Third bell rang like a coin on stone. The training yard answered by brightening one notch, mirrors along the walls kicking light inward until shadow had to beg for space.
Warden Fenn stood at the center with her hands behind her back. "Line up. Coats off. Lanterns out."
Rows formed. Gray coats folded on benches. Chains unhooked. The yard smelled like oil and metal and the faint singe of old mistakes.
Kaelen took his place beside Selra. Vorrik Drenn stood two paces ahead, posture perfect, lantern polished enough to throw back a face he probably liked seeing.
Fenn pointed with her chin at the lattice sunk into the yard floor, concentric circles of pale stone inlaid with silver lines. "You'll stand on the second ring. Keep your toes outside the mark. You will flare to the inner line and stop without touching it. Ten times. If you can't count to ten, sit down and cry where I can see you."
A few laughs, thin and grateful.
"Fuel is measured by cost," Fenn said. "You don't feel cost on the first push. You feel it on the eighth when your hands shake. You feel it after, when you try to drink water and it tastes like ash. Learn your numbers."
She lifted her lantern, uncapped it with a flick, and breathed once. A line of light shot from the mouth, stopped exactly on the inner ring, and held steady as a knife. She recapped. "Begin."
Lanterns opened up across the ring. Thin beams reached, wobbled, steadied. Vorrik's glow snapped into place with infuriating tidiness and stayed there like a ruler held against the world. Selra's light split at the last second into three threads that braided back together on the line and sparkled, subtle and smug.
Kaelen uncapped Ashveil.
The flame on the other side of the lens rose like it had been waiting for permission and was angry about the wait. He breathed and the beam shot out, too far, too fast. He dragged it back with a thought like yanking a rope and landed half a finger inside the mark.
"Outside the line," Fenn said without looking up from her slate.
He exhaled, slow. "Again."
He found the shape in his chest, the lever he didn't understand, and eased it instead of jerking. The beam crept forward, quivered at the edge, and held. The ring reflected in it in a dozen thin copies. His arms started to feel like he'd been carrying buckets.
"Three," Fenn called. "Four. Don't look at the number. Feel the cost."
By six, Kaelen's hands trembled. He kept the beam steady and pretended not to notice. By eight, his breath came shorter and his jaw ached from clenching. The flame inside Ashveil kept trying to lean into him, greedy as a body that had found a sweet.
"Nine," Fenn said.
His beam wavered. He pictured the shrine basin, the priestess's lamp, the first night's ring of light, and set it on the line like a plate on a shelf.
"Ten," Fenn said. "Cap."
Metal clicked shut across the yard. Kaelen's fingers tingled. When he flexed them, faint gold ran under the skin and then faded.
Fenn paced the ring. "Fault review. Vorrik: neat, cold, efficient. Fault: too confident in straight lines. World isn't straight. Selra: trick-light split worked. Fault: you're playing. Save that for streets. You—" She stopped in front of Kaelen. "Pull strong, stop slow. Fault: you're building a habit of almost."
"Almost?" he said.
"Almost inside the mark. Almost late. Almost enough." She tilted her head. "Almost gets people hollowed."
He shut his mouth. The pull inside his chest twitched, defensive. He ignored it.
Fenn pointed to the inner circle where the silver lines met and formed a star. "Beacon formation. Pair up. On my count, you'll flare a dome for six breaths. Overlap your fields or you'll find out how drafty your neighbor is."
Squads formed without asking. Selra bumped her shoulder against Kaelen's. Vorrik paired with a boy who said "sir" to peers. Aethryn stood with the other Wardens along the wall, arms folded, blue lantern lowered, watching without blinking.
Fenn raised a hand. "Hold."
Lanterns opened. Light spread not in blades now, but in a curve, rising and bending until it arced overhead. Kaelen felt Selra's glow press against his, soft at first, then firmer as they found the seam. Their lights meshed. Small gaps closed. The dome settled.
"One," Fenn said. "Two."
At three, someone to their left lost shape. The dome buckled. The gap sucked in cold like a mouth. Selra cursed under her breath and shoved more light into their seam. Kaelen fed his side carefully, fighting the urge to flood it.
"Four," Fenn said. "Fix your neighbor or you fail with them."
Kaelen slid his glow along Selra's, knitting the edge like he'd seen the priestess mend net. The gap held. The dome smoothed.
"Six," Fenn said. "Cap."
They shut. The yard breathed. Sweat showed on brows. A few hands shook openly now.
Fenn's chalk ticked. "Beacon basics passable. We'll make it ugly later. Now—Pulse."
She dragged a wheeled rack from the wall. Cloth dummies hung from it, stitched into rough human shapes, each with a black circle painted where a chest would be. "Pulse is a shock to clear space. It does not kill. It does not fix. It buys breaths. On my mark: two pulses, feet planted. Don't fall in love with the noise."
They lined along the rack. Fenn flicked two fingers. "Go."
Kaelen opened Ashveil, set his stance, and pushed. The first pulse burst from the lantern as a short, hard wave. It struck the dummy and made the fabric jump. The black circle flashed gray where the light hit. He recovered and sent the second pulse cleaner. The dummy swayed on its hook.
Vorrik's pulses were precise, measured at the same strength, the same length, the same smugness. Selra's first pulse was weak, her second hit like an apology she meant. Fenn nodded once at that and moved on.
"Arc," Fenn said, wheeling the rack away. "Projected cut. You'll make air behave like blade. Wrists steady. Shoulders quiet. If you swing like you're chopping wood, I'll give you wood."
She made them carve light along a chalk line on the far wall. The first arcs were messy. By the fifth, they looked like cuts. Kaelen found the path that made Ashveil sing—a short sweep from the ribs, not the shoulder, turning the beam thin at the edge until it sliced. When he set it right, the sound was a whisper that made hair rise on his arms.
"Good," Fenn said, and because she said it to three people at once, it didn't go to anyone's head.
They broke for water. Kaelen sat on the edge of the ring and drank like the cup might forget how cups work. His hands had stopped shaking. His chest felt hollowed out, not by the Gloom, by work. Selra dropped beside him and offered a strip of something sweet and stiff.
"Sugar," she said. "Stolen from the kitchen. Don't tell Fenn. She pretends not to know."
He chewed. It turned to syrup and then heat. "Thanks."
"You kept the dome," she said. "That was good."
"You fixed the gap."
"I caused it first," she said, grinning. "Art."
Vorrik strolled past with his partner, not tired, not sweating, the kind of fresh that made you want to test it. "Wimble," he said without looking. "Try not to drown in drills. They get deeper."
Selra made a face at his back. "His lantern has a mirror inside it pointed at himself."
"He's good," Kaelen said.
"He's practiced," she said. "Those aren't the same yet."
A bell rang, short, hard. Fenn stood in the center again. "Last set. Controlled exposure."
The yard went quiet. Wardens straightened along the wall.
Fenn rolled out a waist-high iron box with a small slit in its side. The slit was glassed, but the glass looked tired. The box had seen a lot. The air around it felt… thinned.
"Gloom compartment," Fenn said. "Sample pulled from a breach and kept stupid with light. We open the slot, it tries to come out. You will flare, hold, and pull back without flooding. Count four in, two hold, four out. Do not look at the glass."
Someone swallowed loud enough to be brave. Fenn pretended not to hear.
Vorrik went first. He set his lantern at the mark. Fenn cracked the slit. A thin, wrong darkness licked out like smoke that hated itself. Vorrik flared on the four, held, released. The gloom snapped back like it had been slapped. Clean. Efficient. Smug.
Selra went. Her first hold wobbled, second steadied, third was too long. Fenn tapped chalk against her wrist. "Four. Not five. The dark will always accept extra."
Then Kaelen.
He set Ashveil at the mark. The iron was cold. The slit looked like a mouth practicing its smile.
Fenn moved the lever.
Darkness slid out. It wasn't black. Black is a color. This was erasure. The yard's sounds stepped away from it. The hairs on Kaelen's neck rose, then leaned. The pull in his chest stood up like a dog.
He breathed on the count. Flared. The light bit the gloom and it hissed, not loud, just offended. He held on two. The hold tried to be three. He made it two. He released on four and the dark pulled back and then, didn't. It hesitated at the edge of the slit as if remembering a face.
He felt it then, colder than fear: attention.
"Again," Fenn said, voice even, already bored.
He set the count, pushed, held. The glow wanted to go beyond the edge, to fill the box, to fix it. He yanked it back like reins on a startled horse. The dark recoiled, then pressed again, and in the thinnest, ugliest whisper, it said something he didn't know how to repeat in any language he respected.
Mine.
His hands tightened. The flame surged.
"Kaelen," Aethryn said from the wall, same as before, a hand laid on a shoulder he didn't have to cross the yard to touch.
Kaelen released. The light snapped back into Ashveil; the slit shut. His breath came fast. The pull inside him paced once and then, very reluctantly, lay down.
Fenn made a mark on her slate. "Fault confirmed," she said. "Strong pull. Poor stop. You're done."
Kaelen stepped back. His palms burned under the skin. The yard felt too bright.
Aethryn's eyes met his for a second. Calm. Tired. Proud in a way that didn't depend on success.
Fenn clapped once. "Wash. Eat. Sleep. Third bell tomorrow, formation drills until you hate each other, then more."
The ring broke. People talked again. The iron box went away. The mirrors along the wall returned to being furniture.
A runner in a brown vest dodged between lanterns and skidded to a stop in front of Kaelen. "Warden candidate Kaelen Vire?"
"Yes."
"Archwarden Orain requests you in the East Annex. Now."
Selra made a sympathetic noise that wasn't actually sympathy. "He only eats the nervous. You'll be fine."
Kaelen clipped Ashveil to his forearm and followed the runner out of the yard into the Citadel's cooler halls, where light lived in straight lines and rooms had ideas about behavior.
He told himself the same lie. It still walked beside him.
The East Annex was old. The floorboards didn't shine; they remembered boots. The walls had fewer mirrors and more doors that didn't open unless you already knew what was behind them.
The runner left him at a plain arch with no sigil. Inside, the room was square and almost empty. A table. Two chairs. A single, capped lantern at the far end. The light in here came from a slit high in the wall and did not explain itself.
Luth Orain sat with his back to the unlit lantern, hands folded, expression as generous as a ledger. He motioned to the other chair.
Kaelen sat. Ashveil's chain clicked against the arm of the chair and sounded louder than the bell ever had.
"You held in controlled exposure," Luth said without preface. "Then you almost didn't."
"Almost," Kaelen said, tasting the word Fenn had given him.
Luth's mouth edged toward a frown and decided it would be redundant. "Why?"
"It… looked at me." He hated how that sounded. He said it anyway. "It pressed. Like it knew something was there."
"Something is there," Luth said. He tapped the table once with a finger. "A pull. We saw it at registry and again today. I don't care what prophecy-lovers call it. I care what it does."
Kaelen waited.
Luth uncapped the lantern behind him and left it dark. Not empty, dark. The glass drank the room's light and returned nothing.
"Two trials," Luth said. "First: you will not light this lantern. You will make it admit it isn't empty." He slid it forward with a hard push and the wood caught under it. "Second: you will stop when I say stop. Not when your body finds an excuse."
Kaelen swallowed. He put Ashveil on the table. Even capped, its heat rode up his wrist.
"Begin," Luth said.
Kaelen set his palm on the cold lantern. Nothing met him. No wick. No oil. No obedient pane. Just absence, full of teeth it hadn't decided to show yet.
He didn't push light into it. He reached for the seam in his chest and opened it a fraction, not enough for a flare, enough for a thread. It ran down his arm and into the glass like a line searching for a path. For a breath, the lantern stayed a hole in the room.
Then the hole blinked.
It wasn't flame. It wasn't even glow. It was a refusal to remain nothing. A soft, pale denial. The room's light leaned and filled the shape he'd given it. The lantern accepted being not-empty.
Luth watched his face, not the glass. "Stop."
Kaelen closed. The thread recoiled. The not-empty faded back to hunger.
"Again," Luth said. "Half that. Hold the half. Then stop when I say."
Kaelen did it. The second time his hand shook more and the lantern behaved faster, like the habit was already forming. He held when Luth said hold. He stopped when Luth said stop.
"Again," Luth said, three more times, changing the measures without telling him ahead. Kaelen matched. His breath shortened. His mouth dried. The pull in his chest tried to run. He kept it walking.
Finally Luth capped the lantern and drew it back. "You learn," he said. "If you survive long enough, you might even learn fast."
Kaelen flexed his fingers. Light ran under the skin and then went quiet. "That your test?"
"First." Luth pulled a small clay jar from under the table and set it down. "Second."
He opened the jar and a thin line of black vapor snaked out, controlled, tight, curious. The room's slit of light dimmed a fraction. Luth set the jar between them like bread at a poor table.
"You will keep it in the jar," he said. "Not with force. With obedience. Make it agree to the rules."
Kaelen wanted to point out that shadows didn't agree with anything. He didn't. He anchored Ashveil with two fingers, uncapped, not for flare, for presence. He set his other hand over the jar and did not push. He breathed. He thought of circles that hold. He thought of nets that don't break when the sea gets mean.
The vapor reached for his hand, then turned and slid back into the jar as if told. It tested the rim again, bumped an invisible seam, and settled.
"Stop," Luth said.
Kaelen stopped. The vapor hesitated and then stayed. Luth capped the jar and pushed it aside.
"Fault: strong pull," Luth said. "We knew. Stronger than we thought. Counter: you can be told to stop. Good. That's rare. We will find out if you can tell yourself the same."
He stood. The chair didn't scrape. "You'll join patrols sooner than most. You'll stay in drills till you stop shaking when you count. You'll report to me every second day after sessions for control work."
Kaelen's mouth found a question. "Why me?"
"Because people are telling stories about you," Luth said. "Because stories pull crowds. Crowds burn fuel. Fuel runs cities. Cities fall. I could list nicer reasons, but I find this one honest."
Kaelen stared at the unlit lantern that wasn't empty anymore. "And if I refuse?"
"You don't," Luth said. "The door is behind you."
Silence stretched. The slit of light in the wall thinned as a cloud crossed wherever it drew from.
"I don't plan on burning your city down," Kaelen said.
"Plans are toys," Luth said. "Holds are work."
He capped the empty-not-empty lantern and handed it across the table. "Take this to the archivist. Tell her it behaved. She likes manners."
Kaelen slid Ashveil's chain back onto his arm, stood, and took the lantern. It was heavier now, like it had decided to be an object with obligations.
At the door, Luth said, without looking up, "You did not ask about prophecy."
"I don't want it in the room with me," Kaelen said.
"Good," Luth said. "Keep it out."
Kaelen stepped into the hall. The Annex felt quieter in the way old places do—like they already knew all the noises men could make and were bored by them. He walked back through corridors that had learned to wear light like a habit. His hands had stopped shaking. His chest ached like a used muscle.
He found the archivist with her quills and her small lamp. He set the test lantern on her table.
"It behaved," he said.
She peered at it, then at him. "Did you?"
"For once," he said.
"Don't make a habit of it," she said. "It will confuse people."
He almost smiled. Outside, a bell rang, marking the hour. The Citadel's light caught the sound and carried it down the halls until even the rooms that didn't care heard. Kaelen reached for Ashveil to hang it on the hook by the door and felt the lantern lean toward his hand like a tired animal.
He thought of tomorrow. Drills. Patrols soon. Luth's lessons. Fenn's chalk. Vorrik's tidy lines. Selra's sugar. The priestess's lamp. The high wall. The black slit in the box that had said mine.
He let out a breath he hadn't noticed he'd been saving. The lie he walked with rested its hand on his shoulder for a moment and felt less like a lie, more like a choice he would have to keep making.
He tightened the chain around his forearm. The flame inside Ashveil curled and held.