Frosthold did not welcome. It was assessed.
The garrison—five hundred of the North's hardest veterans—watched my arrival with the flat, calculating eyes of wolves observing a strange new animal dragged into their den. They saw the Duke's protective posture, my foreign clothes, and the faint, unsettling shimmer that still clung to my skin if you looked at it from the corner of your eye. They did not see a saint. They saw a volatile, southern complication.
My chambers were not a captain's quarters but a guardroom repurposed. It was small and cold, and the only window was a narrow arrow slit overlooking a sheer drop into the mist. The furnishings were a cot, a stool, and a chest. It was clear: I was a guest under duress, a specimen to be monitored.
The first test came at dawn.
A grizzled knight I didn't recognise, with a scar bisecting his lips,rapped on my door. "His Grace requests you in the Foundry Yard."
The Foundry Yard was a broad, wind-scoured courtyard nestled between two sheer rock faces. It held training dummies, weapon racks, and a large, dark pit in the centre, from which deep geothermal warmth radiated—a vent from the mountain's heart used to heat the forges. Ley energy, raw and wild, seeped from this pit, making the air taste of metal and making my own power stir restlessly.
Kaelen stood with his arms crossed, Damien and Lyra beside him. A dozen other knights formed a loose, watching circle.
"Your power reacted to the ley lines at the checkpoint," Kaelen stated, with no greeting. "We need to know if that was a fluke or a pattern. You will stand at the edge of the vent and attempt to manifest a controlled amount of holy light. A simple glow in your palm. Nothing more."
It was a logical, military order. It was also a public trial.
My mouth went dry. The eyes of the Northern knights were on me, their scepticism a physical pressure. The power within me, sensing my anxiety, pulsed in response, a warm, warning throb. The ley energy from the vent swirled around my ankles, agitated by my presence.
I walked to the jagged stone rim of the pit. Heat washed over me. I took a deep breath, trying to recall the fragile calm I'd found in the Starfall Vault in my previous, rushed vision of this moment. That calm didn't exist here. Here, there was only exposure.
I raised my palm, focusing. A simple glow.
I pushed.
A torrent of panicked, golden fire erupted from my hand, not a glow, but a roaring jet of light that shot across the yard and slammed into a training dummy. The dummy didn't catch fire; it dissolved, the straw and wood vanishing in a shower of harmless golden sparks that winked out on the frozen ground.
Silence.
Then a low murmur ran through the knights. Not awe. Alarm. I had just demonstrated terrifying, unpredictable destructiveness.
Kaelen's expression didn't change. "Again. Smaller."
Shame burnt my cheeks. I tried again, clamping down hard, envisioning a tiny flame. A spark fizzed at my fingertips, then sputtered and died as I overcorrected. The ley energy at my feet flared in response to my frustration, a geyser of silver light erupting from the vent and knocking me back a step.
I stumbled, my boot slipping on the icy stone. A strong hand grabbed my arm, steadying me. Kaelen. He'd moved faster than I could see.
"Enough," he said, his voice low. "You're fighting it. You're trying to choke it. That only makes it fight back." He released my arm and addressed the knights. "Dismissed. Training as usual."
The knights dispersed, their muttering clear. Unstable. Dangerous. A liability.
I stood there, humiliated, the phantom heat of the vent and the cold mountain wind battling around me.
"Come with me," Kaelen said, his tone unreadable.
He didn't lead me to the majestic Starfall Vault. He led me to a small, empty storeroom near the kitchens, where the only energy was the smell of cured meat and old grain. He closed the door.
"You will not train in the ley fields again until you can light a candle in this room without shattering the window," he said, gesturing to a single, thick-glassed window high on the wall. He placed a simple tallow candle on an upturned barrel. "Start here. With the smallest thing. Start with complete stillness. Your enemy isn't the scale of your power. It's your fear of it."
He left me alone in the dim, quiet storeroom.
The first hour was pure failure. I'd clench my fist, sweat beading on my brow, and either nothing would happen or a crackle of energy would zap the stone floor, leaving a black mark. I was trying to command a god with a shout when it only responded to a whisper.
Frustration turned to despair. I slid down the wall onto the cold floor, pulling my knees to my chest. I was a fraud. A saint who couldn't light a candle. A beacon who was a danger to her allies.
A soft knock, then the door opened. Elara slipped in, carrying two steaming mugs. She handed one to me. It contained a bitter, herbal tea that smelt of pine and resilience.
"They're calling you 'The Sunder' in the barracks," she said conversationally, leaning against the barrel. "On account of the dummy. It's not a nice name, but it's better than 'the southern mouse'. They respect destruction. They don't respect fear."
"I can't do it," I whispered, the confession tearing at me.
"Of course you can't." She sipped her tea. "You're trying to use a warhammer to light a match. My brother's an idiot sometimes. He sees power and immediately considers it to be a weapon. But that's not what the truth is, is it?" Her keen grey eyes studied me. "In the stories, Saints don't force miracles. They allow them. They have faith, and the light answers."
Faith. I had faith in nothing but the certainty of failure and the memory of Kaelen's death.
But Elara's words echoed Kaelen's earlier statement in a different way. You're trying to choke it.
I wasn't showing faith in my power. I was showing terror.
I set the mug down and stood. I didn't look at the candle. I closed my eyes and did something I hadn't done since becoming Rosalind. I prayed. Not to the distant Goddess of the Church, but to the memory of Selene. To the part of me that had once believed light was for healing, for hope.
Help me, I thought, not as a command, but as a request. Not to be a weapon. Just to be a spark.
I opened my eyes, held out my hand toward the candle, and instead of pushing power out, I simply remembered the feeling of gentle light. The warmth of a sunrise on a cold morning. The soft glow of a lantern in a safe room.
A single, perfect, steady flame of golden light, no larger than a pearl, blossomed above my palm. It hovered, serene and unwavering.
I let out a shuddering breath. With careful focus, I willed the tiny flame to float to the candle wick. It touched down. The tallow candle ignited with a normal, yellow flame.
The golden light above my palm winked out.
I had done it. Not through force, but through surrender. Through faith in the nature of the light itself.
The door opened. Kaelen stood there, having likely been waiting outside. His eyes went from my face to the burning candle, then back to me. He saw the difference. The frantic tension was gone from my posture, replaced by a weary, hard-won calm.
"Good," he said, a single, solid word of acknowledgement. "Now do it again. Fifty times. Then we'll go back to the yard."
It wasn't praise. It was the next objective. But in his eyes, I saw the first flicker of something other than strategic calculation: a recognition of progress. Of grit.
The mountain had not accepted me. But I had learnt the first, crucial lesson of its language: to withstand its pressure, you must first find your own unshakeable core.
The training had truly begun.