The second day arrived without ceremony, like an executioner who doesn't bother with speeches. There were no horns, no banners, just the cold slap of routine and expectation cutting through the pre-dawn darkness. The boys were roused before sunrise, bathed in bitter winds that seemed to carry whispers of ancient battles and the flickering light of the Cradle's mana torches that cast dancing shadows on stone walls. There would be no easing into this life. Yesterday was the welcome. Today was the wall, and that wall had very sharp edges.
Ares blinked sleep from his eyes as he rolled out of his bed, the cold floor shocking his bare feet into full wakefulness. His muscles ached from the forms Velna had drilled into them like a blacksmith hammering hot steel, and his mind felt thick with lingering mana pressure that clung to his thoughts like morning fog. Still, he moved. He always moved. Standing still in this place felt like admitting defeat.
They assembled again at the central training hall, their footsteps echoing off vaulted ceilings that seemed to stretch into infinity. This time, there was no formal speech, no grand declarations. Velna simply pointed to their circles with the casual authority of someone who had broken stronger wills than theirs and said, "You know what to do."
Rowan groaned softly as he took his place, his shoulders sagging like a man preparing for his own execution. "If I die, tell my nonexistent fiancée I loved her. Also, that she's imaginary but I'm sure she'd understand."
Ares smirked and stepped into his storm circle, feeling the familiar thrum of power beneath his feet. The lines pulsed beneath him, the energy more intense today, like the circle remembered him and had decided to raise its standards out of sheer spite.
"Begin," Velna barked, her voice cracking like a whip.
Forms flowed like deadly poetry. Movements cut the air with whispered promises of violence. Balance and breath became gospel, each inhale and exhale a prayer to gods of war and discipline. Mistakes were punished not with shouts, but with corrections that left bruises blooming like dark flowers on pale skin.
Ares fell once. Twice. On the third stumble, he adjusted his stance by a hair's breadth, and Velna nodded with something that might have been approval if she'd been capable of such emotions.
"Good. You're learning. Slowly, but you're learning."
Evandor watched him from the fire circle with thinly veiled disdain, his movements flowing like liquid flame. He executed each form with razor precision but glanced sideways at Ares too often, like a cat watching a mouse that had somehow learned to dance.
Caelum said nothing as usual, moving through his forms with the fluid grace of water finding its level. But once, Ares caught him adjusting his own footwork, the same correction Ares had just made. The silent acknowledgment felt oddly like victory.
Rowan fell three times in a row and simply lay on the floor groaning dramatically, "The floor is warm. I live here now. Send food. And maybe a pillow."
---
After training came the first etiquette lesson, a transition from physical pain to mental torture. They were led to a wide hall draped with velvet banners that depicted the Eisenklinge victories of centuries past, and furnished with chairs that looked comfortable but felt like sitting on frozen stone. A woman named Mistress Elayne entered wearing robes of deep violet and an expression of permanent disappointment, as if the world had personally offended her by existing.
"You will not embarrass this family with fork misuse and crooked bows," she began, her voice carrying the weight of imperial decree. "I have seen grown men reduced to tears by improper soup consumption. Do not test me."
They learned the intricate difference between a court bow and a formal obeisance, the subtle art of standing still with purpose rather than awkwardness, how to sit without appearing lazy while also not looking like they had steel rods for spines. Every gesture had meaning, every movement was a statement.
Ares hated it with the passion of a thousand burning suns. But he recognized its value like a bitter medicine that might save his life. Power wasn't just in the blade, it was in perception, in the ability to make others see what you wanted them to see.
Evandor, of course, was perfect, moving through the protocols like he'd been born to them. Caelum remained ghostlike, following instructions with mechanical precision. Rowan dropped a spoon during the dining demonstration and solemnly declared it an act of high treason against the soup.
Mistress Elayne was decidedly not amused. Her glare could have frozen hellfire.
By the time the session ended, Ares' back ached from maintaining perfect posture, and his mind throbbed with an encyclopedia of protocols that seemed designed by sadists. But there was a rhythm to it, like a deadly dance where one wrong step meant social execution. Just one more battlefield to master.
---
By midday, they were shepherded to the library like lambs to scholarly slaughter. Not for reading, but for memorizing, the kind of intensive study that made their brains feel like overworked muscles.
Scrolls on bloodlines, succession laws, and regional banners filled the heavy oak desks, each document thick with the weight of history and political intrigue. Ares immersed himself in the material, silently reading through the rise and fall of the eastern provinces with the intensity of a general studying enemy territories. He didn't skip the notes scribbled in the margins, they held the real insight, the truths that official histories tried to bury.
Rowan slid into the seat beside him and whispered conspiratorially, "If I drown in ink, tell my nonexistent children they can have my shoes. All zero pairs of them."
Ares chuckled quietly, careful not to attract unwanted attention. "You don't have shoes worth inheriting."
"Exactly. It'll be a very short inheritance dispute."
Ares leaned closer, lowering his voice to barely above a breath. "You should study the footnotes. They're written by actual nobles who lived through these events. See this one? It's a correction on the official record, calling the historian a 'creative interpreter of truth.'"
Rowan raised an eyebrow, suddenly more interested. "So... lies built upon lies. How refreshingly honest of them."
"More like truths hidden in the lies. The real history is in what they don't say directly."
Rowan gave a thoughtful hum, then scribbled something that looked suspiciously like a caricature of Mistress Elayne drowning in a sea of etiquette manuals.
---
The afternoon brought sparring, and with it, a new level of controlled violence.
The training hall had transformed, the practice dummies were gone, replaced by a shimmering pedestal that held a sphere of silversteel engraved with runes that seemed to pulse with their own heartbeat. The Cradle had brought out an Echovault Core, and the very air seemed to thicken with anticipation.
Veltrissa stood on a balcony above them like a dark-winged angel of judgment, arms folded, her presence filling the space with barely contained authority.
"Today, you meet your first combat echo," she announced, her voice carrying clearly through the vaulted space. "This is an Echovault Core, combat memory, instinct, and will compressed into a legacy that doesn't know how to quit."
The core pulsed with inner light, and the air around it shifted like heat waves. "Sixteenth," Velna called sharply. "Step forward. Try not to embarrass yourself too badly."
Ares approached the pedestal, feeling the weight of eyes upon him like physical pressure. The core pulsed again, revealing inscribed text that glowed with ethereal fire: 'Krevahn Eisenklinge — Intermediate Rank, Spear Discipline, Died Gloriously in Battle (Probably).'
Velna placed her hand on the orb with practiced ease. "TierSync: Novice. We're being merciful today."
The echo shimmered into existence like morning mist given form and purpose—an armored figure wielding a short spear with movements that spoke of decades spent dancing with death. Every gesture was crisp, precise, economical. No wasted motion, no unnecessary flourishes.
"You are not expected to win," Veltrissa said from her elevated perch, and there might have been the faintest hint of amusement in her voice. "You are expected to learn. Preferably without dying."
The battle began with the echo striking first, quick as lightning, calculating as a chess master. Ares dodged desperately, parried frantically, deflected what he could. Then the spear found its mark, and he hit the ground hard enough to see stars.
He fought again. And again. Each time, the Core adjusted its approach, replaying the warrior's instincts in different combinations, like a deadly puzzle with infinite solutions.
On his third attempt, something clicked. Ares timed a side-step perfectly, reading the echo's rhythm like sheet music, and struck the phantom warrior's leg with a move that felt more like inspiration than training.
The figure vanished in wisps of silver smoke, leaving only the faint scent of ozone and victory.
"Progress," Veltrissa murmured from above, and the single word carried more weight than a speech. "Barely measurable, but progress nonetheless."
Evandor scoffed from his position by the wall, but there was something almost impressed in his expression. Almost.
Caelum remained silent as carved stone. But his eyes were narrowed, focused, like a cat that had just spotted something worth hunting.
---
The day ended in the courtyard, where they were granted a full hour to commune with mana under the watchful gaze of the elemental shrines.
Ares chose the wind shrine without hesitation, drawn to its promise of freedom and flight. He sat beneath the small stone altar carved with swirling patterns that seemed to move in his peripheral vision, and drew mana inward with careful concentration. It was still harder than it should be, the Cradle's restrictions choked the flow like fingers around a throat. But the wind listened today with something approaching interest. It circled him in gentle spirals, and for a moment he could swear he heard whispers in the breeze: *You don't belong here. Not yet.*
He smiled at the invisible voices, feeling oddly comforted by their honesty.
"Not yet," he whispered back to the wind. "But soon."
From across the courtyard, half-hidden in shadows that seemed to bend around her, Veltrissa watched with the intensity of a hawk studying its prey.
And said nothing. Which somehow felt more ominous than any words she might have spoken.
---
That night, in the shared dormitory that felt more like a military barracks, the boys lay in their respective alcoves. The mana lamps were dimmed to mere glowing embers, and silence crept over them like mist rolling in from the sea.
Rowan's voice broke the quiet like a stone dropped in still water. "You think if we survive this place, we'll be better people?"
Caelum's response came swift and certain. "No. Just sharper. Like knives that have learned to think."
"Same thing, isn't it?" Rowan murmured, though he didn't sound entirely convinced.
Evandor didn't speak, but Ares could feel his awareness in the darkness like a blade hidden behind silk curtains, waiting for the right moment to cut.
Ares lay awake long after exhaustion claimed the others, staring at ceiling stones that had witnessed countless generations of Eisenklinge sons learning to become weapons. He thought of Beatrix, of the mother he'd never truly known but carried in his eyes. Of legacy written in blood and forged in pain. Of the future that waited like a hungry beast in the shadows.
'Sharper is enough,' he thought, listening to the wind whisper secrets through the ancient stones. 'For now, sharper is more than enough.'