Morning never came for Tamura.
One moment he slept beneath a stolen blanket, dreaming of blue leaves and a village without gates.
The next-
BANG!
The bedroom door struck the wall hard enough to split its hinges.
"On your feet!"
Armored guards flooded the room. Heavy boots shook the floor. Tamura pushed himself upright, but a hand closed around his ankle and dragged him from the bed.
His back struck the boards. Splinters tore through his shirt.
"Mugen!"
Across the room, Mugen woke with his shadows already moving. Darkness climbed the bedframe and reached for the nearest guard.
A second man pressed a soaked cloth across his mouth and nose.
Mugen struck him once in the throat. The guard stumbled, but the chemical scent had already filled Mugen's lungs. His shadow collapsed. He tore at the man's wrist, coughing into the cloth until strength abandoned his fingers.
"Tamura... don't breathe-"
His eyes rolled back.
The guards carried him away.
Tamura lunged after them. A boot hit his ribs and drove him to the floor.
Heat burst from his palms.
The guard above him raised a black metal rod. A pale rune flashed along its length.
Pain tore through Tamura's body before the weapon touched him. His fire vanished. Every muscle locked, and the world became a white scream.
"The suppressor works," someone said.
"Good. Bag him."
Dark cloth covered Tamura's head.
The last thing he heard was Mugen's boots dragging down the corridor.
He awoke beneath the earth.
Cold stone pressed against his cheek. Damp air carried the smells of mold, iron, and old fear. His wrists were raw where restraints had rubbed through the skin.
Iron bars divided a narrow cell from a corridor lit by a single red lantern.
Across from him sat Aylin.
The white tigerkin hugged her knees against her chest. Dirt tangled her silver hair. Purple bruises marked both arms, and one eye had swollen nearly shut.
Tamura crawled toward her. "What happened?"
Aylin's ears flattened. "They asked where we planned to go."
"What?"
"The village." Her voice trembled. "They knew."
The realization chilled him more than the cell.
They had been listening beneath the tree.
Every laugh.
Every dream.
The red lantern went dark.
White light flooded the corridor.
Tamura shielded his eyes. Aylin cried out beside him. The brightness gathered into lines across the floor, forming a circle beneath the cell.
His right hand began to burn.
He looked down.
An emblem pushed through his skin from within.
Curved thorns surrounded an empty eye. Each line glowed molten white as it carved across the back of his hand. The pain was not like flame. Fire belonged to him.
This felt foreign.
An order forced into bone.
Tamura screamed.
Aylin collapsed beside him, clutching an identical mark. Her claws tore trenches in the floor.
Someone laughed beyond the bars.
Vayra stepped into the light with a glass of wine in one hand. Gray-robed crestwrights stood behind her, chanting beneath their breath.
"Beautiful," she said. "Both compatible."
One attendant looked at the children and swallowed. "My lady, their bodies are rejecting the binding."
"Then increase the pressure."
"It may damage their channels."
Vayra watched Tamura's skin split around the crest, heal, and split again.
"That is why we chose him."
The light intensified.
Tamura's screams became sound without thought.
When the ritual ended, he lay trembling beside Aylin. The emblem had darkened to black, but heat pulsed beneath it like a second heartbeat.
Vayra crouched outside the bars.
"You wished for a village," she said.
Tamura forced his head up.
"Survive the next two years, and perhaps you will see your friends again."
Hope entered the cell.
Exactly as she intended.
The training began that day.
If it could be called training.
Tamura received no lessons. No instructor corrected his stance or taught him to shape Verdance. Guards threw him into an underground arena with a starving boy and locked the gate.
The other child could not have been older than seven. Hollow cheeks sharpened his face. He carried a strip of metal ground into a point.
"I don't want to fight," Tamura said.
The boy's eyes filled with tears. "They said I could eat."
"We can both refuse."
"They said my sister could eat too."
He attacked.
The metal entered Tamura's shoulder. Another child rushed from a hidden gate and struck the back of his knee. A third bit into his forearm.
They were not cruel.
They were hungry.
Above the arena, guards watched from behind iron rails.
"Fight," one ordered.
Tamura lowered his hands.
A whip opened his back.
"Fight."
He refused again.
The crest ignited.
Pain folded him to his knees. His Verdance turned against him, heat trapped beneath his skin with nowhere to escape. The starving children attacked while he convulsed.
That night, he received no food.
The next morning, the gate opened again.
Days became weeks.
Fight.
Bleed.
Heal.
Starve.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Mourncrest learned the limits of his regeneration by destroying him in different ways. Blades. Clubs. Cold rooms that slowed his blood. Suppression fields that forced his wounds to remain open. Each failure became another line in a report.
Tamura learned too.
He learned that a smaller opponent usually attacked first from fear. He learned to watch hips instead of weapons, because hands lied and bodies did not. He learned how little force it took to break a wrist.
He learned not to ask names.
Names followed him back to the cell.
Sometimes Aylin returned before him. Sometimes her cot remained empty for days. When she did appear, new bruises covered old ones. She spoke less with every return.
Once, Tamura saw Mugen across an arena divided by iron mesh.
The older boy was taller, thinner, and covered in blood that did not all belong to him.
"Mugen!"
Mugen turned.
For half a second, the old irritation returned to his face.
Then guards dropped the partition between them.
The crest on Tamura's hand burned.
A voice ordered them to fight.
Neither moved.
The pain increased.
Mugen smiled through clenched teeth. "Still unrefined."
Tamura almost laughed.
That was the last time they saw each other for seven months.
Freya appeared only once. Guards dragged her past Tamura's cell with blood running from her temple. She saw him through the bars and straightened, hiding her limp.
"Eat when they feed you," she said.
A guard struck her.
She fell, rose, and repeated the words.
"Eat."
Then they took her away.
The first year ended without a sunrise.
Tamura marked days by scratching lines beneath his cot until guards noticed and broke his fingers. After that, he counted battles. When the number grew too large, he counted scars. His body erased most of those too.
The second year was worse.
Mourncrest began offering rewards.
A full meal for winning quickly.
A blanket for breaking an opponent's arm.
Five minutes with Aylin if he used Infernal Verdance.
News of Mugen if he killed.
Tamura refused the final reward for as long as he could.
Then they placed him in an arena with six children and starved all of them for four days.
The battle lasted three minutes.
When the gate opened, Tamura stood alone.
Blood covered his fists. One child moved weakly near the wall. Four lay unconscious. The smallest remained still beneath Tamura's shadow.
He did not know which blow had killed him.
He did not know the child's name.
That was worse.
"Back to your cell," a guard ordered.
Tamura obeyed.
His bare feet left crimson prints along the corridor. The crest on his hand had stopped burning. It no longer needed to punish him for disobedience.
Somewhere along the way, obedience had become easier than hope.
Vayra watched from the gallery above.
Tamura was eight now. Leaner. Harder. His long dark hair hung wild around a face that had forgotten how to look surprised. He no longer trembled when the arena gates opened.
He raised his hands.
He survived.
He returned to his cell.
Efficient.
Nearly perfect.
Yet when the guards mentioned Mugen's name, something shifted behind Tamura's violet eyes. When Aylin was returned injured, he still moved closer. When Freya's old command echoed through his memory, he forced himself to eat.
A coal remained beneath the ash.
Hope.
Damaged.
Starved.
But alive.
Vayra rested one hand against the gallery rail.
Breaking a body had never been difficult.
Breaking one's will however, required precision.
She smiled as Tamura disappeared into the dark corridor.
The first stage was complete.
Now she would teach him the cost of hope.