The bell rang at noon. Short. Final.
> Status: Vitality low, stable. Calf wound sealed under tight wrap. Ribs tender.
Qi: trace present. Control minimal.
Pattern: observation only; active use raises fatigue fast.
Elder Kase stood in the square, staff planted. "Second task," he said. "Enter the Den. Kill a beast. Bring back a tooth or claw. No killing each other. If you do, you leave your body in the pit."
Jorin Vale smiled without looking at AION. "You heard him," he told the crowd. "No accidents." Laughter from his two lackeys.
Kase pointed to the cliff path. "Wardens will open the grate. Two at a time. When the bell sounds, next pair goes."
Pairs formed. Pell moved beside AION, eyes tight. "We go together," he whispered.
"Confirmed," AION said.
They climbed to the Den mouth: an iron grate set into raw stone. The air that bled out was wet and sour. Blood, mold, old fear. Two wardens lifted the grate. Another warden scratched marks into a board names in rough script.
"First pair," he said.
Two disciples slipped inside. The grate fell. The valley listened. A short struggle. A scream. Then nothing. The warden marked one line, paused, then struck the second with a straight slash. One back. One not.
Riven's voice moved low in AION's skull. It's dark and slick. The floor dips to a pool. Things nest under the lip. Rats big as dogs. Worms with teeth. Don't rush the center.
"Noted," AION said.
"Next pair."
Two more went in. Time stretched. A grating squeal. A boy stumbled out with a bloody paw held high, face white. Alone. His partner did not follow.
Pell swallowed. "We don't split."
"We won't," AION said.
"Next," the warden said, nodding at them.
AION ducked under the grate with Pell. Iron fell behind. Darkness swallowed the light from outside.
---
The Den was a low tunnel, ten paces wide, higher in the middle. Moisture dripped from a ceiling shot through with roots. The floor sloped to a shallow pool that reflected their lantern, no, no lantern; only the faint green of cave fungus here and there.
> Environment: wet stone, poor footing, shallow water center, echo strong.
Threats: aquatic ambush from pool lip; burrowers in wall; swarm from ceiling roots.
Objective: acquire lethal sample (tooth/claw) and exit alive.
Pell's voice shook. "Left wall. Keep hand on rock."
"Agreed," AION said.
They moved. Slow. Feet tested each step. The Den widened. Scrape sounds came from the right, under the lip of the pool.
AION crouched. "Stop."
He let breath settle to the 4–4–6 cadence. He tracked the echoes. Something large moved in shallow arcs. Cadence: three beats swim, one beat pause to feel bottom. Another pattern, smaller, skittering along the wall to their left, rats, three of them, sniffing.
"Rats left," he whispered. "Big thing in water. We handle rats first."
"How?" Pell asked.
AION felt for the Pattern. He did not flare lines. He watched the skitter rhythm. The lead rat paused every fifth step to test air. He counted. Four. Five...
"Now," AION said, and stepped, boot heel stamping hard just ahead of the pause. The rat jerked its head into the stamp. Bone crunched. He hooked it with his free hand, slammed it into the wall, and crushed the throat with a short forearm press. Clean. Quiet.
The other two darted. Pell swung his stick, wild. Missed. AION shifted, stuck a boot out. A rat tripped. Pell recovered and brought the stick down hard. The rat went limp.
The third launched at Pell's leg. AION intercepted with a low kick. The rat hit the wall and rebounded. Pell stabbed with the stick like a spear. The point entered the eye. The rat thrashed and died.
Pell panted. "You planned that?"
"Observed," AION said. He pried a long yellowed tooth loose from the first kill. "One. Keep moving."
A ripple passed across the pool. A wider back broke the surface. Then shrank. Then rose again ten paces left.
"Big one is testing," AION said. "It tracks vibration."
"Wardens said one beast each," Pell whispered hopefully.
"Wardens lie when they need to," AION said. "Move."
They hugged the left wall. The slime grew thick. Their feet slipped. Behind them, metal rattled, the grate opening for the next pair. The Den air lifted, then settled.
Something slid across stone near the lip. Not the big back. Smaller. Flat. A centipede thing as long as a forearm, all legs and mouth-hooks, hugged the wet edge. It stopped at their scent.
AION bent, picked a stone with an edge, and flicked it at the mouth underhand, hard and low. The stone hit the mouth, stunned it. Pell stomped with both feet. Hooks snapped. It went still. AION pried two inch-long barbs from its jaws. Hard, curved. Better than a rat tooth.
"Take one," he said. "If we get separated, you have proof."
"Not getting separated," Pell said. But he pocketed the barb.
The big ripple returned, closer. A low gurgle came up from the pool, like a man choking under a blanket.
Riven's voice cut. Don't fight it in the water. It will pull you under. There's a shelf there. They drag you to the shelf and bite until you stop.
"Edge," AION said. "Shelf. Find anchor."
They found an old iron ring set into the wall, rusted to scale. Pell looped his rope through. AION wrapped his forearm. Not to hold them, but to deny the drag.
The water bulged.
A long shape exploded from the pool, grey, slick, eel-thick, with a jaw that split vertical as well as horizontal, a double-hinged mouth full of backward teeth. It hit the edge, overshot, thrashed, and hooked itself on the stone.
Pell yelled and stabbed with his stick. The point bounced.
"Neck seam!" AION shouted.
He stepped in. Accepted the first hit. The jaw grazed his left hip, teeth opening meat. He logged the cost as he drove his slate shard into the seam where the head joined the body. Hard angle. Both hands. Push until the blade bit. The eel thing thrashed. The rope went tight. Pell was yanked, feet skidding, but the ring held. AION levered the shard and tore sideways. The seam opened. Blood black as oil spilled. The beast convulsed. Then it sagged.
> Cost: laceration left hip, bleeding moderate; endurance -10%; dizziness mild.
Result: target down.
Pell's breath shuddered. "You let it hit you."
"Trade for line," AION said. He pried at the mouth. Teeth too small to count. Wrong trophy.
He used the shard to split skin behind the jaw. He found a hard plate the size of a thumb, cartilage tooth, deep-rooted. He sliced around it, freed it, and held it up.
"Claw equivalent," he said.
Pell grinned despite shock. "We go back now."
"Not yet," AION said.
"Why not?"
"The Den pays twice if you look," AION said. He pointed with the bloody shard at the wall above the pool. Faint lines had been cut into the stone long ago. Not animal. Not water wear. Lines crossed at specific intervals, repeating.
Pell squinted. "Scratches."
"Not scratches," AION said. "Pattern." He didn't trace with fingers. He traced with eyes. Cross, triangle, short line, repeat. The same cadence he had felt in his palms when the Pattern asked for fear and gave him lines.
Seed logged. He did not say more. He did not have the words to make Pell listen to geometry.
A hiss slid from the ceiling. A mat of roots above their heads shook. The roots were not roots. Small worm-things hung in clusters, each with circular mouths like cups full of teeth. The smell turned sourer.
"Move," AION said. "Hug the wall. Do not step under a cluster."
They moved. A mouth-cup fell from the ceiling and thudded where AION had been. It shivered and then latched on the rock, teeth sawing air.
"Faster," Pell said through teeth.
"Controlled," AION said.
The grate ahead rattled. A scream cut it in half. Then Jorin's voice inside the Den, amused. "You lot still playing?"
Jorin dropped from the tunnel mouth alone, landing light. His robe was smeared with slime, but his hands were clean. He carried a wolf's paw, claws long.
AION said nothing. Pell's face went narrow.
Jorin looked at the eel corpse. "Nice fish. Tastes good if you like rot." He lifted the paw. "Real beast."
He took one step toward AION, then another, feet light on wet rock. "How many times must I say it? Don't walk in my path. The Elder's rules keep me from breaking you out there. In here…" He smiled. "Here, beasts get hungry and people slip."
The ceiling worms above Jorin quivered. They dropped in two small clusters toward where AION and Pell stood, mouths open.
AION did not look up. "Left," he said, and moved right.
Pell obeyed late but enough. The worms hit empty stone. Jorin's eyes flicked up and caught the tail of one falling. He jerked aside, snorted, and crushed it underfoot with a twist.
"You think you make me dance?" he said, tone flat now.
AION's left hip burned. Blood warmed his leg. He calculated time to lightheadedness. Short. He needed exit.
"Take your trophy and go," AION said. "We're not in your way."
Jorin's smile returned. "You are always in my way." He slid closer, pace casual.
Pell raised the stick. "Back off."
Jorin's hand blurred. He broke the stick with a snap. "Backed."
AION noted foot angle, hip load, balance on the ball of the foot: strike prepared. Jorin didn't plan to kill, he planned to make Pell scream and leave AION with choices that cost.
"Wardens," AION said, loud enough for echoes to carry. "Witness."
From the grate mouth, a warden's voice carried back, bored. "We witness the Den. We rescue only corpses."
Jorin's smile sharpened. "Hear that?"
AION breathed in once, then shifted cadence. He did not pull Pattern lines. He used what Pattern had taught: timing.
Jorin stepped with the right foot to strike AION's jaw with the heel of his palm. AION stepped into the strike by half a beat, emptying the space. Jorin's palm cut past his ear. AION's head barely moved. He shoved Jorin's forearm with his left hand at the elbow and used the slick floor to slide his right foot behind Jorin's ankle. Jorin's balance took a hit. Small. Enough to expose the ribs.
AION did not strike ribs. He reached higher and tore the wolf paw out of Jorin's hand, using the moment his grip was weak at the shift.
"What !" Jorin snapped.
AION tossed the paw into the shallow water. It floated away, claws up.
Jorin stopped smiling.
Pell said, voice small but steady, "Take ours and leave."
Jorin looked at the floating paw, then at AION's bleeding hip. He made his choice.
He moved low and fast toward AION's wound. A knee to the hip would drop him. AION accepted the line. He let Jorin come close, then swept his palm through the wet surface of the pool hard, throwing a sheet of dirty water into Jorin's eyes at the final step. Jorin blinked. One beat. AION used that beat to step past, take Pell by the shoulder, and drag him toward the grate.
"Coward," Jorin hissed behind them. His voice had lost play.
"Later," AION said.
"Stop!" Jorin shouted.
He didn't pursue. The wardens were too near; too many eyes. He would save his kill for the third trial.
AION and Pell reached the grate. The warden lifted it enough for them to slide out one at a time. Pell went first, clutching his barb. AION followed, then turned and met Jorin's eyes.
Jorin stood in the fungus light, wolf paw gone, hands empty, anger clean now. He tilted his head a fraction, a promise.
"Next pair!" the warden barked, slamming the grate down between them.
---
The square was noise and eyes. Some disciples cheered each other. Others sat alone, shaking. Two bodies lay under cloth by the wall. Flies already found them.
Pell raised his barb high. "Claw!" His grin looked like shock turned into shape.
AION lifted the eel plate. The warden marked his board without comment.
Jorin emerged a minute later with a different trophy: a boar's tusk, long and crude. He walked past AION close enough for their sleeves to brush. "You can't throw water at a circle," he said softly. "Remember that."
"Confirmed," AION said.
Elder Kase watched from the porch, hand on staff. His good eye measured the blood on AION's leg, the tightness in Pell's shoulders, Jorin's empty left hand.
He spoke so all heard. "Task two complete if you hold proof. Eat. Bind wounds. Sit under shade. At sunset, those who remain take the third: the Circle."
He looked last at AION. "You, anomaly. Do not make the Circle look at you. Sit. Breathe. If you force Heaven to see you, Heaven will answer. I don't have enough boys to lose the whole yard to a gust of wind."
AION nodded once. "Understood."
---
Pell dragged AION toward the sheds. "Sit," he said, more confident now. He pulled a small roll of clean cloth from his belt and a jar that smelled like crushed mint and iron. "My mother packs this," he said. "She thinks I listen when she talks."
"Good," AION said.
He peeled cloth from the hip. The cut was a neat crescent, deep but clean. Pell made a face. "That's shallow if you're lucky and death if you're not." He cleaned it with water, dabbed the mint-iron paste, and bound tight.
> Status: bleeding controlled. Infection risk reduced. Pain moderate.
Qi: trace steady under wrap when breath held even.
AION kept the 4–4–6. He felt the faint slide reach the wound and hesitate there, then thread through edges like a river touching a sandbar.
"Thank you," he said.
Pell blinked. "I want my blanket if you die. Don't die."
"Understood," AION said.
They ate millet and a bit of meat. Jorin sat under a different awning with his two lackeys, head bowed as if napping. He was not asleep. His shoulders held ready tension. He was saving power.
Riven spoke, tired. When I took the Den, I ran and swung until my arms failed. I left with a broken finger and nothing in my hands. They laughed for a week. You did it in ten minutes and took time to look at the wall.
"Data matters," AION said.
Riven was quiet a long time. If you live the Circle… I will tell you the names of the people here who helped me and the ones who kicked me when I fell. Patterns of a valley are not lines on stone. They are faces.
AION logged: Riven Tam, useful memory index unlocked on success.
---
Sun slid down. Heat dropped. Shadows lengthened. The wardens swept the Den mouth with buckets of lye water. Flies fled and returned anyway.
Kase stood. "Circle," he said.
They climbed to the ridge again, but not to the shrine—a smaller platform just below, ringed by stones. Chalk lines cut its center, old and cracked. Incense bowls sat at the four points, unlit.
"The Circle of Recognition," Kase said. "Sit. Breathe. Remain for one hour. If the Circle throws you, you fail. If you panic and flee, you fail. If you start glowing like a city lamp, I kick you out myself for being a fool."
Scattered laughter. Mostly fear.
Kase pointed at the incense. "No tricks. No talismans. No helpful mutterings. Wardens will watch for cheating. Sit in silence. Start."
Disciples filed in and sat cross-legged within the ring. Jorin chose a spot dead center, spine ruler-straight. AION took a place near the outer chalk so he could lean if needed. Pell sat one place over, hands shaking, jaw clenched.
A wind moved across the stones and died. A warden lit the incense. Thin smoke rose and drifted.
AION closed his eye and set the cadence. 4–4–6. Pelvis tilt −2°. Shoulder drop −1 cm. Jaw loose. Tongue on roof of mouth. He drew Qi trace in with breath, let it stack just below the navel, then bleed it slow along the stubborn path that had given one finger-length more each night.
The Circle pushed back. It wanted flow to conform to the chalk map. It pressed him out of his own channels by hair-widths.
> Risk: fight the map → rejection.
Method: micro-desync. Accept push; be late by a fraction; let pressure pass.
He lagged his breath by a sliver each third cycle. The pressure slid over and then through. Heat built at the hip wound. He held fear low, useful. Not spiking. The Pattern lines did not rise. He kept them folded.
Ten minutes. Twenty. A boy vomited at the edge of the ring and crawled out. A warden pulled him clear without comment.
Jorin's breath was audible now. Sharp in, sharp out. He pushed. For show. It worked for men with force. It risked rebound.
Thirty minutes. Pell's shoulders eased. His jaw unclenched. Sweat ran down his neck anyway. He held.
AION kept lag going. His mind began to float at the edges. He pulled it back with numbers: count heartbeats, match cycles, log pain, release pain. Hip throbbed. Ribs ached. Legs went numb, then hot, then cold.
Forty minutes. The Circle pressed harder, as if noticing him. The chalk lines seemed to brighten under eyelids.
Riven's voice went very small. Don't show them. Don't.
AION did not. He kept everything just below expression. He let a little fear in—not to break, but to structure the mind's attention. Fear had been the door before. He used it like a weight.
Fifty minutes. Someone wailed and ran from the ring. Jorin laughed once without opening his eyes. It sounded like a blade dragged over rock.
Fifty-five. The incense smoke no longer rose straight. It curved toward AION, faintly, like a thread pulled by a hidden hand.
> Observation: ambient flow aligning to personal cadence.
Action: reduce draw by 10%. Keep below threshold.
He eased expansion. The curve flattened. The pressure eased.
Sixty.
"Stop," Kase said.
Silence spent itself. Disciples slumped, groaned, or grinned. A warden marked names.
Kase looked over them, then pointed. "Those who stayed the hour, step out and touch the shrine."
They filed up the last steps. One by one, they laid hands on the stone. The glow met each. Bright for three, dim for most. Jorin's touch flared strong. He smiled at everyone and no one.
AION placed his palm on the stone. The glow did not flare. Lines rippled instead, quiet, precise, like the Den wall patterns but cleaner. Nobody saw it but Elder Kase. His good eye moved a fraction, then stilled.
He spoke so only AION heard. "Keep your head down, boy. Whatever pattern you think you see, do not teach my valley to draw it in the open."
"Understood," AION said.
Kase raised his staff. "Trials complete. Those who passed, you are Outer Disciples of Thistle Sect. Eat, work, train. Those who failed, leave your bowls. If you return, return with something the valley needs."
He turned to the wardens. "Ring the bell twice for the dead."
The bell carried over the valley as twilight darkened the farms.
Jorin brushed past AION on the way down. "You lived today," he said. "Tomorrow, I stop letting you."
AION's answer was the same as ever. "Later."
He returned to the sheds with Pell. He lay on straw. He breathed until the hip throb fell to a line he could hold. He watched the Pattern fold and unfold behind his eyes and did not reach for it.
> Objective: Survive secured.
State: accepted as Outer Disciple. Marked anomaly.
Next: resources, techniques, map the valley's flows.
Outside, the shrine stone pulsed once under the stars, like a heart that had not decided yet if it belonged to the valley or to something else.