{2 Weeks Later}
Vesperyn's hands slipped.
He caught himself at the last second, fingers clawing into the bark as his body slammed against the trunk. The impact rattled his teeth.
He sucked in a breath—and nearly gagged.
Sweat ran into his eyes, stinging. His lungs felt too small, like they couldn't pull in enough air no matter how hard he tried.
The weight strapped to his back dragged him downward, a constant reminder that gravity was winning.
This wasn't training. it was torture.
Vesperyn pressed his forehead against the tree and waited for the dizziness to pass.
He could feel his heartbeat in his throat.
Below him, Harlen's voice cut through the haze.
"Keep moving."
Vesperyn let out something between a laugh and a curse. "You ever hear of rest days?" he called down, voice cracking.
"No."
Of course not.
He forced his eyes open and climbed again. One hand. Then the other. The bark scraped skin raw.
By the time he reached the marked notch, his vision was spotting.
He hooked his arm over the branch and just hung there, too exhausted to pull himself up.
His shoulder screamed. The new scars pulled tight.
Below, Harlen checked his watch.
"Two more rounds."
Something in Vesperyn snapped.
"No."
The word came out sharp. Final.
He dropped from the branch, landing hard. Pain shot up through his knees but he didn't care.
"I'm done," he said, breathing hard. "I'm not doing this anymore."
Harlen raised an eyebrow. "That so?"
"Yes." Vesperyn's hands were shaking again, but not from exhaustion this time. "You want to train me? Fine. But this isn't training. This is just..."
He gestured violently at the tree, the weights, the forest around them.
"This is just you torturing me for no reason."
His voice cracked.
"I already lost everything. I already got torn apart by something in the dark. I -"
He stopped himself.
Harlen watched him.
"Why?" Vesperyn asked, quieter now. "Why are you doing this to me?"
Harlen was silent for a moment.
Then he nodded once. "Good question."
He set the watch down.
"Sit."
It wasn't a request.
Vesperyn stayed standing for a few seconds longer, just to prove he could—then dropped onto a log.
His whole body was shaking now.
"Now you see that more than half the Echoes roaming this region," he said, "were children."
Vesperyn looked up.
"Children who awakened and lost control on the same day," Harlen continued. "Didn't last an hour."
He gestured vaguely toward the trees. "Most of them weren't stupid. Some were talented. Some were loved."
There was no drama in his voice. He said it the way you'd explain weather.
Vesperyn stared at the dirt.
Children.
The thing that attacked him, the one with the twisted limbs and the wet breathing.....had that been a child once?
His stomach turned.
"And me?" he asked quietly. "You think I'm going to... turn into one of those things?"
Harlen looked at him for a long moment.
"No," he said.
Vesperyn exhaled.
"I think," Harlen continued, "you're already carrying enough weight to crack. The training isn't to make you stronger."
He leaned forward.
"It's to make sure that when you do break....and you will break, everyone does—you break in a way that lets you put yourself back together."
He held Vesperyn's gaze.
"Pain keeps you here. Exhaustion tells the truth. And if you can survive being pushed past your limit every single day?"
He straightened.
"Then maybe...maybe—when the real pressure comes, you'll still be you."
Vesperyn's throat was tight.
"What if I can't?" he asked.
Harlen shrugged. "Then I'll put you down before you hurt anyone else."
The words should have been terrifying.
Instead, they were almost comforting.
At least someone would.
"Two more rounds," Harlen said, standing. "And this time, don't stop until you reach the top."
Vesperyn looked at the tree.
Then he stood up.
His legs shook.
His hands shook.
Everything hurt.
But he walked back to the tree anyway.
Because what else was there to do?
"Climb," he said.
And Vesperyn did.
After the final climb, Vesperyn didn't climb down.
He just let go.
The drop wasn't far, but he hit the ground wrong—shoulder first, the impact driving the air from his lungs.
He lay there.
Face in the dirt. Arms splayed. Chest heaving.
He couldn't move. Didn't want to. His body had simply stopped listening to him.
*Five minutes,* he thought distantly. *Just let me not exist for five minutes.*
Something crawled across his hand. He didn't have the energy to care.
Footsteps approached, slow and unhurried.
"And don't forget your promise," Vesperyn said into the ground, voice muffled. "You said if I finished three rounds without stopping…"
Harlen stopped a few steps away.
"…you'd tell me why you're living out here," Vesperyn finished. He turned his head just enough to look up. "No dodging."
Harlen snorted. "You didn't finish."
"Just reminding you ."
Harlen considered him, then shrugged. "Fair."
He sat down against the tree, joints creaking faintly. "let me ask you something."
Vesperyn groaned. "If this is another condition—"
"Why are you so interested in me, child?" Harlen asked.
That made Vesperyn pause.
He rolled onto his back, staring up through the branches. Sunlight filtered down in broken patches, too bright to look at directly.
"Don't back out now," Vesperyn said. "You agreed first."
Harlen grunted. "I didn't say I was backing out."
"Good."
Harlen leaned back, folding his arms. "You remind me of trouble," he said finally.
Vesperyn turned his head toward him. "That's not an answer."
"Yes," Harlen agreed.
He glanced at the boy, then away again.
Harlen leaned back, folding his arms.
Thinking he has questions to but he didn't raise them
'Because he has seen what happens when you pull at wounds that haven't closed, and in this current age, he can't afford risk like that.
He sat down on the porch steps without a word, pulling something from his pocket.
Vesperyn recognised it immediately—a thin strip of dark bark, fibrous and dry.
Harlen rolled it between his fingers for a moment, then put it in his mouth.
He chewed slowly, eyes distant.
Vesperyn had seen him do this before. Multiple times a day, actually. Always the same ritual, the slow rolling, the measured chewing, the way his shoulders would relax just slightly after.
"What is that?" Vesperyn asked.
Harlen didn't look at him. "Scorchroot."
"What does it do?"
"Keeps you sharp when you need to be," Harlen said. "Keeps you numb when you can't afford to feel."
He said it matter-of-factly, like he was describing a tool.
Vesperyn frowned. "You use it a lot."
"I do."
"Why?"
Harlen was quiet for a moment, still chewing.
"Because some things," he said finally, "you don't want to remember clearly."
The way he said it made Vesperyn stop asking.
There was a weight there. Something old and heavy.
Vesperyn looked away, giving him space.
But curiosity gnawed at him.
*Keeps you sharp. Keeps you numb.*
After a few minutes, Harlen went back inside.
Vesperyn stayed on the porch.
His eyes drifted to the small pile of bark strips near the door—leftovers from where Harlen peeled them off the support beam.
One piece lay near his foot.
He stared at it.
*Some things you don't want to remember clearly.*
Would it work for him too?
Would it quiet the sound of his father's head hitting the floor? The image of his mother's blood? Darian's voice calling from the darkness?
Before he could stop himself, he picked it up.