The field emptied slow.
Not like a bell had rung. No dismissal order. Just bodies peeling off in groups once they realized Bradan wasn’t going to shout again. Some kids wandered toward the far archways, still muttering about mana scores. Others headed back toward the barracks without looking back.
The instructor crouched down near the scorched sigil. Ran a thick thumb across the outer edge like he was testing if the ground still remembered what happened.
It did. The lines were still warm.
He didn’t look at Rethan when he spoke. "You burned hot."
"That’s not what I said."
Bradan stood, finally meeting his eyes. "You’re older than you look. Not in face. In the way you stand."
Rethan didn’t answer. It wasn’t a question.
Bradan crossed his arms. "You’ve channeled like that before."
"Once," Rethan said. "Maybe twice."
"You flared a sigil with a touch. Either you were lying about your level or you’ve been through things no one should’ve survived. Which is it?"
"Then you’re broken in the right ways."
Bradan didn’t sound impressed. Just curious. Like someone sorting scrap metal and stumbling over a rare alloy.
He walked a slow circle around Rethan.
"Mana doesn’t come from nowhere," he said. "It anchors to things. Core. Spirit. Will. You’ve got a lot of it."
Rethan kept his voice level. "Is that bad?"
Bradan stopped. "No. It’s expensive."
That hung in the air for a bit.
Then Bradan gestured toward the edge of the field. "Come."
They moved in silence across the outer rim of the training yard, through a rusted gate, past the barrack line, and toward a smaller, half-collapsed building with iron shutters still clinging to the windows.
Bradan pushed the door open. Didn’t check if Rethan followed.
Inside, the light changed. Cooler, yellow-lit by lanterns that flickered against stone. The smell of old rope and rusted metal. Dust that hadn’t been disturbed in a while.
"Sit," Bradan said, pointing at a stool.
Bradan didn’t. He leaned against the wall and folded his arms.
"You’ve got more force in your veins than any second-batch kid I’ve seen. And I’ve seen twenty-two batches come through here."
"So I’m going to ask you a few questions," Bradan said. "And you’re going to answer them like someone who doesn’t want to disappear into a side cell and never be found again."
Rethan met his eyes. "You think I’m a plant?"
"I think you don’t move like a survivor. I think you move like someone who’s waiting for the next step of a plan. And no one that young should have a plan."
"Then explain the flare."
"I don’t know how it works. It just... happens."
Bradan tilted his head. "That’s your defense? ’It happens’?"
"I didn’t ask for it."
"Doesn’t matter. Power is power. People will come for it."
Rethan nodded slowly. "They already did."
Bradan’s eyes narrowed. "Tell me."
"I woke up in a cell. Same as the others. Before that—nothing. Just pain."
Bradan leaned off the wall and dropped into the chair across from him.
"Listen. I don’t give a damn where you came from, kid. But I do care what you can do. You keep pulling mana like that, someone’s going to ask why you’re not in a circle already. They’ll test you harder. Push you further."
Rethan’s jaw tightened. "And if I break?"
Bradan shrugged. "Then we bury another name. It’s not personal."
He stood again and cracked his neck.
"I’m flagging your record. You’re going in front of the King."
Rethan blinked. "The King?"
"You know the word. Don’t pretend you don’t."
"I thought that was a title. A joke."
Bradan opened the door. "You’ll see tomorrow."
Rethan sat for a second longer.
Back in the hallway, he passed a pair of kids dragging a bucket between them. Neither looked older than ten. One gave him a quick glance, then kept walking.
No one bowed. No one whispered. No one gasped at his mana level.
They just moved on. Because here, surviving was more important than being impressive.
He walked until he hit the barracks.
Collapsed onto a bunk.
The girl from earlier was there already, half-asleep.
She cracked one eye open. "They pull your fingernails?"
"Third-batch story. One kid blew a stone apart. King wanted to see what he could take. Started with the nails."
Rethan stared at the ceiling.
The mattress was thin.
"You got a name?" the girl asked.
"Good. I’ll yell it if you start bleeding in your sleep."
Rethan let the dark settle in.
Because now he knew there was a king.
And tomorrow, he had to meet him.
Morning didn’t come with light.
It came with the sound of iron scraping against iron.
Rethan, Merlin, somewhere deeper, snapped awake before his eyes even opened.
His body moved like it already knew what was expected: sit up, boots on, mouth shut. Around him, bunks creaked, boys and girls shifting in half-darkness, no one talking above a mutter.
The girl from before rolled out of bed in one motion. Her braid smacked him in the shoulder as she passed. She didn’t apologize.
A boy by the door was already pulling on his coat. Maybe twelve. Too tall. One hand shook as he laced his boot, like he hadn’t warmed up yet or didn’t sleep at all.
Rethan sat still a beat longer.
’It smells like boiled rope in here.’
He rubbed his face. His fingers were cold. His breath fogged slightly in the dimness. There were no windows. Just vents near the ceiling that leaked stale air. He could still taste dust from the night before.
"Let’s go," someone snapped from the corridor.
Voices thinned. Feet thudded on packed stone.
His joints didn’t ache. That was worse than pain. It meant this body was used to bad mornings. Like it had given up waiting for good ones.
He followed the rest out.
They filed into a wider hall, low ceiling, iron torches. Half the kids had their coats on inside out. One girl wore no shoes. No one corrected her. Everyone just moved.
Breakfast was a scoop of something thick and beige dropped into metal bowls. A woman with sleeves rolled up to her elbows barked at anyone who hesitated.
Rethan took his bowl and sat near the wall. No one joined him.
The mush was lukewarm. Sweet, somehow. Not pleasant. Just unexpected.
Across the table, a kid sneezed so hard he dropped his spoon.
Another didn’t blink the entire time he ate.
Rethan forced it down.
’It’s not even that bad. I’ve had worse. I just didn’t know this body had.’
That part still lingered in the back of his thoughts. This wasn’t his body. Not really. The muscles, the hands, even the reflexes, they all moved with knowledge he didn’t own.
He scraped the bowl clean.
A bell rang. Not high. Not piercing. Just enough to cut through the noise.
The group filed out into the open again. The sky, if it was sky, was the same blank gray it had been the day before. The field was damp. The walls dripped.
Bradan waited near the center.
Two boys, three girls. One of them flinched.
"You’re digging today," he said.
Rethan was left standing with the rest. Eighteen total.
Bradan looked over them.
"You’ll split into two rings. Movement drills. Six steps. Break. Swap partners. Watch your form. If I see anyone flaring without control, I’ll know you don’t care who you kill."
He didn’t wait for a response.
The first hour was movement.
Step, pivot, shift weight, slide back.
They paired up fast. Rethan got assigned to a short boy with a long face and a cough. The kid didn’t speak. He just moved like someone counting every breath as an expense.
The drills weren’t hard. Just repetitive.
But Rethan’s knees ached by the third set. Not from impact.
’This is where he learned rhythm. This exact motion. It’s in my bones now because it was in his first.’
He adjusted his footing.
They switched partners again.
This time, a girl named Tenel. Light hair. Dark eyes. She watched him like he might flinch. He didn’t.
"You’re fast," she said.
She smirked. "Because I’m smarter."
She shifted and feinted low. He caught the dodge. Barely.
Bradan called for a break.
They all sat. Or crouched. No one left the circle.
"Water?" Tenel asked, nodding to the spigot on the far wall.
Rethan shook his head. "You first."
She didn’t argue. Just jogged off.
’They’re still watching.’
[The Messenger whispers: "This one remembers."]
[The First Lawkeeper sharpens their quill.]
He closed his eyes briefly.
He could still feel it.
The pull of the exile’s memory.
Every breath he took down here was one the other boy, Rethan, the original, had carved from ash and silence.
And now it was his to finish.
Just to understand why it had to end the way it did.