The morning came without sirens. No buzzers. No commands blared over the speakers. Just a cold, fluorescent hum that dragged itself across the ceiling lights like a hesitant breath.
Cael woke in stillness, his body already alert before he opened his eyes. Two weeks in this place had taught him that silence was never mercy. It was a warning.
The barracks were quiet.
Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that came after the howling stopped.
For a week now, the screams that had once cracked through the walls like thunder had gone silent. No more cries of agony from the eastern corridor, no more brutal thuds or mechanical whines. At first, the absence had been a relief.
Now, it only felt like the deep breath before something worse.
Wren sat cross-legged on her cot, braiding her dark hair into a tight knot, her mouth a flat line. Pax, two beds over, picked at his wrist wrap like he was unpeeling skin. Lyndra was already lacing up her boots, moving without words, as if the silence had somehow spread to their bones.
"North platform," came the Drillmaster's voice from the doorway. Clipped. Cold. Final.
No explanation. No details. Just that.
They lined up fast. Eight Pawns in all. Cael noted their faces as they filed into formation—Wren, Pax, Lyndra, Ryve, and the other three whose names still hadn't surfaced. Some had bloodied knuckles. One had a slight limp. The girl with the burn scar along her collarbone kept her gaze low.
The Drillmaster marched them through a hall they hadn't seen before—longer, quieter, with black-glass windows that reflected them back in strange distortion. The lights overhead were dim, almost blue. Cold flooded the air in a controlled pulse.
Wren leaned slightly toward Cael. "What is this?"
He shook his head. "Doesn't feel like drills."
"Too clean," she muttered.
Cael's gut agreed. This wasn't the route to the training rooms they'd spent two weeks in. This wasn't even the same wing.
When they entered the chamber at the end of the hall, the Pawns collectively slowed.
It wasn't a room.
It was a stage.
The platform stretched outward in all directions—a wide, sterile space framed by high walls and observation balconies. Mounted glass partitions sectioned off one side, each sealed with reinforced doors. Overhead, rows of silent lights glowed like a second sky.
No weapons waited on racks. No training dummies. No simulation bots.
Just the floor beneath their boots and the echo of breath.
"What is this place?" Pax whispered, voice hoarse.
No one answered.
They spread out under the Drillmaster's command, forming a single line before the glass wall. Cael's muscles tensed. His boots felt too loud against the tile. Wren stood on his right, Lyndra to his left. A heavy breath passed between them.
Then, without warning, the back wall hissed open.
Footsteps followed.
Booted. Controlled. Rhythmic.
And then they saw them.
The first through the doors was a woman—tall, silver-eyed, dressed in black that shimmered faintly under the lights. The Queen. Vera. Her presence filled the space before she said a word. Cold, commanding. Her gaze swept over them with the detached grace of someone used to holding life and death between her fingers.
Behind her strode Elijah, the King. His posture was still as iron. His eyes didn't drift. They fixed forward, unreadable, heavy with something Cael couldn't name. There was a gravity to him—as if the air thickened when he entered the room.
A stir moved through the Pawns.
They'd heard whispers.
But this was the first time they'd seen them together.
And the realization hit—this wasn't a demonstration. This wasn't a training spectacle.
This was the Black Team.
The whole team.
Together for the first time.
Rune followed next—his movements almost too smooth, like his body wanted to dart forward faster than his mind allowed. He flashed a half-smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. Elara came beside him, blade-quiet and expressionless. Her black braid had been chopped shorter, jaw more angular, skin pale from whatever they'd done to her.
Cael's chest tightened.
She didn't look at him.
Not once.
Not even as she passed directly in front of him.
Her gaze was locked ahead. Controlled. Cold.
He swallowed hard.
Then came Thorne.
He was unmistakable even after two weeks—his heavy frame, the old scar carved across his collar like a cracked seal. But something in him had changed. Not just physically—though his shoulders had grown broader, his movements more grounded—but deeper. Like something once volatile had hardened into stone.
Still, unlike Elara, his eyes scanned the Pawns. Saw them.
And when they landed on Cael, the faintest flicker of recognition passed through.
A nod—not of greeting, but warning.
Cael barely had time to process it before the next figure entered.
A stranger.
Same uniform. Same symbol—a black Rook.
But not the one from orientation.
This one was taller, older, with jet-black hair cropped at the sides and an expression like carved obsidian. No one said it. No one had to.
The first Rook hadn't made it.
This was the replacement.
Even Pax seemed to shrink a little when the boy passed. A silence rolled through the line of Pawns, subtle but suffocating.
Sora came last.
She moved like water under frost. Her limbs too fluid, her presence too… still. Something about her unsettled Cael. Not because of what she did—but because of what she didn't.
She didn't blink.
She didn't twitch.
She simply existed, a soft shadow trailing behind the storm.
All eight Major Pieces filed into position behind the glass cubicles. Not a word. Not a glance at the Pawns. Just formation. Precision. Stillness.
The Drillmaster stepped forward. Her hands were clasped behind her back. She surveyed them all.
"You have survived the first phase of conditioning," she said. "Many do not."
A pause.
A beat.
Her gaze flicked toward the new Rook. "Some did not."
Cael's breath caught.
She didn't say who. Didn't name the dead. But the space where the original Rook should've stood now belonged to someone else. That was all the confirmation they needed.
"No matter," she continued. "The Black Team is complete."
She turned to the cubicles. "Observe."
The lights dimmed. Panels hummed to life, casting the Majors in shifting hues. A holoscreen flared to life above them, suspended midair.
Cael tensed.
It was time to see what they had become.
The holoscreen cast an eerie white light over the room, making every line of sweat and shadow on the Pawns' faces stand out in stark relief. Their eyes were drawn upward, not because they were told to—but because they couldn't look away.
The board appeared again, hovering—clean, cold, geometric. The arena, but abstracted into four quadrants of color: red for the Ember Wastes, green for the Root Labyrinth, blue for the Glass Mire, and gold for Crown's Hollow. A simplified battleground. Beautiful. Deceptive.
The Drillmaster raised a hand.
"Each Major Piece possesses a serum-activated protocol. You will not be briefed on their compositions. You do not need to know."
She turned toward the cubicles.
"But you will know what they can do."
Her voice didn't change in tone, but something shifted in the room—like the space itself had gone tighter, as if even the air was waiting to move.
She pointed to the cubicle where Elara and Rune stood opposite each other, their forms relaxed but poised like coiled springs.
"Knights," the Drillmaster said. "Speed. Precision. Dual blades. Their teleportation is short-range, instinctual, and not limited by board-pattern logic."
Rune vanished in a blink. A burst of displaced air followed. Elara spun forward and reappeared on the far side of her cubicle, her twin blades slicing through a suspended training dummy before it could drop.
"Knights eliminate threats before they form," the Drillmaster continued. "They are not meant to endure long engagements. They finish them."
A few Pawns flinched. Pax let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
The Drillmaster turned, pointing to the second cubicle.
Thorne stood inside.
When he stepped forward, the entire wall seemed to tremble. He flexed his shoulders once and then slammed his heel into the floor. A pulse exploded outward—cracks spiderwebbed through the reinforced glass beneath his boots, and the training dummy opposite him was blown back against the wall with an audible crack.
The Drillmaster didn't react.
"Rooks. Territory enforcers. Shockwave dispersion. Reinforced skeletal enhancements. Extremely durable. Rooks are the line you do not cross."
She turned toward the cubicle with the new Rook. The boy stood motionless.
She said only, "Rook 74X. Newly reassigned."
He nodded once. Just once.
No other introduction was needed.
Next, she gestured toward the tall, slender figure in the third cubicle.
Sora.
She stood in the center of her space, hands raised, palms open like a priestess in silent prayer.
"Bishops," the Drillmaster said, voice lower now. "Strategic execution. Pattern logic. Intelligence-based targeting."
A flick of Sora's fingers. The air shimmered with moisture—and then, in a burst of icy wind, frost bloomed mid-air. Shards spun, slowed, then formed into delicate, deadly arcs of frozen blades. They hovered—waiting. Then, with one motion, they launched forward and sliced through every target in her cubicle.
She never moved her feet.
Cael's arms prickled with gooseflesh.
The Drillmaster flicked her eyes toward the next cubicle.
Dagen. The second Bishop.
He stood with his shoulders squared, fire coiling at his forearms, controlled but alive—like it was breathing with him. He raised a single hand.
Flame spiraled upward, formed a lance.
Then, with one fluid movement, he hurled it across the room.
The flame pierced four dummies in a single arc.
The Drillmaster nodded once. "Fire and ice. Balanced chaos. Controlled destruction."
Pax whispered, "Holy shit."
No one shushed him this time.
She moved on.
To the King.
Elijah stood utterly still inside his cubicle. A targeting drone floated in—a sleek silver oval with blue eyes. It locked onto him, blinked, and fired.
The air around Elijah shimmered like liquid glass. The bolt dissolved on impact, energy dispersing in a ripple that made the lights flicker. Another drone tried. Another bolt. Same result.
Then Elijah raised his hand.
He didn't even touch the drone. Just looked at it.
And it crumpled—like the air itself had closed its fist.
"Kings," the Drillmaster said. "Zone control. Power nullification. Energy redirection. Their presence disables enemy protocol activations. They are the anchor of every board."
Her voice lingered on that word.
Anchor.
Elijah's eyes briefly scanned the room.
He didn't look at anyone.
But everyone felt seen.
And finally—
She gestured to the last chamber.
Vera. The Queen.
Cael watched her with sharpened attention. She hadn't moved much since entering. Just observed.
Now, she moved.
She darted forward—blinked, twisted mid-air, summoned frost in one hand and flame in the other. She mimicked Elara's teleport, Rune's feints, Dagen's fire, Sora's precise formation. Even Thorne's shockwave—reduced in scale—cracked beneath her boots as she landed.
"She is all of them," the Drillmaster said.
And for a breath, that was all.
Cael's chest tightened.
"She mimics any power she sees. Any movement within range. But not just one. She can wield them in tandem. That's what makes her Queen."
Vera stopped mid-spin.
And looked directly at Cael.
It lasted less than a second.
But something flickered in her gaze.
Recognition.
Then gone.
The Drillmaster stepped back. "Now you understand."
The glass cubicles dimmed, and the Major Pieces resumed their formations.
The Drillmaster returned her attention to the Pawns.
"You are not ready to train with them," she said. "But you will learn by watching."
A wall hissed open, and a new room—smaller, dimly lit—revealed itself. Inside were mats. Blunt weapons. Shadowed monitors casting angles of each cubicle's live feed.
"You'll spar here. You'll study them. This is your new classroom."
She turned, already walking.
"Try not to fall behind."