The sun casting its heat upon the training grounds behind the palace as if it too shared Raine's constant challenge to the world. I passed by there by coincidence—or so I kept telling myself—because, in truth, I had started passing through this place a lot lately. Not out of love for noise, but for the scene that repeated itself day after day without losing any of its awe.
Raine.
He stood in the center of the sand circle, bare-chested, his sweat glistening under the light, his muscles contracting and relaxing with each movement as if sculpted from living steel. His massive double-edged sword in his hands didn't look like a tool, but an extension of his own body. And when he moved, it wasn't a sixteen-year-old boy moving—it was a storm.
