Chapter 34-Combat Conditioning

Odett’s POV

  Combat conditioning occupied the final lesson of the day. I corrected the opening near my left shoulder often enough that the padded staff struck my ribs instead, which Aunt Jess would probably call improvement. Joshy claimed bruises in new locations counted as academic growth.

  “You volunteered to help with training tonight,” I reminded him with vindictive satisfaction.

  “I volunteered before you threatened a member of the royal family over bacon,” he replied with immediate regret.

  We walked home through a thin afternoon snow with the proposal protected beneath my coat. The younger students had a separate study session and left through the eastern courtyard, already arguing about tracking signs. Their voices faded behind us while Joshy returned to the question the instructor had asked.

  “Do you remember exactly what Selene told you?” he asked with careful interest.

  “I remember telling Dad that my destiny was to create a new pack and that my sister would be the next Queen,” I answered slowly.

  I remembered announcing that I would be an Alpha in my childhood room. Dad had looked at me with confusion, and I had been as certain as if I’d chosen a seat at dinner. Back then, I hadn’t thought to ask what would happen when someone came to me with a problem I couldn’t fix.

  “Did Selene say you had no choice?” Joshy asked thoughtfully.

  “I don’t remember asking,” I admitted.

  Mom was in the greenhouse when we returned, trimming winter herbs beside Grandma Ezmerelda. Warm soil and sharp green scents filled the glass room, and both women looked up when I entered with my proposal still clutched against my chest. Joshy excused himself after Mom promised we would not revise the government without him.

  “That expression usually means an instructor asked you a question you could not defeat,” Grandma observed.

  “I could defeat it,” I muttered while setting the proposal on the worktable. “I just could not answer it.”

  Mom wiped her hands and waited. She had become better at letting silence remain open instead of filling it with concern. That patience made the question harder to avoid.

  “When Selene told me I would create a pack, was she telling me what I had to do?” I asked.

  Mom’s gaze moved briefly toward Grandma before returning to me. Neither woman looked surprised, which meant they had probably wondered when the old prophecy would become heavy. Mom pulled out the chair beside her rather than answering from across the table.

  “She told you about a future she believed you could create,” Mom explained gently.

  “That is not the same as saying I can refuse it,” I replied.

  “Then refuse it,” Grandma said without hesitation.

  I stared at her. Grandma returned to the herb in her hand as if she had not just challenged the Moon Goddess. Mom hid a smile behind her fingers.

  “A warning, vision, or prophecy shows where choices may lead,” Grandma continued.  “It does not remove the choices that create that path. Any divine message demanding obedience without judgment deserves judgment most of all.”

  “Your grandmother has always had a complicated relationship with reverence,” Mom added.

  “Reverence without questions is only fear wearing ceremonial robes,” Grandma replied firmly.

  Only Grandma could make a prophecy feel less frightening by arguing with a goddess. I showed her and Mom the founding vote and the six-month review. Mom read the whole page before she touched my hand.

  “This looks like you are making room for people to choose the future with you,” she said.

  “What if no one chooses it?” I asked, hating how young the fear made me sound.

  “Then the pack Selene showed you was not needed in the way you imagined, or it was not needed yet,” Mom answered. “Either way truth would matter more than protecting a prophecy from disappointment.”

  Grandma placed the trimmed herb into a basket and brushed soil from her fingers. She reminded me that magic revealed possibilities through symbols, emotions, and incomplete images. Treating any vision as a complete set of instructions was how frightened people turned uncertainty into permission.

  I thought of my nightmares. The ruined communities, silent children, Black Claw field. They had shown me no attacker and given me no instructions. I kept wanting to make them into a map because I was afraid of standing still.

  “Could the nightmares be warnings like Selene’s prophecy?” I asked cautiously.

  “They could be warnings, memories, possibilities, or something your mind created from what you have heard,” Grandma answered. “Until we know more, none of those explanations earns the right to become certainty.”

  Grandma had not explained the dreams. She had reminded me to write down what I saw without letting fear decide what it meant. I knew more about asking that question now than I had when I first opened the journal.

  That evening, Joshy returned for combat practice and found Mom, Grandma, Dad, and Uncle Orian reading the revised founding section. Aunt Jess arrived carrying two training staffs and complained that the government had stolen enough of our time. Dad handed the proposal back before she could declare an emergency.

  “Your sister becoming Queen does not require you to become anything you do not choose,” Dad told me with quiet conviction.

  “I know,” I answered, although saying it felt different from believing it.

  “Good.” He said with a nod of his head.

  “Now choose to move your left shoulder before Jess bruises it again,” Uncle Orian advised with suspicious cheerfulness.

  Aunt Jess attacked before I finished glaring at him. Joshy blocked the first strike and earned her attention long enough for me to reset my stance. The practice room filled with ordinary complaints, wooden weapons, and family members offering advice no one had requested.

  Later, I opened the warded journal beneath the protection marks in my room. I copied Selena’s old words onto a clean page, then wrote the instructor’s question beneath them. Did the pack exist because people needed it, or because I had been told to build it?

  I left several lines blank before adding my answer. A prophecy could warn me that divided people might someday need another kind of home. It could not decide who entered, who led, or whether that future deserved to exist.

  Moonlight moved across the page while Lorilie settled closer inside my mind. For one breath, the silver light brightened enough to soften the edges of the ink. A familiar presence touched the room without entering it.

  “A path is not a command, Odett,” Selene’s voice said.

  The moonlight faded before I could ask Selene anything. She left no explanation tucked between my written lines. As a child, I had heard a promise, tonight I heard permission to choose.

  I left the revised proposal beside my bag for Joshy to find in the morning. He would probably argue with at least three parts. Good, I wanted to know what I had missed. I couldn’t reach Sam or stop the dreams tonight, but I could still do something about the pack we hoped to build.