The dawn after her final physical trial arrived with a different kind of stillness. The air buzzed with faint pressure, and the clouds hung lower than usual, thick with quiet tension.

  Celeste woke before the servants could knock. Her arms ached, her legs heavier than stone, but her mind was alive. Lightning pulsed just behind her eyelids. She was ready.

  When she descended into the garden courtyard expecting her father or perhaps a visiting mage, she found someone entirely different waiting.

  Her mother.

  Luna Silver stood at the center of a ring of carved stones, her long chestnut hair braided neatly down her back, her robe trimmed in silver thread. She looked every inch the noblewoman, but her eyes; deep, calm, endlessly perceptive, held the weight of something else today.

  Magic.

  Celeste stopped just beyond the ring. "You're training me?"

  Luna smiled. "Yes, my little star."

  Wind stirred the trees. The frost underfoot cracked.

  Luna gestured. "Step into the circle. Today, we begin not with spells, but with breath. Mana responds to emotion, to rhythm, to thought. Before you can wield it, you must learn to feel it."

  For an entire week, they did not cast a single spell. Instead, Luna guided her through visualization, breath work, and stillness. Celeste learned to sit motionless for hours, focusing only on her breath and the faint warmth pulsing behind her ribs.

  She expected fire. Power. Lightning.

  What she found instead was subtle, deeper breath, stillness in the body, awareness in her fingertips. She could feel her mana clinging to her skin like static, pooling quietly in her chest.

  Luna's voice never faltered.

  "You've tamed your body. Now tame your thoughts. Magic is not brute force. It’s conversation. A negotiation between soul and spark."

  By the end of the week, Celeste could feel her mana move on its own, swirling like mist in rhythm with her breath. She stood straighter, moved lighter. And when she looked at the sky, she swore the clouds moved slightly around her.

  At night, she recorded the sensations in a private journal. The way mana pulled to her hands when she was angry. How it swirled near her spine when she was still. She began to map her emotions to her magic instinctively. She even began humming soft tones to herself, finding that certain frequencies made her feel more focused or more energized.

  The following week, Luna brought her into the estate’s inner sanctum; walls lined in copper, floors carved with mana channels. Here, she was taught to circulate mana.

  “Most mages wait until the academy,” Luna explained. “But you will learn now.”

  Celeste learned to move mana from her core to her fingertips, down to her toes, along her spine. She strained to guide it smoothly, learning to feel where it caught, where it surged.

  “It will become instinct,” Luna promised. “And when it does, your spells will come as easily as breathing. Stronger. Faster.”

  At first, she failed. Her control would slip. Her energy would spike wildly in her limbs and leave her breathless. But she kept trying.

  By midweek, she could circulate her mana in a single loop. By week’s end, she could guide multiple streams through her limbs at once. Her stamina increased from the inside out, and the control she had begun to exert on her own body reminded her of the strength training she’d done with her father.

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  At night, she meditated alone, tracing energy in geometric loops through her body. When she opened her eyes, the air would shimmer faintly around her. Once, she fell into a deep trance and awoke several hours later to find Luna had left a blanket over her shoulders without waking her.

  A smaller courtyard, runes engraved and humming with latent power, became her new training ground. There, Luna placed a focus crystal in her palm and instructed her to summon lightning not as a weapon, but as part of herself.

  It took time.

  Celeste failed repeatedly. Sparks fizzled. Concentration wavered. But with each failure came progress.

  She remembered her dreams, the pull of lightning behind her ribs, and finally, with a slow breath, summoned a spark that danced across her fingertips.

  It grew brighter. Hotter. Sharper.

  By midweek, she could call it on command. By week's end, she could shape it into arcs, strike a basin with a snap, and recover without burning her fingers.

  Luna’s tests grew more difficult. Each day, Celeste had to summon a spark under stress, while moving, while reciting equations, while listening to her mother repeat dissonant tones. It trained her mind to hold focus.

  She practiced breathing through distraction. She learned to reset herself in seconds, centering her mana with a mental pulse. The spark became a tether between her thoughts and her body.

  By the end of the week, she could conjure lightning even while exhausted, a flick of her fingers sending sparks to dance around her wrist.

  Now came the dance.

  Celeste no longer simply summoned lightning. She shaped it, curved it, split it, controlled its intensity. She guided bolts through winding paths, struck moving targets, and learned to maintain currents while running.

  “Don’t command it,” Luna reminded. “Coax it. Invite it to move with you.”

  They practiced in storms. Luna would send Celeste outside into the rain, forcing her to cast while the skies echoed her magic. It taught her to find harmony with nature rather than fight it.

  She learned to draw mana from the charged air, to use static fields in her favor. She cast short-ranged arcs from her palms and redirected them through metal lines planted in the soil.

  Luna introduced wind resistance as part of training; wooden dummies rigged to spin, flags that disrupted aim, moving obstacles. Celeste had to cast without losing control. She began moving like a duelist, pivoting between techniques, letting electricity swirl at her fingertips with practiced grace.

  By the end of the week, she could summon a miniature storm and dismiss it with a whisper. The energy around her responded to her emotions, crackling faintly even when she walked through the hallways of the estate. Her very presence had begun to shimmer.

  Structure. Precision. Intent.

  These were the final lessons.

  Celeste trained for hours on spell forms: orb blasts, directed arcs, wide-field bursts. She studied how each angle affected speed and power, how her posture altered her aim.

  Luna placed targets at varying distances and elevations. Celeste had to strike all in a sequence, sometimes while dodging, sometimes while blindfolded.

  She learned how to adjust her casting for rapid bursts and delayed charges. How to trick the eye by firing wide, then curving the arc mid-flight. She was taught to hide her mana buildup, casting without the usual flares or signs.

  At night, she began layering castings; drawing two spells at once, weaving static fields behind her bolts to make them explode outward. She created electrical traps across the floor that would trigger if stepped on.

  By midweek, she was moving and casting in tandem, her footwork synchronized with her strikes. She added movement to every spell: dodges, rolls, kicks.

  She burned herself more than once. Lost focus. Failed.

  But failure only made her sharper.

  Luna taught her to pace herself, to blend her endurance with her mana pool, to never go empty. Celeste began to intuitively balance spell density and flow, adjusting her casting as easily as she had once adjusted her stance in combat.

  By the end of the week, she could cast Chain Lightning in rapid succession, shape it mid-flight, and strike targets in a tight curve. She had grown faster, quieter, sharper. Lightning was no longer a thing she conjured… it was a part of her.

  “Magic must become muscle,” Luna said. “Or it will always be second to your blade.”

  Celeste made it muscle.

  When the final bolt struck true and shattered the reinforced target to splinters, Luna lowered her arms and said one word:

  “Again.”