***Cadiz***
The rest of the day passed in a blur of frantic preparation.
I went back to the training room, but this time with a different purpose. Not slow, methodical practice, but drilling the same actions over and over until my body knew them without thinking. Absorb, hold, release. Absorb, hold, release. Again and again until the movements became automatic.
Lord Corvin came to observe at one point, watching silently as I drained crystal after crystal and attempted to direct the energy outward in controlled bursts.
"You're improving," he said after I managed to hit a target he'd set up across the room three times in a row. "But you're also exhausting yourself, you need to conserve your strength for tomorrow."
"I need to be better," I said, already reaching for another crystal. "Three out of five hits isn't good enough when lives are depending on it."
