16th Rotation of the Cyrandros Cycle, 3448 A.E.
The pre-dawn chill sank through Kael’s cloak as he stepped into the Grays’ empty streets, frost whispering under his boots. His breath fogged the air in pale clouds as he pulled his hood tighter and started the long walk toward Brinewatch. He knew the route by heart—through silent alleys, past shuttered stalls and crooked lamp-posts—but today felt different.
Today, Garrick had promised a lesson. A real one.
By the time Kael reached the forge, the sky was still a slate of cold gray. He pushed open the heavy steel door, and the blast of heat struck him like a slap—the living breath of fire meeting the corpse-cold outside.
The air inside was thick with iron and coal smoke, the forge already burning, flames licking the heart of the stone pit like wolves at a carcass. Sparks floated lazily in the haze. Garrick stood at the anvil, hammer in hand, shaping a long piece of dark metal that hissed with every blow.
The blacksmith didn’t look up. “You’re late.”
Kael stepped inside, ignoring the old coot's words. He said that every time. Kael learned to ignore it.
Garrick set his hammer down with a clang, eyes narrowing as he gave Kael a long, silent look—not of irritation, but of weighing.
“Good,” he said at last. “Fire’s waiting.”
Kael moved on instinct. He hung his cloak and moved to the forge. He didn’t need to be told what to do. He stoked the coals, fed the flame. Let the heat rise smooth and even, never in a rush. His movements were practiced—six cycles of cleaning slag, hauling ore, sorting scrap had made sure of that.
And still… Garrick’s eyes lingered on him longer than usual.
When the forge roared steady, Garrick approached and held something out: a small, dull-gray ingot. Smooth. Cold. He dropped it into Kael’s hand.
“Forge it into anything,” he said.
Kael blinked. “What kind of—?”
“Doesn’t matter. Blade. Hook. Nail. Don’t care. Just don’t ruin it.”
Then Garrick turned and walked away.
No guidance. No hints. Just the ingot, the fire, and the silence.
Kael swallowed. His pulse quickened as he brought the metal to the flames, watching it dull, then darken, then bloom orange. He placed it on the anvil and lifted the hammer. His grip tightened. He’d watched Garrick for moons. He could do this.
The first strike rang clean. The second, less so. The metal began to yield—but something felt off. A faint tremor under the hammer. A subtle shift in resistance.
On the fourth blow, it cracked.
A sharp, splitting sound echoed through the forge.
Kael cursed. The ingot lay ruined, split down its center like a bone.
Garrick was already walking over.
He didn’t look angry. He didn’t even seem surprised. He picked up the fractured metal and turned it over in his hand.
“You struck it wrong. The grain’s gone.”
Kael waited for a lecture. What came next was quieter. Slower. Like Garrick wasn’t just speaking to him—but remembering something.
“The metal remembers.”
He held the ingot to the firelight. The crack ran jagged, like a scar that wouldn’t heal.
“It remembers how it was pulled from the mountain. How it was melted and cooled. It remembers the first heat you gave it. The angle of your strike. The rhythm of your breath. You rush it? It remembers. You force it? It splits out of spite.”
Garrick tossed the ruined ingot aside.
“Metal has nature. You don’t conquer it. You learn it. Then guide it. Like a river. Like a beast. That’s forging.”
Kael stood silent, the weight of the words settling deeper than heat ever had.
It wasn’t just fire and force. It was listening. Respecting. Aligning.
Without a word, Garrick placed five more ingots on the bench beside him.
“Try again,” he said. “Keep the grain whole. Doesn’t matter what it becomes. Just don’t break it.”
And then he stepped away.
The first ingot cracked faster than the last. The second almost made it to full draw before splitting down the spine. Kael scowled, sweat already beading at his temple despite the chill that lingered in the corners of the forge.
The third—too much pressure on a rebound. A jagged split.
The fourth—overheated. It slumped like wet clay, hissing like it was mocking him.
By the fifth, Kael forced himself to slow. Breathe with the fire. Listen to the rhythm of the hammer, the pulse of resistance under each strike.
He stopped shaping. He started guiding.
The metal bent, not just under strength, but under will.
And when it cooled, it remained whole.
Garrick said nothing. He didn’t need to. He walked over, picked up the ingot, turned it once in his hand, and gave a grunt—whether of approval or indifference, Kael didn’t know.
Then he tossed him a water flask and went back to his anvil, striking sparks that rang through the silence like ritual bells.
Kael stayed for a long moment, staring at the forge. At the tools. At the line of cracked ingots and the one that held true.
When he finally stepped outside, the sun already a quarter of the way across the sky. Light spilled through the alley, catching the steam from his breath as he pulled up his hood again.
He hadn’t made a weapon.
But he carried something new—something priceless: respect for the metal’s will.
The morning air clawed at Kael’s skin—cold, damp, and brined with sea-salt as he crossed the uneven field near the Voravex base in Portland District. It was just past tenth bell. The sun hung pale and useless in a sky smeared with cloud, its light barely penetrating the mist that clung to the marshy terrain. The ground sucked at his boots, soft with rot and rain.
Ahead, gnarled trees twisted like grasping fingers, and standing beneath them—arms crossed, gaze like drawn steel—was Vara.
She didn’t speak as Kael approached. Didn’t move. Only gave a curt nod, sharp as a blade drawn in warning.
“You’re not here to hunt,” she said. “You’re here to not die. Speak only if spoken to. Move only when ordered. If we say freeze, you stop breathing.”
Kael’s chest tightened. He gave a nod. Silent. Focused.
Vara turned without waiting and led him into the training zone’s edge. Each step of terrain betrayed a new threat—solid ground, then a slip of marsh, then roots hidden under leaves. Vara glided across it all, each movement efficient, silent.
“Step where I step,” she said. “Watch your feet. Crunch a twig, snap a leaf, shift a stone—you die. Not by the beast. By us.”
Kael followed, trying to match her rhythm. His boots, too heavy. His breathing, too loud. The forest around them whispered and watched.
They crossed into a grove. Sunlight speared through the trees in broken shafts, making latticework of shadow on the ground.
“Your shadow can betray you,” Vara said, nodding to the light. “Don’t let it fall into the enemy’s line of sight. Always walk where your shadow disappears.”
Kael looked down—his shadow stretched long and obvious. He shifted sideways, stepping into dappled cover. His movement felt clumsy, forced.
Vara’s lips twitched. Not quite approval. Not quite contempt. “Better,” she said.
She faced him now, gaze hard as tempered steel. “Our ArkSeal comms are reliable—but if they fail, you need to understand us with a glance. No excuses.”
She showed him: a flick of fingers, a slant of her head, a shift in her stance. Each gesture exact. No wasted motion. Kael watched, memorizing—trying.
His own attempts were slow, clumsy. Vara didn’t hide her disappointment.
“Practice,” she said flatly. “Mistakes get people killed.”
At the far edge of the field, the Voravex hunters waited. They looked like shadows wrapped in flesh—hard, silent, honed.
Vara gestured toward them, her voice clipped and cool.
“Renn.” A lean woman crouched low beside a cluster of snares, her eyes scanning without blinking. “Scout and trapper. She finds the prey.”
Renn glanced at Kael. A flicker of judgment. Nothing more.
“Jax.” A wiry man with a half-smile and twin daggers. “Flanker. You’ll never see him coming—until he’s past.”
“Tor.” Massive. Armored. A silent wall with arms like tree trunks. “Front line. Takes the brunt.”
“Lira,” Vara said, a smirk tugging the corner of her mouth. “No relation to your girl. Bowwoman. Ranged threat. Doesn’t miss.”
“Last is Mara.” A quiet, slight woman with glowing hands and a thousand-yard stare. “Support. If you’re lucky, she gets to you before it’s too late.”
Kael stared at them. Not a team—a machine. Balanced. Deadly. One wrong move would jam the entire system—and get him killed.
“You’re with Renn,” Vara said. “You don’t lead. You don’t ask. You don’t improvise. If I say jump into a pit, you ask how deep.”
Then she stepped back, and the mock ambush began.
Renn moved first—melting into the brush with inhuman grace. Kael followed, breath held, heart slamming like war drums. He stepped where she stepped, but the earth betrayed him—soft here, brittle there. The woods screamed beneath him in whispers of snapped twigs and rustled brush.
Ahead, a clearing. A wooden beast dummy stood among low shrubs.
Renn raised a hand. A signal. From nowhere, Jax vanished into the undergrowth—a shadow made flesh.
Kael shifted his weight—just slightly. A branch cracked underfoot.
The sound tore through the silence like a gunshot.
The world froze.
Renn turned slowly. Her eyes pinned him like a thrown knife. Her mouth shaped silent words: Dead already.
Kael didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. Shame burned hotter than fear. He forced himself still as the simulation played out around him.
Strike. Retreat. Collapse. Regroup. Repeat.
They ran it again. And again.
Kael learned the rhythm of silence. Learned how the wind warned you. How every tree could be a witness—or a grave.
By late afternoon, his legs ached. His back throbbed. His nerves were raw. He hadn’t spoken once.
He hadn’t needed to.
As the last sunray slid between the trees, Vara stepped out from the gloom, her silhouette ringed with dying gold. She studied him. Not just how he stood, but how he carried the silence now. He’d changed.
“Two days from now,” she said, “don’t try to help. You won’t.”
Her eyes bored into him.
“Every beast we hunt is stronger than you. Faster. Smarter. If you get in the way, we’ll burn your body and keep moving.”
Kael nodded. No words left.
But then—just for a breath—her gaze softened. A fraction.
“But if you listen. If you learn. You might live long enough to stop being dead weight.”
She turned and vanished into the brush without another word.
Kael stood there a moment longer. Cold seeping back in. Muscles trembling from effort. Mind racing.
He wasn’t a hunter yet. Not even close.
But he knew the first rule now:
Stay out of the way. Or die.
