The day before the assessment, Lysander came to the estate.
He arrived without escort, without announcement, his carriage a black shape in the falling snow. The servants parted for him without being told. The guards did not challenge him. He walked through the corridors of House Verant like he owned them, and in a way, Kaelen thought, he probably could.
Kaelen was in the courtyard when Lysander found him, drilling with a blade that Markus had given him that morning a real blade, balanced and sharp, not the training weights he had been using for months in hiding. The snow fell soft around him, melting on his shoulders, collecting in the folds of his coat.
"You're going to hurt yourself," Lysander said from the doorway. His voice was light, but there was an edge beneath it. "Your form is too aggressive for your current strength. You're overcompensating."
