As they were officially taking on duties for the Althalas family, the crew was allowed out of the visitor wing. The wing Heath hadn’t realized they were confined to contained several entire mountains and every amenity under the sun, including training facilities. Ekaterina had assured him it was nothing compared to what they would be able to access now.

  The flagrant displays of wealth were starting to become normal to Heath, and that was terrifying, almost more than Lorenzo Esteban or Aleksandr Althalas. He hadn’t even flinched when she told him their rank-two training grounds were twice as large as the entire visitor wing, held five rank two dungeons at different difficulty levels, and employed professional Trainers specializing in every combat style imaginable. It would be more surprising if any of that weren’t the case.

  Heath thought that the numbness to the display would prepare him for entering the main training arena. He was wrong.

  Like it had been coordinated beforehand, the minute they stepped onto the field, every head turned to stare. Some with the cold grey eyes he’d become used to, set into faces as varied as any city he’d ever been in. The Althalas clan was too old, and too big to be anything else. And all noble Houses added new members all the time with no blood relation, even if the main inheriting branch was usually a family line.

  Heath was very aware that every single one of the nobles was sizing him up. Most turned away almost as quickly, dismissing the crew of the Loon as nothing worth their time. Others he watched, as their gaze shifted to Ekaterina and then back to the rather ragtag crew beside her. He had rarely felt so out of place, so thoroughly examined, so…poor.

  He took a page from the Wizard’s book and ignored it all, following as she led them across the grassy expanse. It was low enough in the foothills that the air wasn’t dangerous to anyone at rank two, at least anyone that hadn’t dangerously underinvested in Toughness. There was something odd about the ground as well. Like it was extra bouncy. He would need to bring a jar for dirt tomorrow. Why should he care what these people thought of him or his collection?

  A philosophy with which he already knew he would struggle. Ekaterina’s chosen path led them directly towards another Classer. This one was rank three, and standing alone, arms crossed as she stared them down on their approach. Her mahogany skin made the signature-Althalas eyes stand out that much more.

  Ekaterina stopped in front of her, and to Heath’s shock, actually dipped into a low bow. “Trainer, we come seeking tutelage.” It had the cadence of a ritual, and Heath chose to let it play out without interruption.

  “Hmm. We shall see. Come.”

  The order was absolute, leaving no room to question. After a few steps, Heath realized it was a Skill, and a subtle one. Once he noticed, he was able to resist, and stopped walking to prove it to himself. Ekaterina grabbed his arm and dragged him along anyway. Disobedience was not going to be tolerated on the training grounds.

  They arrived at one of the many weapons racks that dotted the fields. His training room on the Loon, was a dollhouse in comparison. There were weapons he’d never seen or heard of before, even in fiction. Blades of so many shapes and sizes he couldn’t believe all of them were actually practical in a fight. And despite the way Ekaterina often scoffed at their reliance on the tech, there was a full range of firearms as well, including a much nicer version of his usual phase pistol.

  “Choose,” came the next sharp order of the Trainer.

  Heath had picked up the pistol he’d been eyeing before he registered the movement. He grit his teeth and stayed silent. If this kept going, he wouldn’t last through the day, let alone the months ahead. Maybe noble houses trained by perfect obedience, but it grated on his spacer soul.

  Their still-anonymous trainer looked over the choices. Copperfield was holding a saber much like he usually wore, Emerald a pair of daggers. Jenny Mae had, like Heath, gone straight for the guns, and selected a complex rifle with attachments that were mostly a mystery. The final member of his crew had chosen a practice version of the same staff she normally wielded.

  “Hmm.” There was a world of criticism in the sound. Were they supposed to train by guesswork? “Attack me.”

  “But the others?” Jenny Mae’s question paused them all where they had started to move.

  “The weapons are for practice, your shots will not reach them. Attack.”

  This time there was no subtlety to the Skill usage. A compulsion reached into Heath and forced him to move.

  His hand swung up, gun already primed as he made his first shot, a few heartbeats behind Jenny Mae. Their Trainer was untouched. From this close, she shouldn’t have been able to dodge, but it was like she knew where they would shoot before they did.

  Emerald phased into view behind her, striking low with a dagger. It was promptly kicked out of their hand as the Trainer made a smooth turn, dodging the saber and an ice spear at the same time.

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  With a twist of her hand, a shockwave pushed outward, knocking them all onto the ground. A chorus of laughter reached them on the wind, the others had stopped to watch.

  “Again.”

  This time, they remembered months of teamwork. Ekaterina’s magic moved the earth under the trainer’s feet, keeping her unstable. Emerald and Copperfield attacked at different angles, forcing her to move into Jenny Mae’s sights. Her aura skill was activated, letting all five of them process each other’s movements and impressions.

  “Better.” The trainer remained upright and unconcerned.

  Heath and his crew worked harder. Force spells mixed in with their attacks. When the Trainer moved to disarm one of their close combatants, Heath’s [Shield] got in the way. At the same time, he kept up a steady barrage of his own. While hard-earned, his shooting and [Marksmanship] had improved by leaps and bounds. Not nearly as much as Jenny Mae, but enough to cause problems.

  Despite it all, the Trainer danced through the gaps in the formation. Once more, a shockwave pushed them all back. This time Heath was prepared with [Steady]. Instead of falling, he fired again, point blank at the Trainer’s center mass.

  It hit. And did nothing. The phase energy splashed harmlessly off her chest.

  But it got him the first change in expression since entering the field. A slight widening of the eyes. A minute shift in the eyebrows. He had surprised her. The next “hmm” was a lot less condescending.

  “Once more.”

  The third fight went much like the second. They had improved slightly, but the Trainer had gotten a read on most of what they could do, at least outside the Loon and without Copperfield’s battle mech. The next time she decided to knock them down, even Heath’s spacer skill couldn’t keep him upright.

  “Enough.”

  Heath thought about staying on the ground for a little while to let his heartrate come back down. The watching eyes of every nearby Althalas spurred him back to his feet instead. As the crew staggered upright, he met the implacable gaze of their trainer. “How’d we do?”

  It felt like the whole training yard, nearby mountains included, leaned in to hear the response. “I’ve seen worse.” Heath’s pride swelled as a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “I’ve also trained better.”

  Built him up to tear him back apart. A few snickers drifted over and their Trainer whipped around. Either she had a reputation, or the eyes were intimidating to more than just Heath, as everyone went back to their assigned tasks with the kind of renewed vigor that only came from the observation of authority.

  “You,” she pointed at Ekaterina, who was already standing ramrod straight with her hands clasped around her practice staff. “You are backsliding. Sloppy positioning, and you missed at least three openings for terrain control and setting your team up for better. You may have been the damage dealer in your early delves but the rest of them don’t have control skills.”

  She rotated to lock eyes with Copperfield, who flinched back. Heath sympathized. “Your swordwork has a decent core, but you’re too flashy. And you are obviously used to fighting in armor. It shows.”

  Emerald was the next to face the wrath of the Trainer. They didn’t react outwardly, but something in their bearing clenched in anticipation of a beating.

  “Not bad, but it is clear you're new to being a real rogue. We’ll get you on a crash course with the combat style.”

  Heath was about to congratulate their reticent crewmember when Jenny Mae bounded forward, vibrating with excitement at her own critique.

  “Textbook.” The Aide-de-Camp preened. “Not in a good way.” Heath sucked his teeth in sympathy. Their cheery crewmate looked crushed. “You’ve probably got the second-best foundation, but you’re too focused on the right move according to whoever taught you, and not to the situation at hand.”

  Then it was Heath’s turn, and he desperately wished he’d found some way to prepare himself for the blow.

  “You’re all over the place.” Well, that was fair, but he might have phrased it differently. “I am unsurprised based on what I can see from your Class.”

  “What the hells?” Heath reared back. No one was supposed to be able to see his Class without permission. Not even the best Infiltrator Skills gave that kind of information. He was disguising the real name on the display, but if she could see through to his status, what else could she find out.

  “Calm down, children.”

  Heath looked around to see his whole crew tensed for battle. Even Ekaterina had dropped out of her perfect attention pose, and was angling the staff like she intended to use it.

  “I’m a Trainer.” The woman actually rolled her eyes which had the dual effects of raising his poor-kid-in-the-big-city hackles, while relaxing his fight or flight response. “That means I can get a feel for your Class. No specifics. We’ll need to add some comportment lessons to your regimen. If I didn’t already know, your reaction would give away that there was something unusual with it.”

  Everyone else shifted around, but no one apologized for their response.

  The Trainer looked around and made eye contact with each of them. “As I was saying, you’re all over the place. Which makes sense for someone who reached Captain too early.” It had been a long time since Heath had thought about that, but it wasn’t wrong. Most didn’t reach Captain until rank two or three. “You struggle in a fight because you don’t have the Skills for it. And the Skills you do have, you’re ignoring because you think they aren’t relevant.”

  “Well–”

  “No.” She cut him off. “We won’t discuss specifics until after the assessment tomorrow. Now is for listening. You have decent reactions for someone who wasn’t trained as a fighter, and that [Steady] you threw out was a good idea. We’ll need to lean into that.

  “As a team, you have stumbled blindly into a half decent spread of Skills, but you need to tighten every aspect. Positioning, communication, coordination. No one coming out of my yard is going to be the embarrassment at the Firmament trials.

  “Tomorrow, you have your Skill assessment in the morning, and we’ll devise a curriculum in the afternoon. Every day between now and when you leave belongs to me.”

  On that ominous note, she turned and walked away, already barking orders at the nearest batch of trainees, and leaving the crew of the Wandering Loon standing around like idiots.

  “That was…” he couldn’t actually come up with words.

  “Trainer Omphile is a force of nature,” Ekaterina agreed. “She has been in charge of this yard for decades. When I left, it had pushed her up to mid rank three.”

  “We’ll be her favorites!” Jenny Mae exclaimed. Any lingering disappointment at her critique had been either forgotten or buried.

  “How do you figure?” Copperfield asked. “Seemed more like we’d be the problem children.”

  “No, she is correct.” Ekaterina ambled towards the weapons racks, while the rest followed and put their borrowed equipment back where they found it. “Training Classes gain experience from difficult or unique students. We,” she swept her arm around, “are certainly unique. And you three,” she pointed at Heath, Copperfield, and Emerald, “are difficult. Ergo, we shall be the favorites.”

  “Yeah? How are all the rest of these people going to feel about that?”

  At Copperfield’s question, Heath looked back out over the training field, paying more attention this time. And he saw it. Even with Trainer Omphile, and her assistants, stalking the field, every few moments, a pair of eyes would glance their way. The looks weren’t kind. He was starting to understand Ekaterina a whole lot more.

  The noble in question met each gaze, silently daring the other members of her house to say anything. Without looking back, she answered. “Steel sharpens steel. Challenge is the best way to grow.”