The morning after the expedition into the Hollow Reaches came cold and colorless.
Mist hung low over the Ironreach training grounds, softening the stone walls and turning the world to a blur of gray. Frost laced the ground in tiny crystal webs, crunching beneath the boots of children half-asleep and wholly sore.
Adem stood alone near the outer ring of the training yard, steam rising from his shoulders as he practiced strikes in silence.
His shirt stuck to his back with sweat. His hair—short, dark brown, and matted to his forehead—dripped with cold moisture. He looked smaller than some of the other boys, but his movements were tighter now, sharper. Each strike was deliberate. Focused.
Since returning from the Hollow Reaches, something in him had changed.
He hadn't said it out loud. He wasn't sure he *could* say it out loud. It wasn't something you could describe with words.
But the weight of things had shifted.
Even the wind felt heavier.
---
"You're sweating like a priest in a brothel," came a familiar voice.
Toren approached from the side, grinning through puffed cheeks and sleepy eyes. He was lanky, with curly blond hair and a patchy scar above his brow—earned when he'd face-planted into a stone pillar during night drills.
"Sun's barely up. You trying to win an invisible tournament?"
Adem didn't stop moving. "Body feels off if I don't."
"Off?" Toren stretched, yawning. "I feel like my guts are still back in the forest. Woke up thinking my blanket was whispering to me."
Adem paused, wiping his brow.
"Did it say anything interesting?"
"No, just... whispering. Like breath without words. Creeped me out."
Before Adem could respond, another figure crossed the yard—a girl with a tall, lithe frame and an iron-straight posture. Her black hair was tied in a high braid, and her dark eyes scanned the yard as if memorizing every angle.
Lira.
She wore her training uniform like armor—neat, clean, untorn. She never limped, never staggered. The only imperfection was a pale scar beneath her jaw that stood out against her copper-toned skin.
Adem wasn't sure what to make of her. She seemed too calm. Too precise.
But he respected her.
She gave him a brief nod in passing, then went to the target range without a word.
Toren sighed dramatically. "Still too good for us peasants, I see."
A loud clack silenced the yard.
Instructor Garen had arrived.
---
Garen wore no ornament, only a fitted black uniform and heavy boots. He had the presence of a boulder—square-jawed, weathered, with gray-streaked black hair tied back and a lined face that looked carved from cold stone. His shoulders were broad, arms like iron beams, and his gaze could freeze a charging bull.
Even his scars had purpose: a long one across his left hand, and another slashing diagonally across his back. Both visible. Both reminders.
This morning, he carried a small metal case in one hand.
"You lot look like you spent the night drowning in tar," he said. "Good."
No one dared reply.
"You need more pain," he said matter-of-factly. "Pain is where the weak burn away. So we'll burn more."
He threw the case onto the ground with a metallic thud.
Inside were thin rods of dark wood, each marked with a red rune.
"The drill today is endurance. You'll each hold one of these weights while climbing the Cliff Wall. No rest. No ropes. One fall, and you start from the base again."
Toren groaned audibly.
Garen's eyes locked on him.
"You have something to add, boy?"
"No, sir. Just admiring your creativity, sir."
"You'll admire it more with broken ribs. Vela! You're first."
A short girl stepped forward from the line. Vela had flame-colored hair cropped short to her scalp and faint burn scars across her neck and left arm. Her gaze held sharpness—and bitterness.
She picked up a rod without hesitation and jogged toward the climbing wall.
One by one, the rest followed.
---
The Cliff Wall was a sheer slab of black stone behind the southern training yard—tall, jagged, and cruel. Cracks served as handholds. Wind rushed across its top, turning the final stretch into a battle against air itself.
Adem gripped his weight rod tight. The moment he touched it, he felt his wrist pull downward.
It wasn't just heavy—it dragged at his mind. Like it didn't belong to gravity, but to something deeper.
Still, he climbed.
Each inch took effort. The rod seemed to hum with subtle pressure, pressing not just against his body, but against thought. Around him, other children struggled—Toren slipped twice before finding a foothold, and Lira climbed like a ghost, silent and graceful.
Adem reached halfway before the whispers returned.
Not words.
Just that sensation—like something watching from within.
He climbed faster.
---
They trained until their hands bled.
Garen dismissed them at midday.
---
Afternoon brought a brief moment of peace.
The sun broke through the clouds, casting warm light over the compound. The children, scraped and exhausted, sprawled across the courtyard, eating from steel bowls of rice and broth.
Adem sat under a crooked tree near the edge of the yard. It was old—its bark peeling, branches bent—but it offered the only real shade.
Toren dropped beside him with a sigh.
"I almost died five times today."
"You say that every day."
"Yes, but today I almost meant it."
Adem gave a rare smile.
Across the yard, Lira sat alone, polishing a wooden training blade with careful, almost reverent strokes. Vela lounged nearby, carving something into a flat stone—probably another one of her mocking little glyphs.
It was a moment of stillness.
Brief. Fragile.
Adem felt it soak into him.
Then Garen returned.
---
"Form up," he said.
A new figure stood beside him.
A woman.
She wore the same dark armor as Ironreach scouts—tight black leather reinforced with bone-colored plates—and a silver sash across her shoulder. Her skin was ash-gray, her eyes the pale gold of old glass. Her hair was cut at the chin, streaked with white, and her left hand was gloved in silver thread.
"This is Serah of the Outer Ring," Garen said. "She will instruct you on corruption field recognition."
Serah didn't bow. She just looked at them—one by one. Her gaze lingered on Adem longer than the others.
"Most of you think corruption is loud," she said. "That it screams. That it burns. That it drips off beasts like oil."
She walked forward slowly.
"You are wrong."
She knelt and pressed a finger to the soil.
"The deepest corruption is quiet. It seeps. It settles. It speaks gently. And by the time you notice it's inside you... you're already gone."
The children shifted uncomfortably.
She stood and raised her gloved hand.
"This glove is woven from Null-thread. It can detect passive corruption. I will use it to scan each of you. Do not speak unless spoken to."
One by one, she passed the glove over their chests and temples.
Most passed without issue.
Then she reached Adem.
The glove froze.
A soft, almost imperceptible tremor ran through the thread.
Serah's eyes narrowed.
Garen noticed.
But said nothing.
Serah removed her hand.
"You'll be monitored."
Then she turned to Garen and nodded once. "None crossed the danger threshold."
She left without another word.
The children exhaled in unison.
But Adem was not breathing normally.
Something inside him had twitched when the glove touched him.
A small, hungry twitch.
---
That night, Adem couldn't sleep.
The dreams came again—but different.
He stood before the staircase again, but this time it was longer. The stone steps were slick with dark water, and faint etchings shimmered on the rails—battle runes,though he didn't recognize them.
The voice didn't speak.
But something waited.
When he stepped forward, he felt a jolt of awareness—not his own. As though the stairwell itself had noticed him.
He woke with sweat clinging to his chest.
The barracks were quiet. Even Toren snored softly.
But Adem sat up and stared at his hands again.
They felt heavier.
Not tired.
Heavier.
---
The next day brought a surprise.
Knight Rusk returned to the compound.
He was lean, mid-thirties, with sun-darkened skin, sharp cheekbones, and a crooked nose that had been broken too many times to count. His hair was jet-black and tied back tightly. His armor bore new scratches—fresh.
He addressed the children in the morning fog, his voice raspy but clear.
"You're stronger now. Good. You're going back in."
Gasps. Whispers.
Garen silenced them with a look.
"This time, it won't be the Hollow Reaches. It'll be the eastern outcroppings. There's been movement. Strange sounds. A scout disappeared."
Rusk added, "You won't be alone. You'll go in teams. This is a retrieval mission. Observe. Mark. Exit."
"But what if—" Toren began.
"You'll adapt," Rusk said. "Or die."
Simple as that.
---
Adem's heart beat faster.
He wasn't afraid.
Not in the usual sense.
It was more like... anticipation.
Something was pulling him forward now.
The air.
The soil.
The weight in his chest.
Something was coming.
And for the first time in his life, Adem wanted it to come faster.