(Luna) Training with Rowan feels nothing like training with Kael.
We meet at the edge of the training grounds the next afternoon, far enough from the main field that nobody’s watching.
I suspect that’s deliberate.
He chose this spot for a reason, some quiet instinct toward giving me room to fail without an audience.
Kael pushes, sharp and demanding, correcting every misstep with an intensity that leaves me exhausted before we’ve even started.
Rowan just watches, patient in a way that doesn’t ask anything of me except to slow down.
It’s disorienting, at first, not having to brace for criticism.
“Forget everything he’s taught you about grabbing at it,” Rowan says, his tone easy, arms loose at his sides.
“Just breathe.
In through your nose, slow, like you’re not in any hurry at all.
You’ve been trying to force your way into this shape since you got here.
Your body already knows the way.
It doesn’t need you fighting it the whole time.” I breathe.
In, slow, then out, slower, and for the first time since I got to Hollowcrest, I don’t feel like I’m racing against some invisible clock.
The shift comes easier than it ever has, not the violent tearing rush from the tunnel, just a gentle unraveling and reforming, like slipping into water instead of being thrown into it.
When I land on four paws, Rowan doesn’t circle me the way Seraphina did, doesn’t study me like a specimen.
He just nods, his expression satisfied, like I’ve done exactly what he expected.
Something in that quiet approval settles a nervous flutter I didn’t realize I’d been carrying.
“Better,” he says, his voice low and even.
“Now hold it.
Don’t brace.
Just be here.” It’s harder than it sounds, staying settled in this shape instead of tensing against it, but with Rowan’s steady presence beside me, unhurried and undemanding, I manage longer than I ever have before shifting back.
My breath comes fast, but my body doesn’t ache the way it usually does.
My legs feel solid beneath me, my chest loose instead of tight, like I’ve been allowed to exhale after holding my breath for weeks.
“How’d you get so good at this?” I ask, once I’m human again, catching my breath against the low stone wall at the edge of the field.
“Practice.
And growing up Stonefang.” He sits down beside me, close but not too close, his forest green eyes fixed on the mountains in the distance.
“Earth affinity runs deep and slow.
You don’t force stone to move.
You wait, and it moves when it’s ready.
Same with the wolf.
Same with most things, honestly.” “That sounds exhausting,” I say, my tone doubtful.
“Waiting for everything.” “It’s the opposite, actually,” he says, a thoughtful look crossing his face.
“Forcing things is exhausting.
Waiting just takes patience.
There’s a difference between roots and armor, once you actually understand it instead of just hearing someone tell you about it.” Something about the phrase catches, and for a second I’m back in the library weeks ago, Kael’s hand pressed flat against my shoulder blade, his voice low near my ear.
One is armor.
The other is roots.
Your wolf won’t come to armor.
It only comes to roots.
My pulse trips over itself at the memory, that same charged, dangerous heat pooling low in my stomach before I understand why.
Hearing nearly the same words now, from someone sitting an arm’s length away with nothing charged about it at all, feels like hearing a familiar song played in a completely different key.
The melody’s the same, but nothing in me reaches for it the way it did before.
I don’t mention it.
Somehow it feels like it means something different coming from Rowan, less like a lesson and more like something he actually lives by, worn smooth from years of practice rather than sharpened for effect.
“What’s it feel like?” I ask instead.
“Earth affinity.
Being Stonefang.” “Like roots underneath my paws, even when I’m standing on solid rock,” he says, his voice simple and unadorned, without any of the poetry Caspian wraps around his own answers, without the intensity Kael carries into everything.
“Like the ground remembers me even when I’m not touching it.
Hard to explain if you haven’t felt it.” We sit quiet for a while after that, comfortable in a way I don’t expect from someone I’ve known less than a full day.
The mountain air is cool against my skin, the light softening toward evening.
My eyes catch on the scar cutting across his jaw, pale and old, and curiosity gets the better of me before I can stop myself.
“Can I ask about that?” I nod toward it.
“The scar.” His shoulders go rigid.
His gaze drops to the grass between us, and he doesn’t look back up.
“Shadow wolves,” he says, his voice flat, final.
“I was ten.” He doesn’t elaborate.
I wait a beat, watching the tension sitting tight across his shoulders, and decide not to push.
I think of my own scars, the ones nobody can see, and let the matter drop where it lies.
“Okay,” I say, keeping my tone light, and let the silence settle back between us, easier this time, the tension slowly loosening from his shoulders until he looks like himself again.
Later that evening, back in my room, I finally work up the nerve to call Nana Mae.
My thumb hovers over her name for longer than it should before I press it, some part of me already bracing for whatever news might be waiting on the other end.
“There’s my girl,” she says, her voice warm and familiar, steadying something in my chest the second I hear it.
“Luna, I need to tell you something about Jace.
He drew something the other day.
Brought it by to show me, all shaken up about it.
A wolf, Luna.
Black, with light pouring off it like moonlight, standing in front of some old stone building tucked into a mountain.
Looked exactly like the way you described your school to him, near enough it gave me chills.” My whole body goes still, the phone suddenly heavy against my ear.
“That boy loves you,” Nana Mae continues, her voice dropping quiet.
“And something’s happening to him too.
He’s never been an artist, baby.
Not once in his whole life have I seen that boy pick up a pencil and draw anything more than a stick figure.
And now this.” “Nana,” I say, my voice small, “what do I do?” She doesn’t answer right away, and the silence on the other end of the line tells me she doesn’t know either.