Shadows Unveiled, page 13
But the whispers from earlier echoed louder than the wind.
She’s no Amara.
Doesn’t deserve to breathe.
I shook them off and took my place in line, shoulders back, chin up.
Instructor Mallory was already waiting. She stood with her arms crossed and a stance that screamed authority, her sharp eyes scanning every posture, every twitch of hesitation.
“Line up! Shoulders back, eyes forward!” she barked.
We snapped to attention, the rhythm automatic now. Feet shoulder-width apart. Hands relaxed but ready. Breathe in. Don’t think. Just move.
“Today,” Mallory began, pacing the blacktop with predator grace, “we focus on defense. Technique, timing, and control. You are not here to look strong. You are here to be strong. Quietly. Efficiently.” She stepped into the demonstration circle, raised her arms, and shifted her weight to her back foot. “Watch.”
Her left arm cut through the air in a sharp block, followed by a clean, fluid counter—her body twisting, fist driving forward with restrained power. She made it look easy. Effortless. But anyone paying attention could see the discipline underneath—the years it took to make that control second nature.
“You block,” she repeated, breaking the motion into pieces. “Then you redirect. You use your opponent’s force against them. Anticipation is everything.” She reset, slower now, feet repositioning in a deliberate, grounded stance. “Too wide, you lose speed. Too narrow, you lose balance. Neither will save you.”
We watched. We listened. We memorized.
Then: clap.
“Pair up. Let’s see if you were actually paying attention.”
A ripple of motion. Students shifting, glancing around for partners.
Mei and I paired off without a word.
She gave me a small nod—steady, focused—and we mirrored each other, dropping into the stance Instructor Mallory had drilled into us minutes before. Shoulders back. Arms raised. Weight on the balls of our feet.
“Block, then counter,” Mei reminded me, her voice calm but firm.
We moved through the sequence slowly at first, trading roles, testing angles. My footing was clumsy compared to hers—Mei flowed like water, every motion deliberate, while I fought to shake off the tension still coiled in my shoulders. I tried to mimic Mallory’s precision, but even doing it right felt like a fight against my own uncertainty.
Around us, the sound of practice filled the air—thuds of contact pads, feet skimming the blacktop, short bursts of breath as cadets sparred with increasing speed.
Down the line, a voice broke the rhythm.
“Why are we doing this if we all have magic?”
Another scoffed. “Yeah, and weapons. This feels like a waste.”
Mallory didn’t need a microphone to command attention.
She turned, sharp as a blade. “You won’t always have your resources.” Her voice cut clean through the field. “Your Dominion can fail you. Your magic can drain you. Your blade can be knocked from your hand. Your gun can jam. But your body?” She slapped her chest once, hard. “This is your constant. If you don’t train your vessel, then in the moment it matters most, you’ll die. Now shut up and get back to work.”
The class snapped back into motion.
No more complaints. Just movement. Practice. Pressure.
Then I felt it: the shift in atmosphere. A shadow across the blacktop.
Commander Landeskog.
He walked onto the field without a word, his uniform sharp as ever, arms crossed behind his back as he scanned the line of cadets. His presence was a silent warning: no mistakes.
A ripple of tension passed through the ranks. Movements sharpened. Guards raised higher. Everyone pushed harder.
So did I.
Mei met my gaze. There was no pity in her eyes—only respect. And challenge.
She came at me fast.
A flurry of strikes, testing my reflexes. I blocked one. Then another. But her rhythm changed—she feinted left, I shifted to counter—and that’s when she pivoted, sweeping low.
My balance broke.
The world tilted.
And then—impact.
My back slammed against the ground, hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. The sound cracked across the field like a dropped baton.
A quiet ripple moved through the cadets. No laughter. Just that shared, collective wince of secondhand pain.
I stared up at the sky, breathless, chest heaving.
Mallory didn’t rush to help. Neither did Mei. And that was the point.
You got up—or you didn’t.
So I did.
Hands braced against the ground, legs steady beneath me, I pushed to my feet and found Mei already back in position.
Waiting.
So was Landeskog.
His eyes were unreadable.
But I wasn’t here to be watched.
I was here to endure.
The sharp click of Landeskog’s tongue silenced the field. “I thought she was the Sunflower Widow,” he said, voice like glass dragging across stone. “Sannin would be ashamed.”
His tone wasn’t loud, but it hit like a slap.
Heat surged through my face as the sting of the fall twisted into something sharper—humiliation, yes, but beneath it… something burning.
Anger.
I pushed off the mat, lungs still aching, pride bruised deeper than skin. His words echoed inside me, dragging every whispered judgment, every rumor, every accusation I’d spent ten years trying to outrun back to the surface.
Mei reset into position. She didn’t gloat. She didn’t smile. She just watched.
“You’re scared, Piper,” she said, low enough that no one else could hear. “And you can’t fight scared.”
I flinched at the accuracy of it. Reflexive.
“I’m not scared,” I bit out.
But I was. Not of pain. Not of falling.
Of being seen.
Mei’s eyes didn’t soften. They sharpened. “There were stories,” she said. “About how you loved Gabriel Laressa so fiercely, you would’ve burned down the world for him. You need to fight like that. Like nothing else matters.”
Her words struck harder than any blow she’d landed.
I’d spent so long trying to erase that version of me—trying to be respectable, controlled, strategic. But that wasn’t what they feared.
They feared her.
The girl who would’ve bled for what she loved. The one they named a widow before the war was even started.
And maybe I had been wrong to bury her.
Landeskog’s voice echoed again in my mind. Sannin would be ashamed.
As I stepped forward again, something cracked open inside me. Not with a scream, but with silence—the kind that came before a storm.
This time, I didn’t brace. I readied.
Mei came at me with a quick combo—testing. Pushing. I met her head-on.
Her first jab, I sidestepped. The second, I let graze me, letting it draw me in closer. I grabbed her wrist mid-strike, twisted with her momentum, and spun her off balance, slamming her down with more force than finesse.
The move wasn’t clean. It wasn’t textbook.
But it was mine.
Gasps rippled across the blacktop. I heard someone mutter something about the Widow again.
But this time, it didn’t sting.
It thrummed.
I stood over Mei, chest heaving, pulse pounding in my ears. Her eyes met mine—not angry. Impressed.
“I see her now,” she whispered.
So did I.
Maybe the Sunflower Widow wasn’t a curse.
Maybe she was a weapon.
And I had just remembered how to wield her.
“Good! Use that energy!” Mallory’s voice cracked across the field like a whip.
I didn’t hesitate. I pressed forward, riding the adrenaline like a rising wave. My foot snapped out low, aiming for Mei’s knee, then instantly shifted high to block her retaliatory strike, sending her off balance with a sharp twist of force.
Mei stumbled back, blinking—this wasn’t the Piper she’d just thrown to the mat. This wasn’t fear. It was fire.
I closed in.
Left feint. Right hook. Solid impact.
The blow landed in her midsection with a satisfying thud; the breath whooshing from her lungs. She doubled over. I backed off, panting, heart pounding like war drums in my chest.
For a moment, I stood tall. Unleashed.
This was me, unbound. No fear. No second-guessing. No hiding behind who I used to be.
I was the Sunflower Widow.
And I wore the name like armor.
“Keep going.” Landeskog’s voice sliced through the air—sharp, challenging. Daring me to go further.
So I did.
I surged forward, movements fluid and ruthless. Mei met me strike for strike, but I could feel her faltering. Her attacks lacked the confidence from before. She was reacting, not anticipating. And I was everywhere.
The crowd blurred. The whispers dissolved. It was just us. Just the fight.
I ducked under her swing, pivoted, and launched into a rapid series of blows—one, two, three. She blocked, barely. I caught her opening and drove forward with one final shove, sending her crashing to the mat.
And then—I stepped over her.
My boot pressed down on her chest, hard enough to make her breath catch. The field went still.
She looked up at me—eyes wide, not with pain… but with fear.
And everything in me stilled.
Because this wasn’t war.
This was Mei.
This was my friend.
And I’d forgotten that.
The fire inside me sputtered. I stepped back fast, the weight of my boot lifting from her ribs as if it had burned me. My breaths came hard and uneven, the sharp clarity of the moment bleeding out into remorse.
The world snapped back into focus.
Footsteps. Murmurs. Judging eyes.
I reached down, hand out, eyes locking with Mei’s.
She took it.
Landeskog didn’t speak. The small, almost imperceptible nod was enough. Not praise. Not forgiveness. Just recognition.
Instructor Mallory’s smirk wasn’t soft—but it wasn’t cruel either. “I think we’re done here,” she called, her voice carrying across the training grounds like a bell toll. Her gaze landed on me for a beat longer than anyone else’s. “Cadets—dismissed.”
The spell broke. Like shattering glass.
Everyone moved at once, collecting their gear, muttering to one another in clipped, cautious tones. I stood frozen for a breath, the pulse of adrenaline still buzzing under my skin. My limbs were heavy now, my thoughts muddled and raw.
I turned toward the locker room, each step slow, as if my body was still caught somewhere between the fight and the aftermath.
Inside, the space was filled with the sound of zippers and rustling uniforms, conversations murmuring low—until I walked in.
Silence.
Not loud or confrontational. Just… empty.
One by one, heads dipped. Eyes avoided mine. Belts were fastened, boots laced, hair tied—no one acknowledged me. No one said my name.
The tension was thicker than the sweat in the air. It wasn’t anger.
It was fear. Discomfort. Maybe even disgust.
I kept my expression neutral, my movements precise. Locker open. Shirt changed. Laces tightened. But inside, my stomach churned.
They’d seen the fight.
But they hadn’t seen the rest.
They hadn’t seen the moment I stepped back. The moment I offered Mei my hand. The moment I chose restraint.
To them, I was still the girl with her boot on someone’s chest.
The Sunflower Widow.
I left the locker room without a word, each step echoing louder than it should have. The corridor felt colder. The hallway longer.
Outside, the sun was still shining. Somewhere, cadets were laughing. Eating.
But I felt the hollow space between me and the rest of them widen.
Stronger than I’d ever been—but more alone than ever.
And I couldn’t help but wonder:
Was this the cost of embracing the fire?
Or had I simply proven them all right?
Seventeen
The tension from the training grounds had thinned, replaced by something lighter—charged, but not hostile. Among Kira, Willow, and Mei, it almost bordered on excitement.
I moved a little slower, my thoughts still knotted around the morning’s fight. My body was cooling off, but my mind hadn’t yet. I kept half an ear on the room, trying to stay grounded.
Kira’s voice sliced clean through the low hum of post-training chatter. “Did you see MacKenzie out there?” she asked, tugging on her uniform shirt with a grin. “I mean… she snapped. In the best way.”
Willow nodded as she adjusted her belt. “It wasn’t just that she was good. She owned it. Every move. You could feel the whole training ground shift.”
Mei, tying her laces, added quietly, “Yeah. It’s like she finally stopped hiding how dangerous she actually is.”
Her words carried more weight than the others’, and when she looked over at me, I saw something layered in her gaze—respect, yes, but also wariness.
“You really let go today,” she said. “It was… impressive. But intense.”
Kira let out a soft laugh as she pulled her hair back. “Scary good, though. Right, Will?”
Willow, always the most measured of the group, met my eyes in the mirror as she stood. “Definitely scary good,” she said. “And it’s about time people started seeing Piper MacKenzie for the fighter she actually is—not just the rumors they whisper about.”
A beat passed.
Then she smiled—small, warm, grounding.
And just like that, the weight on my chest lightened. Not completely. But enough to breathe.
Their words didn’t erase the recklessness I’d tasted earlier—or the line I knew I’d danced along—but they stitched something in me back together. A fragile thread of belonging. Of being seen for more than what they’d heard.
Maybe I could learn how to balance both: the weapon and the girl who didn’t want to be alone.
We finished dressing in easy silence, then made our way to the mess hall.
The shift from metal lockers and sweat to warmth and life was jarring in the best way. The hall buzzed with voices, boots clunking against tile, silverware clinking against plates. Sunlight poured in through wide windows, catching on the colored patches of different House insignias scattered like a mosaic across the room.
The smell of food—spices, roasted meat, something fresh and herbed—wrapped around us as we walked in, grounding me more than any word could.
We moved toward the line, the four of us shoulder to shoulder now.
Not quite a unit.
But maybe something close.
Kira, Willow, Mei, and I grabbed trays and joined the lunch queue, sliding them along the rails as we passed the serving stations. Cadets working part-time in the kitchens ladled generous portions of roasted chicken, steamed vegetables, and mashed potatoes drenched in thick, peppery gravy onto our plates. I grabbed an apple from the fruit basket—its smooth, cold surface grounding in its simplicity, a small comfort wrapped in red shine.
We settled at a table near the back of the mess hall, tucked away from the buzzing epicenter of noise and movement.
Still, I felt the weight of eyes.
Whispers drifted in our direction. Glances flickered, held too long, or snapped away too fast. Word had spread—about me. About the fight. About who they thought I was becoming.
But I had my buffer. Kira sat close, brimming with sharp humor. Willow offered her steady presence, and Mei, quiet but constant, anchored the edges of the moment. With them, the attention felt less sharp. Less cutting.
Lunch passed in a blur of half-laughter and focused chatter. Kira and Willow dissected sparring strategies for the next round of training, volleying opinions like opponents in their own match. Mei shared updates from her cousin in the medics’ track—a story about a botched healing spell and the poor cadet who now glowed faintly green. It was ridiculous. And normal. And exactly what I needed.
For a moment, I wasn’t a whispered name. I was just a girl with an apple and a team.
The rest of the day unfolded in manageable beats—lectures on Dojo theory, discussions on combat ethics. Notes filled margins. Time ticked by. The whispering dulled, but never quite vanished.
As shadows stretched long across the classroom windows, my thoughts narrowed, again and again, toward what came next.
Okami.
Our first official training session together was set for after dinner. The anticipation twisted in my gut—part excitement, part dread. He didn’t train people casually. And he didn’t tolerate weakness.
I said nothing to Kira, Willow, or Mei.
The rumors were already loud enough. I had no interest in throwing more fuel into the fire by admitting I’d be alone with him again. It was easier to keep it quiet. Safer.
Dinner passed in a fog—trays, steam, forks scraping against plates. Conversation around me blurred into background noise: speculation about changing exam formats, debates over battle rankings, gossip about who was transferring Houses.
I barely touched my food. My focus had narrowed to a single thread—what would happen when I stepped onto the mat with him.
When it was time, I stood, mumbling something about review notes. None of them pressed.
For that, I was grateful.
Because I wasn’t going to study.
I was going to face the one person who saw through me—
—and maybe the only one who could pull out what I didn’t yet know I was capable of.
The academy halls were unnervingly still as I made my way to the upper levels. Most cadets were still in the mess hall or tucked away in study lounges, their laughter and chatter sealed behind thick doors. Out here, it was quiet. Too quiet.
My boots echoed off the stone floors, each step reminding me how alone I felt in a place full of people.
