Ryelle rolled aside more by reflex than conscious thought, barely clearing the impact zone before talons raked through the space where she'd been standing.

Dirt sprayed in all directions, and Ryelle came to her feet already sprinting. There was no time to think, no opportunity to plan. Everything narrowed to the need for motion, to put as much space between herself and Liselotte as possible before—

The blow caught her from behind, driving her to the ground hard enough to knock air from her lungs and raise clouds of dust where she skidded across the clearing.

She staggered to her feet, blinking away tears and reaching for the kanabō slung across her back. Harpy laughter filled her ears like mocking birdcalls. When she turned to face her attacker, she found Liselotte perched on an overhead branch.

"I'm glad to see Ebonheim chose strength as one of your design considerations." Liselotte flexed her talons, causing dirt to fall from their gleaming surfaces. "It means I don't have to be gentle."

Ryelle had just enough time to register movement before the next attack sent her sprawling. Steel rang against keratin in a shower of sparks, the impact driving her backward across moss-covered ground. The kanabo vibrated in her hands, a physical reminder that she'd gotten the parry barely in time.

Liselotte rebounded from the blocked strike, wings snapping open to arrest her fall and carry her back into the air. She circled once, twice, her flight path a spiral that kept Ryelle guessing about the angle of the next attack.

"Adequate reflexes," the Harpy Queen observed, her voice carrying easily despite the wind her wings generated. "But reflexes won't save you if you can't predict where the next strike comes from."

She dove again, this time from a different angle. Ryelle spun to meet the attack, kanabō describing a defensive arc that should have covered her vulnerable points. But Liselotte wasn't where the weapon expected her to be—she'd twisted in mid-dive, using her wings to vector away from the obvious intercept point.

Talons raked across Ryelle's ribs, parting leather and finding flesh beneath. The cuts weren't deep—more warning than genuine attack—but they drew blood that spotted the moss at her feet.

More harpy laughter filled her ears, mocking.

"Again, adequate," Liselotte said, once more perched high above the clearing. "But adequate won't keep your innards where they belong if I stop playing nice."

She attacked again, and again, and again. Some strikes Ryelle blocked, some she didn't. Each round left her slightly more scuffed, slightly more bruised.

Liselotte was faster, stronger, and more experienced in every way that mattered. It would have been an unfair fight even on the ground, but up here, with Liselotte's speed and flight advantages, it quickly became obvious to everyone watching that Ryelle was outmatched.

This wasn't a fight. It was a dissection.

"Again," Liselotte commanded, taking position on another branch. "Try to hit me."

Ryelle obliged, hurling herself toward the branch where the Harpy Queen perched. Her jump carried her higher than any mortal could have managed, divine strength launching her through space with enough force to shatter stone. The kanabō swept toward its target in an arc that would have pulverized anything it connected with.

Liselotte simply wasn't there when the weapon arrived.

She'd taken flight at the last possible second, letting Ryelle's attack pass harmlessly through empty air. The branch exploded into splinters under the kanabō's impact, but destroying wood meant nothing when her intended target was already repositioning for another strike.

Talons found Ryelle's exposed flank while she was still recovering from her missed attack. These cuts went deeper, drawing more blood and sending spikes of pain through her ribs.

"You telegraph every move," Liselotte observed, landing gracefully on a platform perhaps twenty meters away. "Your shoulders telegraph where you'll swing. Your eyes telegraph where you'll jump. Your stance telegraphs how you'll block. Against ground-bound opponents, such tells might be subtle enough to ignore. Against those who hunt from above, they make you predictable as sunrise."

Ryelle touched her side, fingers coming away red. The wounds were already beginning to heal—divine resilience knitting flesh back together—but the humiliation burned worse than the cuts.

"How am I supposed to fight something I can't reach?"

"That," Liselotte said, "is exactly the right question. But asking it is not the same as answering it."

The Harpy Queen took flight again, her movements now carrying a different quality. Less testing, more instructional. She attacked from multiple angles in rapid succession—high, low, left, right, angles that had no earthbound equivalent. Each strike was precisely controlled, drawing blood without causing serious injury, but the cumulative effect was exhausting.

This time Ryelle looked up in time to see the attack coming. Liselotte dove like a falling star, talons extended, wings folded for maximum speed. The kanabō came up to intercept, iron meeting claw in a shower of sparks that lit the amphitheater like brief lightning.

But even connecting with her target didn't help. Liselotte's momentum carried her past and up, wings snapping open to arrest her dive and convert it into climbing flight that took her beyond the kanabō's reach before Ryelle could follow through.

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"Earthbound thinking," Liselotte's voice came from above. "Always working on a flat plane, as if up and down didn't exist."

The next attack came from the side, low and fast. Ryelle managed to interpose her weapon's shaft between Liselotte's claws and her ribs, but the impact spun her around and left her staggering while the Harpy Queen flowed back into the air like water running uphill.

They settled into a pattern—attack, parry, evade, recover, attack again. Liselotte never pressed the offensive too far, never sought a knockout blow or tried to end things decisively.

But patterns could be learned. After the seventh or eighth exchange, Ryelle began to read the subtle signs that preceded each attack—the way Liselotte's wings shifted to control her approach angle, how she positioned herself relative to air currents, the slight tells that indicated where she intended to strike.

When the next dive came, Ryelle was ready. Instead of trying to block or dodge, she stepped forward and swung the kanabō in a rising arc that would intersect Liselotte's flight path at exactly the right moment.

The Harpy Queen twisted away from the strike, but this time she couldn't avoid it entirely. The weapon's iron head clipped her wing with force that sent feathers flying and elicited the first sound of pain Liselotte had made during their entire exchange.

She landed hard, wings spread for balance, one of them held at an angle that suggested injury. Around the amphitheater, harpy voices rose in surprise and what might have been approval.

"Much better." Liselotte folded her wings, the injured one moving stiffly but apparently still functional. "Divine avatar learns. Shows potential for actual improvement."

"Is that it?" Ryelle asked, breathing harder than she liked to admit. "The test?"

"First test." Liselotte's smile returned, though this time it held respect alongside predatory amusement. "Many more tests to come. Some painful. Some humiliating. All necessary."

The Harpy Queen approached until they stood arm's length apart, close enough for Ryelle to see the intelligent calculation in her crimson eyes. When she spoke again, her voice carried undertones that suggested the real conversation was only beginning.

"Divine avatar fights like earthbound creature trying to be something else. This will change. Will learn to fight like predator, or will learn nothing at all."

"I'm ready."

"Nae, you are not ready." Liselotte's correction came with certainty that brooked no argument. "But ready is luxury for strong creatures. Divine avatar is weak creature who will become strong, or will become food. Either outcome acceptable."

She turned away, wings spreading as she prepared to return to her perch at the platform's edge. But before taking flight, she glanced back over her shoulder with an expression that might have been anticipation.

"Training begins tomorrow. Sunrise. Bring nothing but body and will to learn. Everything else will be provided or proven unnecessary."

"Where should I—"

"Gwynelle will show nest-place for sleeping. Will show food-places and water-places. Will explain what must be explained." Liselotte's wings caught air, lifting her from the ground with effortless grace. "Sleep well, little godling. Tomorrow begins education in what strength actually means."

She soared back to her platform, leaving Ryelle standing in the amphitheater's center while the assembled harpies began dispersing to whatever evening activities occupied their time. Most of them spared her curious glances as they departed, and more than a few called out comments in languages she didn't understand.

Gwynelle materialized at her elbow, unannounced but also more welcome than Ryelle had anticipated. Her usual irrepressible energy seemed tempered now by something like gratitude or respect.

"Did good! Very good! Queen liked, I think. Usually first-timers nae get past second attack without being hurt much worse."

"That was her being gentle?"

"Oh yes. Very gentle. When Queen fights for real, enemies nae usually walk away with limbs still attached. Only one to beat her at fighting is Ebonheim, and that long time ago." The harpy bounced on her talons, wings fluttering. "Come! Show sleeping place, show food, show all things needed. Tomorrow will be busy day."

As they left the amphitheater, Ryelle caught sight of other harpies gathering in small groups, their conversations animated and punctuated by gestures toward where she walked. She couldn't understand their words, but their tone suggested she had provided the evening's primary entertainment.

"What are they saying?"

"Many things. Some think Queen too easy on divine avatar. Some think divine avatar showed good spirit. Some making bets on how long you last before giving up." Gwynelle's grin revealed teeth that, while not as impressive as Liselotte's, still reminded Ryelle that harpies were primarily carnivorous. "I bet you last at least full week."

"Optimistic of you."

"Gwynelle knows things. Sees things others nae see." The harpy led them along a path that wound between structures that looked grown rather than built—dome shapes covered in living vines, platforms suspended between trees by rope and sinew, workshops that seemed to be carved directly into the living rock of the island's surface. "Queen nae waste time on creatures with nae potential. Accepts you for training means sees something worth developing."

"Or she's looking forward to having new prey to hunt."

"Maybe both true. Queen complicated. Likes strong things, but also likes making strong things stronger." Gwynelle paused beside what appeared to be a natural cave mouth, though one fitted with a door made from woven branches. "Here. Guest sleeping place. Safe, warm, private. Food brought before sunset, water always available from stream behind trees."

The cave proved larger than its entrance suggested, with smooth walls that showed tool marks and a ceiling high enough for Ryelle to stand upright. Someone had furnished it with sleeping furs, a low table, and storage alcoves carved into the rock. A small fire pit near the entrance provided warmth and light, though ventilation gaps ensured the smoke wouldn't accumulate.

"Comfortable," Ryelle admitted, setting her pack on the table.

"Queen treats guests well. Even guests who come asking for pain and humiliation." Gwynelle perched on a rock outcropping that put her at Ryelle's eye level. "Can ask questions? Things wanted to know since you first came to harpy lands?"

"Of course."

"Why come here? Why nae train with own people? Surely gods have ways of becoming stronger that nae require help from mortals?"

The question struck closer to uncomfortable truths than Ryelle particularly liked. How to explain that divine avatars occupied a strange space between mortal and god, possessing power without the ability to grow it? That she was, in many ways, fundamentally limited in ways that true gods were not?

"My people are strong," she said finally. "But they're not fast. And speed seems to be what I need to learn."

"Mmm." Gwynelle's head tilted in that characteristic harpy gesture. "Speed important, yes. But nae most important thing Queen will teach."

"What is?"

The harpy's eyes gleamed with an expression that was all too familiar from her species—hunger, appraisal, and predatory delight. Her wings rustled, and her tone shifted just enough to carry more weight.

"Hunger. What Ebonheim lacks, Queen teaches."

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