(Luna) Training escalates over the following days.
Kael pushes harder than ever, demanding more from every drill, every sparring match, every silent minute of meditation, as though he’s racing against some invisible clock only he can see.
Rowan’s quiet lessons layer in underneath it all, patient where Kael is relentless, steady where he is sharp, and I find myself grateful for the contrast even when I’m too exhausted to say so.
Somewhere in the middle of all that pressure, something changes that I never expected.
We’re in a joint session out on the training grounds, Spiritwalker and Emberwolf cubs combined for the afternoon, working through basic combat drills against a row of practice dummies stuffed with straw.
The sun beats down mercilessly, sweat already soaking through my shirt, my arms aching from an hour of repetition that’s left my knuckles raw and my patience thinner than I’d like to admit.
Ember stands a few positions down from me, effortlessly conjuring small licks of flame along her knuckles between drills, showing off in that particular way she can’t seem to help, the way she never seems to help.
A few of the other cubs laugh at whatever she says next, and the sound needles at something raw already simmering beneath my skin, some old frustration I haven’t quite learned to name.
I’m not even trying to do anything except land a decent punch when it happens.
I throw a punch at the dummy in front of me, and fire erupts from my fist on impact, catching the straw instantly, flames licking up the dummy’s chest before anyone can react.
I stumble backward, staring at my own hand.
My palm still tingles, warm and foreign, like it belongs to someone else entirely, like I’ve borrowed a piece of another person’s body without asking.
“What did you just do?” Ember demands, her voice sharp and cutting across the training grounds.
The dummy burns fast, someone rushing forward to smother it before it spreads, and the whole field goes quiet except for the crackle of dying flames and Ember’s furious breathing.
Her hands curl into fists at her sides, knuckles white, like she’s fighting the urge to summon her own fire in retaliation.
I can see the betrayal in her face before she even says another word, as if I’ve stolen something from her that she never agreed to share.
“Fire is mine,” she snaps, her voice shaking with something that isn’t just anger, her green eyes blazing as bright as the flames she usually controls.
“Spiritwalkers don’t get fire.
That’s not how this works.” “I didn’t mean to,” I say, my voice unsteady, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“It just happened.” Kael’s already crossing the field toward me, his expression somewhere between shock and something more complicated, his amber eyes wide as he stares at the scorch mark still smoking where the dummy used to stand.
The other cubs part around him, murmuring to each other, and I catch fragments of their disbelief, their fear, their fascination, a chorus of half-formed whispers I wish I couldn’t hear so clearly.
“That’s not possible,” he mutters, almost to himself, his voice distant with disbelief.
Near the edge of the field, Professor Greymane watches the whole scene unfold without a word, arms folded behind his back, his expression unreadable in the particular way that unsettles me more than outright alarm would.
When my eyes meet his, he simply nods, slow and deliberate, like something he already suspected has just confirmed itself in front of a whole crowd of witnesses.
A ripple moves through the cubs still gathered near the dummies, low murmurs passing hand to hand faster than I can track.
I catch one girl near the back whisper the word “prophecy” to the boy beside her like it burns her mouth to say it out loud.
Someone else takes a half step back, putting a little more distance between us without seeming to notice they’ve done it, and that small, unconscious retreat stings more than I expect it to.
Whatever this was supposed to stay, a secret, a rumor, a whispered theory, it’s none of those things anymore.
It’s confirmed now, standing right here in front of everyone, and there’s no taking it back.
Across the field, I catch Caspian watching too, and through the golden thread of the bond I feel it hit him almost as hard as it hit me.
A rush of pure awe washes through him at the sight of my fire, his breath catching audibly even from this distance.
It isn’t fear this time.
It isn’t the careful, calculated interest Seraphina showed at my first shift.
It’s something warmer, more helpless, an emotion I recognize even though he’s never said it out loud, and it settles into my chest like an ember of its own, small and glowing and impossible to ignore.
He isn’t just watching me because he was told to anymore.
That thought alone leaves me strangely unsteady, like the ground beneath the moment has shifted without my permission.
Kael finds me alone later that evening, near the edge of the training grounds where the scorch mark still darkens the grass.
The night air has cooled considerably, but I can still feel the ghost of the afternoon’s heat clinging to my skin, or maybe that’s just him, approaching with that steady, deliberate stride of his, the one that always makes my pulse stumble before he’s even said a word.
“You need to understand what just happened,” he says, his tone tight and controlled in the way it gets right before he says something that costs him.
“Wolves manifest one affinity.
That’s how it’s always worked, every single wolf, every single generation, for as long as anyone’s kept records.
You’ve already got all five elements developing in you.
Fire wasn’t even supposed to be possible today, and yet.” “And yet,” I echo, my chest tight, the weight of his words settling somewhere deep and unfamiliar.
“This hasn’t happened in centuries, Luna.” He runs a hand through his dark hair, something rare and unguarded slipping through the careful control he usually wears, and for a moment he looks younger, almost lost, like the confident mentor mask has cracked just enough to show the uncertainty underneath.
“Multiple affinities.
Manifesting one after another, faster than any wolf should be able to bond to even one.” “What does it mean?” I ask, my pulse picking up despite everything else crowding my chest tonight.
His amber eyes fix on mine with an intensity that makes my breath catch.
“It means the prophecy is real,” he says, his voice low and certain.
“And you’re at the center of it.” Neither of us says anything else for a long moment.
The weight of his words hangs between us, heavier than anything either of us could add to it.
He steps closer, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him the way I have since that first night in the library, and something electric crackles in the space between us, charged and inevitable, his gaze dropping briefly to my mouth before lifting back to my eyes.
My breath catches, torn between the pull of him and the quiet warning voice somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice that sounds suspiciously like caution I don’t want to listen to right now.
He leans in.
And that’s when the bond tugs.
It isn’t subtle.
A golden thread yanks taut somewhere behind my ribs, insistent and impossible to ignore, Caspian’s presence flooding through it even though he isn’t anywhere near us right now.
The sensation jolts through me like cold water, sharp enough to steal the breath Kael’s closeness had stolen only seconds before.
I pull back before Kael’s lips ever reach mine, breathless, confused, my whole chest a tangle of feelings I don’t know how to sort through anymore.
“I can’t,” I whisper, my voice barely audible.
Kael straightens immediately, his jaw tight, something unreadable passing behind his amber eyes before he nods once, short and controlled, and steps back.
The distance between us feels larger than the few inches it actually is, as though something invisible has widened the space where warmth used to sit.
“Right,” he says, his voice flat, quiet.
“Of course.” He walks away without another word, his shoulders squared in that stubborn way of his, the kind of posture that dares anyone to ask if he’s fine.
I stand there alone in the dark, the bond still humming warm and insistent in my chest, pulling me toward Caspian even now, patient and unshakable in a way that both comforts and terrifies me.
The imprint says Caspian, golden and absolute, a bond I never chose and can’t seem to escape.
My body says Kael, electric and consuming, chemistry that’s been building since the moment his amber eyes first found mine in that library.
And underneath both of those, quiet and constant, my heart still says Jace, steady and familiar, home in a way neither of the other two have ever managed to be.
Three pulls in three different directions, each one insistent, each one real, and no version of me capable of choosing just one without breaking something in the process.
Some nights I almost call him, phone in hand, his name glowing on the screen, my thumb hovering over the call button like it might burn me too.
But the words never come, and I tell myself it’s because there’s nothing to explain, even though some quieter part of me knows that isn’t the truth at all.