The blow wasn’t hard enough to break anything—just sharp enough to rip him out of sleep with a groan.
“Ow—every morning, really?” he muttered, rolling onto his side and squinting up at her through tangled hair. “You know, in some cultures, waking a man before sunrise is considered a crime.”
Aylen stood over him, unimpressed, staff resting against her shoulder. “In mine,” she said flatly, “sleeping past sunrise gets you killed.”
Binyamin pulled his blanket higher. “Then I’ll be up when the sun’s up. Sacred sibling-bonding ritual. Can’t rush these things.”
Naela, already sitting up nearby, pressed a hand to her mouth to hide a laugh.
Aylen didn’t smile. She simply jabbed the butt of her staff into Binyamin’s shoulder again.
He yelped and shot upright. “Is that your idea of a wake-up call?”
“It’s my idea of removing dead weight.”
She hooked the staff beneath his arm and dragged him toward the hideout’s entrance while he protested, boots scraping across stone.
“This is abuse,” he said, half-laughing, half-grimacing. “I’m filing a complaint with the—”
“—person dragging you out of bed?” Aylen cut in. “Go ahead.”
Cold air slapped them as they emerged into the training yard. Mist curled low over jagged stone, the sky still dark and heavy with pre-dawn gray.
Aylen stopped and turned to face them both.
“Rule one,” she said. “When I say run, you run.
Rule two: no wandering. No solo heroics.
Rule three: you do not experiment with glyphs unless I’m watching.”
Binyamin rubbed his head. “So basically… don’t have fun.”
“Fun gets you dead,” Aylen replied without hesitation. “My training isn’t to make you strong. It’s to keep you alive long enough to matter.”
She gestured toward the obstacle course carved into the stone beyond.
“Move.”
They ran.
Naela moved carefully, efficiently, weaving through low walls and narrow gaps, but her breathing grew ragged quickly. Binyamin tried to make a show of it—vaulting a stone barrier with a grin—only to catch his foot and slam face-first into the dirt.
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He spat dust. “That wall cheated.”
Aylen passed him without slowing. “You cheated yourself thinking you could skip the work.”
By the time they reached the sparring ring, both siblings were sweating and sore.
Binyamin barely had time to raise his guard before Aylen moved.
Two blinding strikes—his legs were gone, and the next thing he knew, he was staring up at the sky with her staff pressing him into the stone.
“…Ow,” he said after a moment. “Okay. That was… humbling.”
Naela fared better. She dodged longer, reacted faster—but still ended up disarmed and breathless, staff knocked from her hands.
“You both lean on your glyphs too much,” Aylen said. “Without them, you’re meat.”
Later, at the glyph range, Aylen set floating, unstable glyph-spheres into the air. They flickered violently, barely holding shape.
“Naela,” she said, “stabilize them. Don’t force it. Feel it breathe.”
Naela closed her eyes, focusing. The spheres trembled, light warping unevenly. Her frustration crept in—and one of the glyphs burst.
“Naela—!” Binyamin lunged forward on instinct, throwing himself between her and the blast.
Heat ripped across his arm. Pain flared white-hot.
Aylen was there instantly, gripping his forearm, inspecting the burn. “You’re lucky,” she said. “Another inch and it would’ve taken the whole arm.”
Binyamin winced, then smirked. “Or maybe I’m just that good.”
Aylen snorted despite herself.
By dusk, they sat in exhausted silence, muscles trembling, the day’s heat fading into cool stone air.
Naela’s glyph flickered faintly—just for a moment—into a jagged, unfamiliar pattern.
She didn’t notice.
Binyamin didn’t notice.
Aylen did.
Her eyes snapped to Naela’s arm, sharp and calculating. Her jaw tightened—but she said nothing.
After a long beat, she spoke quietly.
“The Concord doesn’t fight fair. Next time, it won’t be scouts.”
She turned away, gaze dark.
“It’ll be hunters.”
