The sanctum stretched vast and endless in its central chamber, the floor of polished obsidian gleaming faintly beneath the ever-shifting glow of torches embedded in its walls. Alatar stood barefoot upon the cold stone, the air thick with tension. He could feel Barachas' presence like a mountain looming before him—unchanging, immovable, eternal.
Yet this morning felt different.
Barachas had not instructed him to summon his ash. He had not spoken of circles, of forms, of command. Instead, the primordial's eyes burned with a new kind of intensity—one that made Alatar's skin prickle.
"You have learned control," Barachas finally said, voice echoing low and deep, "but under stillness. Under silence. Under the comfort of safety." His lips curled into something between a grimace and a smile. "That is no mastery. Control must endure even when blood is drawn, even when death's edge whispers at your throat. You have learned to command ash without danger—now you will learn to command it under fire."
Alatar's brow furrowed, though his heart beat faster. "Under fire?"
Barachas did not reply with words. Instead, the ground around him shuddered. The black stone of the sanctum's floor cracked as if alive, shards rising into the air and twisting into long, slender spears—dozens of them, sharp as razors, their edges gleaming with cruel hunger.
Alatar instinctively summoned his ash, five great circles spiraling to life around him, another handful of smaller forms rising like daggers and blades. But he had no time to marvel—Barachas stepped back, his form towering fifty paces away, and with a flick of his hand, the first spear shot forth.
It moved faster than Alatar expected. The air screamed as the stone cut through it. He barely managed to thrust a wall of ash in front of him. The spear struck—it shattered through the ash like glass, grazing his arm, ripping open flesh to the bone.
Alatar staggered, eyes wide.
Barachas' voice thundered across the chamber. "Defend yourself, boy! This is no lesson of comfort. You fail—you bleed. You succeed—you live!"
The second spear flew. Then the third.
Alatar moved instinctively, shaping his ash into a crude shield. The second spear cracked against it but broke through, slamming into his shoulder. Pain exploded through his body as stone pierced flesh, but before he collapsed, his blood itself surged, knitting the wound even as the spear dissolved.
The third spear grazed his ribs, tearing skin and muscle, but he stayed standing.
Alatar roared—not in despair, but in defiance. He spread his arms wide, summoning more ash, forcing them into shapes. Two shields. Three. He set them spinning around him, thicker, darker, denser than before.
The next volley came—five spears this time, cutting through the air like thunderbolts. Alatar's ash intercepted two, the third shattered his defenses, the fourth cut his thigh, the fifth missed by inches. He gasped, sweat streaming down his face.
But still he stood.
---
The days that followed blurred into agony.
Each morning began the same—Barachas at fifty paces, stone spears summoned from the floor, their points aimed directly at him. And each day, Alatar failed.
The ash did not move quickly enough. It broke under the spears' force. His shields shattered, his weapons too brittle to intercept in time. The stone tore his flesh, shattered his bones, pierced his body. By the end of each session, Alatar lay bleeding upon the floor, his body trembling, his mind frayed.
But his blood was unlike that of others.
The wounds closed. The bones knit. His heart beat steady again. Each evening he returned to his quarters battered, scarred, exhausted—but alive. By dawn, he was whole once more, scars vanishing as though erased.
And with each sunrise, he stood again before Barachas, determined to endure anew.
---
Weeks passed.
The first week, Alatar could not hold more than ten circles under the barrage. His ash moved sluggishly, collapsing whenever pressure mounted. He spent most of those days on the ground, gasping, bleeding, failing.
The second week, something changed. He began to anticipate the spears' flight. His eyes tracked their angles, his ash moving not reactively, but preemptively. He intercepted two spears in mid-air one morning, and Barachas nodded faintly, though the other three struck Alatar and left him broken on the floor.
By the third week, Alatar's shields grew denser, his weapons sharper. He fashioned spears of ash to clash against Barachas' stone. Some shattered, but some held. For the first time, Alatar felt the exhilaration of a true defense. He had stopped death's edge with his own will.
Yet it was never enough. For every success, failure followed. His ash faltered, his focus slipped, his body torn again and again. But Alatar's spirit did not waver. Each night in his quarters he reflected, studied the patterns of his failure. Why did the spear break through? Why did my defense collapse? Where did I yield when I should have pressed?
He learned. Slowly. Painfully.
---
One evening, Barachas spoke while Alatar lay on the ground, chest heaving, blood steaming as his body knit itself whole.
"You curse your weakness," Barachas said, his voice neither cruel nor soft. "But weakness is not your enemy. It is your tutor. Pain is a harsher teacher than pride, and you are being forged by it. Each spear you fail to stop makes the next one easier to command against. You must see it not as defeat, but as sharpening."
Alatar wiped the blood from his lips, eyes blazing. "Then let me be sharpened to a blade that cannot break."
Barachas studied him for a long moment, then gave the smallest of nods.
---
The fourth week came, and with it, a new rhythm.
Alatar no longer summoned his ash slowly. He called them at once, twenty forms bursting into existence as if they had always been there. He no longer thought of circles alone—he mixed them with blades, with walls, with spears of his own.
Barachas unleashed volleys of stone spears—ten, then twenty, then more. Alatar's ash met them, some shattering, some holding. He no longer panicked at failure. He adapted, reforged, shaped anew.
For the first time, he moved as though he and the ash were one. His shields turned the stone aside, his weapons clashed mid-air, his circles caught and redirected the spears. He was cut still, injured still—but less often, less deeply.
Each night he fell to his knees, drenched in sweat, body trembling. But each night, he rose stronger.
---
By the end of the sixth week, Barachas' attacks had grown relentless. The sanctum echoed with the sound of stone and ash colliding, shattering, exploding in storms of dust. Alatar stood in the center, his body a blur, the ash whirling around him like a living storm.
Spears broke against his shields. Daggers of ash intercepted stone mid-flight. Circles warped into walls, weapons clashed against weapons. His range had extended; he no longer kept the ash close, but sent them flying outward, intercepting attacks at fifty paces, reclaiming them back in an instant.
Barachas watched, eyes gleaming with pride behind his stern expression. "Good. Now you learn. Your command grows not in silence, but in the storm. This is the beginning of true dominion."
Alatar, chest heaving, blood dripping from a cut across his brow, only grinned. His ash swirled around him, twenty strong, their forms shifting and breaking and reforging at his will. He was exhausted, battered, aching—but his spirit was aflame.
Failure no longer crushed him. Failure had become his forge.
And though the weeks had scarred him, though pain had been his constant companion, Alatar felt something he had never known before.
Pride.
Not pride in having survived, nor in having endured. But pride in knowing that with every day, with every wound, he was becoming something greater.
---
Barachas let the spears fall away, the floor stilling once more. He looked at Alatar, standing bloodied but unbroken, ash swirling like shadows around him.
"You are no longer the boy who entered this sanctum," Barachas said quietly. "You bleed, yet you rise. You fail, yet you stand. This is command under fire. And this is the path that will break your chains."
Alatar straightened, pain radiating through every inch of him, but his eyes burned brighter than ever.
"Yes," he whispered, his voice hoarse but steady. "Let the storm come. I will master it. And when I do, nothing will shackle me."
The ash pulsed at his words, as though echoing his resolve.