Izen woke to silence—not the gentle hush of peace, but the kind that settles when everything has been taken from a place.
Even breath felt borrowed here. The air was too still, the temperature never changing. It reminded him of mausoleums. Of cellars. Of the places people didn't go unless they had something to hide.
Across the dormitory, bunks were emptying with quiet efficiency. Nobody spoke. They were learning fast. Too fast.
He dressed slowly, the rough weave of the uniform catching faintly on his wrist. The fabric had been washed so many times it had turned coarse, like it had forgotten how to be soft.
Vellin was already up, tying her boots with silent precision. She didn't look at him. She hadn't spoken since the night before.
I saw you, she'd said.
It was a small thing, but it lingered in the back of Izen's thoughts like a whisper caught in an echo chamber. She had noticed something. Not what, but something. That alone made her dangerous.
He would have to watch her now. Not as an enemy. Not yet.
As a variable.
The students were herded into a new corridor today—longer than the others, lined with walls that looked like polished slate. Lanterns flickered with a strange blue flame, casting long shadows that stretched and recoiled as they walked.
There were fewer of them now.
Izen noticed it without having to count. The number of shuffling feet had thinned. Fewer shoulders brushed his as they marched in double-file. Fewer faces—expressionless, dim-eyed, hollowed.
No one asked where the missing had gone.
They already knew.
At the far end of the corridor, a tall door waited—taller than any they'd passed through before. It opened without sound.
The room beyond was not made of stone like the rest. It was metal. Cold, reflective, seamless in a way that made Izen uneasy. There were no seams in the panels, no rivets or bolts.
Just polished steel. A room like a surgical tray.
Inside, a woman waited.
She was the first instructor they'd seen who wasn't masked.
Her face was long and pale, with eyes that seemed to see past the skin. She didn't smile. Her hair was braided back in a single plait that disappeared beneath her collar.
She wore black gloves and had no visible weapon.
That meant she was the most dangerous person here.
"I am Irel," she said.
Her voice carried without being loud. It was flat, practiced, emotionless.
"I will be administering your psychological profile evaluations."
A pause.
"This is not a test. There are no points. No winners. No death. But you will not enjoy it."
She gestured to the side, where a wall segment hissed open. Inside was a narrow room, like a walk-in vault. There were no lights inside. Only a single metal chair.
"Enter one at a time. Sit. Do not speak unless spoken to."
The first student walked in without hesitation.
The door sealed shut behind him.
He didn't scream. No sound came through.
But when the door opened five minutes later, he was pale, sweating, and shaking.
He walked out like a ghost.
The next girl went in.
Then another boy.
Izen waited. He counted every tick of the door's hiss. Every shift in posture among the remaining students. Deros cracked his knuckles once, then froze when Irel looked his way.
When Izen's turn came, he stepped in calmly.
The door sealed behind him.
The chair was cold.
He sat without a word.
Irel stood opposite him, arms folded.
"What is your name?" she asked.
He hesitated.
He hadn't been asked that since arrival.
The instructors referred to them by number. The dormitory had no roll call. Even the tokens they'd been given bore only runes, not letters.
"Izen," he said.
Her expression didn't shift.
"Why are you here?"
A test. No—it wasn't a test, she'd said that. But still, he felt something behind the words. Like a second blade hidden behind the first.
"I was brought," he answered.
A pause.
"And before that?"
He didn't speak.
Not immediately.
Images rose—his mother's hands, still warm. The smell of fire. The knife handle, slick in his grip. The soft sound of her voice, asking him why.
He swallowed it all.
"Before that doesn't matter."
Irel studied him.
She didn't blink much. Her gaze was clinical, dissecting him with each second of silence.
Then she walked slowly around the room.
"There's a pattern we've noticed in recruits like you," she said. "Detached. Introspective. Highly adaptive."
She stopped behind him. He could feel her presence like a pressure on his spine.
"They either become our greatest assets," she continued, "or our biggest mistakes."
He didn't flinch.
"What happens to the mistakes?" he asked quietly.
Irel was silent for a moment.
Then, softly: "We don't bury bodies here. We recycle them."
When she stepped forward again, she held something.
A photo.
She dropped it in his lap.
He stared at it without picking it up.
It was of a man. Mid-thirties. Strong jaw. A crooked tooth, like he hadn't smiled much since childhood. He looked like someone who fixed cars for a living, or ran a small shop in a town where nothing ever changed.
Izen had never seen him before.
"Would you kill him?" Irel asked.
He looked up slowly.
"Why?"
She didn't answer.
"Then no," he said.
A long silence.
"What if I told you he was the reason you were brought here?"
Still, he didn't pick up the photo.
"I'd want proof."
The door hissed open behind him.
"Keep the photo," she said.
Izen stood and left without a word.
That night, he studied the photo beneath his bunk sheet.
The man didn't look threatening. Didn't look important.
But the question had been important.
It wasn't about obedience. It was about identity. About principle. The Academy needed to know what kind of killer he would become.
Izen was quiet. Calculated. Observant.
But he wasn't obedient.
That distinction would become dangerous.
Soon.
He tucked the photo inside the lining of his boot.
Two days passed.
They were given brief combat sparring. Deros broke a boy's collarbone and wasn't punished. Vellin won three matches by submission. Izen forfeited twice—both intentionally.
Let them think him cautious. Cowardly, even.
He wanted the instructors confused. Conflicted.
Not threatened.
That evening, while most students cleaned their weapons or slept, Izen remained seated at the corner of the dormitory, watching the shadows shift beneath the flickering lantern.
Vellin approached without noise.
She crouched beside him, eyes narrowed.
"You're hiding something," she said.
Izen didn't look at her.
"So are you."
She paused.
Then: "You don't care about this place. But you act like you do. That's dangerous."
He turned to face her now.
"You want to survive?"
She nodded.
"Then stop asking questions out loud."
She left him alone after that.
But her eyes lingered longer the next morning.
On the seventh day, one of the boys didn't wake up.
No wounds. No sounds during the night. Just cold skin and blue lips.
The instructors removed the body wordlessly. By afternoon, his bunk was filled with someone new.
No one said a word.
That night, Izen dreamed.
Not of his mother. Not of the knife.
He dreamed of time splitting. Of moments overlapping. Of walking through himself like a shadow peeling off a wall.
And when he woke, his hand was clenched.
Holding the orb from the rhythm training.
Except… it was back in Renn's possession. He had returned it days ago.
He blinked.
The orb was gone.