Chapter 47: Physical Combat Training: Elian Vs Thaddeus Kade.

Elian then straightened, staff already half-raised out of pure habit.

Then, for the first time since the vault, made himself stop and actually think about whether he needed it.

He didn’t need to think about it twice.

The realization landed strangely for him, quiet and unremarkable in a way that felt almost anticlimactic after everything else that had happened this week.

He simply stood there, staff loose in one hand rather than clutched against his side, and noticed that the old, familiar thread of dread that usually flared the moment any distance opened between them hadn’t shown up at all.

He set the Everbloom down carefully against the wall near Cordelia—who eyed it with open, delighted longing but had the good sense not to touch it—and walked to the weapon rack instead.

As decided earlier, he passed over the swords and spears in favor of a plain, unadorned wooden staff mounted near the end.

He studied it for a short moment.

It had no crystal head.

Neither any old family weight behind it.

It was just a straightforward, practical training weapon, the kind meant to teach form rather than intimidate anyone holding it.

It felt strange in his hands.

That much he could understand of all the feelings that was flowing through him, strange because he hadn’t held a weapon for practical use in so long, at least by his own choice.

He stepped into the Arena, waiting for his opponent.

The opponent was a broad-shouldered boy who stepped forward from the far side of the group.

It was someone Elian hadn’t properly seen until now. The guy was built like he’d spent considerably more time in a training yard than a lecture hall, already reaching for a heavy iron-shod quarterstaff with the easy familiarity of a weapon he’d clearly used a hundred times before.

"Thaddeus Kade," he said, not unfriendly. Eyes sizing Elian up with open, unbothered curiosity rather than any real hostility.

"I’ve Heard a lot about you this week."

"Good things, I hope." Elian gave him a weak smile.

"Mixed, honestly." Kade rolled his shoulders, settling into a wide, grounded stance, staff braced with obvious confidence.

"Mostly I just want to see if any of it’s true."

He gave him a short, respective bow, which Elian returned with the stiffness of someone who was already starting to be more nervous than he thought he was going to be.

Professor Reyes didn’t wait for long once they straightened

"Begin!"

Kade moved first, quarterstaff sweeping in a wide, testing arc that would’ve caught Elian square across the ribs if he’d stood still to think about it.

Which he didn’t, obviously.

His body shifted before the decision had even fully registered, weight rolling back onto his heel just enough to let the strike pass a hand’s width from his chest.

"You’re quick." Kade noted approvingly, already recovering into his next swing.

Elian didn’t answer, answering felt like it would cost him the half-second he needed to keep breathing properly, let alone talk.

The next several exchanges blurred together in a way that would’ve terrified him a week ago and now just felt, strangely, like falling.

No, not like falling.

It felt like he was dancing a dance he had learned some long time ago, one that his body remembered, but not his body.

Kade’s staff came in high, then low, then in a feint that turned into a real strike at the last possible moment, and each time Elian’s body found the gap without him consciously choosing where to put it.

There was no flash to any of it like the students prior, no flourish or known signatures in his moves like Bellamy had. It was just small shifts of weight, evasions that looked almost bored from the outside, though internally he was fairly sure his heart hadn’t slowed down once since the bow.

"You’re not hitting back?" Kade asked, breathing harder now, a note of genuine frustration creeping into his voice.

"Haven’t found room to," Elian admitted, ducking under another swing.

"That’s..." A large swing to his shoulders, which Elian stepped back from. "...going to change."

Kade pressed harder, strikes coming faster, more committed, clearly done testing and fully invested in ending this.

Elian kept giving ground, staff still mostly unused in his hand, reading each attack a fraction of a second before it arrived—not because he understood the mechanics of what he was doing, just because some part of him had apparently decided, somewhere between the awakening and the second petal, that flinching backward was no longer the only available response to something coming at him.

Then Kade made the inevitable over-commitment on a downward strike, weight fully forward, and the opening was simply there.

It was obvious, sudden, the kind of gap Reyes had spent all afternoon warning people about leaving.

Elian didn’t think about it.

He mostly didn’t have the time to.

His own staff came up and around in one clean motion, catching Kade’s exposed side with far more force than the plain wooden weapon should have carried.

And Kade went flying sideways, air leaving him as he hit the wall in a single startled grunt.

The room had gone completely silent.

Elian stood there, staff still raised, staring at Kade sprawled on the ground with an expression that mirrored the shock rippling through the rest of the class.

"Sorry!" he said, immediately, staff lowering fast. "Are you okay?"

Kade let out a wheezing, disbelieving laugh, still sprawled on the floor with one hand pressed to his side.

"Goodness..." He accepted Reyes’s offered hand up, still shaking his head. "What was that!?"

"I don’t actually know," Elian admitted, which was, unfortunately, entirely true.

Reyes studied him for a long moment, arms crossed, something calculating behind his usual flat assessment.

"Must be because of the second petal," he said finally, more to himself than to anyone else.

He stood in silence for another moment, thinking hard about something before speaking.

"Right. That’ll do it for this match, Valcourt Wins." He glanced at Kade, still catching his breath. "You alright?"

"Fine... Actually, I think I might have broken something."

Kade shot Elian a look that was more impressed than annoyed.

"I’m going to need a rematch. Once I’ve had time to actually prepare for whatever that was."

"Sure," Elian said, still faintly stunned by his own hands.

Reyes closed his ledger with a decisive snap, surveying the room—his face already showing the exhaustion of having to deal with Darrow’s throw, Oizys’s recovery, Rudra and Milena’s heated-draw, Bellamy’s calculated yield, Cordelia’s overwhelming force, and now whatever this was—and let out a long, long, tired exhale entirely unlike his usual brisk composure.

"Class dismissed," he said, defeated.

"I think need to go lie down."

He held a hand up, frowning as he talked again.

"The five i mentioned earlier, stay back. Sterling and Ashworth too, wait with them, I’ll be right back."