Chapter XXIII – The Lion's Lessons
By morning, frost covered the field again. Rodrik roused them before sunrise, voice sharp as steel."On your feet. The capital's road doesn't wait for late risers. Today, we start over."
Auron rose, every muscle aching. The bruises from the five blows still burned beneath his skin like smoldering coal. Beside him, Finn groaned, half-wrapped in his cloak, muttering curses at the cold. Lucian stood at the mouth of his tent, pale but upright, the faint shimmer of mana tracing under his skin like molten silver veins.
Rodrik stood before them, armor glinting pale beneath the morning light. His reddish hair caught the dawn and burned like a live flame. "Stretch your arms," he ordered. "Then grab your swords. Today's lesson is basics."
Finn blinked, still half-asleep. "Basics? After everything we've seen?"
Rodrik's grin was brief and dangerous. "Exactly. Because you survived without understanding a single thing. Lesson one: battle isn't rage. It's knowledge. The one who knows what he faces, wins."
He drew a line in the frost with his boot. "Tell me, Auron. What is a zero-star threat?"
Auron hesitated, rubbing his neck. "Low-tier monsters. Goblins. Carrion scavengers. Things even squires can handle."
"Correct." Rodrik stepped closer. "One-star?"
"Creatures or fighters with stable mana cores. Trained soldiers. Lesser mages."
Rodrik nodded. "Two-star?"
Auron frowned, thinking. "Veterans. Captains. Beasts that can channel basic elements."
"Good. Three-star?"
Lucian spoke softly from behind them. "Individuals who bend natural law. They can shape their aura into physical force."
Rodrik smiled faintly. "Exactly. And four and five-star?"
Auron's voice was quieter. "Divine entities. Primal beasts. Those touched by the gods."
Rodrik's expression hardened. "Ursa was a five-star. You had no right to stand before it. You all should have died."
Auron looked down. "I know."
Rodrik's tone softened. "You learned the hardest lesson and lived. That means you still have a chance to make the right kind of mistake next time."
He crouched, drawing stars in the frost with the tip of his sword. "Listen well. Creating a star in your mana vessel doesn't make you that level of threat. Asher was a two-star knight, but he'd gone soft. He was a one-star in practice. A star is only an amplifier of mana."
He looked up, eyes gleaming with sharp insight. "A single star amplifies your mana fivefold. Two stars? Tenfold. But the stronger the amplification, the greater the strain on your body. Monsters cheat this; they're born with bodies that can bear the weight of power."
Auron listened closely. Rodrik's words weren't theory; they were truth burned into him by years of battle.
Rodrik rose, gesturing toward the frozen horizon. "This world is vast. The Seven Kingdoms stretch from the Amber Coast to the Iron Peaks. Beyond them lie the Three Empires. But don't forget the tribes in the wilds, the freeholds, the lands that never bowed to crowns. Every one of them trains killers who believe they're chosen. You two? You're not chosen. But you're stubborn. That's rarer and worth more."
Finn scratched his head. "And where exactly do we start proving that?"
Rodrik's mouth curved into a faint smile. "Ashford. The Royal Academy."
auron's gaze sharpened. "The Great Academy of the North."
Rodrik nodded. "One of the Three Great Academies on the continent. Ashford trains warriors of iron. Every year, it holds the Holy Dragon Test; a battle royale between every candidate fit to claim a place. The winners are chosen by the Academy. The losers are buried in its shadow."
Rodrik chuckled. "You will both take the test. And I'll make sure you're not the first to die."
Finn blinked. "Wait—you want us to enter that now? We just survived hell. Don't we get a holiday or something?"
Rodrik's eyes gleamed with humorless amusement. "The capital's days away. Until then, I'll break every weakness out of you."
He drew his sword in one fluid motion. The steel caught the pale light and flashed like lightning. "Now. Both of you. Attack me."
Auron and Finn froze.
"Sir?" Finn said carefully. "You mean spar?"
Rodrik tilted his head. "Spar? No. Attack. Land a single hit, and you get to rest until we reach Ashford."
Auron scowled. "That's impossible."
Rodrik's grin sharpened. "So was surviving Ursa. Begin."
**********
The first clash came fast and ugly.
Auron lunged forward, blade low, muscles burning. Rodrik sidestepped lightly and parried with one hand, turning the strike aside as if swatting away a child's stick. The sound of steel rang across the frost.
Finn darted in from the right, using speed instead of power. His sword cut through the air—but Rodrik moved like water, pivoting, disarming Finn with a twist of his wrist and sending him sprawling into the snow.
"You move like untrained dogs," Rodrik said, calm but cutting. "Too loud. Too proud. Every fight is a conversation. You two are screaming nonsense."
Auron gritted his teeth and attacked again, harder, faster. His blade flashed in a flurry of frost and breath. Rodrik blocked each strike effortlessly, eyes never leaving Auron's face. When Auron overextended, Rodrik's gauntlet caught his wrist, twisted, and pressed the sword's edge to his throat.
"Dead," Rodrik said simply.
He released him and stepped back. "Again."
********
They trained for hours. Then for days.
Every dawn began the same: Rodrik's bark, the sound of blades clashing in frost, the weight of exhaustion sinking into bone. They fought until their hands blistered, until their sweat turned to ice. They lost count of how many times they fell.
Finn grew quicker, learning to read Rodrik's rhythm. Auron grew steadier, learning to absorb the blows rather than resist them. Still, they never landed a hit.
At night, when the others rested, Lucian sat alone by the fire, runes flickering across his hands. He traced each one carefully, trying to stabilize the divine current inside him.
Sometimes, the light flared too bright and burned his skin. Sometimes, it went dark, leaving only numbness. But he didn't stop. The three of them; the frost, the flame, and the spark each wrestled with something inside them that wanted to break free.
On the fifth night, Rodrik found them sitting in silence around the dying fire.Auron stared into the coals, bruised and thoughtful. "We'll never land a hit."
Rodrik smirked. "Not with that attitude."
Finn threw a twig at him. "You've been saying that for five days."
"And you still haven't learned what I mean," Rodrik said, sitting down beside them. "You keep fighting me like I'm your enemy. But I'm not. The enemy is the space between you."
Auron frowned. "The space?"
Rodrik nodded. "You two don't trust each other yet. You're thinking separately. That's why you'll always lose."
Lucian looked up. "And how do we fix that?"
Rodrik glanced at him. "You don't. You suffer through it until the bond forms naturally. You'll know when it does."
He stood again, brushing frost from his gloves. "Enough talk. Tomorrow, we move."
********
They marched for two more days. The landscape began to change, the snow grew thinner, the wind harsher. The forest stretched wide and silent around them, pines casting long shadows over the frozen road.
By dusk on the seventh day, smoke appeared on the horizon. Not from campfires;too heavy, too dark
A village lay ahead, half-buried in frost, its rooftops sagging beneath the weight of age. Smoke drifted from chimneys, but no laughter carried on the wind. Even the dogs were quiet.
Rodrik reined his horse in, frowning. "Something's off."
Lucian squinted toward the square. "Too quiet."
The soldiers moved carefully through the streets. Old shutters banged in the wind. Faces peeked from behind doors, pale and frightened. Children watched them pass, silent as ghosts.
They stopped near the well at the center of the square. The air smelled faintly of fear and damp wood. Finally, a man stepped out of the shadows, stooped, gray-haired and shaking.
He bowed low before Rodrik. "My lord… you came from the north?"
Rodrik nodded. "house arvel. What happened here?"
The man's voice trembled. "Bandits, sir. Northern raiders. They come every few nights. Take what they want. Burn what they don't. A week ago, they took twelve children."
Finn's face paled. "Children?"
The old man nodded, tears freezing on his lashes. "They wear skulls. The mark of the Citadel. They're led by one who calls lightning. His eyes-" The man swallowed. "His eyes glow like winter."
Rodrik's expression turned to stone. "A shaman."
Lucian stepped forward. "How many men?"
"Thirty, maybe forty. They come from the woods east of the ridge."
Rodrik looked over his shoulder at his brother, at Auron and Finn. His voice was steady, but there was something sharp beneath it. "Pack your gear. We move at dawn."
Lucian frowned. "You plan to fight them?"
Rodrik's gaze never wavered. "No. You three will."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Auron blinked. "Us?"
Rodrik nodded. "You want strength? Earn it. I'll handle the village. You'll handle the raiders. If you die, you die unworthy. If you live, you'll walk into Ashford as men."
Finn's hands tightened on his sword hilt. Lucian's jaw clenched. Auron simply nodded.
Rodrik placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "I believe in you three, don't worry you can do this ."
The wind howled through the pines, carrying faint echoes of drums from deep within the forest; slow, rhythmic, inhuman.
Lucian looked toward the darkness. "Then we hunt monsters."
Rodrik smiled faintly. "No. This time, the monsters are men."
Auron rose, steadying his blade. The frost cracked beneath his boots.The air seemed to hold its breath.
Tomorrow, they would step into the woods.Tomorrow, they would face what waited there.And by the end of it, they would know whether Rodrik's lessons had taken root.