Kael Everhart turned fourteen under the blistering sun of the Vanguard Corps' proving grounds. There was no celebration — only sweat, bruises, and the unyielding voice of Captain Daric Volt.
"Again!" Daric roared. His scarred face was flushed from shouting. "Break the stance and I break your bones. Move!"
Kael grunted, legs screaming as he pivoted through a complex footwork drill. The long, weighted practice blade he carried seemed twice as heavy after hours under Daric's merciless eye. Beside him, Lyren flowed through the movements with a grace Kael couldn't yet match. Even battered and mud-smeared, Lyren's strikes had a snap that made older recruits step back.
Daric paced among them like a prowling wolf, eyes flicking from stance to stance. He stopped behind Kael, watching with cold scrutiny. When Kael's rear foot dragged, Daric struck out with a wooden rod, cracking against Kael's calf.
Pain flared. Kael hissed, staggering.
"Feet alive!" Daric snapped. "The Dreadborn will tear through your gut if you plant yourself like a fencepost."
Kael forced himself upright. His vision swam, but he clenched his teeth and reset his stance. Around him, dozens of new recruits stumbled through similar drills. Some wept openly. Others cursed. But all moved when Daric barked, driven by raw fear.
They trained from dawn until the Obelisks' evening glow bathed the camp. Kael's small unit, once just him and Lyren, had grown.
There was Ayla — a quiet, dark-haired girl with eyes like storm clouds. Her movements were impossibly sharp; even Daric nodded approvingly when she fought. Garrick and Toma brought laughter between drills. Garrick, stocky and broad-shouldered, cracked jokes that somehow lightened the grinding misery. Toma was wiry, quick with a wink or clever barb.
Nell, their strategist, had a slender build and keen, thoughtful eyes. He noticed flaws in drills and whispered advice that saved Kael countless times from Daric's rod.
Together, they staggered from the field each night, bruised and bloody, but alive. The bond between them grew from shared hardship — from tending each other's split knuckles, or hauling one another upright when cramps threatened to drop them.
On the first day of live combat trials, Captain Daric led them to a fenced pit. Inside lay a chained Dreadborn — a juvenile, perhaps seven feet tall, its limbs bound in heavy iron.
Its masklike face twitched, hollow sockets oozing faint smoke. Even restrained, it radiated a sickening dread. Kael's stomach roiled.
"This is your enemy," Daric said. His voice dropped to a hard, cold edge that made Kael's skin prickle. "Nothing else matters. You sever the head, or you die. The brain is their only sure weakness. Anything less, and it stands back up."
He tossed Kael a short glaive. Its blade gleamed with faint runes, etched by priests to channel the Obelisk's protective resonance. Kael's hands trembled as he gripped it.
Daric nodded toward the pit. "Show me."
Kael jumped down. The Dreadborn snapped toward him instantly. Even bound, its aura pressed against Kael's chest — a cold, crushing malice. His breath faltered.
Then something changed. A distant memory of Lyren's words — we keep low, we don't do anything stupid — steadied him. His heartbeat slowed. The world seemed to sharpen: the hiss of the creature's labored breaths, the faint glisten of ichor along its cracked joints.
Kael lunged. The glaive bit deep into the side of the Dreadborn's head. It shrieked — a sound like metal screaming against stone. Kael twisted, feeling the blade tear through soft, ropy tissue.
Black fluid exploded outward. The creature convulsed, then slumped, chains rattling.
When Kael climbed from the pit, covered in dark gore, the air around him seemed to ripple faintly. Recruits stepped back, eyes wide. Even Daric's cold expression shifted, just a fraction, into grim satisfaction.
"That," Daric growled, "is the aura of someone who has killed. Remember it. Let it grow."
Kael swallowed hard, hands slick on the glaive shaft. His body shook — not from fear, but from the sheer rush of surviving. Of triumph.
Lyren clapped his shoulder, grip firm. "Proud of you, Kael. That was clean. Almost graceful."
Ayla's gray eyes met his. She gave the faintest nod — which somehow meant more than any loud cheer.
That night, by the campfire, they sat close together. Garrick tried to tell a bawdy joke, voice cracking from tension. Toma laughed too loudly, relief pouring out of him. Nell quietly cleaned his blades, muttering tactical notes under his breath.
Kael stared into the flames. Across from him, Ayla studied him with that same stormy gaze.
"You were steady today," she said finally. "Most flinch. You didn't."
Kael swallowed. "I… was too scared to freeze."
A tiny smile ghosted across her lips. "Good. Fear that moves you is better than courage that gets you killed."
Lyren leaned back, hands laced behind his head. "We'll keep each other alive. All of us."
Kael let out a slow breath. The firelight danced over their tired faces, painting them in warm gold. For the first time since the Dreadborn breached Ashvale, he felt something almost like hope.
Tomorrow would bring more pain. More trials. But together, they'd face it — blades sharp, hearts linked.
And under the distant sapphire glow of the Obelisks, Kael felt the first true flicker of the aura that would one day make monsters hesitate.