Three days passed.
Kaelira didn't go easy on him.
"You swing like a poet, kid," she snapped. "This isn't about elegance. It's about impact."
She struck his wooden sword with the flat of her blade, sending him sprawling into the dirt for the fifth time that morning.
Myrelion grunted, wiping blood from his mouth.
"I thought you were trying to teach me."
"I am. Lesson one: If you want to live as an adventurer, you fight to kill, or you die wishing you had."
Kaelira wasn't just a swordswoman. She was a survivor—brutal, brilliant, and strangely motherly beneath all the swearing and bruises.
She didn't ask about his past. She didn't question why his reflexes were unnatural or why his daggers hummed with power when he touched them.
Instead, she fed him, taught him, and drilled him until his muscles screamed.
They lived in her rented room above a smithy, where she made him polish armor and carry crates when they weren't training.
At night, she shared stories of the wider world—the beast-filled wildlands of Elthria, the desert ruins of Kha'Zim, and the politics of the Elytharan Empire.
And Myrelion listened. He learned.
One night, as they sat around a tiny hearth, Kaelira handed him a small bronze badge marked with the Adventurer's Guild symbol.
"You're officially my squire now," she said. "It's not much, but it'll keep your head on your shoulders if guards stop you."
"…Why?" he asked. "Why are you helping me?"
Kaelira gave him a long look.
"Because you remind me of someone I couldn't save."
She didn't elaborate.
Myrelion nodded.
He wouldn't fail her. Not like whoever she'd lost.
For the first time in both his lives, he felt something stir in his chest.
Not duty. Not vengeance.
But the faintest flicker… of belonging.