“Samira,” the woman says, offering her name and a kind smile.
“Seren.”
Samira’s mouth quirks. “I know.”
“Right,” Seren mutters. “Hard to stay anonymous when you’re the one they whisper about.” Seren huffs a laugh.
“Everyone heard,” Samira says, quieter now, “about what you did to that traitor.”
Seren’s mouth tightens.
“If they knew what he’d done,” Seren says, “they’d be grateful.”
It was the first time she’d thought about it since the Battle of Kryntar.
Because truthfully, Seren felt no remorse for the broken neck she’d dealt the man who betrayed her friends.
Some men earn their endings.
“Quite a way to go out,” Samira shrugs.
“Yeah, well, if you knew him, you wouldn’t be scared, you’d be celebrating,” Seren quips, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.
Samira laughs, a light, easy sound.
But General Ashborne’s voice cuts through the aftermath.
“That,” he says, gesturing to Seren, “is how you apply new skills. You must apply them in real, unpredictable circumstances or they are nought but performances.”
Eyes turn to her again.
Seren feels it then—the shift.
No longer fear. Now, it feels more like recognition.
She steps back into the ring’s edge, lungs burning, sweat slicking her spine, and the truth settles in her bones. She can do this. Not perfectly. Not effortlessly. Not cleanly. But consciously.
She didn’t fight the ocean, she merely survived it.
She didn’t assess it, didn’t profile it like an opponent she had to outmaneuver.
She simply outlasted it.
Her palms sting where the dirt has worked into the bandages. The reminder is sharp as a knife: pain is coming either way. She’d rather choose it.
Seren feels the resolve settle into her bones like a homing beacon.She knows what she has to do.Before doubt can creep back in. Before her courage cools.
She didn’t win because she was better. She won because she stayed long enough. So she steps away from the circle. Away from the army.
Teddy notices her movement, but doesn’t react. At least, not to the army.
He grips his amulet, eyes fixed on the circle, and his gravelly voice drifts through her mind like a balm.
You were fucking extraordinary.
At the edge of the clearing, Seren plants her feet.
Wider.
