The fire was small, little more than embers in a broken brazier scavenged from the barracks. It gave off more smoke than warmth, curling into the rafters of the ruined waystation. Outside, the night howled—wind rattling loose boards, the shriek of distant creatures, the scrape of talons in the dark.
The Pack Leader's body still lay in the courtyard, too heavy to move. Lesser imps littered the ground around it. Their blood had soaked into the dirt, and even the flies seemed reluctant to touch the green ichor.
Iris Vale knelt beside him with sleeves rolled, hair ribbon half-unraveled, hands steady even when her voice wasn't. She pressed a clean strip of cloth to the claw-tear across his chest and winced when he did.
"You're an idiot," she said, a verdict, not an insult.
Zeke's mouth lifted. "I'm getting that a lot today."
"Don't joke." Her eyes flashed up at him, then down again, softer. "You almost died."
"But I didn't." He swallowed the cough that wanted out.
Her glare sharpened. She tapped the side of his head with two fingertips. "Do you think that makes the lesson disappear?"
"Lessons rarely do." He let his gaze slide to the doorway, to the stuttering fire, to the dark outside. "They just get louder."
Iris's hands paused. Then, almost grudgingly: "Good. Keep it loud."
They worked in a silence made of crackling wood and distant scavengers. She tied the last knot at his side, then leaned back on her heels and blew out a slow breath, as if she'd been holding it since the fight.
Zeke studied her face. "You stayed up for me."
"I stayed up so the idiot with a hole in his chest didn't bleed onto the floor," she said primly. Her cheeks warmed. "Don't make it weird."
"Wouldn't dare," he said, and meant it.
Across the brazier, Raven Nightwind sat with her blade laid across her knees. She hadn't slept. Zeke wasn't sure she did. Silver hair fell straight, armor unblemished by the mess around them, posture carved from the idea of discipline. When he moved, her rain-colored eyes opened, as if they'd been open the whole time and simply chose that moment to let him know.
"You're reckless," she said. Flat, factual.
"True," Zeke said. "And?"
"You fought up a realm," Raven said. "You're Mortal: Body Tempering—and barely begun at that—and you chose to cross blades with an Essence Realm predator. That isn't bravery. That's a short obituary."
Iris tensed. Zeke held Raven's gaze. "And yet here I am."
"That doesn't make you strong," Raven replied. "It makes you lucky. Luck dies faster than weakness." She let the words settle, then added, "You overreached because you have no control. Control is survival. Power without it burns its owner before it burns the world."
Zeke's ribs throbbed to the rhythm of her critique. "Then I'll learn control."
"See that you do." A beat. "Or the road will make a lesson of you."
She closed her eyes again. The conversation was over because she said so.
Zeke breathed carefully, counting the beats the way he'd been taught by the Beginner Breathing (E)—basic cultivation intake and circulation; builds essence gradually and syncs breath with flow—manual he'd bought from the Shop. Pull air in slow until the chest ached, hold for two heartbeats, push it out through the belly. In, hold, out. The ache shifted from sharp to dull.
His Unyielding (Trait, Rare)—greater resistance to interruption and pain; once per day cannot be stunned below 20% HP—sat in him like a small, stubborn sun. The trait hadn't made the fight easy. It had just made "still moving" possible. He respected that.
Outside, wind dragged along the stones, and something with too many joints clicked across the courtyard and then away. Iris edged closer to him without looking like she was edging closer to him.
"Sleep," she ordered.
"You first," he said.
She sniffed, offended by how sensible he was being, and sat with her staff across her lap, eyelids falling in slow blinks. Zeke let his head rest against the wall and half-closed his eyes.
The System pulsed faintly at the edge of his vision. Cold brackets, waiting. He thought Inventory, checked the neat little grid, and exhaled. The Basic Pouch (+3 slots; tutorial reward) dangled in the corner of the panel like a gift from a stingy uncle.
He dismissed it and drifted in the shallow water of exhaustion.
A voice warmed the water.
[You really do love pain, don't you?]
Zeke smiled in spite of himself. "You're staying this time."
[What, you thought I was a polite hallucination? I'm not the Shop. I don't leave when things get interesting.]
"Eve," he said, quiet and sure.
[Good. Names matter.]
He didn't ask how she knew the shape of his thoughts. He didn't ask who or what she was beyond Guide. The questions felt like tripping hazards; the answers could come when he wasn't held together by cloth and attitude.
"You saved my life," he said instead. "That rhythm."
[Last Stand Resonance (Unique F) — emergency sync of breath, heartbeat, and motion; five heartbeats of clarity and +precision when you're about to die; once per day. Don't get addicted to it. A crutch makes cowards out of runners.]
"A crutch is better than a coffin."
[Sometimes. Sometimes a coffin is quieter.]
He huffed out a laugh that tugged at stitches. "You have a mean streak."
[I have a realistic streak. You, Zeke Blade, have a promise lodged in your marrow. You said you won't leave your family defenseless. Promises are chains. Weak backs break under them. Strong backs get thicker.]
"I won't break," he said. He didn't know if it was true. He said it like it had already happened.
[Then you'll need habits, not just heart.]
"Habits?" He thought of swing drills in dust and his mother's insistence on washing hands even when water was low.
[Ritual is better than resolve. Pain respects schedules. Starting tomorrow: Breathing on the hour at sunrise and sunset; Form Drills after every fight while your body is in a Receptive Window—the two hours after strain when gains anchor faster; Iron Channel—route essence to limbs for extra force or guard stability—on a ten-count, then rest. No more yanking essence like you're drawing water from a broken well.]
Zeke nodded, eyes closed. "Yes, Guide."
[Eve.]
"Yes, Eve."
Iris's head jerked, then settled again. Raven didn't move. The fire cracked and gave up its last bright coal.
Zeke slid under a thin sleep, the kind where one ear stays listening for teeth in the dark.
—
Morning came stingy and gray. A weak sun smeared itself over the ruined walls. The courtyard smelled less like killing and more like iron and damp stone. Crows argued about who owned whose eyeballs on the outer wall.
Raven stood on the road already, white armor catching what light there was. She didn't tap her foot; she was the sort of person whose stillness did the tapping for her.
Zeke pushed himself upright. Everything complained. He did not say "ow," because he had pride, and also because he was not sure he'd stop if he started. He caught Iris watching him. She looked away too late.
"I'm fine," he told her.
"You're bandaged to the bone," she said. "That isn't 'fine.'"
"Fine-adjacent," he conceded.
She made a noise like a strangled laugh and handed him his sword. He took it and exhaled at the familiar weight. He slid it through his belt and adjusted the wrap on his ribs under his shirt.
Raven's eyes flicked to him and back to the road. "Seven days," she said. "That's the distance to Zenith's outer ring. Seven days of ambushes, beasts, and worse. Survive, and the capital will bother to notice you. Fail, and the road will eat you and forget your name."
Her gaze met his, cool and assessing. "You grew fast in one night. Faster than you should. If you collapse before the gates, I will not drag you."
Zeke nodded once. "Then I won't collapse."
A fractional bend of her head. Approval? Permission to try again? Hard to read the weather behind those eyes.
They moved.
—
By the second bend in the road, the waystation sat behind them like a bad mood. Hills of brown winter grass rolled ahead. A bare-limbed grove waited off to the right, all the branches pointing in the same wrong direction. The kind of thing you notice if you've seen too much and ignore if you want to sleep later.
Zeke let his breath settle into the box the Beginner Breathing (E) taught him—intake and steady circulation; foundation for every other gain. He counted four in, two held, six out, walking the numbers until his ribs stopped screaming and started complaining in an orderly fashion.
At the edge of his sight, the Shop yawned itself open when he thought about it.
• Minor Healing Leaf — chew; fast small heal — 5 pts
• Essence Salts — restores 5 Essence; bitter — 12 pts
• Sharpening Stone — edge buff for ~one fight — 6 pts
• Warding Thread — single-use charm vs. fear/hex — 10 pts
• Appraisal Lens I — cleaner reads, +lore — 15 pts
• Binding Cord — snare small/medium foe — 3 pts
He didn't do math out loud. The numbers still added themselves. He selected the practical kind of greed.
[Purchase: Healing Leaf ×3]
[Purchase: Essence Salts ×2]
[Purchase: Warding Thread ×1]
[Purchase: Sharpening Stone ×1]
[Purchase: Binding Cord ×2]
[Purchase: Appraisal Lens I ×1]
[Discount Applied: 5%]
[Items sent to Inventory.]
A small lens, no bigger than a thumbnail and engraved with a plain sigil, dropped into a slot. The Appraisal Lens I—improves enemy/item reads; reduces mis-ID in poor light—wouldn't make him smarter, but it would make him wrong less loudly.
They walked until the sun decided it had done enough and went sulk behind clouds. They ate on their feet: hard bread that had not improved with travel, a strip of dried meat that might have once been comfortable with the idea of being food, water from a canteen that tasted like tin but not disease.
. Wen
When Zeke's shoulder loosened and his ribs stopped biting with each step, Eve's voice slid in like a teacher who had been waiting outside the classroom for the talking to die down.
[Ready?]
"For what?" he murmured.
Iris cut him a side-eye. He pretended he'd said nothing.
[Ritual. You like big moments. Hate to disappoint, but growth is made of small ones. We start now.]
Zeke nodded to nobody. He tapped the Inventory and slid a Sharpening Stone—temporary edge buff; one fight or thirty minutes—into his palm when Raven called a halt at a creek that had learned to pretend it was clean.
He knelt on a flat rock. Drew the iron across stone. One, two, three, breathe. He moved slow, like he was teaching his hands to be kinder.
Iris perched on a log, staff across her knees. She watched him as if the air around him might do something. "You're quieter than usual," she observed.
"Trying not to die noisily later," he said.
She turned that over. Nodded. "Good plan."
The blade looked no prettier after ten passes. It felt more honest. He slid the stone away and stood, rolling his shoulders, breathing in fours and sixes until the cold in his bones felt like attention instead of threat.
[Form Drills: Basic Swordsmanship (F) — foundation cuts/thrusts/guards; clean mechanics build speed later. Ten minutes. No heroics.]
"Understood," he whispered, then began.
He stepped into Guard, slid to Thrust, reset to Cleave, stepped through to Recover—slow, precise. His ribs tugged. He corrected his feet. The world shrank to the length of a blade and the width of a stance. Raven was a pale shape leaning against a tree. Iris a quieter shape on the log. The creek made a sound like a blade while it sleeps.
Ten minutes later, sweat climbed his spine and his breath was a tidy machine. He stopped because stopping was the habit he meant to build.
[Good. Now Iron Channel (E)—route essence into forearm for a single heavy cut; stop at the first sign of stutter.]
He drew in breath, dipped essence into his right arm like a ladle into a pot, felt the limb hum with borrowed weight, then eased the charge out before the stutter came. He did it again on the left, which felt like writing with his off-hand—wrong, then slightly less wrong.
"Enough," he said aloud.
Raven's eyes flicked. Approval? He chose to believe so.
Iris slid off the log and came closer. "You're actually… pacing yourself."
"I was told luck dies fast," he said. "And that I'm short on control."
A tiny smile escaped her. "Whoever told you that must be very wise."
"She's terrifying," Zeke said.
Iris looked at Raven. "Agreed."
"I meant—" he started, then stopped. The correction could wait. The Guide didn't need a publicist.
They made camp in the lee of a low hill, half ringed by thornbush. Raven mandated no fire. The brazier would be a lighthouse for things that liked lighthouses.
Under a sky that couldn't decide between slate and coal, Zeke settled into the earth like a man rubbing his back against an old ache. Iris arranged herself at an angle that let her see him and the dark at the same time. Raven took first watch because of course she did.
Zeke closed his eyes and found Eve waiting.
[Good first day.]
"Half day," he said.
[And yet you didn't try to fight the sky. I'm impressed.]
"Low bar."
[Bars move. Tomorrow we raise it.]
He cracked one eye. "How high?"
[High enough that you'll curse me and do it anyway. Your Body Tempering wants rhythm. You'll give it rhythm. At 30%, you hit First Resonance—breath and essence sync; foundation for moving like you mean it. Pace toward that. Two days, if you don't get clever.]
"Two?" he whispered.
[You love pain. Consider this compromise romantic.]
He huffed. His ribs argued. He stopped laughing.
"Raven said fighting up a realm is a short obituary," he said quietly. "She's right."
[Mostly. Realm is one measure. Mastery tiers are another. The Pack Leader wasn't just Essence Realm; it was practiced. You made it bleed with Last Stand Resonance because you stopped fighting yourself for five heartbeats. Learn to stop fighting yourself for six. Ten. Then you won't need me to reach in.]
"You'll still reach," he said.
[I'll still be here.]
A pause.
"Eve… what are you?" he asked, not expecting an answer and wanting one anyway.
[A bridge. Between what you can do and what you tell yourself you can't. Stop asking what I am. Ask what you'll be when the promise you made starts to cost you things you thought you could keep.]
His mouth went dry. He thought of Shardbrook. Reyn's laugh. His mother's hands. The empty spaces that could cut through a family like winter does.
"I'll pay," he said. "Whatever it costs."
[That is how boys become monsters or legends. Try for the second. Monsters don't keep promises.]
Sleep came late and brittle.
—
Day two wore the hills down to their bleakest versions. They crossed a creek that had decided it would rather be a swamp, skirted a field where the soil had caved in as if something underneath exhaled, and walked a road that made no sound. Sound seemed scared of this part of Infiniti.
Raven's pace didn't change. She didn't say left or right. She simply drifted like a blade that would be wherever it needed to be when it was time to cut.
Zeke's rituals kept him company. Four steps in, two held, six out. Ten minutes of Basic Swordsmanship (F) drills at noon. Iron Channel (E) on a ten-count, release at the first stutter. Stop before pride replaced sense. He felt stupidly proud of stopping.
In the late afternoon, when the cold reached through cloth into bone, the Appraisal Lens I warmed against his palm.
[Ahead: Corrupted Boars (3). Aggressive. Prefer charge.
Kill Reward: 8 Points each.
Note: Hamstrings soft; eyes soft; disdain for stairs.]
"Three boars," he said softly.
Raven didn't look back. "I know."
They came around a bend to find them waiting: huge, hide matted with filth, tusks grown wrong, eyes too bright. The boars pawed the dirt with hooves that looked like they had forgotten how to be hooves.
Raven lifted a hand. "Do not overextend," she said to Zeke without looking at him. "Stand. Cut. Step. Do not chase."
"Yes," he said.
Iris muttered, "Don't die," like a prayer through teeth.
The first boar charged. Zeke set his feet, Iron Channel (E) flowed, he slid his blade along the tusk to divert, stepped, Cleave down along the spine. The cut didn't go as deep as he wanted. He didn't swing again. He reset. The boar wheeled, foam and stink, came back. He stepped, cut hamstring, stepped, Thrust to the eye when it dipped. It screamed and fell.
[Kill Confirmed: Corrupted Boar]
[+8 Points]
[Style Bonus: +10% — No damage taken for 30 sec.]
The second boar rushed Iris. She braced with her staff as if she'd been doing it all her life, jabbed once, twice, bought herself a heartbeat and then another. Zeke moved without sprinting—Raven's rule in his blood—and cut the tendon above the hoof. The beast stumbled. Iris slammed her staff down in a clean arc that cracked across its skull. It went down. She stared at it like it had broken a rule and gotten exactly what it deserved.
The third chose badly and went for Raven. She stepped inside its charge and touched its neck with light. The head kept going for a few more steps without the neck that escorted it. Then it remembered it had priorities and collapsed.
Zeke stood with breath steady, blade up, not chasing, not grinning. He wanted to grin. He chose not to. He listened for stutter in his channels. He didn't hear it. He let the essence drain politely.
[Body Tempering Progress: +4%]
[Warning: Receptive Window Open ~100 min. Drills now anchor faster.]
He nodded. "Drills," he said.
Raven looked at him then. "Good," she said, like stone might say "weather."
He worked. Ten minutes. Stop. The wanting—the itch to keep going until he fell down—was a hungry animal. He fed it discipline. It did not like the taste. It would learn.
Iris crouched, fingers hovering over the dead boar's hide. "Do we… salvage anything?" she asked, looking at Raven. "Is that disrespectful?"
Raven shook her head. "Demons don't deserve rites. They deserve to be smaller."
Zeke cut a tusk free and slid it into his Inventory. Trophy, reminder, currency. It felt like all three. Iris watched him, then—reluctant and resolute—cut a sliver of hide with a neat hand. She wrapped it in cloth like she didn't trust it not to bite through.
That evening, no fire again. The cold dragged question marks out of joints. Zeke lay on his side, facing Iris's silhouette. She faced his. Neither of them moved, in case moving would mean admitting the thought that was trying to be thought.
[You fought without singing to yourself about it,] Eve said, faint approval in the warmth.
"I wanted to," he admitted.
[Wanting is fine. Want quietly.]
He closed his eyes and saw Shardbrook's lane between wheat, the well with Reyn's bad jokes, his mother's basket of lavender that always weighed more than it should. The promise chained itself tighter in his chest and somehow made breathing easier.
—
Day three began with frost and a sky that had decided blue wasn't an emotion it wanted to feel anymore. They crossed a bridge made by someone who hated bridges, flat stones that wobbled like teeth.
Halfway across, the Appraisal Lens I warmed.
[Lesser Shade (1) below. Cold pull. Avoid eye contact; keep breath shallow.
Kill Reward: 15 Points.
Note: Warding recommended.]
Zeke's hand slid to the Warding Thread—single-use charm against fear/hex effects—in his pouch.
Raven's voice cut the air: "Step lightly. Don't look down. Let it be hungry for someone else."
They stepped. The cold pull rose like fog through the cracks. Fear's fingers teased at Zeke's spine. He kept the Beginner Breathing (E) shallow, low, a secret. Iris's lips moved. Not a spell—he would've felt the click of ritual—but a prayer. Maybe that counted more.
Nothing reached up. They crossed. Zeke didn't say "easy." He was learning.
On the far side, he exhaled slow and looked down the road. It went on. Of course it did. Roads were professional like that.
"Two days down," Iris said, as if saying it out loud made it more true. "Five to Zenith."
"Five to the outer ring," Raven corrected. "Then the city notices whether you're worth numbering."
Zeke rolled that around. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be a number or a name. He decided he wanted to be the kind of name numbers respected.
Near noon, Raven called a halt in a patch of weak sun. "You," she said, nodding at Zeke. "Show me your footwork."
He blinked. "Now?"
"Now," she said. "Before the next idiot leaps at you and your cleverness forgets you have feet."
He stood. His ribs didn't complain as loudly. He stepped into Guard, flowed to Thrust, slid through Cleave, adjusted his rear foot the way his grandfather used to smack him for forgetting. Raven circled him like a question with a sword.
"Again," she said.
He did it again.
"Again."
He did it again.
On the fourth repetition, she reached out and nudged his hip.
"You cut with your arms," she said. "You should be cutting with the ground."
He blinked. Lowered his shoulders. Let the weight sink from his chest into his legs, into the earth, into the promise that had nowhere to go but down. He cut again.
Raven's mouth almost changed shape. "Better." She stepped back. "Finally, you look less like a boy waving iron and more like someone who might someday stop being prey."
"High praise," Zeke said, dry. He couldn't help it.
Raven's eyes cooled. "Don't mistake it for comfort."
"I don't," he said, and didn't.
Iris watched all this as if she were trying not to be impressed and failing at that, too. "You listen when you want to," she told Zeke as they started walking again.
"Learning control," he said, repeating Raven's earlier line because sometimes repetition was how you ate new ideas.
"Good," Iris said. "Learn not to scare me next."
"I'll add it to the list."
"Put it near the top."
He saluted with two fingers, and she tried to hide her smile again. She needed a new tactic.
By evening, Zeke's Body Tempering had crept forward. Not leaps. Not thrilling. The slow shove of habit moving bone.
[Body Tempering Progress: 20% → 24%]
[Note: Receptive Window closing. Hydrate. Sleep.]
He obeyed. He didn't want to. He obeyed anyway.
They slept in the shadow of a fallen milestone whose inscription had been scratched away by small, angry hands. Zeke dreamed of a seam in the sky stitched shut by clumsy gods.