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She’d gladly earn it, if only someone would let her.

At least this colonel would be a mild challenge of her sword skills. She wouldn’t disarm him within half a second as she would any of her fellow recruits.

The colonel gave a slight tip of his head, indicating that the two of them should step to the side where they would have more room. He drew his sword and picked up an elven shield, the shape reminiscent of a beech leaf. Dropping into an easy stance, he faced her.

As she had her swords already in her hands, Adry had no other need to ready herself for battle. Perhaps it would have been wiser to let him attack first or take the opening moves more slowly.

But that wasn’t her style. With her magic burning hot through her blood, she leapt into a whirling attack, her swords silver blurs.

The slightest widening of his eyes gave away the colonel’s surprise, even as he raised both his sword and shield to block her strikes. He took a step back to gain some space, and she pressed her advantage, not giving him a chance to catch his balance or the rhythm of the fight. He parried again, then slipped in a strike of his own.

She swept the strike aside. While he was fast and skilled, he wasn’t nearly as fast as Dacha.

A few more strikes and parries and she had him backed against a tree. When he brought his shield up again, she leapt, using his shield to launch herself higher into the air. As she came down, she kicked his shield aside. He managed to bring his sword up to parry her blow, but as she landed, she placed her other sword against his neck.

The two of them remained as they were for a moment, neither of them yet breathing hard.

The colonel gave a slight nod. “Very good.”

She took that as her signal to step back, though she didn’t yet lower her swords in case he decided she needed a lesson in wariness.

But he sheathed his sword and slung the shield over his back once more. “Your dacha has taught you well.”

Of course he had. Dacha had been relentless in training them as they’d grown up. He’d put a wooden sword in their hands when they’d still been children. Once they came into their magic, he switched to steel swords, training them to wield their magic even as they learned to wield a blade.

All Dacha knew was the way of the warrior. Yes, they learned how to use their magic for other things, like storing it in the magical power cells that fueled everything from lights to trains in the Alliance Kingdoms. But at its heart, their magic was meant for war, and there was no getting around that.

After a few more minutes, Adry was dismissed. She gathered her things, nodding to a few of the other recruits. But she didn’t pause to converse. There had been a divide between her and the others from the moment she’d joined. Just like the commanders, they were far too aware that she was the daughter of the great Farrendel Laesornysh. For some, that meant they were in awe of her dacha and thus her. For others, especially those who came from noble families, they scorned her for being half-human. At worst, they saw her human blood as polluting the elven magic that ran in her veins.

Her human mother—Princess Elspeth of Escarland—was the reason Tarenhiel had had peace for seventy years. Her marriage to Dacha had secured the initial alliance and inspired those that followed. There was nothing to scorn there, despite what the elven nobles might think.

Adry tromped between the large trees surrounding Estyra, the loam soft beneath her boots.

Unlike the Escarlish Army, which placed recruits in forts and trained them hard and fast, Tarenhiel’s army trained just outside of Estyra. Those who already lived in Estyra, like Adry, were allowed to stay in their homes instead of the barracks. Besides the morning and evening drills, the recruits were given a great deal of freedom to spend the rest of the day as they wished.

It was a slower training schedule than a human army would ever employ. But elves treated everything as if they always had plenty of time, a side effect of their long lifespans.

The forest opened before her, and Adry joined the bustle of Estyra’s paths, which meandered mossy and green beneath the spreading branches of the huge trees. Shops were grown into the trees at their bases and the lower canopy while homes hid among the upper stories. A tram, silent on its cable, ran between the foliage overhead, providing fast transportation from one part of Estyra to the other.

To one side of the elven city, the train station had been created as a raised mossy platform while a lift ran directly from the train station to a tram platform high above. Beyond that, the airship dock was sheltered beneath the upper canopy, and an aeroplane runway had been built into the very upper stories of the treetops. Even now, the faint whine of the aeroplanes of the home guard taking off for patrol provided a steady hum of background noise.

Tall and lithe as the trees around them, elves strolled the street, both the males and females wearing their hair long. Most still wore the traditional elven silk tunics and trousers—normal for both men and women—yet a few sported styles that echoed the leather and steel of the trolls or the more fitted and tailored coats and corsets of the humans.

More elves on bicycles whizzed past, mostly sticking to the new woodchip paths that were easier to bicycle than the moss. Some of the bicycles were tandem with two or more elves pedaling away. Whole families crowded onto a single bicycle while other bicycles had large front cargo areas that looked like wheelbarrows. These were filled with various items or even small children.

At the far end of the street, Ellonahshinel stood, a grand majestic oak with broad branches that held the various rooms of the elven royal palace, the seat of the elven kings for several thousand years.

And her home here in Estyra, thanks to her dacha being the younger brother of the elf king.

Her parents split their time between Estyra and Aldon, the capital of Escarland. Even now, Adry’s mother, sisters Louise and Ellie, and youngest brother Tryndar remained at their estate of Treehaven so that Mama and Louise could protect Aldon from bombing. Louise was also in charge of running the Alliance Magical Power Company, the company Dacha had started with two of his close friends in order to create and sell the magical power cells filled with his magic.

Instead of heading for the main stairs and lift into the heart of Ellonahshinel, Adry veered to the side underneath the outer edges of the spreading branches. The guards holding a perimeter nodded and let her pass.

Beneath a quiet section of Ellonahshinel, she reached a small cluster of buildings. One was her dacha’s workshop, where he tinkered with inventions while he was here in Estyra. Beyond the workshop, a cottage was grown into a smaller tree beneath Ellonahshinel, several rooms spreading out along the branches, connected by a network of bridges and curving stairs. That was where Uncle Iyrinder, Aunt Patience, Merrik, and Kariana lived when they were here in Estyra.

Uncle Iyrinder and Aunt Patience weren’t Adry’s uncle and aunt by blood. Uncle Iyrinder had started out as one of dacha’s elven guards before he’d joined Dacha as one of the founders of the AMPC. Aunt Patience had been Dacha and Mama’s housekeeper before she married Uncle Iyrinder. The two of them had become such close friends with Adry’s parents that they were now family.

And Merrik…Adry’s heart gave a little flutter just thinking about him, before she squashed the feeling ruthlessly. Merrik had grown up like a brother to her, and he’d joined her brother Fieran in enlisting in the Escarlish Flying Corps.