Chapter 11 Eleven

Kaien tugged his sleeve down over the bandage for the third time before he even reached the training hall.

It was warm out. Half the class had their sleeves rolled up or tied back at the shoulder, robes loose against the morning heat. He kept his arm close to his side and said nothing about it, falling into line with the rest of his year as the instructor called them to order.

"Combat assessment." The instructor's voice cut across the hall, flat and businesslike. "Pairs, by rank. I want to see how you fight, not just whether you win."

Kaien found a spot near the back of the line and scanned the room out of habit. Rowan was two rows over, already stretching his shoulders, throwing Kaien a small nod he didn't quite return. Lyra stood near the front with the other Moon Clan disciples, arms crossed, watching the ring with the same sharp attention she brought to everything.

"First pair. Halden. Miri."

Two Six-Tails stepped into the ring, Earth and Storm colors, and the match went fast, over in four clean exchanges. The crowd along the edge clapped politely and shifted, already looking for the next name.

"Ashwyn. Doran."

Kaien felt a few heads turn his way as he stepped forward. Word of the arena, of Tobin, had followed him into every room for weeks now, and he could feel the weight of it in the way people watched him cross the ring.

A Storm Clan disciple stepped in across from him, rolling his neck, grinning like the outcome had already been decided. "Heard a lot about you, Ashwyn."

"Didn't hear anything about you," Kaien said.

A few laughs from the crowd. Doran's grin thinned slightly.

"Begin," the instructor called.

Doran came in fast, a testing jab, quick as a flinch. Kaien sidestepped it clean, barely moving his feet.

"Not bad." Doran reset, still grinning. "Let's see the rest of it."

He came again, harder, and Kaien caught the strike on his forearm and answered with one of his own, fast and precise, straight into Doran's ribs. The impact echoed off the walls of the hall.

Doran staggered back a step, breath punched out of him. "The hell—"

"Again," the instructor called, unbothered.

Doran came in angrier this time, faster, and Kaien read the strike before it landed. He ducked under it, drove his own fist into Doran's shoulder, and spun him half around. The crowd along the edge of the ring made a low sound, somewhere between surprise and approval.

"Ashwyn's fast," someone muttered near the front.

"Faster than that," someone else said.

Doran shook off the hit and reset his stance, breathing hard now, some of the earlier confidence gone from his face. Kaien pressed forward, feeling the rhythm of the fight settle into place the way it used to in his first life, that exact instant right before an opponent's guard finally broke.

He should have stopped there.

His body wasn't the body that used to end fights like this. Seven Tails. Not Eight. Reflexes sharp, strength still catching up behind them. He pushed forward anyway, chasing an opening his instincts told him was there, and his legs landed half a beat slower than his mind expected them to.

Doran's counter came in low and fast, aimed for an opening that shouldn't have still been open.

It caught him square on the forearm.

The pain hit white and total, a full-body flash that buckled his knees before his brain caught up to what had happened. He went down hard, one hand slamming into the packed dirt to catch himself, breath knocked clean out of his chest.

Something warm was already spreading fast under his sleeve.

"Ashwyn?" Doran's voice had gone uncertain, hands still half-raised. "Hey. You good?"

Kaien looked down at his own arm.

The sleeve had split clean along the old cut. Blood soaked through in seconds, dark and fast, running past his wrist and dripping steadily off his fingers into the dirt below him.

Drip.

Drip.

"That's blood." Someone near the front said it out loud, like saying it might make it not true. "That's actual blood."

Doran took a step back, hands still raised, staring at the red spreading across the dirt like he couldn't work out how a training strike had done that. "Ashwyn, that's not—" His voice cracked. "That's not from me. I didn't hit you that hard, I swear I didn't—"

"Someone get a healer!" the instructor was already shouting, cutting across the room, already moving toward the ring.

Rowan had gone pale near the edge of the crowd, half a step forward before he caught himself.

Lyra hadn't moved at all. She stood perfectly still among the Moon Clan disciples, watching the blood hit the dirt with an expression that gave away nothing, though Kaien, even through the pain, caught the exact moment her jaw tightened.

Kaien knelt there in the ring, arm open and bleeding freely in front of the entire class, blood dripping steady off his fingers, and felt every single eye in the room land on him at once.