Chapter 13

Sable's POV

Sela's words followed me into my tent that night and were still sitting in my chest when Ivy shook me awake the next morning.

"Up," Ivy said. "We're starting knife work today."

"What time is it?"

"Early enough that you shouldn't be asking me that." She tossed something at me, and I caught it on instinct, a knife, handle first, the blade catching the dim morning light. "Eat later. Get up."

I dragged myself out of the tent, the weight of the blade unfamiliar in my hand, my grip already off according to the way Ivy frowned at it the second she saw me holding it.

"You're holding it like you're scared of it," she said.

"I am scared of it."

"Good. Means you're smart. Now hold it right anyway." She adjusted my fingers with quick, practiced movements. "Thumb here, not wrapped all the way around. You want control, not a death grip."

I copied the grip, and the blade sat steadier in my palm after that, though it still felt wrong somehow, like I was holding something that belonged to someone else's life instead of mine.

"Now," Ivy said, stepping back into an open stance. "Come at me."

"What?"

"Come at me. Slow. I want to see what your instincts do before I start correcting them."

I hesitated. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't. Trust me on that." She waved me forward. "Come on. We don't have all day."

I stepped in and swung, slow and wide, and she didn't even bother moving out of the way.

"That was pathetic," she said, not unkindly.

"I told you I don't know what I'm doing."

"That's why we're doing this. Again."

We went through it again, and again, my swings getting faster but no more accurate, every attempt easy for her to read before I'd even finished the motion.

"You're hesitating," she said, after I missed for the fifth time. "I can see you decide to hold back before your arm even moves."

"I don't want to actually cut you, Ivy."

"You're not going to cut me. I've been doing this longer than you've been in the Hollow." Her patience thinned with every round, the easy tone from earlier sharpening at the edges. "That hesitation's going to get you killed out here. Not against me. Against something that actually wants you dead."

"I know that."

"Then stop pulling your strikes."

I gritted my teeth and came at her harder, putting real weight behind it this time. She sidestepped clean and knocked the knife from my hand with the flat of her own blade, hard enough to sting my wrist.

"Better," she said. "Still too slow. Pick it up."

We kept going. I lost count of how many times I hit the dirt, how many times the blade got knocked loose from my grip, how many times Ivy said ‘again’ in that same flat, patient tone that started sounding less patient the longer we went.

"I'm getting worse, not better," I said, spitting dirt out after one particularly hard fall.

"You're getting tired. Different thing." She reset her stance without giving me a break. "Real fights don't stop because you're winded. Get up."

I got up. My arms ached, my palms stung raw from hitting the ground over and over, sweat sticking my hair to my neck despite the cool morning air. Every part of me wanted to stop, but something stubborn kept me picking the knife back up every time it fell.

"One more pass," Ivy said, squaring off against me again. "Make it count."

I lunged.

She sidestepped, same as every time before, but this time something shifted the second my blade cut through the air between us. A sharp pull settled in my chest, sudden and cold, the same twisting feeling from the night I healed Bram, except harder now, colder, like something under my skin had decided to answer a call I hadn't meant to make.

The knife in my hand went ice-cold.

Cold enough to burn, biting into my palm like I grabbed a fistful of snow instead of steel. I gasped and tried to drop it the way I drop anything too painful to hold.

It didn't move.

"Ivy." My voice cracked, panic creeping in fast.

She stopped mid-motion, whatever counter she'd been about to throw forgotten entirely. "What's wrong?"

"My hand." I stared down at my fingers, wrapped tight around the handle, knuckles white, frost creeping visibly across the blade and down onto my skin. "It won't let go. Ivy, my hand won't let go of it.”