Page 18 of The Sol Crown (Fractured Lights #1)

T he following morning, we’re scheduled for the agility test.

I stand at the edge of the field, arms crossed, eyeing the sprawling obstacle course ahead. It stretches across the training grounds like some sadistic playground, all ropes, iron, and cleverly disguised death traps. My eyes scan the layout.

Tightropes and narrow balance beams over shallow pits. Swinging axes. Climbing walls. Pressure plates and a moving terrain sprint to the end.

Is it messed up that I’m excited?

“Worried, Lina?” Deacon whispers in my ear.

I don’t turn to look at him, but I lift one corner of my mouth like he can see me. “Just figuring out where you’re going to fall flat on your face.”

He lets out a laugh, bright and full of challenge. “Bold of you to assume you’ll witness anything after I’ve left you in my dust.”

We exchange a quick look—one of those familiar, wordless moments built from years of pushing each other.

He’s fast. He always has been, and he’s agile in a way that makes most other trainees look clumsy. But I’m not like most trainees.

“Want to make it interesting?” He asks, already bouncing and twisting on the balls of his feet, loosening up like he’s prepping for a fight .

“Always,” I reply without missing a beat.

“Loser washes the winner’s uniform for a week.” He counters.

I glance pointedly at the state of his uniform—dusty, wrinkled, with a questionable stain on the collar—and curl my lip in mock disgust. Still, I stretch out my hand, utterly confident.

“You’re on.”

We shake, firm and fast.

“Try not to cry when you lose,” I add sweetly.

“You’ll be using your tears to scrub my uniform clean.”

“Barnett,” I say, striding over to where the instructor is sitting, marking names down on a clipboard. “Pair me against Deacon.”

He looks up at me with one brow raised.

“He’s being too cocky,” I explain.

The officer snorts.

“Be my guest,” he concedes, gesturing to the course.

I flash a grin in triumph as Deacon strolls over behind me, already catching wind of the conversation.

“She begging for mercy again?” he asks casually.

“I don’t have time for the two of you today,” Barnett mutters, not even looking up as he scribbles something furiously with the tip of his pen.

“Don’t worry,” I say sweetly. “Once I destroy him on this course, none of us will have to deal with his bullshit ever again.”

Deacon turns to me, hand over his heart in mock betrayal. “You wound me.”

“You’ll be more than wounded by the time I’m done with you.”

A few of the others nearby look over at our exchange, amused.

Junie is smirking from a distance. Even Sam chuckles under his breath.

But it’s the subtle shift I notice from Stone as he talks to yet another girl, where he straightens slightly, his arms crossed, attention fixed just a little too long on me before looking away again .

Barnett blows the whistle sharply. “Go on then. You’re both up. First round.”

We take our places at the start line, side by side. The other trainees drift over to watch, anticipation buzzing in the air. The course looms ahead, glorious in the morning light.

Deacon rolls his shoulders, cracking his neck. “Can’t wait to get my uniform nice and sweaty for you.”

“Pfft.” I scoff, crouching slightly in position. “You’ll be too busy trying to catch up to get dirty.”

The whistle shrieks.

We’re off.

My body launches forward on instinct—light and fast, heart pounding in time with my feet. Deacon keeps pace beside me, and for a moment, we’re perfectly matched—neck and neck.

The tightrope comes first. I leap up, landing lightly, but the rope still sways underfoot. Deacon lands to the right of me, arms spread for balance on his own course.

“Careful,” I tease, dancing across the rope without looking down. “Wouldn’t want to break that pretty face, we all know it’s the only thing you have.”

“Piss off,” he growls, but he’s laughing.

We both leap off the ropes and hit the axes. Timing is everything. I move with precision, slipping between swings, barely breathing. Deacon’s right beside me, his movements fluid, effortless. We both duck under the final blade and sprint for the wall.

He jumps for it first, searching for grip. I wait half a second longer, scan the surface, and launch myself where I see the faintest shift in the stone, something almost invisible.

I scale it faster.

I reach the top and hoist my body up, and as soon as my feet touch the ground, I sprint toward the pressure plates. My mind kicks into high gear—calculating spacing, weight distribution, and the subtle shifts in the tiles beneath my feet.

I weave through them with accuracy, barely touching the floor.

Deacon surges alongside me. We’re neck and neck.

By the time I hit the final terrain sprint, the world is tilting under my feet. Platforms shift like tectonic plates, unstable and wild.

I leap. Duck. Pivot.

All the while, Deacon stays beside me, matching my pace with a fluidity that seems almost effortless.

I dig deep, searching for that final spark—the smallest reserve of strength to carry me faster, just enough to beat him. I find it. I push.

And I cross the finish line half a second before him.

We both slow to a halt, panting, lungs burning.

“I let you win,” Deacon wheezes, then collapses in a heap on the floor. “I think I need a medic.”

A few people cheer, and I take a dramatic bow. That’s when I notice Stone, he’s no longer standing with the girl from before, but beside Trent instead. When he catches me looking, he starts clapping slowly, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

* * *

Steam curls thick through the room, fogging the edges of the brass mirror as I sink lower into the water. The bath is scalding, and my muscles sigh beneath the surface, loosening inch by inch from the brutal punishment I put them through today.

I rest my head back against the cool stone and let my limbs drift, the ache fading into the kind of quiet that only exhaustion brings.

The light from the lantern on the wall flickers, catching my reflection in the mirror across the room.

My crimson hair is plastered to my shoulders in damp ropes, and small tendrils curl around my face. A few freckles speckle my skin—across my nose, my shoulders, just where the sun touches.

I draw a breath and let it out slowly. The water ripples around me.

I close my eyes, slipping lower into the bath until the water laps at my chin. The silence is peaceful, my mind far too tired to do much wandering.

When I walk back into the bedrooms, towel wrapped around my body, I feel it immediately, the shift in the air. The subtle tightness that comes when you’re not alone, even before your eyes confirm it.

Stone is standing with his back to me, half-dressed, facing his bed. His shirt is bunched in his hands, already halfway off, and for a moment, all I see is sun-warmed skin, bronzed and smooth over lean muscle. My heart skips—then stutters.

Because the light catches something else.

Silver.

Faint at first, but unmistakable as he moves, long, pale scars lining his back like threads of old pain. Dozens of them, maybe more. Faintly raised, some overlapping, others jagged. Lash marks, most of them. Deep. Precise. Brutal.

There’s barely an inch of skin untouched.

My breath catches before I can stop it—a sharp, involuntary sound that gives me away.

Stone spins, eyes locking with mine.

“Who did that to you?” The words leave me quietly, barely a whisper. But he hears them.

His jaw tightens. He says nothing.

He pulls his clean shirt on with quick, practised movements, like covering the scars could erase the moment entirely. His eyes flick to mine—brief, unreadable—before he strides out the door without a word.

I think back to all the times I’ve seen him shirtless. It’s rare, he doesn’t usually take his top off around others, and now that I’m paying attention, I realise how carefully he’s always kept his back out of view.

I’m left standing in the middle of the room, breathing shallow, my heart thudding with the feeling of something heavy.

Because just moments ago, I thought Stone Carlisle was untouchable.

And it turns out he’s not.

* * *

Stone avoids me completely for the next few days.

He doesn’t sleep in our rooms, doesn’t eat with our team, and barely even looks at me during training exercises, even when we’re paired together. It’s like I’ve become invisible to him, and not in the useful way I’m trained to be.

Eventually, I begin to accept the truth I’ve been avoiding: the pull I feel toward Stone isn’t mutual. Whatever passed between us in that pit, whatever passed through the brush of his fingers on mine, was clearly one-sided. If there’s a door into who he really is, he’s slammed it shut.

So, I turn my thoughts elsewhere. To the missive I glimpsed in Carter’s quarters.

The warning it held hasn’t left me. Three days have passed since that dinner, and still, no move has been made. No change. No new orders.

So, in the quietest hours of the night, when my teammates are tucked into their beds, breaths slow and even in sleep, I make a choice.

I rise silently, slipping from my bunk without disturbing the blankets. Junie mumbles something incoherent and rolls over.

I wait. Count to twenty.

Then I move .

The castle walls are thick with silence by the time I slip out.

The torchlit hallway fades the deeper I go, swallowed by the dark as I descend narrow stone steps worn smooth by time.

This passage isn’t on any map.

And it’s my way out.

The corridor opens into a forgotten guard station—four walls tucked between two towers, crumbling but still hidden. I reach beneath a loose floorboard, fingers brushing against the leather satchel buried below, and pull it free.

Inside, everything is exactly how I left it.

Piece by piece, I shed the girl the world sees.

My training vest comes off, tossed aside as I pull on the long-sleeved charcoal shirt and the black leather vest moulded to my torso like a second skin. It smells like worn steel, familiar and grounding.