THE EDGE OF WHAT'S COMING
Aelin — Summer 1983
The Coronial Festival lasted seven days. Seven days of music in the streets, feasting in the squares, lanterns strung over the harbor, children running through the fields with ribbons tied to their wrists, and the Brotherhood walking among their people not as kings but as guests of honor at a party they hadn't thrown.
Ricky won a horse race on Shadow on the third day and was insufferable about it for the remaining four. Connor played violin with a street ensemble in Léirstinach on the fifth night and drew a crowd so large they blocked the bridge. Nathan accidentally set off a firework display from his balcony in Draíocht that wasn't scheduled but was unanimously declared the best one of the festival. Erik arm-wrestled a blacksmith on a dare and had the good sense to lose on purpose. Jace watched it all from whatever quiet edge he could find, the opal pulsing gently at his chest, a faint smile on his face that no one but Connor could read.
On the eighth morning, Sidney ended it.
He didn't announce it. He simply appeared at the Castle of Elders before dawn, dressed in training leathers, dark, fitted, scarred from use, rather than any robe or ceremony. When the five of them gathered in the great hall, still bleary from the final night's celebration, Sidney's expression told them everything.
"The festival is over," he said. "What comes next isn't."
He led them out of the castle and down a path none of them had walked before: a narrow trail cut into the cliffs south of Harmonytis, winding down to a broad, flat plateau of stone overlooking the sea. The training ground was ancient. The stone was worn smooth in places, carved deep in others. Weapon racks lined the far edge, most of them empty, patient. Beyond the plateau, a grassy slope led down to a wide pond fed by a stream that ran from the hills above Ainmhithe, its surface glassy and still in the morning air.
"You've learned control," Sidney said, turning to face them. The wind off the Atlantic pulled at his coat. "You've learned to direct your powers with intent. That was survival. What we begin today is different."
He let the silence hold.
"Aldus has been searching for a way through the Veil for over eight hundred years. Every generation of the Brotherhood has trained for the possibility that he finds one. Your generation will not be the exception." His eyes moved across each of them. "You will learn to fight. Not as individuals with extraordinary abilities. As a unit. As a Brotherhood on a battlefield."
Erik straightened almost imperceptibly. The others shifted, the weight of it settling.
"We begin with steel," Sidney continued. "Every member of the Brotherhood learns the sword. No exceptions."
Nathan raised a hand. "Even the one who can throw fire?"
"Especially the one who can throw fire," Sidney replied. "If Aldus ever forces you to pour everything you have into maintaining the Veil, your magic won't be available for combat. You'll need a blade in your hand and the knowledge to use it."
Nathan lowered his hand. He didn't argue.
Sidney crossed to the weapon racks and lifted a training sword, blunted steel, heavy enough to teach respect. He tossed it to Erik, who caught it without thinking, the weight settling into his grip like it had always belonged there.
"The Warrior trains first," Sidney said. "And then the Warrior teaches."
Erik looked down at the practice blade. His hand tightened around the grip, testing the balance. Something in his posture changed, not aggression but recognition. The way a musician picks up an instrument for the first time and knows, before a single note, that it will answer him.
"This isn't mine," Erik said quietly. It was an observation, not a complaint.
Sidney allowed himself half a smile. "No. Yours is something else entirely. But you earn that one. First, you learn with this."
The first session was four hours long and brutal.
Sidney was not a gentle teacher. He was precise, patient, and utterly relentless. He started Erik with footwork, stance, weight transfer, pivot, before allowing a single swing. Erik's size and strength were obvious advantages, but Sidney corrected him constantly.
"You're muscling it. A sword isn't a hammer. Let the blade do the work."
And later, "Your instinct is to overpower. On a battlefield, that gets you killed by someone faster. Find the economy of the strike."
Erik listened. He adjusted. And by the second hour, something clicked. His movements smoothed, the power still there but channeled differently, directed rather than unleashed. Sidney nodded once, which Erik would later describe as the highest praise he'd ever received.
The others trained alongside him, each with a practice blade, each struggling in their own way.
Nathan approached the sword like an engineering problem. His form was technically precise and utterly soulless. He executed the movements correctly but without instinct, like a man reciting a poem he'd memorized phonetically. Sidney worked with him patiently, adjusting his grip, his elbow, the angle of his wrist.
"You're thinking too much. Feel the blade as an extension of your arm, not a tool in your hand."
"I'm a scientist," Nathan muttered. "Thinking is what I do."
"Then think about this," Sidney replied. "The sword doesn't care about your equations. It cares about your intent."
Connor was surprisingly natural. His musician's coordination translated: the same body awareness that let him play complex guitar passages while singing gave him an intuitive sense of where the blade was in space. His footwork was clean, his reactions quick. But he lacked power. His strikes were accurate and light, like a conversation rather than an argument.
Connor nodded.
"I can do that."
"I know you can. That's why I'm telling you to stop trying to hit like Erik."
Ricky was chaos.
He held the sword like it owed him money. His stance was wrong, his grip was wrong, his footwork was a disaster, and every third swing nearly took out the man beside him. But he was fast, unnervingly fast, and when Sidney came at him with a practice blade, Ricky's instinct wasn't to block or parry. It was to move. He dodged, sidestepped, ducked, and at one point simply teleported three feet to the left, leaving Sidney swinging at empty air.
"That's not swordsmanship," Sidney said flatly.
"It's alive-manship," Ricky countered.
"You will learn the blade properly before you rely on your abilities to compensate. Again."
Ricky groaned but complied. His form never became elegant, but by the end of the session he could execute the basic cuts and parries without endangering bystanders, which Sidney counted as progress.
Jace trained the way he did everything: quietly. His strikes were measured, controlled, never flashy. He didn't have Erik's power or Connor's coordination, but he had something else: rhythm. Every movement landed on a beat, a steady internal tempo that made his sword work look almost meditative. Sidney watched him for a long time without correcting anything.
"You fight the way you play," Sidney finally said.
Jace paused mid-swing.
"Is that good?"
"It's unusual. Most fighters either think or react. You keep time. It makes you predictable in one way and very difficult to disrupt in another."
"So... good?"
"We'll see."
The second week, Sidney introduced live sparring.
Erik against Nathan first. Nathan lasted forty-five seconds before Erik disarmed him, the move so clean that Nathan didn't register the sword was gone until it clattered on the stone behind him. Nathan stared at his empty hand, then at Erik, then back at his hand.
"Again," Nathan said.
The second bout lasted two minutes. Nathan lost again, but he made Erik work for it. By the fifth bout, Nathan had found a strategy: staying defensive, forcing Erik to extend, waiting for the overcommitment. He never won. But he stopped losing quickly, which was its own victory.
Connor against Ricky was entertainment. Ricky's lack of discipline met Connor's precise footwork in a collision of styles that looked more like a bar fight choreographed by someone who'd read about bar fights but never been in one. Ricky lunged wildly; Connor sidestepped and tagged him across the ribs. Ricky yelped, spun, swung too wide; Connor ducked and swept his leg. Ricky hit the stone flat on his back and stared up at the sky.
"I hate swords," Ricky announced.
"You hate losing," Connor corrected, offering his hand.
"That too."
Jace sparred with Sidney himself. The old trainer didn't hold back. He came at Jace with a speed and precision that exposed every gap in the Guardian's defense. Jace blocked, parried, gave ground, and searched for the rhythm of Sidney's attack. But Sidney had no rhythm. He varied his tempo deliberately, breaking patterns the moment Jace found them.
"You can't time-keep your way through a fight with someone who knows your tendency," Sidney said between exchanges. "Aldus will know your tendency. Break your own pattern before he breaks it for you."
Jace gritted his teeth and tried. He lost every bout. But by the end of the week, he was lasting longer, and Sidney was breathing harder.
Three weeks into training, Sidney called them to the plateau at dawn and said nothing. Instead, he led them to a chamber cut into the cliff face below the training ground: a room of dark stone, lit by oil lamps, the air cool and heavy with the smell of metal and age.
Weapon racks lined every wall. Not training blades. Real ones.
Erik saw the sword before Sidney said a word.
It hung alone on the far wall, mounted on brackets of dark iron. The blade was long, straight, double-edged, forged from steel that held a faint blue-black sheen even in the low light. The crossguard was elegant: sweeping, angular, dark as the Aelinian stone used in armor. And set into the hilt, three sapphires, deep, flawless, impossibly blue, glowed with a faint internal light that pulsed in time with something Erik could feel in his chest.
His amulet.
"That... is Durandach," Sidney said quietly. "The Warrior's Blade. It has served every Warrior of the Brotherhood since Daeron's general first drew it against Aldus in 1040. The sapphires are bonded to the Warrior Amulet. When you hold it, you will feel the connection. The blade will respond to your intent, your strength, and your will. It cannot be wielded by anyone else."
Erik approached it slowly. He didn't reach for it immediately. He stood before it, studying the blade, the hilt, the stones that pulsed with his own heartbeat.
"Every Warrior who carried it left something in the steel," Sidney continued. "Their experience. Their instinct. Their memory of battle. When you take it up, you won't just hold a sword. You'll hold a lineage."
Erik lifted Durandach from its brackets. The moment his hands closed around the grip, the sapphires flared, a deep, resonant blue that filled the chamber. Erik's breath caught. The weight and balance were perfect in a way that had nothing to do with craft. It felt less like picking up a weapon and more like completing a sentence he'd been trying to finish his whole life.
"It's warm," Erik murmured.
Sidney nodded.
"It knows you."
Erik held the sword at arm's length, turning it slowly in the lamplight. Then he brought it close, the flat of the blade against his forearm, the way a man might hold something precious and dangerous in equal measure.
"Thank you," he said, and his voice was rough with more than gratitude.
The others watched in silence. No jokes. Not even from Ricky. Some moments were too heavy for humor.
Sidney turned to the other racks. "Connor. Over here."
He led Connor to a section of ranged weapons: longbows, recurve bows, and at the end, a row of crossbows of varying sizes and designs. Sidney selected a longbow first and handed it to him. "Every Visionary trains in ranged combat. Your abilities make you the Brotherhood's eyes on a battlefield. You see the weak points, the openings, the threats before they arrive. You need a weapon that lets you act on what you see without closing distance."
Connor took the longbow and tested the draw. His arm shook slightly. The pull was heavier than he'd expected. But his aim was instinctive. The first arrow hit the target. The second hit closer to center. By the tenth, he was grouping tightly.
"Good," Sidney said. "Now try this."
He handed Connor a crossbow, compact, elegantly engineered, with a smooth cocking mechanism and a stock that fit against his shoulder like it had been built for him. The emerald inlay along the stock caught the lamplight. Connor lifted it, sighted, and fired.
The bolt buried itself in the center of the target with a satisfying crack.
Connor lowered the crossbow and looked at it with the expression of a man who'd just found something he didn't know he'd been looking for.
"I like this one," he said.
"I thought you might," Sidney replied. "That is Soilséir, the Visionary's crossbow. The name means 'the one that sees.' The emeralds are bonded to your amulet, just as Durandach's sapphires are bonded to Erik's. Previous Visionaries have used it to strike targets they could perceive through clairvoyance alone: around corners, through walls, in darkness. The bolt goes where the Visionary's sight leads it."
Connor ran his fingers along the emerald inlay. "It goes where I can see."
"Where you can see, sense, or perceive. Yes."
Connor held Soilséir against his chest, feeling it pulse faintly against his amulet. "This changes things."
"That's the idea," Sidney said.
Ricky's inheritance was different. Sidney opened a wooden chest lined in dark velvet, and inside lay the Sentinel's arsenal: throwing knives with blackened blades, balanced to molecular precision. A set of throwing stars, each one bearing the onyx-and-silver sigil of Ainmhithe. Daggers of varying lengths, their hilts wrapped in leather that had been oiled and maintained for generations. And at the bottom, a bandolier designed to hold all of it, fitted across the chest and shoulders for quick access.
"These are the Filleadh," Sidney said. "The Sentinel's weapons. The name means 'return,' because they always do."
Ricky's eyes went wide. "These are mine?"
"They belonged to every Sentinel before you. The throwing weapons are bonded to the Sentinel Amulet, much as Durandach is bonded to the Warrior's. They will return to you when thrown. You cannot lose them."
Ricky picked up a throwing knife and felt the weight: light, perfect, alive in his hand. He flicked his wrist and sent it spinning toward the far wall. It embedded itself to the hilt in a wooden beam with a sharp thunk.
Then, without being called, it vibrated once and flew back into his hand.
Ricky stared at it. Then at Sidney. Then back at the knife.
"That," Ricky whispered, "is the coolest thing that has ever happened to me."
"You still need to learn proper throwing technique," Sidney said. "The Filleadh compensate for return, not for aim."
"Don't care. Still the coolest thing."
Nathan received no special weapon that day. He already had one: his magic, more versatile and devastating than any blade. But Sidney placed a well-crafted short sword in his hands regardless.
"For the day your elements aren't enough," Sidney said simply.
Nathan accepted it without protest. He understood now.
Jace received nothing.
The others noticed. No one said anything, but the silence had a shape to it, an unasked question that sat in the room like a held breath.
Sidney addressed it directly.
"The Guardian's weapon has traditionally been the amulet itself. The opal channels, amplifies, and directs the Guardian's power in ways no physical weapon can replicate. Previous Guardians have fought with sword and shield, with staff, with bare hands reinforced by the amulet's energy. But you are different, Jason. Your connection to rhythm, to percussion, to the physical act of striking in time, that is something no previous Guardian has brought to the role. The right weapon for you hasn't been forged yet."
Jace nodded slowly. He didn't look disappointed. He looked like a man who'd been told something he already knew.
"When the time comes," Sidney said, "you'll know what it needs to be."
The weeks that followed were the hardest of their lives.
Erik trained with Durandach every day, the sapphires pulsing as the blade taught him things no instructor could: muscle memory from centuries of Warriors, instincts sharpened by generations of combat. His sparring sessions with Sidney became genuinely dangerous, the clash of steel ringing off the cliff walls like thunder. The farmers of Neart heard it and nodded to each other. Their Warrior was becoming what they needed.
Connor split his time between Soilséir and sword, finding that the crossbow suited his battlefield role perfectly. He could stand back, read the field with his clairvoyance, call out positions and weaknesses to the others, and put a bolt exactly where it needed to go. When Sidney set up moving targets, Connor hit seven out of ten on his first attempt. By the end of the month, he rarely missed. He also discovered that his telekinesis could subtly guide a bolt after release, not dramatically but enough to correct for wind or a target's last-second movement. Sidney called it an unfair advantage. Connor called it synergy.
Ricky became terrifyingly accurate with the Filleadh. The teleportation-and-throw combination made him almost impossible to defend against. He could appear anywhere, release a blade, and vanish before the target registered his presence. Sidney drilled him on sequences: throw-teleport-throw-teleport-throw, each blade finding a different target. Ricky called it "the pinball." Sidney called it effective.
Nathan heated his blade mid-combat until no one would willingly spar with him, which he considered a result. Jace had no dedicated weapon, and the gap widened daily. The others pulled ahead while he fought with fists and amulet energy and the knowledge that something was missing.
Two weeks later, Sidney shifted the training entirely.
"The Guardian Amulet," Sidney announced one morning, "does not merely grant empathic, atmospheric, and molecular energy manipulation. It grants access to the powers of every member of the Brotherhood. Previous Guardians have channeled their brothers' abilities in moments of extreme need. You will learn to do it deliberately for defensive purposes, and occasionally for civil."
The brothers exchanged glances. Ricky looked delighted. Nathan looked like a man who'd just been assigned to supervise a natural disaster.
"We start with shapeshifting," Sidney said.
Ricky was practically vibrating.
"Okay, Jace, shapeshifting is an art. A delicate dance. A soulful journey. A..."
"Ricky," Jace cut in gently, "just tell me how not to turn into half a squirrel."
Ricky blinked.
"Oh. Yeah, you're definitely gonna do that at least once."
Sidney stood at a safe distance, arms folded, ready to intervene. Nathan and Connor sat on the low stone wall near the pond, placing bets. Erik was lying in the grass like he came there just to enjoy the show.
"Step one," Ricky said, clapping his hands. "Feel the form."
"Feel the form," Jace repeated flatly. "What does that mean?"
"Like... invite cat energy into your soul, dude."
Jace stared at him.
"Ricky... that's the least helpful sentence anyone has ever said to me."
Connor called out, "You can do it, Jace! Worst case, you only grow whiskers!"
Jace sighed, grounded himself, touched the Guardian Amulet, which glowed faintly, ready to channel Ricky's essence, and focused.
The shift took hold. His spine flexed. His hands tingled. The world brightened into sharper contrasts.
Nathan sat up straighter.
"Oh. Something's happening."
Jace inhaled, and suddenly his arms snapped inward, joints reforming, bones shortening, his face pulling forward... Ricky leaned in, excited.
"Yes! Yes, that's it! Go with it!"... and then Jace's ears elongated, whiskers popped... ... and he became, unmistakably, a tabby housecat.
A very unimpressed tabby housecat.
Connor exploded laughing. "Oh my gosh... Jace... your face..."
Erik snorted. "He's adorable!"
Nathan elbowed Sidney.
"Take a picture. For science."
Jace-the-cat sat, tail flicking, glaring at Ricky with deep feline betrayal.
Ricky scooped him up like the proudest father in Aelin. "Look at you! First try! This is great!"
Jace's ears flattened.
Then, poof, he shifted back, landing human again with an undignified thump.
"Okay," he grumbled, brushing grass off his arms, "no more cats unless I choose it."
Ricky grinned.
"Then choose the right cat."
Jace glanced at him, then closed his eyes and let Ricky's power wash through him. He felt it: something deep, ancient, instinctive. Something that fit him in a way a housecat never could.
His muscles stretched. His bones thickened. His chest expanded with power and breath and presence.
And standing in the grass, mane ruffling in the summer wind, was an enormous, golden lion.
The brothers froze.
Connor whispered, "Holy shit... Jace."
Nathan mouthed a silent prayer.
Erik sat up, eyes wide.
"The dude turned into a whole lion!"
Ricky's amulet flared bright.
"Oooh! This is good. This is so good."
In a shimmer of black light, Ricky dropped to all fours beside him, now a massive, sleek black panther, tail swishing in approval.
The plateau held something rare: two apex predators, circling each other with playful caution.
Then Ricky bumped Jace's shoulder. Jace bumped back.
And within three seconds the lion and panther were chasing each other across the training ground like overgrown kittens, pouncing, rolling, swatting, kicking up dust as they tumbled through the grass.
Nathan shouted through laughter, "Sidney, do something!"
Sidney rubbed his temples.
"This is exactly why I warned all of you..."
Jace pounced. Ricky dodged. Ricky pounced. Jace rolled him, pinning him with one giant paw.
Connor was crying laughing now.
"I can't... this is... this is the greatest thing I've ever seen!"
But then Jace dissolved from lion shape, shrinking, contracting, collapsing in on himself, and suddenly Ricky flopped to the grass, confused. He looked around for Jace and found nothing until a hummingbird materialized directly in front of his puzzled panther face. Ricky swatted at it. The hummingbird zipped to the big cat's ear, hovered with lethal precision, and applied its tiny tongue to the ear canal with full commitment.
Ricky-the-panther flailed both front paws like a malfunctioning Muppet.
Connor wheezed. "Is that bird JACE?!"
The hummingbird darted away and hovered smugly for a heartbeat, then expanded back into human form so smoothly that even Ricky was stunned silent.
Jace stood there, brushing dust off his shoulder like he hadn't just broken the laws of biology.
Ricky transformed back, pointing accusingly. "YOU... THAT... HOW DID YOU DO THAT?! I'VE NEVER DONE THAT!" He sputtered. "That's not FAIR!"
Nathan almost fell off the wall he was laughing so hard.
Sidney stepped between them. "ENOUGH. Both of you. Before you attract half the wildlife in Ainmhithe."
Jace and Ricky straightened like guilty schoolboys.
Ricky pointed at Jace, eyes wide. "YOU GAVE ME A WET WILLY!! A BIRDY TONGUE IN MY EAR!!"
Jace crossed his arms. Tilted his head. Smirked.
"Mm-hmm."
"That is CHEATING," Ricky declared, scandalized on multiple spiritual levels. "That is Sentinel cheating. That is ILLEGAL."
Jace only smiled wider. And in a sing-song tone dripping with Guardian privilege, he chirped: "Guardian..."
Connor fell off the wall laughing. Erik rolled onto his back, wheezing. Nathan slapped his knee so hard he almost toppled forward.
Sidney finally stepped in, rubbing his forehead but failing, utterly failing, to hide the smile tugging his mouth.
"Jason, while your creativity is notable, you will still need refinement before this technique is suitable for battle."
Jace straightened slightly, still smug.
Sidney added, warmth slipping into his voice, "But for a first attempt? That was very, very good."
Ricky groaned. "I'm never living this down, am I?"
Jace patted his shoulder.
"Nope."
The elemental training was next, and Nathan's soul visibly flinched.
"Oh no. Absolutely not. Not after the feline circus you two just performed."
"We were bonding," Ricky said, indignant.
"You were wrestling like rabid zoo animals," Nathan shot back. "And now you want to play with fire?"
Sidney stepped in with that maddening calm. "It is necessary. Jace must learn all five powers." He paused. "And Nathan, you will supervise."
Nathan dragged a hand down his face.
"I hate my life."
Nathan lit a small flame in his palm to demonstrate, then extinguished it. Simple. Gentle. "Like that," he said. "Small. Controlled. Do not..."
Jace's hand erupted.
Not a small flame. A geyser of fire that shot eight feet into the air, sending Nathan stumbling backward, Connor diving off the wall, and Ricky teleporting six feet to the left purely on instinct.
"JASON!" Nathan bellowed.
"Sorry! Sorry!" Jace shook his hand wildly, extinguishing the flames. "It just... it came out bigger than I..."
"BIGGER?! That was a bonfire!"
Erik, still lying in the grass, hadn't moved. "I give it a seven."
Nathan spun on him.
"You're not helping!" he informed him.
Sidney intervened before Nathan's blood pressure achieved critical mass. The fire training continued with Nathan standing significantly farther away, coaching through gritted teeth. Jace managed smaller flames eventually: controlled bursts, directed heat, the basics of what Nathan did instinctively. But Nathan's mastery of all four elements was beyond what a few sessions could replicate. Jace could borrow fire. He could not yet conduct a symphony of elements.
"Earth next," Sidney said.
Nathan breathed a sigh of relief.
"At least he can't surprise anyone with dirt."
He was wrong. Jace reached for the earth as Nathan had demonstrated, feeling for the weight beneath the surface, the density, the pressure waiting to be directed. He found a boulder half-buried in the slope near the pond and tried to lift it. The connection was there. The power was there. But the control was not. Instead of lifting, Jace pushed, and the earth answered with a shockwave that rippled across the training ground, caught all four brothers midstance, and launched them, arms wide, voices unanimously appalled, off the edge of the plateau and directly into the pond below.
The splash was enormous.
Jace stood alone on the plateau, hands still raised, staring at the pond in absolute horror.
Four heads broke the surface in succession. Erik first, sputtering. Ricky next, hair plastered to his face. Connor third, looking like a drowned poet. Nathan last, floating on his back with the resigned expression of a man who had accepted his fate.
"Well," Nathan said to the sky, "at least it wasn't fire."
“Can’t surprise anyone with dirt,” Ricky mimicked sarcastically, “You were assuming Jace wasn’t the explosive wonder he is, then?”
“Shut up, Strathan,” Nathan grumbled.
From the direction of the Ainmhithe stables, the sound of running footsteps and alarmed voices carried across the field. Galena Slotskya appeared first, flanked by her two aides, with Jessica the Stable Manager close behind, all of them drawn by the catastrophic splash.
Galena stopped at the pond's edge. Four soaking wet members of the Brotherhood treaded water below while the fifth stood dry on the plateau above, hands still raised.
"What happened?" Galena demanded, though the answer was fairly obvious.
Nathan looked up at her from the water, hair dripping into his eyes. "The Guardian is learning elemental control."
"Poorly," Erik added, wringing out his shirt.
Galena looked at Jace. Jace looked at Galena. He lowered his hands very slowly.
"I am SO, so sorry," he said with an embarrassed grin.
“Don’t tell me, Your majesty,” Galena instructed, pointing to his waterlogged brothers, “Tell them!”
“We know he’s sorry, Madam Prime Minister,” Connor cried out, “I can feel it from here!”
“Yeah, me, too!” Nathan called.
Jessica the Stable Manager crossed her arms and surveyed the damage. "At least the horses are fine."
Galena turned to her aides, who were both failing to suppress laughter, and said something rapid in Aelinian that made Jessica snort. Then she extended a hand to Nathan, who was closest to the bank.
"Come, Conjurer," she said. "You're frightening the fish."
Nathan took her hand, and the look that passed between them, exhaustion, warmth, something deeper, lasted a half-second longer than necessary. Connor noticed from across the pond and grinned despite being soaked to the bone.
The elemental training continued on dry land after that, with Sidney insisting on a safe perimeter and the others maintaining a respectful distance from any body of water. Jace improved steadily with fire, made progress with earth, showed a natural feel for air, and struggled most with water, which Nathan found ironic given the pond incident. By the end of the week, Jace could channel all four elements with basic competence, though Nathan's instinctive mastery remained far beyond what a few sessions could replicate.
Then Sidney moved him to Connor's abilities.
Telekinesis was different. Where Nathan's elemental power flowed through natural forces, heat, pressure, density, current, Connor's telekinesis was pure will imposed on matter. Jace could move objects, stones, branches, training dummies, but his control was erratic. Power surged when he wanted precision. Precision collapsed when he tried for power. The dual-track problem that Connor managed instinctively through clairvoyance was, for Jace, a war between intention and execution.
By late afternoon, frustration was eating him alive. He could feel Connor's telekinetic ability flowing through the amulet, available and willing, but his hands couldn't translate it. Every attempt at fine control resulted in too much force. Every attempt at restraint resulted in nothing at all.
Connor was halfway through another correction when Erik spoke up from the edge of the training ground.
"Jace." Erik was leaning against the weapon rack, arms crossed, watching with the quiet attention of a man who'd been thinking. "Use your sticks."
Jace blinked. "What?"
Erik pushed off the rack and walked closer. "You fight the way you play. Sidney said it himself. Every time you've got a sword in your hand, your strikes land on a beat. Every time you spar, you're keeping time." He nodded toward Jace's belt, where two wooden drumsticks were tucked, the ones he never went anywhere without. "I channel through Durandach. Connor channels through Soilséir. You need something in your hands that your body already understands. So, use your sticks."
Nathan looked over sharply. "That's not a bad idea. A focus object, something your body already knows at a neurological level."
Jace reached for the drumsticks and drew them out. The familiar weight settled into his palms like an old song finding its first beat.
Sidney watched him with quiet interest. "Let us see if rhythm brings order."
Jace exhaled. Just one breath.
Then, without thinking, his fingers rolled the drumsticks into motion.
Smooth. Effortless. That hypnotic orbit: over the knuckle, around the thumb, catch, reverse, flick, spin.
The brothers recognized the movement instantly. It was pre-show Jace, the version of him who centered a venue before a single note.
And for the first time all day, the power around him settled.
Connor felt the field tighten. "There. Right there. Hold that."
Jace focused on a rock ten feet away. He didn't strain. He didn't grit his teeth. He simply lifted his hand, drumstick turning between his fingers, and the rock rose as gently as if a string were lifting it.
Ricky whispered, "Woah..."
Jace's left hand moved automatically, spinning the second stick. Another rock rose. Higher. Perfectly matched.
Erik stepped forward, jaw slack. "He's dual-tracking the lift."
Connor stared. "That shouldn't be possible on a first attempt."
But it was happening. The two rocks floated side by side, steady as planets in orbit, and every twitch of the drumsticks sent tiny calibrations through the telekinetic field. The rhythm controlled the motion. Not overpowering. Guiding.
Jace's eyes narrowed. Something flickered behind them.
He stopped spinning. Shifted both sticks into his palms. And struck them together with a sharp, decisive CRACK.
The sound was clean. Pure. Perfectly on beat.
The rocks obeyed. They shot toward each other at high speed...
BOOM.
They collided midair and exploded into a burst of dust and flying fragments that evaporated before they hit the ground.
A silence fell so complete it felt sacred.
Nathan took a step forward, eyes wide. "Jace... what in God's name was that?"
Jace looked at his hands, stunned. "I just wondered if I could make them meet. The rhythm told me when."
Connor swallowed. "You did telekinetic collision mechanics with nothing but instinct and timing."
Ricky shoved his wet hair back. "I don't know what that means, but I'm pretty sure it's the scariest thing I've seen all week."
Erik's grin was slow and proud. "That was brilliant, Guardian."
Sidney stepped closer, studying Jace as if seeing a prophecy unfold. "Jason." His voice was low, measured. "That was master-level control. Not borrowed. Not mimicked. Yours."
But Nathan wasn't looking at Jace anymore. He was staring at the drumsticks: at Jace's hands, the movement, the instinctive precision of it.
He whispered, almost reverent: "A weapon that listens to rhythm... that shifts between forms... that returns when thrown... I know what he needs."
Jace frowned. "Nathan?"
Nathan's eyes lifted, blazing with creative fire. "Give me one week. I'm forging you something that will change the way Guardians fight forever."
Nathan disappeared into Daerdon University for eight days.
He didn't come home. He barely ate. The faculty grew accustomed to hammering, cursing, and small explosions from his private lab at all hours. On the third day, garnet-red smoke poured from his window. On the fifth, the building shook once. On the seventh, silence fell, and the faculty held their collective breath.
He was not building one thing but six, and the sixth was the one he hadn't announced.
The idea for the circlets had come to him on the second night, somewhere between the fifth failed alloy test and his third cup of cold tea. The coronation crowns were magnificent: heavy, ornate, forged for ceremony. Heavy crowns were a problem. But Nathan saw a deeper one.
On the battlefield, they communicated through the empathic bond, which left out ⅗ of the brothers. The telepathic bond was strongest between only Jace and Connor. Nathan, Erik, and Ricky could feel only the occasional psionic flash of suggestion, sense urgency, and feel the shared emotion, but they couldn't hear precise commands. In training, Sidney compensated by shouting orders. In real combat, shouting would get someone killed.
So, Nathan built circlets that solved both problems at once.
But before he slept on the third night, garnet smoke still curling from the lab window above him, he turned the sixth object over in his hands for a long time.
Sidney's cross.
He'd asked Sidney for it on the first day, quietly, before anyone else was awake. Sidney had handed it over without a word, which told Nathan everything about how much the trainer trusted him. The cross was silver, its lines clean and old, a Celtic pattern worked into the arms with the kind of craftsmanship that took generations to perfect. Set into it at each cardinal point, and at the center, were five small oval stones: an opal where the arms met, an emerald to the west, a garnet to the north, a sapphire to the east, and an onyx to the south.
Nathan had stared at it for a long time before he touched it.
The stones were the Brotherhood's stones. Every amulet color accounted for, arranged in a deliberate pattern by someone who had known exactly what they were making. The cross had been forged for the trainer of the Third Brotherhood, passed down through every trainer since, worn by men who had served the Brotherhood before the circlets existed, before the telepathic network was even a concept. Whoever made it had understood, nearly a thousand years ago, that the trainer needed to carry his charges with him.
Nathan had just figured out how to finish what that craftsman started.
He worked on the cross last, after the Macalla were done and the five circlets were complete and cooling on their rack. The attunement was delicate: threading Connor's telepathic frequency into a pre-existing bonded object required a different approach than weaving it into fresh metal. The cross had its own resonance, old and deep, soaked through with decades of proximity to the amulets and the men who wore them. Nathan didn't force the frequency in. He coaxed it, the way you tune a string that's been under tension for years. Gentle. Patient. Listening.
It took most of the eighth night.
When it was done, he held the cross up in the early morning light and felt the network hum through it, quiet, ready, waiting for Sidney to put it on.
Nathan set it in the case beside the circlets, took a long breath, and went to find the others.
On the eighth morning, Nathan walked onto the training plateau carrying two cases made of dark Aelinian wood, inlaid with opal and garnet.
The Brotherhood was already assembled. Sidney stood with them, arms folded, curious despite himself.
Nathan set the first case down and opened it.
Inside, resting on dark velvet, were two weapons that looked like drumsticks, but weren't. They were identical sticks, each very well balanced, forged from a brilliant metal alloy that seemed to absorb light at certain angles and reflect it at others. Opal fragments were embedded along the shafts in a spiraling pattern, each one faintly luminous. The grips were wrapped in leather treated with something that made them feel alive to the touch: warm, responsive, ready.
"Macalla," Nathan said. "The Echo Sticks."
Jace reached for them. The moment his fingers closed around the grips, the opal fragments flared, not blindingly but with a steady, pulsing warmth that synced immediately to his heartbeat. The weight and balance were his, completely and without question. They felt like his drumsticks, but more. Extended. Amplified. Completed.
"They channel and amplify any power you direct through them," Nathan explained. "Telekinesis, empathic projection, Guardian energy blasts: everything the amulet holds, focused and sharpened through rhythm and percussion. Strike them together and the shockwave carries your intent. Spin them and the field stabilizes for fine control. Throw one and it returns, bonded to the opal in your amulet the same way the Filleadh return to Ricky."
Jace held the Macalla at his sides, turning them slowly. "You built these in eight days?"
"I built more than these in eight days." Nathan set the second case on the stone beside the first and opened it.
Five half-circlets rested inside, each one distinct. They were lighter than the coronation crowns by a dramatic margin: slim, elegant bands of the same dark Aelinian metal Nathan had used for the Macalla, each one set with a single gemstone matching its wearer's amulet. Jace's bore an opal. Connor's an emerald. Nathan's a garnet. Erik's a sapphire. Ricky's an onyx.
"The formal crowns are beautiful," Nathan said. "They're also giving us migraines. These replace them for daily use, travel, and..." He paused, letting the weight land. "Combat."
Ricky picked his up and turned it in his hands. "It's light."
"Because it's functional, not ceremonial," Nathan said. "But here's the part that matters." He tapped the gemstone on his own circlet. "Each stone is bonded to your amulet, same as the weapons. But I also wove in a thread of Connor's telepathic frequency, with his permission."
Connor nodded.
"He asked. I gave him a resonance imprint to work with."
"When all five circlets are worn," Nathan continued, "they create a closed telepathic network. Full internal communication. Not just the empathic impressions Erik and Ricky get from the bond: actual words, clear as speech, silent to everyone outside the five of us."
Erik looked up sharply.
"You mean I could hear Jace's commands in my head? During a fight?"
"During a fight, during a council session, across a battlefield. Yes."
Nathan allowed himself a small, exhausted smile, "No more shouting. No more hoping the bond carries enough. Erik, Ricky, you'll hear us the same way Connor and I hear Jace. And we'll hear you."
Ricky put his circlet on. It settled against his brow like it had always been there.
"Can I think rude things at Erik during boring meetings?"
"You can," Nathan said. "But he'll hear them."
Erik grinned.
"I already know what you're thinking during boring meetings."
Sidney had been examining one of the circlets with careful hands, turning it in the light. "This is exceptional work, Nathan. The telepathic weave alone would have taken previous Conjurers months."
"Previous Conjurers didn't have access to a university full of Aelinian metallurgists and a personal motivation to stop getting headaches," Nathan replied. He reached into the second case and lifted out one more object.
"And there's one more."
He held out Sidney's cross.
The silver Celtic pattern caught the morning light. The five oval stones, opal at the center, emerald west, garnet north, sapphire east, onyx south, gleamed with a quiet depth that hadn't been there before. Sidney went very still.
"I attuned it to the same frequency as the circlets," Nathan said. "The stones already carried the resonance. They've been in proximity to the amulets for as long as you've worn it. I just gave them a channel to work through. You're on the network, Sidney. Full access. Two-way."
Sidney didn't speak. He reached out and took the cross from Nathan's hand, and his fingers closed around it as they always had, steady, certain, but something in his face changed. He looked down at the five stones arranged in their cardinal points, the opal at the center, and Nathan watched him understand what the craftsman of the Third Brotherhood had been reaching toward nearly a thousand years ago.
"Put it on," Jace said quietly.
Sidney clasped the cross around his neck. The stones pulsed once, briefly, warmly, and settled.
The brothers put their circlets on. The network opened, quiet and immediate, like a room filling with the presence of people you trust.
Jace thought, deliberately, into the silence: Can you hear me?
Five heads turned toward him simultaneously, Connor, Erik, Ricky, Nathan, and Sidney, and Jace stood at the center of it, the still point the network had just organized itself around.
Connor smiled. "Loud and clear."
Erik nodded once, jaw tight with something that wasn't quite emotion and wasn't quite not.
Ricky's grin split his face. "This is unreal."
Nathan simply closed his eyes, the garnet at his brow steady and warm.
And Sidney... Sidney had learned this role from Padraig, the trainer before him, who had fought beside Seamus and the Sixth Brotherhood and worn this cross his whole life waiting for the generation it was made for. He looked at Jace now with an expression none of them had ever seen on his face before. Not surprise or wonder, exactly. Something older than both.
"Yes, Guardian," Sidney said, "I hear you."
"These stay with us," Jace said. "Always. Even off-island. Especially off-island."
Nathan nodded. "That was the idea."
Jace looked at him. "Nathan. Thank you."
Nathan waved a hand. "Thank Erik. He's the one who told you to pick up your sticks."
Erik shrugged. "I just said the obvious thing."
"The obvious thing," Sidney said quietly, "is often the most important. And the hardest to see."
Jace walked to the center of the plateau, circlet gleaming faintly at his brow. He stood still, feeling the Macalla pulse in his hands. Then his fingers moved, that familiar roll, the orbit, the spin, and the training ground responded. Stones lifted. The air hummed. Energy gathered around him like a storm building from the inside out. Tendrils of fire spun about the rocks, with ribbons of water pulling in from the pond and weaving around the other elements. Jace was enveloped with an opaline aura, and as he continued spinning the sticks he began to rise off of the ground. His eyes glowed white hot and when he was seven feet above the ground, he struck the Macalla together sharply, dropping into a deep crouch as he landed. The shockwave that rolled across the plateau was controlled, precise, and devastating. It hit the training dummies at the far end with enough force to shatter them into splinters. The cliff walls rang like a bell.
Jace rose from the crouch slowly, straightening as the glow of his body and eyes began to fade. He looked up at the rest of the Brotherhood.
No one spoke for quite a while. Then Ricky said, very quietly, "Yeah... we're gonna be okay."
Sidney looked at the six of them: Erik with Durandach, Connor with Soilséir, Ricky with the Filleadh, Nathan with his elements and his brilliance, Jace with the Macalla, all five wearing the circlets that bound their minds together, and Sidney with the cross warm at his chest, finally part of the thread that connected them all, and for the first time since training began, something in his expression softened.
"Yes," he said. "I believe you will be."
The night before they left Aelin, Connor found Jace on the training plateau, sitting on the low stone wall near the pond, staring at the horizon.
Connor sat beside him without a word, not close, not touching, just present in the way that only Connor ever managed.
"I want to understand," Jace said quietly. "Not just know the facts. I want to understand what I put you through."
Connor's jaw tightened. "Jace, you already carry too much guilt."
"I do," Jace admitted. "But this isn't about guilt. It's about truth."
Connor exhaled slowly and nodded once. "Give me your hands."
Jace didn't hesitate. He held them out, palms up, forearms resting on his knees like a man bracing for recoil.
Connor placed his hands on top of Jace's, solid and steady. A grounding hold, a warrior's grip.
"You need to breathe through this," Connor warned. "Don't fight me when it hits."
Jace drew in a breath.
Connor activated the memory. Without theatrics or mysticism. Just a sudden, sharp inrush of emerald energy through their joined hands.
There were no images. No reconstruction of the SUV. No voices, no ghosts. Just the impact. A white-hot, skull-splitting shock that detonated behind Jace's eyes like lightning striking inside bone.
Jace jerked, breath tearing loose. "My God...!"
Connor's grip tightened. "Hold on. Don't pull away."
Then came the tearing sensation: the Guardian thread ripping apart. Jace let out a raw sound, bowing forward instinctively as if bracing against an explosion.
The void hit next: the sudden absence of himself, the psychic cold, the soul-level silence that Connor endured alone at twenty-two.
Jace's breathing broke into staggered gasps. "Connor... God... how did you stand this?"
"You don't stand it," Connor said, voice rough. "You survive it."
The aftershock slammed into them, a violent emerald backlash that nearly knocked Jace sideways. He bent forward hard, elbows slipping off his knees. Connor immediately released the link, catching Jace by the shoulders with both hands to keep him from falling.
"It's done," Connor said firmly. "Breathe. Jace, breathe."
Jace braced his hands on his thighs, head bowed, shaking as he fought for air. Connor kept one steady hand on the center of his back, not soothing, not soft, just solid, the way one soldier steadies another after a blast.
A long moment passed. Jace forced a breath in. Then another.
"My God..." he rasped. "Connor. I knew it was bad but... God, that was..."
Connor sat back but kept his eyes on him.
"That," Connor said quietly, "is why you must never think your deaths were just pain for you. I carried them, too. In a way you couldn't see."
Jace wiped a hand roughly across his mouth. "Connor... I swear to God... I will never make you feel that again."
Connor shook his head. "It isn't about swearing. It's about training. It's about making sure neither of us is caught unprepared again."
Jace nodded, jaw set like stone. "Then we train. Harder. Smarter. Until that never happens again."
Connor breathed out slowly. "Then let's begin tomorrow fresh."
They sat together on the wall as the sun went down, the pond still and silver below them, the Macalla resting across Jace's knees. Tomorrow they would leave Aelin. Tomorrow the music would begin again.
But tonight, the two men who shared the deepest thread of the empathic bond sat with the weight of what they'd survived and the full knowledge of what was still coming, and neither of them flinched.