Still, she pressed on.

Wake up. Run. Train. Spar. Eat. Study. Sleep. Repeat.

After their lunches, most of the men went free for the day. Odrin, however, was responsible for teaching her about poisons, tonics, and the basics of being one’s own combat medic. Reevers usually took on assignments throughout the kingdoms alone, independently dispatched on their missions throughout the territories. Should Amaris ever show a will to survive or the ability to hold her own in battle, she’d need to be able to avoid sabotage, spot healing plants, and know how to patch a wound. Odrin had her tying tourniquets, practicing the art of starting fires with nothing but a stone and one’s weapon, and sniffing goblets of wine or water for signs of tampering. When they finished studying together, he sent her to her rooms each night with a stack of books up to her hip on what plants and creatures were safe to eat and which ones would paralyze, blind, or boil you from the intestines out.

“Isn’t there a magic item or something I could use to do this for me?” she grumbled, pushing away her book on poisons and remedies.

“Probably,” Odrin agreed, shoving the book back to her to force her to continue her studies, “but spelled objects are exceptionally difficult to make and even harder to come by. If you find one, hang on to it. In the meantime, why don’t you focus on your studies rather than hoping you become the luckiest reever. Now, if you smell—”

“Roses in your beverage, don’t drink it,” she said, loudly banging her forehead against the wooden desk. Odrin chuckled as he abandoned her to her wallowing.

Time passed, but she would not give up.

While she excelled in little else, she’d discovered an aptitude for zoology. Amaris slept with her favorite bestiary tome beside her bed, reading it backward and forward. As winter melted into spring, she learned she could wound a vageth with a blade and use its blood to coat her weapons, as her opponents would be defenseless against the resulting infection. She studied the lore of the sustron and the ways one could steal its scent to hide in the shadows, though it would thirst for your blood in revenge. Odrin taught her of djinn, who could grant three favors to any who held it, but unless you were ready to recapture the beast, it would have your heart in its talons after your final wish. She skimmed over the more fictional beasts of lore like the icy aboriou or the collection of what were most certainly wishful sailor’s tales of sirens and merfolk. She learned beseuls actively avoided the sizzling pain of sunlight and that if you met the ag’drurath alone in the wilderness, you’d best make your peace with the All Mother, as no method had been recorded to survive the winged dragon.