Faris hit the sand hard enough to send a plume of dust billowing into the morning air. He lay there for a long, quiet moment, perfectly still.
He blinked up at the cloudless sky. "Shit."
"Language." Alfor's gravelly voice drifted down from the edge of the pit.
"He swept my feet!"
"I am entirely aware of what he did, Faris. Get up."
Faris groaned, pushing himself up out of the dirt. Rolling his right shoulder to test the joint, he scooped his wooden practice sword from where it had skittered away and reset his stance.
Caelan gave him a moment. It wasn't born out of generosity, but rather the ingrained habit of studying an opponent before engaging. The way Faris favoured that right shoulder told Caelan exactly where the impact was sitting. The slight shift in his footwork telegraphed a forward assault rather than a circling one. They were tiny, microscopic details, but Caelan had learned the hard way that fights were won in the margins.
From above, Alfor gave a sharp nod. "Continue."
Faris surged forward.
He was fast. Caelan had sparred with him enough to know exactly how fast, the kind of speed that looked elegant and effortless right up until it cracked you in the ribs. Faris's footwork was clean, quiet, and ruthlessly efficient, he never took a half-step more than what was necessary. He moved like a river seeking the lowest ground, finding the empty space in Caelan's guard and flooding into it before Caelan could react.
Caelan gave ground. He let Faris push him backward, knowing that the deep, shifting sand of the pit rewarded patience and actively punished aggression. Plus, Faris always fought better when he felt like he was dictating the pace. Let him feel in control.
The first exchange was a testing flurry. Short, sharp strikes. Both of them reading, calculating, refusing to over-commit. Faris threw a high feint that Caelan didn't fully buy, catching the redirect with a half-parry. The wooden blades cracked together. Caelan felt the vibration travel up his forearm, his muscles cataloging the force and angle before his brain even registered the impact.
Faris shifted rhythms.
He sped up, chaining his strikes into shorter, tighter combinations, aggressively probing for a weakness. Caelan matched him beat for beat. He gave Faris the exact defensive pattern he expected, let him commit his weight to the next strike, and then abruptly broke the sequence.
Stepping a half-pace inside Faris's reach, Caelan closed the distance until a sword became entirely useless. Bringing his own hilt up in a brutal, tight arc, he cracked it hard against Faris's wrist. The grip broke instantly. The wooden blade spun harmlessly into the sand.
Faris froze, staring down at his empty, throbbing hand, his chest heaving. "You changed tempo."
Caelan lowered his sword, allowing a ghost of a smirk. "You let me."
"I..." Faris wiped a line of sweat from his brow. "Yeah. I did."
I need to know who you are.
The voice didn't come from the pit. It arrived the way it had before, intimate, sourceless, vibrating somewhere behind Caelan's eyes while simultaneously echoing from a great distance. It made no sense. Caelan's attention shattered, his gaze darting away from his opponent for a fraction of a second.
It was a fraction too long.
A spray of sand hit Caelan square in the face.
He flinched backward, half-blinded, relying purely on instinct as he felt the low strike sweeping in. Faris had capitalized instantly. The kick connected sharply with Caelan's wrist, numbing his fingers. His wooden sword flew backward, clattering against the stone wall.
Blinking the grit out of his stinging eyes, Caelan found Faris standing two paces away. The other boy wasn't gloating, his expression hovered somewhere between triumph and genuine concern.
"Where did you just go?" Faris asked, lowering his fists.
"I was right here."
"No, you weren't. You checked out."
Caelan clamped his jaw shut. Turning his back, he retrieved his sword, dusted the sand from the hilt, and reset his stance without offering a defense.
"That," Alfor barked from the wall, pointing a thick, calloused finger at Faris, "is exactly what happens when you let your concentration break just because you think you've won an exchange." The master pivoted his glare to Caelan. "And that is what happens when you drop your guard because you assume the engagement is over. Sand in the eyes and a boot to the wrist are not elegant, Caelan, but they will kill you. There is a lesson here for both of you."
Neither boy argued.
Alfor folded his arms. "Again."
They went again.
And then again. The sand grew heavier underfoot, burning their calves, punishing their stances. As the morning sun crested the high walls, the heat began to bake Caelan's shoulders. They ground through combinations, surviving situations Alfor manufactured, interrupted, and reset. It was a grueling, agonizing repetition, but it was the only way to forge thought into pure instinct.
By the fourth bout, the half-healed gash on Caelan's forearm was screaming, the stitches pulling painfully against the tight leather wrap. His bruised ribs throbbed a steady, rhythmic protest with every torso rotation. He locked the pain away and kept moving.
This was what he loved. The sparring pit offered a brutal, brilliant simplicity that the rest of his life lacked. Here, there was no suffocating dinner table. No looming imperial Summit. No defective magical core that refused to spark. There was only the physical distance between himself and another armed human being, and the singular, narrow question of what move came next.
People who thought it was their place to judge had told him this obsession was concerning. Caelan had never quite understood why finding peace in violence was a flaw when the world demanded violence of him anyway.
When Alfor finally called the session, they hauled themselves out of the pit, collapsing onto the cool stone walkway that ringed the upper tier of the training hall.
Below them, the building hummed with activity. Older riders drilled forms in pairs, while a couple of thirteen-year-olds in the adjacent pit clumsily mirrored footwork exercises. Built directly behind the palace, the hall's eastern face was entirely open to the sky, allowing the sea breeze to scour the heat from the stone. Caelan breathed in the scent of it, dry sand, polished wood resin, and the sharp tang of sweat. It was the only place in Athosea that truly felt like home.
Dropping heavily onto a wooden bench, Caelan unlaced his forearm bracer to inspect the bandages. The gash had held, though the edges of the linen were weeping an angry pink. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the wraps tighter.
"The Dagger-Tails," Caelan breathed, keeping his eyes on his arm. He'd been rehearsing the question all morning. "When do we start with them?"
Beside him, Faris lifted his head from between his knees. He shot Caelan a look of profound relief, clearly thrilled he didn't have to be the one to ask.
Alfor stood with his broad back to them, watching the younger students fumble their parries. "Soon."
Faris snorted. "You said 'soon' three weeks ago."
"I said it because it was true three weeks ago, Faris, and the fundamental nature of time dictates that it remains true now." Alfor turned, his weathered face deadpan. "The Dagger-Tail is not a standard weapon. It is not a dull blade or a spear. It requires a flawless foundation of movement that you are both still developing. Handing you that weapon before your base is impenetrable would be like handing a lit torch to a toddler who hasn't learned how to walk without tripping."
He pinned Caelan with a heavy look. "You are close. Both of you. 'Soon' is not a deflection, it is a promise."
Caelan nodded, rotating his wrist to test the circulation below the tight bandages. The Dagger-Tail was the signature weapon of the dragon riders, a specialised leather and plate bracer holding a retractable, woven steel tether. At its end sits an impossibly sharp dagger, engineered for the chaotic transition between aerial combat and close-quarters ground fighting. His father had worn one since far before Caelan was born. Caelan had held one exactly once, when he was twelve, Alfor had confiscated it before he could even test it.
Your hair. The colour is strange...
Caelan froze.
The voice again. It carried the same impossible, localised distance, but the tone had shifted. It wasn't a demanding question this time. It sounded curious. Observational. As though whatever invisible entity was tethered to him had been quietly studying him, and finally decided to share its findings.
Where are you? He thought. What are you?
Silence.
Then, after several long heartbeats, there was still nothing.
Answer m-
"Caelan."
He snapped his head up.
Alfor was staring at him.
"That is the third time this morning," Alfor noted, his voice dropping low enough that the passing cadets couldn't hear. "Where is your mind going, boy?"
Caelan opened his mouth, then snapped it shut.
"Master Alfor," Caelan said, his voice tight. "Could I speak with you. In private."
Alfor held his gaze, the silence stretching taut between them. Slowly, he shifted his eyes to Faris.
"Footwork forms," Alfor ordered. "Far pit. Fifteen minutes. Do not stop until I tell you to."
Faris pushed himself up without a single word of complaint. Slapping the dust from his trousers, he jogged the length of the hall, never looking back. Caelan watched his friend go, feeling suddenly very exposed.
"Speak," Alfor commanded.
So Caelan did. He laid it all out, refusing to dress it up or soften the edges. He told Alfor about the clearing by the willow tree, the massive, shifting branch his eyes had instinctively slid off of, and the disembodied voice demanding his identity. He confessed to hearing it in his bedroom, and three separate times during the morning drills. He kept his tone clinical. Alfor despised theatrics and had a terrifying instinct for sniffing out a lie.
The master listened in absolute silence. When Caelan finally ran out of words, Alfor simply watched Faris running drills in the distant pit, his jaw working as he chewed on the information.
"It is the exact same voice each time?" Alfor asked finally.
"Exactly the same."
"And you are entirely certain what you saw in the woods was not a hallucination? You were bleeding, exhausted, and hunting in the dark."
"I am certain."
Alfor clasped his massive hands behind his back. It was his tell, the physical manifestation of him wrestling with a problem he hated. "There are things buried in the deep Kelmoran woods that predate the foundations of this city," he murmured carefully. "Ancient things. I will not speculate further, because blind speculation gets men killed." He sighed, the sound heavy and tired. "I do not like what I am about to tell you to do."
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"Saddle a horse. Ride back to the willow tree." Alfor turned to meet Caelan's eyes, his expression uncompromising. "If you heard it there, and it is manifesting here, then the source is either bound to that clearing, or it has attached itself to you. I would vastly prefer you face whatever this is on your feet, armed, and in broad daylight, rather than having it corner you in the dark when you are unready."
Caelan opened his mouth to argue, but Alfor raised a hand, silencing him.
"You go alone. Whatever this entity is, it has targeted you specifically. We do not introduce variables it did not ask for. Take your sword and hunting knife. You will tell absolutely no one where you are going except me." The master's voice softened, just a fraction. "And you will come back before nightfall."
It was an order wrapped in the undeniable, gruff anxiety of a surrogate father.
"I will," Caelan promised, but couldn't help but ask, "Why are you letting me go?".
Alfor studied him for a long, heavy moment.
"In life, you will have many things that you shall face. Some good, some evil. I won't be able to be there for you for every single one of these events, and so you should learn to deal with them alone," Alfor dismissed him with a flick of his chin. "Go. Clean the sand off first. Put food in your stomach. And take a mount from the eastern stables."
Caelan gave a sharp nod and turned toward the armory doors.
"And Caelan."
He stopped, looking back over his shoulder.
Alfor stood silhouetted against the bright Athosean sky, his face grim. "If it asks you who you are again... have an answer ready. Things old enough to ask a question twice usually demand a response."