“Hate to break it to you, witchling, but I grew up training with Fionn. He’s the only one who can really tire me.” As if my words conjured the bulky male, he and Silene enter the training room.

“Damn right,” Fionn says smugly. “Thorne here tries so hard to beat me, it’s cute.”

I roll my eyes. “I can beat you sometimes.” Fionn only huffs a grunt. “Should we give Laurel here a demonstration?” I ask, and he smiles wide. Two swords from the training rack fly across the room into his hand.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he says, then barrels toward me.

Laurel

Thayarian tradition demands that during the Winter Solstice, fae and human alike spend the day in rest. No work is done, even to cook. Thayarians are encouraged to spend the day with their loved ones.

A Brief History of Modern Thayaria

The two males blur in my vision as they whirl around the room. They lunge and parry, spin and duck. Thorne wasn’t kidding when he said the sparring we did was nothing compared to sparring with Fionn. The warrior somehow looks even more massive as he swings his blade over and over again. Thorne blocks every blow with practiced ease, but I still stand erect, anxiety coursing through my veins. At one point, Fionn summons every weapon on the rack and has them all diving at Thorne, who blocks them with shields of light that appear around him. Thorne sends his own weapons hurling at Fionn—arrows, throwing stars, orbs—all made of light. But Fionn easily dodges or blocks them with the two blades he keeps firmly grasped in his hands.

Silene stands beside me, looking bored. “It gets a bit tiring eventually, trust me,” she says. I laugh, but only for a moment before my eyes lock back on the two males weaving and bobbing around one another. If I’m honest with myself, I have eyes for only one of those males. Thorne’s muscles tense with every swing of his sword. My eyes track a bead of sweat rolling down his face toward his full lips, and I almost trip over myself as I lean forward to be closer to him.

Thorne summons more lightning bolts. They crack into the floor around Fionn, who dodges them and laughs. “I can see those coming from a mile away, friend,” he roars at Thorne, before sending a dagger zinging towards Thorne’s chest with aether-honed precision. My breath hitches, and I clutch my hand over my chest, feeling my heart beating wildly. It’s too similar to the moment Nemesia was almost killed by Mazus’s assassin in the war tent all those years ago. Silene notices and places her hand on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

I nod, taking a deep breath. “Yeah,” I respond. “It just reminds me of a moment I don’t care to remember.”