Cager didn't bring a blade.
That was how I knew the lesson would hurt more.
The training room sat beneath the main level, a long, narrow space carved out of old stone and reinforced steel. No windows. No mirrors. Just a single overhead strip light that buzzed faintly, like it resented being awake. The floor was marked with scuffs and chalk lines that meant nothing to me yet.
She stood in the center, arms relaxed at her sides, jacket unzipped. No knives at her belt. No visible weapons at all.
"You're late," she said.
I checked the time in my head. I wasn't. Not by any measure that mattered.
"I waited," I replied.
She nodded once, as if that confirmed something she'd already decided. "Good."
That was it. No explanation. No warning.
"Stand there," she said, pointing to a chalk line near the wall.
I did.
"Feet shoulder-width," she added. "Weight balanced. Not back on your heels."
I adjusted.
She circled me slowly, boots quiet against the concrete. I resisted the urge to track her with my eyes. I'd learned that lesson already. Looking too hard gave things away.
"Again," she said.
I shifted my weight forward a fraction.
"Better," she murmured. "Now don't move."
I waited.
Minutes passed. Or seconds. Time stretched in places like this, bending under expectation.
"This isn't about fighting," she said eventually. "It's about what you do before it starts."
"I thought that's what we've been doing," I said.
She stopped in front of me. Too close. Her gaze flicked over my face, my shoulders, my hands.
"You've been learning reaction," she said. "Now you learn presence."
She stepped back. "Walk toward me."
I did.
"Stop."
I stopped.
She tilted her head. "Do it again. Slower."
I moved forward, conscious of every step, every shift of muscle. My breath wanted to speed up. I didn't let it.
"Stop," she said again.
This time, she reached out and pressed two fingers lightly against my sternum.
"Here," she said. "This is where people read you first. If it's tight, they know you're afraid. If it's loose, they think you're careless."
Her touch was brief. Clinical.
It still sent something sharp through me.
"Breathe," she added.
I did.
She watched my chest rise and fall, her expression unreadable. "Again."
We repeated it until my legs burned and my focus narrowed to the space between us. No strikes. No takedowns. Just movement and stillness, calibrated to the inch.
At some point, I realized she was teaching me how to enter a room without announcing myself. How to be seen without being challenged. How to exist in a space like I belonged there, even if I didn't.
"Why this?" I asked during a pause, wiping sweat from my palms.
"Because knives end conversations," she replied. "This starts them."
I nodded, filing that away.
She paced once, then stopped near the wall. "Tell me what you felt yesterday."
I hesitated. "During the run?"
"Yes."
"I felt… watched," I said carefully. "But not hunted. Like people were deciding where I fit."
"And?"
"And like speaking first shifted something."
She studied me. "How?"
"It made me visible," I said. "But it also set a tone. I wasn't asking."
Her jaw tightened. Just a little.
"Visibility attracts pressure," she said. "Pressure attracts mistakes."
"I know."
"Do you?" she echoed, sharper this time.
I met her gaze. "You wouldn't have let me speak if I wasn't ready to carry it."
The room went very quiet.
She looked away first.
"That's an assumption," she said.
"Is it wrong?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she turned back to me, her expression harder now. "Again. From the top."
The next drill was worse.
She made me stand still while she moved around me, testing my reactions with sudden shifts, sharp sounds, quick feints that stopped inches short of contact. My instincts screamed to move, to block, to strike.
I didn't.
Each time I held my ground, she nodded once, approving.
"Fear makes noise," she said. "Control makes space."
At some point, sweat blurred my vision. My muscles trembled with restraint.
"Enough," she said finally.
I exhaled, tension draining out of me in a rush. I hadn't realized how tightly I'd been holding myself together.
She handed me a bottle of water. Our fingers brushed.
Neither of us reacted.
"Why did you choose knives?" I asked suddenly.
The question slipped out before I could stop it.
She froze.
Just for a moment. Just long enough for me to see it.
Her gaze sharpened, something guarded flashing across it. "I didn't choose them," she said.
I waited.
"They were chosen for me."
That was all she gave.
The rest of the session passed without conversation. When it ended, she dismissed me with a nod, already turning away.
As I reached the stairs, her voice stopped me.
"Vale."
I turned.
"Don't mistake access for immunity," she said. "What you're learning makes you useful. It also makes you a target."
"I understand."
She hesitated. "And don't read into my methods."
"I don't."
She held my gaze for a long moment, like she was searching for a lie and not finding one.
"Good," she said softly.
I left the room with my muscles aching and my mind sharp.
Later that night, I lay awake on my cot, staring at the ceiling. I replayed the drills, her corrections, the way her fingers had pressed against my chest without hesitation.
It wasn't the touch that stayed with me.
It was the restraint.
Cager taught control like it was survival. Like letting yourself feel too much was the fastest way to die.
I understood that.
What I didn't understand was why she looked so tense while teaching it.
Or why, when she thought I wasn't watching, her hands clenched like she was holding something back.
Whatever her past held, it wasn't quiet.
And whatever this training was shaping me into, it wasn't just a fighter.
It was someone who would eventually have to stand where she stood.
I didn't know yet whether that terrified me.
Or thrilled me.