He was still upright. Still breathing. But barely. The stink of sweat and old fire clung to him like wet cloth. His hands were bruised. There was dried blood under every nail. It wasn't his.
The field stretched ahead.
Broken towers, shattered barricades, blackened banners hanging limp.
Some missing limbs. Some faces. Some names.
The squad he'd seen last night, eight kids huddled around a canteen, laughing too loud, was down to two. And one of those two was screaming.
The boy's voice cracked like someone trying to scream through smoke. Merlin turned.
The trainee was on the slope. One leg stuck under a piece of stone. A giant slab. Arm stretched toward the rest of them. Toward anyone. Blood soaked the dirt beneath him. His eyes were wide and wild.
"I can't—I can't move—"
So did another. Sera. One of the quiet ones. She got there first. Tried to lift the stone.
Merlin joined her, knees sinking into the blood-muddied ground. He gripped the edge of the slab. Hot. Burned his palms. He didn't care.
Sera nodded. Her braid was half-burned off. Her lips were split.
The boy screamed louder.
"Please! Please don't leave me—"
"We're not leaving," Merlin said.
Even as the words left his mouth, they felt cheap. There was nothing left in his voice but gravel and habit.
The boy's hand scrabbled against the earth. "Don't let me die —please—I don't want to die —"
Sera screamed and shoved again. Something cracked in her shoulder.
Merlin's legs buckled. He tried again. And again.
Another explosion tore through the far end of the camp. Dirt rained down like ash. Sera coughed, wiping blood from her nose.
"They're coming," she whispered.
"No," the boy gasped. "Please—no—don't go—please—"
He didn't see a soldier.
He saw a kid. Same age. Same uniform. Same patch sewn too tightly on one side. One boot half-unlaced.
"Tell my sister—" the boy choked. "Tell her I—"
Merlin grabbed the boy's hand.
"I'll tell her," he said. "I swear."
The boy stopped shaking.
Then the light left his eyes.
Sera stood. Quiet. Still bleeding.
Merlin let go of the hand.
His knees nearly gave out.
They didn't speak as they ran.
Not until they cleared the ridge, found the others, two more survivors, both limping, one with an eye swollen shut.
"We're it?" Sera asked.
The taller one, Gev nodded.
"Then we head south," Merlin said.
But the voice still came out steady.
The others didn't question it.
The wind behind them smelled like copper and salt. Fires flickered in the trees ahead. Not safety. Just not here.
'This is hell,' Merlin thought.
He didn't mean the fire.
He didn't mean the dead.
He meant the promise.
The Academy trained them for wars they never planned to survive.
And the ones who lived…
…weren't the lucky ones.
The explosion didn't sound like thunder. It sounded like something falling apart inside a chest. His chest.
Merlin hit the dirt hard. Something tore at his shoulder, felt like a hot blade slicing deep and sideways, and he didn't even scream. Just gasped, air punching out of him like he'd been stabbed with a fist.
'Shit. That was close.'
He rolled onto his side. Dirt clung to his face, sweat sticking everything in place. His left arm wouldn't move right. He looked down. Blood. Not a lot yet, but it was running in the wrong direction. That mattered.
A shape rushed past, someone he knew, or didn't. They didn't look back.
Gunfire crackled nearby. Screams layered over it. Not battle cries. Not heroic. Just raw sound. Desperate, unfinished.
His stomach lurched. He tried to sit up.
"Rethan!" someone shouted.
He blinked. A silhouette skidded into view, Arlen, maybe. Too much dust in the air to see clearly.
"You hit?" Arlen dropped next to him, eyes wide. His hand went to Merlin's side, pulled back bloody.
Merlin grunted. "Yeah. Don't think I'll die from it though."
"Could still bleed out. Can you move?"
He didn't answer. Just grit his teeth and pushed up. His legs worked, mostly. His shoulder didn't. It hung wrong. Like something inside had snapped and didn't plan on fixing itself.
Arlen wrapped an arm around him. "We gotta move. They're flanking us."
The words barely landed. Everything sounded underwater.
'Stay upright. Just stay upright.'
He limped forward, each step carving fire into his shoulder. Something burned up his side too, fresh blood soaking into the waist of his pants.
They ducked behind a slab of broken concrete. Arlen scanned the ridge. "More of us coming from the west. But not many."
Merlin sagged against the wall. "We losing?"
'I'll take that as a yes.'
He let his head drop back. The sky above looked wrong. Like it didn't belong here. Too soft for all this screaming.
Then someone screamed again. Not far.
Merlin twisted toward it. A boy, too young, was on the ground, crawling. His leg was gone. Just gone. Like someone had torn it off at the knee.
"Help—please—someone—" His voice cracked so hard it barely sounded human.
Merlin tried to grab him. "Don't."
"We can't just leave him!"
"You'll die. So will he. That's how this works."
Merlin pressed his hand to the wound at his side, trying not to shake. Every part of him wanted to follow. Every part of him knew it wouldn't matter.
Ten seconds later, more fire bloomed. Arlen didn't come back.
'This is what it takes,' Merlin thought. 'This is the memory. The weight. Not dying. Watching.'
He shoved himself back to his feet, eyes stinging.
The boy's screams had stopped.
He turned away from the smoke, from the place Arlen had vanished.
The pain in his shoulder pulsed hard now. His vision blurred at the edges. But he stayed standing.
Because the others weren't.
And someone had to remember that.
Smoke dragged low through the ruins, clinging to the broken cement like it didn't want to rise. Merlin ducked as another round of something loud and hot split the air two meters overhead. The impact cracked against the hillside behind them. Too close.
He clenched his jaw and pulled back, half-hunched, shoulder throbbing every time his boots hit ground.
"Fall back! Everyone west ridge!"
It was one of the instructors, Ser Vellan. Older, scarred, her voice wrecked from shouting too many orders that didn't stick.
She didn't wait for a response, just hauled another trainee up by the collar and shoved them toward the slope.
Merlin turned, chest heaving. His shoulder was numb now. A bad sign. It meant the body was giving up on it.
Then he saw Arlen again.
He was dragging someone. The same kid. The one with the missing leg.
"No, no, no," Merlin muttered under his breath. "Don't be stupid."
The path to the ridge was open. If they ran now, they might actually live. But Arlen wasn't moving that direction.
He was still trying to be decent.
Still trying to save something.
Merlin looked around. The rest of the squad was either dead, gone, or screaming.
And Arlen was limping. The kid in his arms looked barely conscious. There was no way they'd make it.
A whistle cut the air. Not wind. Not nature.
Merlin's eyes snapped up.
The blast hit near Arlen's feet.
It didn't explode like in the training sims. It spat shrapnel low, vicious and fast. A cloud of jagged metal and sand. The sound hit half a second later, a guttural crack like glass and ribs splintering together.
Merlin stumbled back from the pressure.
He coughed hard, pain flaring down his side again.
Then, movement. Shapes staggering. One stood.
His left arm hung limp. The kid was gone. Nothing but red in the dirt. Arlen's right leg dragged like it wasn't listening anymore.
He tried to limp toward the slope.
But his weight buckled.
He went down hard. Hands catching stone.
"Arlen—" His voice cracked. "Get up!"
He slid the last meter, catching himself with his good arm as he dropped beside him.
Arlen looked up. Blood caked the side of his mouth. His chest rose, shallow and fast.
"Should've stayed down," Arlen whispered.
"Shut up." Merlin got under his shoulder. "You're not dying in a trench. Not ."
"Doesn't matter." Arlen's laugh was breathy. Weak. "They don't care."
"I care," Merlin said.
That actually made Arlen go quiet for a second. Just watched him. Eyes glassy but focused.
"You're not like the rest of them," he muttered.
Merlin didn't respond. His jaw was locked too tight.
He tried to lift him again. This time Arlen helped. They got two steps.
Then another whistle.
Tackled them both to the side just as the ground snapped open behind them with another impact.
Stone rained down. Heat pulsed through the air.
When the dust cleared again, Merlin opened his eyes.
"Hey," Merlin said, voice dry. "Hey. You still breathing?"
He shifted him, hand pressed to his side.
He sat there for a moment, knees folded under him, hand still on Arlen's chest.
The world hadn't gone quiet. There was still yelling. Explosions. Wind dragging smoke through dead grass.
But right there, in that patch of dirt—
It felt flat. Obvious. But heavy, too. The kind of thing that sat under the skin instead of on it.
'You can't cry. Not here. Not in this body.'
One boot after another, not toward safety, but toward whatever hell waited next.
Because if this was the memory he had to carry—
He was going to carry all of it.
And he wasn't done yet.