The mornings in the training hall had begun to blur, strung together like beads on a fraying wire—identical in shape, but sharper each time they passed.
Cael woke before the lights this time.
He didn't mean to. His body did it for him now—an instinct forming beneath the bruises, rising from the thin mattress like it knew something terrible would happen if he lingered. Sleep was no longer a refuge; it was a liability.
There was no clock in the dormitory. No window. No cycle of sun or stars. Only the timed flicker of artificial dawn—cool white light sliding down the walls like spilled bleach, sterile and merciless. A second later, the hum of ventilation returned, followed by the hiss of awakening lights above.
Cael rubbed the grit from his eyes and sat up, ignoring the bark in his spine. His bunk creaked. Thin sweat had soaked the collar of his shirt sometime in the night. A nightmare he couldn't remember. That was becoming common, too.
Across the row, other Pawns began to stir—not all at once, but in sequence. One by one. As if pulled up by the same invisible string threaded through their spines, reminding them that rest was borrowed and paid back with pain.
The training hall was already humming.
Cael could feel it before he entered—through the soles of his feet, up his teeth, buzzing in his temples. Like a machine revving beneath the floor.
And this morning, the floor had changed.
The terrain wasn't smooth anymore.
A grid of raised tiles jutted from the obsidian beneath their boots—some jagged, others with shifting centers. Some moved when stepped on. Some tilted unpredictably. It was like stepping onto the back of some dormant beast, scales twitching underfoot.
"Adapt," the drillmaster barked, pacing before them with a baton tapping into her palm like a metronome made of malice. Her voice was rougher than usual, gravel-laced. "Or fall."
Her eyes scanned them like searchlights. She didn't ask for questions. She never did.
Cael fell into line beside Wren.
She gave him a look—a nod without warmth, but not without meaning.
The whistle blew.
And pain began again.
They ran first—always running. Sprinting in lines, then arcs, then chaotic zigzags through a layout that bucked and shifted beneath them. Tiles dropped away mid-stride. Others jolted upward, cracking knees or ankles if your steps were off by an inch.
Then they rolled—into dives, through trenches, under swinging arms of steel. The air was filled with the thuds of bodies, the grunt of forced movement, the metallic chorus of struggle.
Group formations came next—tight phalanxes, two-row advances, rotating defense circles. Cael barely had time to wipe sweat from his eyes before the drillmaster shouted for another shift.
Twice, Cael slipped.
Once, Wren caught his elbow before he hit the floor.
The second time, no one did.
His jaw cracked against the edge of a platform. Blood bloomed inside his mouth. The copper taste was immediate. He spat and stood before she could speak.
The drillmaster gave him a glance. Just one.
"Good," she said. "Finally learning."
By the time midday came—if that word even meant anything here—his shirt clung to him like a second skin. His ribs throbbed with every breath.
That's when everything shifted.
A crackle in the wall speakers.
A pause.
A beat too long between commands. Even the lights seemed to hesitate, their flicker uneven, like the system itself had turned its head to listen.
Then a door slid open in the far wall.
Not the main entrance.
Not the mess hall.
A door none of them had ever seen used before.
From the brightness beyond it, a figure stepped through.
A boy—older than most of them. Pale. Too pale. His skin had the unnatural sheen of fresh wax. He moved like someone emerging from surgery. Blinking at the light. Staggering slightly, as though gravity had changed behind the door.
His uniform was pristine.
His insignia shimmered bright silver: ♞
Knight.
Cael saw it glowing like a warning. But that wasn't what made his stomach turn.
The boy's veins.
They pulsed beneath his skin—faintly lit. Almost alive. His hands twitched at random intervals. His gaze wandered the hall like he didn't recognize anything. Like the world had changed shapes and no one told him.
Serum.
The word echoed in Cael's skull.
The drillmaster didn't even look at the boy. Just raised a finger toward the far wall. "Observe. No engagement."
The Knight nodded. Shuffled away.
No one spoke. No one dared.
But a new weight settled over the room.
It had begun.
Not for them.
Not yet.
But the others—the major pieces—were already being changed. Already being reshaped into something faster, stronger, less breakable.
Less human.
Cael's chest tightened as the whistle blew again.
Wren didn't speak to him until later.
The day ground on in layers—drills, more running, tactical simulations where the floor lit up and they were forced to memorize formations, patterns, evasions. Punishments were given in pushups or bodyweight holds. Some Pawns trembled too hard to complete them. Others threw up and were forced to clean it.
And then it ended.
Dinner came. Tasteless, protein-rich. The hall fell to murmurs and metal clinks. Exhaustion replaced silence.
Wren joined him in the shower block after the trays had been collected. Steam rolled through the tiles in waves, masking the bruises and the voices.
"He looked wrong," she muttered beside him. Her voice barely rose above the hiss of the water. "Did you see his hands? The twitching?"
Cael nodded, lathering shampoo into hair that barely felt clean. "He didn't even look like he was all here."
"They're starting it," Wren whispered. "The injections. The enhancements."
"Not for us," Cael said.
"No," she agreed. Her jaw flexed. "Of course not. We're the shields."
The steam curled around her like fog around a mountain. Cael studied her face—lined with fatigue, eyes too alert for rest. She didn't look scared. But she didn't look at ease either.
The silence grew heavier. The tiles seemed to breathe with them.
"Do you think anyone's ever made it to the other side?" he asked eventually.
Wren didn't answer right away.
He waited.
Then she said, "You mean a Pawn?"
He nodded.
There was a long pause.
Then she gave a bitter exhale. "There's a story. Don't know if it's true. Might just be part of the game."
He turned to face her. "Tell me anyway."
Later, when the lights dimmed for rest-cycle, and most of the others had fallen into the stillness of exhaustion, Wren remained awake.
She sat cross-legged on her bunk, her back against the wall, a shadow framed by sterile white.
"There was a boy," she said. "They say he was from one of the lower tiers. Poor district. Like most of us. Drafted the same way—scraped from the gutters. But he was smart. Fast. Didn't follow rules. Always questioning. Got beat for it more than once."
Cael leaned closer.
"Said he figured something out. About the board."
"What kind of something?"
"That the quadrants rotate."
Cael blinked. "What?"
Wren nodded. "The arena isn't fixed. Every square, every environment, can shift. Move sideways. Rotate. The terrain isn't static—it's alive. Controlled from somewhere above. They say if you're quiet enough during a game, you can hear the land shifting under your feet."
His skin prickled. He remembered the strange vibration he felt that morning. The off-beat rhythm of the floor. Was that it? Was the board moving while they trained?
"What happened to him?" he asked.
"They say he made it all the way across. Slipped through enemy lines. Took down seven. He reached the final rank."
Cael swallowed. "Did he take out the King?"
Wren shook her head.
"No. He didn't want to."
Silence.
"He dropped his blade," she said. "Said he didn't want the win. He wanted something else. Said he chose promotion."
Cael stared. "And?"
"They made him Queen," she said softly. "At least… that's what they told the audience. Called him Queen on the scoreboard. Let him speak. Broadcast it like a victory."
"And then?"
She looked away.
"Then they shut off the feed. Took him into the back. Gave him the full serum. And erased him."
He didn't move. Couldn't.
"They say he never came back out. Not as a player. Not as an Official. Not as anything."
The silence that followed felt like a chasm.
Cael sat with his hands gripping the cot frame.
"You think it's true?" he asked.
"I think," Wren whispered, "it's just close enough to the truth to keep us running toward it."
That night, Cael couldn't sleep.
The ceiling glared back, unblinking. His thoughts churned in the hollow between heartbeats.
He saw that boy—faceless, nameless, walking across the final square.
Laying down his blade.
Asking for more.
Only to be swallowed whole.
His jaw clenched.
He thought of the white Knight today, twitching and blinking like a marionette still learning how to move.
He thought of the Officials—once human, now husks.
He thought of the way Wren said, "we're the shields."
He thought of Lia.
Her voice in the snow. Her hand in his.
"Don't disappear."
Not like that. Not forgotten. Not rewritten.
Not another Pawn ground beneath the board.
If he ever made it to the other side, he wouldn't kneel.
He would rise.
He would remember.
And then—he'd flip the table.