The days on the plateau settled into a rhythm as hard and unyielding as the stone beneath our feet. The compulsive tug of the compass was a constant companion, a divine itch I could not scratch, but I enforced a discipline of deliberate slowness. We would not be driven into the maw of the Spires like panicked deer.
Mornings were dedicated to the brutal, physical grammar of survival. I drilled Lys until the pale light of dawn was fully replaced by the flat, grey glare of day. We started each session with balance. I made him hold a low, ready stance on the uneven ground, the capricious mountain wind doing its best to pluck him from his feet
His legs would tremble, his small face pinched with the effort. But he learned. He learned to sink his weight, to become a part of the landscape, a stubborn sapling weathering a gale.
Next came the forms. We practiced the thrust until his shoulder ached, breaking it down into its infinitesimal components. The subtle shift of weight from the back foot to the front. The rotation of the hips, channeling force from the ground up. The final, decisive extension of the arm. What had been a clumsy, disjointed movement began, over days, to coalesce into a single, fluid action. The whoosh of the petrified-wood sword cutting the air grew sharper, more confident.
We added the slash, the parry. I taught him how to move—the advance, the retreat, the sidestep that could take him out of an enemy's line of attack. It was a tedious, repetitive dance, and his frustration was a palpable thing. He would sometimes miss a block, and my practice blade would tap against his ribs or shoulder. Not hard enough to injure, but enough to sting, a physical punctuation to a mistake.
"Anger is a luxury you cannot afford," I told him one morning after a particularly sharp tap made his eyes water. "The pain is a lesson. Listen to it. Why did you fail? Were you slow? Did you misjudge the distance? Your enemy will not give you a second chance."
He would nod, swallowing his frustration, his jaw set. And he would try again.
Afternoons were for the Spark. This was a different kind of labor, internal and infinitely more subtle. We would sit facing each other, the wind our only audience.
"Reach for the shadow-sight," I instructed. "But do not force it. You are not pushing darkness away. You are inviting clarity in. You are asking the shadows to share their secrets."
The progress here was measured in heartbeats. He would close his eyes, his small body tensing with the effort, and for long minutes, nothing would happen. Then, a flicker—a fleeting moment where the world would resolve into stark monochrome before collapsing back into the blur of normal sight. Each flicker was a small victory. He learned to sustain the sight for five heartbeats, then ten. He could now see the fine, hairline cracks in the nearby boulders, the subtle layering of the sedimentary rock.
Evenings were for the grim sustenance that fueled our existence. The purification of the blight-tainted flesh was a draining, necessary ritual. I would select one of the scuttling, multi-legged horrors that occasionally ventured onto the plateau, their chitinous shells glistening with unnatural moisture. Placing my hand upon their cold, twitching forms, I would will the shadows to perform their terrible surgery, subtracting the shrieking, green-tinged corruption until only inert, grey meat remained.
Lys would watch the process, his expression unreadable. He had accepted this grim reality with a quiet resignation that was more disquieting than any protest. We ate the flavorless, fibrous meat in a silence that had become a third companion on our journey. It was not a comfortable silence, but a functional one, the quiet of shared necessity.
It was on the tenth day, during a sparring session, that the disparate threads of his training wove together into something new. I was pressing him, my blunted practice sword a relentless opponent. He was tiring, his blocks becoming slow, his footwork reverting to a clumsy shuffle. In a moment of desperation, he overextended a lunge, leaving his entire right side exposed.
I didn't speak. I simply stepped inside his guard and tapped the practice blade against his ribs, a sharp, definitive thwack.
He gasped, stumbling back, his own sword clattering to the stone. For a moment, he stood there, chest heaving, his face a storm of pain and humiliation. I saw the tears welling in his eyes and prepared for the collapse.
It never came.
Instead, his eyes, bright with unshed tears, narrowed. He looked from my face to the sword on the ground, and then back to me. The frustration didn't vanish, but it was refined, sharpened into a blade of pure, cold focus. He didn't scramble for the weapon. He took a single, deliberate step back, his body settling into a low, coiled stance I hadn't taught him. His hands came up, empty, but ready.
In that moment, he wasn't a boy clumsily mimicking forms. He was a creature of the plateau, adapting, surviving. He had abandoned the lesson because the lesson had failed, and in doing so, he had learned the most important one of all: to think for himself.
A faint, unexpected ember of approval glowed within me.
"Good," I said.
The single word hung in the thin air. The storm on his face cleared, replaced by a flicker of stunned pride. He had done something right. He had found an answer on his own.
That night, as we sat by the fire, the dynamic had imperceptibly shifted. He was no longer just a burden, a piece of flotsam swept along in my wake. He was a student who had taken his first, genuine step toward becoming a practitioner.