The mornings had grown quieter.
The mist still clung to the cliffs like cobwebs, and the air cut deep with the sharpness of early frost—but something had changed in the Ironreach training grounds.
The children moved differently now. Their eyes darted more. Their silences were longer. As if something unseen had settled over them, heavy as rusted chains.
Adem noticed it most in the way Lira's hand hovered just a little too long near her belt, or the way Toren winced when the wind blew from the northeast. Even the ever-defiant Vela twitched when shadows shifted too fast.
For Adem, it was the dreams.
Every night since the descent into the Hollow Reaches, he dreamed of steps—smooth, black, spiraling down through thought and instinct. He never saw the bottom. He always woke before reaching it.
---
The sun broke late that day. A dull, bruised light painted the peaks, just enough to call the children from their beds and toward the courtyard stones, slick with dew.
They stood in line, breath rising in frosty clouds.
Instructor Garen loomed at the center. His broad frame was wrapped in tightly fastened leather over a dark-gray tunic, the Ironreach sigil—an iron tree bound in chains—stitched just below the collarbone. Pale scars slashed his jawline, and his stare held all the warmth of a winter blade.
"Today," he said, voice cutting, "you fight."
Not drill. Not spar.
Fight.
Beside him stood Rusk again—silent, lean, and sharp-eyed, his long black hair tied into a knot behind his head. His leather armor bore fresh tears, and the two knives on his belt looked recently sharpened.
But it wasn't them that drew the children's attention.
It was the woman behind them.
She emerged from the eastern gate like drifting smoke: tall, wrapped in layered robes of bronze, dark green, and obsidian silk. A metal veil covered the lower half of her face, and faintly glowing ink traced lines beneath her sharp, cold eyes.
Garen's voice dropped. "Elder Serei. Inner Circle. She observes. She does not intervene."
The children said nothing.
They didn't need to.
Even Toren kept his mouth shut.
---
Training began in silence.
Push-ups with iron sandbags strapped to their backs. Sprints across rough stone. Climbing the vertical wall without harness or help. The second they faltered, Garen barked once—and they redoubled their effort.
Adem's hands split again on the wall climb. Blood ran down his palms in tiny rivulets, hot against the cold stone. He didn't stop.
Pain was clarity.
It drowned the whispers.
---
Later, sparring began. Two by two.
Lira moved like ink poured into water—smooth, elusive, ungraspable. Her black hair was braided tightly against her head, her limbs honed from weeks of precise motion and long silence. Her opponent barely landed a strike before being floored.
Vela fought like a striking snake—aggressive and twitch-triggered. Her burn-scarred arm flared red with effort, but her eyes were steady, amber and unforgiving. She won through sheer ruthlessness.
Then Adem stepped into the ring.
His opponent: Harlan. Big. Broad. Brutish. A head taller and shoulders like a ram.
Adem barely glanced at him.
The match began.
Harlan rushed, footwork heavy, swinging wide.
Adem didn't dodge so much as slip—pivoting with a dancer's grace, then striking once, twice. A palm to the ribs. A low kick to the knee. A twist, and Harlan was on the ground gasping.
Silence followed.
Even Elder Serei tilted her head.
Garen gave no praise. Just a quiet nod.
Adem stepped off the ring with sweat beading his brow and a quiet fire curling beneath his ribs.
Something inside him had begun to wake.
---
They sat beneath the shade of the outer training wall afterward, as the morning melted into golden afternoon.
The wind had stilled. For once, peace held.
Toren slumped against the stones, pale and gasping. "I think that woman sees straight through skin. Maybe even bone."
"Maybe you should eat more," Vela muttered. "Give her something to look at."
"You offering your portion?"
"Over my dead body."
Adem sat beside them, back against the stone, staring into the sky. The clouds had thinned, and faint warmth traced down his arms.
Lira joined him, settling beside him with her arms across her knees.
"You've been different since the Hollow," she said.
Adem didn't reply.
"You hear it, too?"
He looked at her.
"You're listening for something," she clarified. "I can tell."
He hesitated, then nodded.
"I am."
She glanced forward again. "Don't listen too hard. Some voices whisper only so they can find your name."
---
That night, the skies cleared completely.
Stars bled across the heavens—so bright they drowned the dark. The barracks were unusually quiet, the fire crackling low. Someone hummed. Someone else slept with a hand still clenched around a wooden training knife.
Adem sat outside with Toren. Both stared upward.
"You ever think," Toren asked, "that we're just bait?"
Adem blinked. "Bait?"
"For something bigger. Something older. Something that doesn't even care what we're trying to be."
Adem thought for a long while.
"I don't think it matters what we're meant to be," he said. "I think it only matters what we become."
Toren grinned faintly. "You sound like an old man."
"I feel older."
They fell into silence again, the kind that wasn't awkward—just shared.
Somewhere far away, a beast cried out. But tonight, it sounded tired.
---
In his dreams, the stair returned.
Only now it was lower.
Closer.
Five steps.
Four.
Three.
He descended.
The air grew heavier, the walls breathing with his thoughts. He saw nothing, but something saw him.
Waiting.
Listening.
When he reached the second step, it whispered again—not words, but certainty.
"You are almost ready."
He woke with a start.
There was blood on his pillow.
Not much.
But enough.
---
By morning, the air had shifted again.
Even the animals were quiet.
And Garen stood with his arms folded, the flames behind him swaying sideways against a wind no one could feel.
"A mission," he announced. "Your first."
The word rang louder than it should've.
"You will be divided. Monitored. Pushed."
Adem's heartbeat quickened.
His limbs itched.
He was close.
Tier 1 was near.
But first—he would face the world beyond the wall.
And whatever it chose to become when it looked back at him.