Morning light touched the stone floor in thin rectangles. Kael stood at the window of the old house on Eastwatch Lane and tightened the strap on his bracer. His hands shook a little. Not from fear. From the feeling that the path he'd walked for six years was finally opening.
Ryn thumped the door. "If you're fixing your hair, we're leaving you."
"It refuses to obey," Kael called, grabbing his spear. "A true rebel."
Jarek's dry voice floated up the stairs. "Tell your hair there's a war starting and we have a schedule."
Kael jogged down. Ryn waited in the entry with his axe over one shoulder. Jarek leaned against the jamb with his hammer like a staff. They were taller now, shoulders set, eyes steady. The house smelled of oil, cedar, and the mountain wind that never seemed to leave its halls. Draven's house. Their house.
Kael touched the lintel with two fingers. "For luck."
"For work," Jarek said, and they stepped into the street.
Vaeloria was already awake. Vendors called. Hoofbeats clicked on stone. A bell marked the hour. The Adventurers' Guild Hall rose ahead, all bright windows and white stone. People moved in a steady line up the wide steps: old soldiers, nervous kids, confident fools, all of them chasing a card, a rank, a chance.
Kael breathed in the air at the door. Iron and parchment. He smiled. "We belong here."
Ryn bumped him with an elbow. "We prove it today."
Inside, the atrium buzzed. Runners hurried with sealed packets. Clerks bent over ledgers. Adventurers argued about pay and pride. Kael drifted toward the registration counter and met his first trial: the receptionist.
She had neat auburn hair, a steady grip on her quill, and green eyes that missed nothing.
Kael leaned on the polished wood. "Good morning. If efficiency were a—"
"Forms," she said, still writing. She slid three sheets forward. "Ink there. return when complete. Next."
Ryn coughed into his fist to hide a laugh. Jarek murmured, "Struck down before the first bell."
Kael put a hand over his heart. "It's fine. My spirit is natural leather."
The receptionist looked up at that, just for a second. One eyebrow lifted, then went back to work. "Name, age, residence. Solo or Group. If you draw a heart by your name, I report you to the Monster Registry."
"Understood," Kael said, grinning despite himself.
They filled the forms. Kael wrote bold and messy. Ryn carved letters into the page. Jarek's writing looked like it had studied for this day. They checked Group and wrote Kaelor House, Eastwatch Lane as their address. The stamp landed with a heavy thud that felt good.
The receptionist handed them bronze tokens. "Blue arch. Parties to the left, solos to the right. Try not to bleed on the benches."
"Is that an official rule?" Kael asked.
"It's common sense," she said. "Which is rarer than mana."
Ryn whispered as they walked away, "You're outclassed."
"I'll return stronger," Kael said.
They entered the waiting hall. Two crowds had formed on their own. Solos sat apart, quiet and sharp. Groups clustered and talked. Kael steered them to an open bench. Three others were already there.
A tall boy in a plain breastplate nodded. "Coren. Greatsword."
A wiry girl angled her bow across her knees. "Lyra. Don't worry, I don't shoot friends."
A slim boy held a small crossbow with both hands. "Finn. First time." His voice wavered but his grip didn't.
"Kael," Kael said. "This is Ryn and Jarek. We trip each other less than we used to."
Lyra looked at their gear. "Those weapons transform?"
Ryn rolled his wrist. His axe split into two short swords with a clean click. He twirled them and smirked. "Yes."
Jarek's hammer slid into a mace with curved flanges. No sound. "Also yes."
Kael tapped the haft of his spear. The wood rippled. The leaf blade lengthened into a crescent glaive. "And yes."
Lyra huffed a small laugh. "Show-offs."
A trumpet sounded. A Guild officer walked onto the dais. His tabard was straight, his voice flat. "Trial One: Beast Combat. Groups of three to five. You will face a controlled threat. Objective is subdual. Healers are present."
Finn swallowed. Coren settled his shoulders. Lyra rolled her neck once. Ryn grinned without showing teeth. Jarek checked the strap on his gauntlet. Kael exhaled and felt his hands steady.
They followed the line down a wide corridor. Sand crunched underfoot. The arena opened in front of them, round and high-walled, with a net of spellglass over the top. The stands were full. Kael heard the crowd in his chest.
A clerk waved them to a chalk ring. "Group Kaelor," she read, eyes on her slate. "Beast: Dire Fangmaw. Catalogue Level Twenty-Four. Subdue."
Ryn rolled his shoulders. "Stew later?"
"Don't ruin the head," Jarek said. "It sells."
The iron gate rose. The Fangmaw padded out and went still. It stood higher than Kael's shoulder. Gray fur, bone ridge, double jaws, slow eyes. It raised its head and tasted the air.
Ryn shifted his footing. Jarek slid a half step left. Kael put the glaive low and thought, Move first? No. Let it show what it wants.
The Fangmaw glided forward, then snapped left without warning. Its mouth opened too wide. Kael stepped in, heel planted, and cut upward. "Moonpiercer Edge." The blade flashed. Blood dripped from a clean line along the lower jaw. The Fangmaw recoiled and growled.
Ryn locked his swords into a long-hafted hammer in one motion. The head hummed. "Titan Grip." His arms tightened. He didn't swing hard. He swung certain. The hammer smashed the creature's shoulder. Bone rang.
Jarek's mace slid into a spear of pale light around a steel core. He drove it into the ridge at the top of the skull. "Spectral Javelin." The point bit and held for a breath. That was enough. Ryn's second blow hit the same spot. The Fangmaw crashed to the sand. It thrashed once. Then stilled.
Silence held for the length of a breath. The stands erupted. Stomping. Whistles. Someone shouted Kael's name wrong and didn't care.
Kael stepped back, chest tight with a warm, clean ache. Not pride. Relief. All those mornings. All those hills. This is what they were for.
Across the arena, at the gate where other groups waited, Lyra had an arrow half drawn and a small smile she probably didn't know about. She lifted the point a finger's width. Good.
A bell chimed. Healers checked the beast and hauled it toward an arch where butchers waited. The clerk ticked a box on her slate. "Pass. Trial Two is in the next hall."
They walked the corridor out of the arena. Ryn nudged Kael. "You were slow by a blink on the first cut."
"I wanted the angle," Kael said.
Jarek didn't look up. "He wanted the beast to see his best side."
"Please," Kael said. "Both sides are best."
Ryn snorted. "Tell that to the receptionist."
Kael grinned. "I will. After we pass."
The next chamber was a puzzle. A floor of plates slid under a thin layer of sand and wood. Brass vents blew gusts that shifted targets on rails and strings. Crystal pylons hummed at the edges. A wheel of mixed targets spun in the center—metal, crystal, gel packs, wooden disks.
A woman waited with a slate. Leather and mail. Bowstring scars across two fingers. No nonsense.
"Trial Two: Adaptation," she said. "The ground moves. The air pushes. Targets change resistance. We grade speed, accuracy, and control. Transformers get bonus opportunities. Show good judgment. If you cut a friend, you fail."
Ryn tapped his chest once. "We won't."
Jarek nodded once. Kael gave the proctor a small smile. She stared until he stopped.
"Begin."
The floor shifted. A plate dropped under Kael's boot; another rose. He let it carry him. His glaive shortened and coiled into a chain-sickle. The chain snapped out and hooked a drifting crystal. He pulled through and cut it clean. A metal plate slid in from the side. He switched grip and struck the hinge with the haft. It clanged and slowed.
A gust tore at Ryn. He lowered his shoulder and moved through it. His hammer split into paired axes. "Bladestorm Mirage." His hands blurred. Two throws, then two more from the same path. The blades hit a bronze plate in the right order to force it open, then stuck in a skittering target that tried to dodge late.
Jarek read the floor the way other people read faces. His mace slid into a slim bow. No arrow in his hand. He drew anyway. Light answered. Two shots left the string a breath apart and hit two plates that only opened if struck together. He stepped onto a rising block without looking down and sent a third shot through a gel pack that tried to split and combine. He sent a fourth to end its argument.
Kael's chain-sickle snapped back into a staff as a spinning wooden disk came low. He knocked it up and turned the staff into a glaive as it climbed. The blade kissed the center. The disk split and fell in two neat halves. "Pretty," Ryn called while catching an axe one-handed.
"Practical," Jarek said, loosing again.
The floor stilled. The wind died. Kael stood breathing hard through a grin he couldn't suppress. Ryn rolled his neck. Jarek shook out his fingers once.
The proctor wrote on her slate. "Fast. Clean. No friendly fire." Her mouth twitched. "You three will make instructors drink tea they don't like." She pointed to the far door. "Trial Three waits in the next hall. You'll be called by the bell."
They stepped back into the cool corridor. The stone pulled heat from their skin. Water sounds drifted from ahead. Kael leaned one shoulder to the wall and closed his eyes for a moment.
Snow underfoot. The slope above Ravenspire. Draven's boots biting into the crust. "Run," he'd said that first winter. No speech. No comfort. Just a line on the ridge and a hand pointing forward.
They ran with stones in their packs. They ran with poles across their shoulders. They ran in river water so cold it hurt and kept going when the hurt turned to burning and back to nothing. When Kael slipped on the shale and skinned both palms, he bit his lip until he tasted iron. Draven crouched, looked at the blood, and nodded.
"Good," the man said.
Kael spat snow. "What about this is good?"
"It means you're not finished."
Kael opened his eyes. Ryn studied him for the space of a breath. Jarek nodded once. No words needed.
They followed the water sound to the next door. Humid air slid past their faces. The space beyond was dim. Boards crossed black water. Reed beds shifted. Rock pillars rose slick and gray. Pale drake-lights floated over the surface. Dark shapes moved under them. Mire serpents. Many.
A man with a saber and a woman with a whip-blade stood on a stone platform. A third examiner waited behind them with a staff capped in red crystal.
The saber man lifted one hand. "Trial Three: Team Coordination. You'll deal with us and the serpents. We grade control, timing, restraint. Fall in, and you meet the locals."
Ryn tightened his grip on the hammer haft. "Ready."
Jarek glanced at Kael. Kael nodded.
Somewhere above, a bell began to ring.
They stepped forward together.
End of Chapter 2 (Part I). Next: Trial Three and the Strength Evaluation.