Deckard woke before dawn with the horn still in his chest.
Not in his ears.
That would have been easier.
Sounds faded.
The body forgot them after enough hours passed, after sleep pressed them down and morning birds replaced them with smaller, friendlier noises.
But the horn from yesterday had settled somewhere deeper.
It had become part of the way his ribs moved when he breathed.
He lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling above his bed.
The dream had come again.
Not the old version.
Not the blurred woman reaching through pale mist, not the half-heard voice calling from a place he could never reach.
This time there had been water.
Silver water.
Angelstone markers going dark one by one.
A horn sounding beneath the surface of a lake.
And something opening its eyes below him.
Deckard turned his head toward the small table beside his bed.
His broken pendant lay there.
Elena had taken the chain away to repair it, but the pendant itself remained where he could see it.
The winged-star crest caught the first gray trace of morning through his window and reflected it faintly.
Keep it hidden, Garron had said.
Because merchants talk.
Deckard still did not believe that was the whole answer.
Yesterday, the Obscura had frightened them.
The pendant had frightened them differently.
That thought stayed with him through breakfast.
Garron ate as if chewing each bite required discipline.
Elena moved around the kitchen with too much purpose, filling cups, cutting bread, checking the stove, checking Deckard, checking the stove again after already checking it.
No one mentioned the horn.
No one mentioned the pendant.
No one mentioned the fact that Deckard had nearly died in the market holding half a pitchfork.
That last silence was the most suspicious.
Finally, Deckard set his cup down.
“Am I confined to the house?”
Elena looked at him.
Garron closed his eyes.
Deckard took that as an answer to several questions at once.
“You are recovering,” Elena said.
“I have bruises.”
“And poor judgment.”
“That is not an injury.”
“It causes many.”
Garron made a low sound into his cup.
Deckard looked at him.
“Are you laughing?”
“No.”
“That sounded like laughing.”
“It was grief.”
“That also sounded like laughing.”
Elena placed both hands on the table and leaned forward slightly.
“You may go outside.”
Deckard straightened.
“But.”
There it was.
“No north ward line.
No holding room.
No outside merchants.
No suspicious wagons.
No loose Angelstone.
No heroism.
No chasing rumors.
No asking sentries whether they need help.
No farm tools used as weapons.”
Deckard frowned.
“That is a long list.”
“It was longer before I showed mercy.”
Garron nodded solemnly.
“Your mother is very merciful.”
“Do not help,” Deckard said.
“I am helping her.”
“That is worse.”
Elena’s expression softened despite herself, but only for a moment.
“Stay where people can see you.”
Deckard thought of Estellise.
Thought of yesterday.
Thought of the way she had moved between him and the Obscura as if the space in front of him had always belonged to her.
“All right,” he said.
Elena narrowed her eyes.
“That was too easy.”
“I can argue if it would comfort you.”
“No.”
“Then I will be obedient.”
Garron looked at him.
Deckard looked back.
Neither believed him.
Estellise was waiting near the old side yard behind the storage shed.
Deckard had not told her to wait there.
That made it more irritating.
She stood beneath the bent willow, arms folded, crimson hair tied back and golden eyes already fixed on him before he turned the corner.
Morning light touched the edges of her face and made the rest of her look sharper than usual.
“You are late,” she said.
“We did not set a time.”
“You are still late.”
“That is not how time works.”
“It is how training works.”
Deckard stopped.
Despite everything, a smile pulled at him.
“So you will teach me?”
“I said I would show you how not to stand incorrectly.”
“That sounds like teaching.”
“It sounds like correction.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“You will enjoy one less.”
He considered that.
“Which one?”
She looked at him.
He sighed.
“Correction.”
“Good.
You are learning already.”
That should have worried him.
It did.
A little.
The storage yard was not much of a training ground.
It was a patch of packed dirt between an unused shed, a low fence, and the back wall of an old granary.
A stack of cracked barrels leaned in one corner.
The willow offered shade enough to make the morning bearable.
It also offered several places for villagers to pretend they were not watching.
Deckard noticed two boys from the carpenter’s row near the fence, a girl carrying laundry who had somehow slowed to the speed of moss, and one old man sitting on a crate with the intensity of someone deeply invested in nothing.
Estellise noticed all of them before he did.
Her shoulders tightened by a fraction.
Deckard saw it.
“Maybe this is not private enough.”
“It is sufficient.”
“You dislike being watched.”
“I dislike bad hiding.”
“Then Luminaris must be agony.”
“Often.”
He laughed.
She pointed at the center of the yard.
“Stand there.”
Deckard obeyed.
Mostly.
“Feet apart.”
He adjusted.
“Not that far.”
He adjusted again.
“Now they are arguing.”
He looked down.
“My feet?”
“Yes.”
“They are feet.
They do not argue.”
“Yours do.”
“With what?”
“Survival.”
Deckard stared at her.
Behind the fence, someone snorted and tried to disguise it as a cough.
Estellise did not look away from Deckard.
“Again.
Stand as if something is about to strike you.”
Deckard shifted his weight forward.
“No.”
“What?”
“You are leaning.”
“I am ready.”
“You are falling early.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It is when something is trying to kill you.”
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Yesterday’s Obscura bent over him again in memory.
The claw.
The broken pitchfork.
The ground under his hand.
He adjusted his stance.
Estellise watched.
“Better.”
Deckard brightened.
“Slightly,” she added.
His brightness dimmed.
“That was unnecessary.”
“It was accurate.”
For the next hour, Deckard learned that standing could be exhausting.
That felt unfair.
He had thought training would involve swords, movement, perhaps dramatic warnings about courage and danger.
Instead, Estellise made him shift his feet, bend his knees, breathe, step back, step sideways, stop leaning, stop tensing, stop raising his shoulders, stop looking at her hands, and stop becoming offended when told to stop things.
By the time the sun climbed over the shed roof, sweat had gathered beneath his collar.
He had not attacked anything.
He had not defended anything.
He had not even held a stick.
“This is not how I imagined training,” he said.
“That is why you are alive.”
“I am alive because you killed the Obscura.”
“Also because you did not imagine successfully.”
“That sentence wounded me.”
“Good.”
He looked at her.
“Do you enjoy this?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Deckard narrowed his eyes.
“You do.”
“I enjoy accuracy.”
“You enjoy correcting me.”
“You provide many opportunities.”
That was not a denial.
He decided to accept it as progress.
A whisper moved behind the fence.
“Ask her.”
“You ask her.”
“I am not asking her.”
Estellise turned her head.
The whispering stopped.
A moment later, a small boy’s voice called, “Can you show us how you killed it?”
Deckard felt the yard change.
The old man on the crate stopped pretending to be asleep.
The laundry girl paused completely.
The carpenter boys looked anywhere except at Estellise.
Estellise’s face did not change.
But Deckard saw the stillness settle over her.
“No,” she said.
The answer was flat.
The boy behind the fence did not speak again.
Deckard looked at Estellise.
She looked at the dirt between them.
For all her calm, all her precision, all the terrifying ease with which she had stepped between him and an Obscura, she did not like this.
Not fear.
Not exactly.
She could stand before claws without flinching.
But being turned into a story while still standing there seemed to press against her differently.
“Let’s move,” Deckard said.
Her eyes lifted.
“Where?”
“Somewhere with fewer audiences.”
“You are supposed to stay where people can see you.”
“You are people.”
“Your mother will not accept that.”
“She accepts many things eventually.”
“Does she?”
“No.”
Estellise stared at him.
“Then no.”
Deckard blinked.
“No?”
“No.”
“You are becoming inconveniently responsible.”
“You are becoming predictable.”
“That felt personal.”
“It was.”
Behind the fence, someone shifted.
Estellise turned toward the sound.
The someone became very still.
Deckard lowered his voice.
“We cannot keep training like this.”
“Not forever.”
“Then you agree.”
“I agree that not forever is not today.”
He looked at her for a moment.
Then sighed and returned to the center of the yard.
“Correction continues?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Useful.”
“Useful is becoming a threatening word.”
“It often is.”
They continued.
The watchers did not leave.
That made everything worse.
Deckard failed in public.
Estellise corrected him in public.
The village absorbed each mistake with the quiet hunger of people collecting a new version of someone they thought they knew.
But after a while, something shifted.
Not in the watchers.
In Deckard.
Embarrassment became too heavy to carry, so he dropped it.
Annoyance took too much breath, so he stopped feeding it.
He listened because listening was easier than being corrected twice for the same mistake with half the village pretending not to enjoy it.
Estellise demonstrated a retreat step.
“Do not turn your back.”
“I am retreating.”
“Retreating is not fleeing.”
“It feels related.”
“One keeps your eyes alive.”
He paused.
“That was almost poetic.”
“It was practical.”
“Can practical be poetic?”
“No.”
“I think it can.”
“Step.”
He stepped.
Wrong.
She corrected him.
Again.
Again.
Again.
By the end, Deckard had moved backward ten times without tripping, sideways six times without crossing his feet, and once had shifted out of Estellise’s approach before she touched his shoulder.
Only once.
But once was more than none.
Estellise stopped.
He froze.
“What?”
“You moved before correction.”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
“Was it right?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“But less wrong.”
Deckard straightened with as much dignity as exhaustion allowed.
“Less wrong is the beginning of right.”
“That sounds like something you invented to feel better.”
“It worked.”
“Unfortunately.”
He laughed, breathless and sore.
Estellise watched him for a moment too long, then looked toward the ground.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You stared.”
“I observed.”
“That word is dangerous.”
“Often.”
He sat on an overturned crate near the shed and wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Did your master teach you like this?”
“Yes.”
“Was he this harsh?”
“No.”
Deckard looked up.
“He was worse?”
“Much.”
“That explains many things.”
She tilted her head.
“What things?”
“Your descriptions.”
“They are accurate.”
“And painful.”
“Accuracy often is.”
Deckard smiled faintly.
“Why did he train you?”
Estellise did not answer immediately.
The yard had grown quieter.
The boys behind the fence had drifted away once the training became repetitive enough to lose entertainment value.
The laundry girl had finally remembered she was carrying laundry.
The old man on the crate remained, but he had closed his eyes and may or may not have been asleep.
“I was given to him,” she said.
Deckard’s smile faded.
“Given?”
“To train.”
“By who?”
“I do not know.”
“You do not know?”
“No.”
He waited, but her face had closed in the way it did when a subject approached a locked place.
This time, he stopped himself before pushing.
That seemed to surprise her.
“You are not asking more.”
“I want to.”
“Yes.”
“But you do not?”
“You looked like you wanted me not to.”
She studied him.
For some reason, that seemed to matter more than the question itself.
“You are learning,” she said.
“Was that about footwork or conversation?”
“Both.”
“I will take it.”
“You take too much.”
“I am cultivating morale.”
“That may become a bad habit.”
“It already is.”
This time, her mouth almost moved.
Almost.
They returned to training until Deckard’s legs shook badly enough that Estellise declared further instruction inefficient.
That sounded better than pity, so he accepted it.
When they reached the lane near the storage yard again, Estellise stopped.
“You should go home.”
Deckard looked at her.
“You are not coming?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Your mother asked you to stay where people could see you.
She did not ask me to explain why you are dirty.”
“That feels like abandonment.”
“It is accuracy.”
“You are leaving me to face interrogation alone.”
“Yes.”
“That was very direct.”
“You were already aware.”
Deckard sighed.
Estellise looked toward the yard, the fence, the roof edge, and the places where people had spent the morning pretending not to watch.
“We can train there tomorrow.”
“With everyone watching?”
“Yes.”
“You hate that.”
“I dislike it.”
“That is your version of hate.”
She did not answer.
That meant he was right.
Deckard looked at the yard again and understood something simple.
They could train there tomorrow.
Maybe the day after.
But not forever.
Estellise turned to leave.
“Rest your legs.”
“Is that concern?”
“It is maintenance.”
“I will take it.”
“You take too much.”
Then she was gone.
Deckard returned home dusty, tired, and trying to look less tired than he was.
Elena noticed immediately.
Of course she did.
“You look worn out.”
“I walked.”
“Through flour?”
He looked down at the dirt on his trousers.
“Uneven roads.”
Garron stood in the doorway, arms folded, watching him with the expression of a man who knew a lie was happening but had not yet decided where to place the knife.
“Uneven roads make your shoulders tired?”
Deckard adjusted his posture.
“Some roads are very demanding.”
Elena narrowed her eyes.
“Did you leave the village?”
“No.”
“Did you go near the north ward line?”
“No.”
“Did you speak to any outside merchants?”
“No.”
“Did you touch loose Angelstone?”
“No.”
“Did you do anything heroic?”
“Absolutely not.”
Garron’s eyebrow rose.
Deckard added, “By my mother’s definition.”
“That definition is the only one that matters,” Elena said.
Deckard nodded solemnly.
For a moment, neither parent spoke.
Then Elena sighed.
“Wash up.
If you collapse before dinner, I will assume you lied.”
“That seems unfair.”
“It is maternal.”
Deckard wisely retreated.
As he passed into the house, Garron’s eyes dropped briefly to his feet.
Deckard noticed.
Garron noticed him noticing.
Neither said anything.
For the rest of the day, Deckard felt the yard under his feet even when standing still.
Packed dirt.
Uneven ground.
Too many eyes.
Estellise’s voice cutting through every excuse with merciless accuracy.
And when night came, the dream returned.
Not fully.
Not with the horn.
Only silver water.
A lake beneath pale cliffs.
A woman’s voice, distant and soft.
Soon.