I didn't sleep.
Maybe two hours, curled under a crate behind a spice stall. The alley blocked the worst of the wind, but not the cold, and not the thoughts.
I'd signed my name. That was it.
Liora. No family. No nation. But now, I was property of the Tarakin Empire.
Dawn cracked the sky in muted gray. The streets were still half-dead—just sweepers, bread carts, and bakers yawning open their shutters.
I passed them without a word. Hood low. Boots worn through. Tail tucked beneath my coat.
The South Garrison loomed like a stone fist along the city's inner wall. Black iron gates. Walls too tall. Flags limp in the breeze—gray with a white sword slashed across the center.
Two guards at the gate.
One stepped forward. "Papers."
I handed him the creased slip.
His eyes flicked across the name, then back to my hooded face.
"Training Yard Forty-Two. Third court on the left."
The gate groaned open.
I walked through.
The inside of the garrison was pure motion.
Recruits jogging laps. Barked orders. Clanging steel. Armor clattering. A healer stitching a bloody face under a canvas tent while two blacksmiths hammered fresh blades in rhythm.
No one noticed me at first. Just another body. Another desperate kid in rags.
But as I passed, I felt it. Eyes.
They caught the glint of scales where my hood didn't quite cover my neck. The soft glimmer of blue, trailing from beneath my eyes and down my throat. The shape of my ears—longer, thinner, and finned like folded sea-glass. And my eyes slit-pupiled, dragon-like. Less human. Less safe.
Aelarian
They looked. Then they looked away.
Yard Forty-Two was smaller. Six other recruits waited in formation—new like me. None Aelarian. Just humans, as far as I could tell. A few leaned on their heels. One paced.
I stayed back. Tail curled tightly beneath my coat. Hood low. Head down.
Then he arrived. Instructor Halvren.
A wall of a man. Thick neck, face like a hammerhead, armor scuffed with years of war.
He didn't introduce himself.
"You're here because no one else wanted you. Thieves. Bastards. Farmers. Foreigners."
He began pacing.
"You want a name? A cot? A wage? You earn it. I'll break you down. If something useful's left, the Empire keeps it. If not—then back to the gutters."
He stopped in front of me.
"You. Hood off."
I froze.
"Now."
I pulled it down.
Hair light blue hair fell past my shoulders. The fins on my ears twitched in the breeze.Scales shimmered across my cheeks, like small, hard raindrops, and vanished into my collar.My tail shifted—long, scaled, and ending in a sleek, shimmering fin.
One of the recruits audibly swallowed.
Halvren stared. Not impressed. Not shocked. Just cold calculation.
"Aelarian," he muttered. "Haven't seen one since the Deepfall."
I said nothing.
"Tail's real?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"You'll either drown in this place or swim circles around the rest."
He moved on.
Evaluation began, Endurance came first.
"Ten laps around the garrison wall," Halvren barked. "If you stop, you drop."
Most of the others surged forward.
I stayed near the back. My legs were already sore. My coat clung to my ribs. My last full meal had been… weeks ago?
Still, I ran. Not fast. Not strong. But steady.
One recruit vomited by the fourth lap. Another collapsed.
I kept going. Step by step. By the end, my breath was smoke and my vision blurred. My tail dragged like lead behind me. But I didn't stop.
Strength came next.
They had us lift crates. Drag weighted sleds. Stack stone. I struggled from the first minute. My arms shook. My chest burned. The other girl in my pair—a broad-shouldered farmhand—finished two reps while I barely managed one.
"Street rats make good runners," Halvren muttered. "Not good soldiers."
Then came sparring.
They gave us wooden swords. Blunt, heavy, splintering at the grips. I'd never held one before.
They paired me with a girl named Tessa. She looked like she'd grown up on meat and discipline. She flexed her arms, tested her grip.
"You sure you're not in the wrong line, fish-girl?" she said, twirling the sword like she already knew how this would end.
I said nothing.
"Begin," Halvren barked.
I moved first—too quick, too wide, like I was swinging a stick at a rat in the alleys. Tessa caught it with a lazy block and slammed her blade into my ribs.
I gasped.
She hit again—shoulder this time. Then thigh.
I staggered.
Dropped to one knee.
She circled.
"Just stay down," she said. "Or I'll make you."
I got back up.
My arms trembled. My tail twitched low behind me. My reptilian eyes locked onto hers, unblinking.
I raised the blade again.
Halvren called it.
"Tessa wins."
She stepped back. Her eyes lingered—not mocking, just... curious.
I returned to the line.
Breathing hard. Skin burning. Scales bruised.
But not broken.
By dusk, we stood in formation again.
Halvren passed in front of us, hands behind his back.
"A few of you showed potential," he said. "A few showed nothing."
He stopped in front of me.
"You don't know how to fight. You're weak. You're underfed."
I didn't flinch.
"But you didn't break. That's worth one more day."
He moved on.
They gave us cots in the barracks—rows of them, no privacy, no comfort. A cracked window leaked cold into the corner, and I claimed the spot beneath it.
My uniform hung off me like wet cloth.
I laid down slowly, tail curling around my legs, fin flicking weakly in the air.
My scales still ached from the hits. My side throbbed.
But the cot didn't have fleas. And the ceiling didn't leak.
It's not the streets.
Sleep didn't come easily.
But it came.
Liora. No family. No name. No nation.
But for now?
I had a number.
A place.
And tomorrow, I would survive again.