The lesson finished, and she might have dragged Cassian down to her bedroom had he not simply taken to the skies and left. He didn’t come back until the following morning.
He was avoiding her.
But the next morning, she understood why—or at least he had a reason for his vanishing act.
The training ring had been transformed again.
An obstacle course lay all around it, coiled like a snake throughout. Nesta was one of the last to arrive, and joined the crowd of females who lingered by the door, murmuring about it as Cassian and Azriel turned to them all. Cassian said, “Valkyries were fearless and brilliant warriors on their own. But their true strength came from being a highly trained unit.” He motioned to the obstacle course. “Alone, none of you will be able to get through that course. Together, you can find a way.”
Emerie snorted.
Cassian leveled a grin at her. “Looks simple, doesn’t it?”
Emerie had the good sense to look nervous.
Azriel clapped his hands, and all the females straightened. “You’ll work in groups of three.”
Gwyn asked Az, her teal eyes bright, “What do we get if we finish the course?”
Az’s shadows danced around him. “Since there’s no chance in hell any of you will finish the course, we didn’t bother to get a prize.”
Boos sounded. Gwyn lifted her chin in challenge. “We look forward to proving you wrong.”
Proving Azriel and Cassian wrong would take a while, it seemed.
Gwyn, Emerie, and Nesta made it the farthest in three hours: a grand, whopping halfway.
Roslin, Deirdre, and Ananke made it to the obstacle behind them before time was up, and Ananke’s golden hair was matted with blood from the blow she’d taken to the head from a spinning, many-armed wooden thing.
“Sadistic monsters,” Gwyn hissed as the three friends limped toward the water station, defeat heavy on their shoulders.
“We try again tomorrow,” Emerie swore, sporting a black eye thanks to the swinging log that had knocked her on her ass before Nesta could grab her. “We keep trying until we wipe that smug look off their stupid perfect faces.”
Indeed, Azriel and Cassian had just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and smiled at them the entire time.
Gwyn threw Azriel a withering stare as she strode past him. “See you tomorrow, Shadowsinger,” she tossed over a shoulder.
Az stared after her, brows high with amusement. When he turned back, Nesta grinned. “You have no idea what you just started,” she said. Az angled his head, hazel eyes narrowing as Gwyn reached the archway.
“Remember how Gwyn was with the ribbon?” Nesta winked and clapped the shadowsinger on the shoulder. “You’re the new ribbon, Az.”
The obstacle course remained impossible.
The bastards changed it every night. Each new morning was a different, harder challenge. But one that had an overall pattern: it usually began with some array of footwork, whether doing a swift run of knee-to-chest steps through a ladder on the ground or balancing on a suspended beam. Then came mental testing—puzzles that required them to think together, and then rely on each other to get through. And when they were thoroughly exhausted, the feats of strength came in.
The three of them made it to the third stage only once in the next two weeks.
Roslin, Ananke, and Deirdre were close on their heels, propelling Gwyn to push her group harder. She wanted to be the first. Wanted Nesta and Emerie and her to be the ones who wiped the smirks from Azriel’s and Cassian’s faces. Especially Azriel’s.
Never mind that, after the first day, they only had an hour to get through the course. The other two hours were spent as a group, working on military training: marching in formation （harder and stupider than it looked）， fighting side by side （more dangerous than it seemed）， and learning how to move, think, breathe as a unit.
But they kept at it. Marched in Valkyrie phalanxes. Fought as one, with Cassian and Azriel playing their opponents. Learned to hold their shields in place against the onslaught of the Illyrians’ Siphons, their towering male forms. Every bit of Valkyrie endurance training paid off: every infernal squat or lunge now allowed them to brace their shields with little effort. To hold steady against an enemy attack.
They exercised as one, in precise lines as they did their abdominal curls to the same beat. Did push-ups together. If one collapsed, they all had to start over again.
But they kept going. Through sweat and breath and blood, they forged themselves together.
And sometimes, when the evening services were over, the three of them would gather in the library and read about military strategy. About Valkyrie lore. About the techniques of the ancients.