On the fourth morning, the wind woke mean. It drove grit under clothes and into teeth. Raven chose a route that hugged a line of gray stones. "Cover," she said. "Also a good place for something with claws to throw a party."
"What a relief," Zeke said.
It was almost noon when the Appraisal Lens I heated against his palm hard enough to border on rude.
[Imp Pack (5). Hiding in scrub. Leaderless.
Kill Reward: 10 Points each.
Note: Will try to provoke chase; do not.]
"Imps," Zeke said, concise.
Raven nodded once, already angling their path to deny the scrub its favorite trick angles. "Don't chase," she said. "Make them be the impatient ones."
They came like thieves who couldn't help bragging: too loud, too eager. Zeke met the first with a clean Guard, slid his blade along its forearm, dipped Iron Channel (E) for one heartbeat, and laid a Cleave across its clavicle. Down. Reset. No grin.
He wanted to roll that win into a dance. He did not. He had learned a little. The second tried to bait him with a feint; he stepped, thrust to its centerline, and let it die mad about being ordinary.
Raven did not draw her blade. She let two imps spend themselves on her armor's edge and her patience, then killed them in the space between blinks. Iris cracked the fifth across the shoulder with her staff and said, "No," like she meant it, and the creature died offended.
[Kills Confirmed x5]
[Body Tempering Progress: 24% → 27%]
[Style Bonus: +10% — no damage taken.]
Zeke breathed. He felt the itch to do drills right there. He looked at Raven. She said nothing. He did them anyway, ten minutes, hands obeying, breath obeying, essence obedient.
[Good,] Eve said, soft. [Look at you, not dying dramatically.]
"High bar," he murmured.
[You keep clearing it. That's the trick. Not the first leap, Zeke. The one after it, when your legs remember they're tired.]
He thought of the Pack Leader's green eyes dimming. He did not think about dying. He had done that already. He preferred this.
—
They camped by a stream that had found the energy to be blue. Raven allowed a small fire. Either she decided the risk was worth the warmth, or she wanted to see them in light for a change. Zeke chewed one Minor Healing Leaf—fast, small heal; bitter as medicine ought to be—and felt the edge sing less in his ribs.
Iris doled out bread like it was a privilege she was considering rescinding. "Eat," she told him. "Properly."
"Yes, shrine sergeant."
"Don't call me that."
"Yes, shrine sergeant," he repeated, just to see if she'd smile. She threatened him with stale crust. It was progress.
Raven watched them, head tilted. "You're quieter now," she said to Zeke.
"Learning control," he repeated for the third time in as many days.
"Good," she said. "You can be loud again when you've earned the right."
He looked into the fire, then up at the slice of sky. "What does Zenith test?" he asked. "Strength?"
"Strength without control is a parade," Raven said. "Zenith tests whether you can survive your own power while someone else tries to take it from you."
"Sounds welcoming."
"It isn't."
Iris poked the fire with a stick that didn't deserve the attitude. "Then we'll help him pass."
Raven's eyes slid to her. "He will pass or fail alone."
"He won't be alone," Iris said, soft and iron at once.
The envoy didn't argue. She didn't agree. She stood and took second watch without being asked.
Zeke lay back, folded hands under his head, and waited for Eve's warmth.
It came.
[You're near First Resonance—30% Body Tempering; breath and essence finally decide to be friends. Tomorrow, if you don't get clever.]
"I haven't gotten clever," he said.
[You tried to name your stance three times during drills.]
He groaned. "You could hear that?"
[I can hear the part of you that wants to turn everything into a story to avoid doing the boring parts. Do the boring parts.]
"Yes, Eve," he said, sheepish.
[There's the tone I like.]
He closed his eyes and let the fire snap and the stream pretend at calm. Somewhere, far away, Shardbrook dreamed in wheat and ash. He made a promise to the quiet: I won't leave you defenseless. The chain tightened and warmed.
—
Day five began like a slap and ended like a seminar.
They fought an overgrown crow thing that wanted eyes more than meat; Raven cut it into academic lessons about angles. They found a shrine stone overturned and Iris—eyes hard—righted it with Zeke's help, then muttered a prayer through gritted teeth because gods didn't deserve niceness but sometimes people did. They passed a caravan wheel half-buried like a coin on heads.
In a patch of short grass behind a tumbled wall, Zeke hit 30%.
It didn't make a sound. It felt like noticing his breath had been out of step with the world and then—click—he could hear the downbeat. First Resonance (Milestone)—breath and essence in consistent sync; movement starts to add power instead of leak it—anchored like a pin through fabric.
[Body Tempering: 30% — First Resonance Achieved.]
He didn't shout. He didn't swing. He stood very still and let the feeling burn a thin line around his ribs like a sash of heat.
"Something happened," Iris said, intuition pricking.
"Something is happening," Zeke corrected softly.
Raven watched him with a knife of interest she tried to keep under her thumb. "Good," she said. "Now your bad habits will have to argue with physics before they trip you."
Zeke laughed. It didn't hurt as much. He turned to Iris and offered the briefest, stupidest bow. She rolled her eyes and bowed back with ceremony, because she could be ceremonial when it wouldn't help.
They kept moving. The world did not applaud. He preferred it that way.
—
On the sixth night, rain came hard, angry at the ground for existing. They huddled under an overhang that was either a boulder or a building's last opinion. Water sheeted off Raven's armor. Zeke's shirt decided to become a cold pet. Iris's ribbon finally surrendered and tied itself to her wrist instead of her hair.
"I hate this," she announced to the weather.
"It hates you back," Zeke said. "You should be flattered."
She elbowed him. Not gently. He accepted the discipline.
He chewed a second Minor Healing Leaf because he was done pretending pride tasted better than medicine, and let Beginner Breathing (E) turn the damp air into slow fuel. Eve hummed approval like warmth under a blanket you pretend isn't there.
[Tomorrow, gates,] she said.
"Outer ring?" he asked.
[The part of the city that pretends it is kinder because the walls are taller.]
"Encouraging."
[You didn't ask for encouragement. You asked for power.]
"I asked for both," he said, surprising himself with the honesty.
[You'll get one. Earn the other.]
He let the rain talk to the stone until his bones were bored enough to sleep.
—
Day seven put Zenith on the horizon like a rumor made brick: far towers smudged by distance, walls like a line someone drew with a ruler and then bled on. Roads braided into one thicker rope, carrying more travelers than the days before—farmers who had run out of farms, guards who didn't want to be where they were, traders trying to look like this was fine.
Raven slowed. Not because she was tired. Because arrival is a kind of fight and you don't run at those without choosing how.
"Outer ring by nightfall," she said.
Zeke nodded. Iris swallowed and made her face set the way it did when she was about to be braver than she wanted to be.
Imps tried once more near a mile marker. Zeke didn't chase. He didn't even smirk. He cut two, let Raven pierce one without unsheathing properly—he hadn't worked out how that was possible and didn't ask—and watched Iris sweep a third's legs in a clean arc that made something in his chest clap.
[Body Tempering: 30% → 32%]
[Note: Resonance holding. Good.]
The road eased downhill. The city grew. Voices did, too, human noise outweighing wild for the first time in a week. Smoke rose that smelled like cooking instead of burning. Zeke didn't realize how much that mattered until he let his shoulders drop and felt the difference between fear and hunger in his gut.
"Zeke," Iris said, low.
"Mm?"
"When you almost died at the waystation—" She stopped. Picked a different path through the sentence. "Don't do that again."
"I prefer not to," he said. "But if it's that or you dying—"
"Find a third thing," she snapped, fierce, and then caught herself, softer. "Please."
He looked at her. Really looked. At the ribbon on her wrist, at the careful mouth trying not to ask for more than she was allowed to ask for, at the eyes that wanted to see good and kept seeing the world instead.
"I'll try," he said.
Eve's voice was a whisper behind his ear.
[Trying is a door. Don't leave it closed.]
He nodded, to himself, to everyone.
Raven halted them a bowshot from the gates. "From here," she said, "your names matter less than your knives. Zenith tests. It doesn't care about your excuses. You," she nodded at Zeke, "have learned not to die loudly for four days in a row. Keep going. You," to Iris, "stop being surprised when you're brave. It wastes time."
Iris bristled. "I—"
"She's right," Zeke said, gentle.
"I hate that," Iris muttered.
"Me too," he agreed.
Raven turned to the road again. "Come. Register. Then eat. Then sleep. Tomorrow you begin the business of being noticed."
"The business?" Zeke said.
"Zenith doesn't have citizens. It has investments."
He filed that away under things to dislike and learn to live with. The System pulsed blandly, offended by nothing, excited by discounts.
As they joined the slow stream toward the checkpoint, Zeke checked his panels one last time.
[Skills:
• Basic Swordsmanship (F) — foundation forms; cleave/thrust/guard
• Farmhand's Endurance (F) — stamina, carry more without complaint
• Beginner Breathing (E) — intake & circulation; base of all things
• Iron Channel (E) — route essence to limb; heavy cut or braced guard
• Blade Flow (E) — small speed after clean hit; smoother chains
• Last Stand Resonance (Unique F) — five-heartbeat near-death sync; once/day]
[Traits: Bladeborn (Common) — faster sword learning; Unyielding (Rare) — resist interrupts; once/day anti-stun below 20% HP]
[Items (notable): Healing Leaf ×1, Essence Salts ×2, Warding Thread ×1, Sharpening Stone ×0, Binding Cord ×2, Appraisal Lens I]
He closed the panels because nobody else could see them and also because he didn't want to be the kind of man who looked at screens while walking into a city that might decide he didn't deserve doors.
"Eve," he said under the noise.
[Yes.]
"Stay close."
[Where else would I go?]
"Good," he said, and walked toward the place where the world kept its teeth filed and hidden behind laws.
The promise in his chest tugged its chain and felt heavier and right.
He did not intend to break.
He intended to make breaking him expensive.