageable, but real."
Ashara's stomach tightened.
"Real monsters."
"Real monsters." Celeste looked at her. "You're going to fight for real, Ashara. No practice swords, no sparring rules, no pulling punches. Just you and something that wants to kill you."
"..."
[... Okay. This is happening.]
Ashara flexed her hand. Her knuckles were sore. Her arms were dead. Her mana reserves were scraped dry.
But somewhere under all of that, under the exhaustion and the bruises and the five times she'd eaten dirt, there was something hot sitting in her chest.
A certain... hunger.
[Bring it on.]