The clouds hung low, the sort of raked wool that belonged in an oil painting or a church nave, not over a line of half-awake initiates in blue. Soren watched steam curl from his lips with every breath, a portable cloud of his own to add to the morning's bleak offering.

Two weeks in, and already he saw the tricks fatigue played: the horizon shrank, the stone underfoot got meaner, and every correction from the Swordmaster's mouth scored a little deeper.

Dawn muster on the upper courtyard: Hands on hilt, toes to the line, eyes nailed forward into the next hour's cold blur.

Dane prowled the rows, boots slapping out a metronome that outpaced Soren's heartbeat. Above, the rampart mist shivered, skeining through the air as if afraid it might be mistaken for a living thing.

Soren tasted copper at the top of his mouth, a sure sign his pulse was still spiked from the halfnight shift in the archives, though he'd made double effort to wipe off the library's scent before marching onto the green.

"Blade Division!" Dane's voice struck through the fog like a thrown die. No inflection, no preamble, just the word as command. "What separates a swordsman from a corpse?"

Cassian, third from Soren's left, offered up the answer with the self-assurance of someone who'd never tasted doubt: "A single step, sir."

It was the right answer, but not the full one. Soren knew it; from the tic at the edge of Dane's eye, the Swordmaster did too.

Any fool could survive one strike if blind luck or muscle memory favored them, but to last a round, a day, a war, that was work done in the legs, in the marrow, in the plumbing of the will.

"Step, yes," said Dane, "but what kind of step?"

He moved down the row, inspecting for frayed cuffs, trembling hands, or the reek of last night's drink. When he reached Soren, he paused.

Soren felt the gaze, but kept his own level and blank. He'd learned in the Wastes that nothing drew a predator faster than excessive pride or overt humility. Both were forms of blood in the water.

"Coren Vale," Dane barked, "demonstrate."

Soren stepped out, barely registering the wet drag of his boot on the flagstone. He recalled the prior night's drills, the corrections handed down in half sentences: lower the center, tighten the pivot, don't risk excess motion unless the ratio could be justified.

He drew, advanced, reset, all in half-pace increments, letting the body's weight ride the transition rather than force it. The motion felt ugly to him, inelegant, but perhaps that was the point. He finished with the blade's tip floating at imaginary throat-height and waited, breath stilled.

Dane nodded. "Ragged, but improved."

Cassian added a sound from the flank, a scoff in a silken sleeve. "They say practice makes perfect, Vale, but nobody warned us how much uglier this would get before it started looking like something again."

Soren ignored him, let the words settle into whatever audience Cassian was cultivating this morning. He wiped the blade on his uniform and melted back into line.

Dane raised a hand and, with a single snap, signaled the cohort into motion. "Double cadence. Eastward march." He turned on the heel, leading them into the mist.

Fifty bodies, all variations on the same collection of flaws and ambitions, clattered up the stone in practiced, if not always synchronized, harmony.

They broke at the quad's eastern platform, where low walls kept the wind's teeth off their hands and faces. The day's lesson: formation tactics, no duels, no solo games, nothing that would let individual glory pollute the math of the group.

Soren paired off with Seren Avelle again, a comfort of sorts. Her rhythm meshed seamlessly with his, no egos tripping up the timing or forcing corrections on every count. They moved together through the basic forms, expanding to trios and then to whole rows.

Where Soren erred, Seren compensated, adjusting her grip or pressure so his mistake cancelled rather than compounded. He noted it, and resolved to watch for the same in her: a subtle pay-it-forward economy that, if maintained, could help both keep out of Dane's spotlight.

Cassian and his chosen lieutenant, Aria, never once adapted their duo to accommodate a new partner, even as the groups evolved. Instead, they escalated, turning drill into contest, upping the showiness and, more often than not, breaking the pattern when a move didn't land as planned.

Soren suspected that was half the point. Even on days when teamwork was king, some still played for the hope of solo distinction.

By the fifth cycle, Soren's arms ached from the repetition and the lingering after-effects of last night's echo in the underhalls. He flexed his fingers in the break, rolling the pulse in his wrist until the familiar shard thrum faded to a low hum.

"Bleeding through, isn't it?" Seren said quietly, voice pitched for Soren's ear only.

He nodded, not trusting his voice to stay steady.

"I have bruise paste if you want," she offered, not as a kindness, but as a tool shared between equals.

"That's not the part that aches," he said.

Seren seemed to consider, then let the silence be a reply.

Dane called the next round. This time, randomizing the groups by odd-even distribution, Soren landed with Cassian and Mara, a recipe for disaster if there ever was one. Dane watched closely.

As predicted, Cassian led with aggression, hoping raw energy would outpace the clumsiness of new partnership. The first three exchanges nearly unseated Mara, but Soren caught the tempo and, instead of resisting, let Cassian's force pull him into a defensive circle.

He shifted the cadence, changed the timing, once, twice, until Cassian had no choice but to match, lest he break stride and humiliate himself outright.

By the round's end, Cassian scowled, but Mara nodded to Soren, an unspoken thanks for the save.

Dane cut the round with a raised voice. "The lesson is control, not conquest. If you seek glory, join the dueling clubs; if you seek to live, learn to subordinate." His eyes swept the initiates. "Again."

They ran thirty cycles before the bell called them in for the morning meal.

Soren's hands trembled as he set his practice blade back on the rack, not from exhaustion but from the need to keep everything else inside. The echo in his chest was strong now, an itch or a hunger that resisted all attempts to drown it in routine.

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