Azrael's hands shook, caught between fear and desire. Deverill's words echoed like a curse. Could he endure that? Could he?
His chest tightened. The faces of the others burned in his mind. Malik's, Liyana's, Rhea's. Even Rio, he wanted to be stronger than them, no he needed to be.
He remembered that night, the one that split his life in two. He was eight. The midwife who raised him had gone out, as she always did, to fetch what little she could. When the robbers burst into the house, they found nothing of worth. Nothing, except him. They bound him, dragged him into the night, muttering about slave markets. The sold him like mere cattle, it was why he boldly wore the name shadeek- slave to ensure he never forgot the humiliation.
The rage of it still boiling in him. He had sworn then: never again would he be beneath anyone. Weakness had no place in him.
He looked up. His eyes, dark flames smoldering, made even Deverill pause.
"I don't care," Azrael said. "I want strength. Give it to me."
From the shadows, Nuel stepped forward, carrying a glass container. Inside, ten drops of black blood pulsed faintly, alive with a cruel rhythm. Deverill lifted the lid carefully.
"This won't make you invisible," Deverill warned, voice low and sharp. "But survive and you will gain the means to pursue the strength you hunger for. That is my gift."
Azrael knelt. The first drop slid onto his tongue. It tasted like iron and fire. The taste of raw blood and ash. Pain burst through him like lightning, searing every vein, clawing into bone. He trembled, every nerve screaming, but no sound left his throat. He endured.
Deverill and Nuel watched, silent guardians of his torment. The night dragged on.
At last, his body cooled. His breath steadied. Sweat soaked his clothes, but his eyes opened, sharper than before.
"Well?" Deverill asked. "Do you feel it?"
Azrael staggered to his feet, surprised by how light he felt. His vision seemed clearer, sharper, every corner of the room alive. "Yes," he whispered.
Deverill checked his watch, lips twitching. "Still time before morning. Nuel take him. Let's see if he can use what he's been given."
Nuel led him into a small courtyard lit by torches. As he removed his coat, "Before you dream of strength, you need foundation. Martial arts."
They trained until dawn. Nuel's blows were merciless, his corrections sharper than the strikes themselves. Azrael stumbled, bled, fell, but again and again he rose. When Mos came to fetch him, he was dragged back to the stables, hidden from the others before training began.
Daylight drills felt different. Movements that had strained his muscles now flowed easier. His fists struck faster, his lungs carried him longer. He wasn't the strongest, but the gap was closing. The soreness that used to cripple him after chores was gone. Pride foreign, dangerous, slowly crept back into his heart.
The evening came, and Mos gathered the initiates before racks of wooden weapons.
"You may choose up to three weapons to train through the year," he said." You can choose to master one or diversify. Choose wisely."
Azrael stepped forward, eyes roaming the walls. Spears. Swords. Bows. Then his gaze locked on a pair of gauntlets. Brutal, simple, honest.
An old instructor with eyes like tempered steel approached him. "The gauntlet," he said, voice rough. "Few choose it. It demands grit. With it, every strike is your whole body, no blade's reach, no spear's thrust, to depend on just you and your fist."
Azrael slipped his hands into the leather gauntlets. They fit. Heavy. Real.
The old man's lip curled in approval. "Strength is its gift. In Close-quarters, it breaks bone and armor alike. But it has flaws. No reach. No defense beyond your own body. To use it, you must be relentless. Never give ground."
Azrael flexed his fingers, feeling the weight, the promise. "Then it suits me," he said simply.
The old man's eyes glimmered. "Good. Let us begin."
Days became weeks. With every strike, every drill, Azrael's body hardened. He was no prodigy, no instant genius, but he adapted fast. The gauntlet became an extension of his will, and slowly, his pride stitched itself back together.
One night, when the others slept, he slipped from the stables and knocked three times on the door. Mos opened, saying nothing, and led him to the training grounds.
There, in the torchlight, stood Nuel.
Azrael smirked faintly. "No Duke tonight? Guess it's just you and me, Nuel."
Nuel's brow furrowed. "You want another drop?"
Azrael's eyes gleamed. "You already know the answer."
Nuel raised his own gauntleted fists. "Earn it."
Azrael grinned, slipped on his training claws, and charged.
The fight began.
Azrael lay flat on his back, sweat pooling beneath him, chest heaving like a drum. Up and down. Above him, the night sky stretched wide and merciless. Nuel stood over him, gauntlets gleaming in the torchlight, a small vial of black blood in his hand.
"You're not ready," Nuel said, his voice edged but calm. He turned, pocketing the vial.
Azrael's lips curled into a smirk, even as his lungs screamed. "Don't get too comfortable. Soon, you'll be the one on the floor"
Nuel glanced back, one brow raised, then left without a word.
Azrael closed his eyes, laughing faintly through the pain. He felt alive. He didn't know it yet but he was changing slowly but surely.
And so time passed.
For the greater part of that year, Azrael trained under the weight of gauntlets until his bones arched with pain. When Nuel deemed him worthy, he was introduced to the chain, his second weapon, vicious and fluid, perfect for distance and control. Something the gauntlet failed at.
By the time the fifth drop of blood coursed through him, Azrael's body had become something new. Every drop reshaped him, muscles hardened, senses hightened, his mind sharpened. His frailty was gone, burned away into something far more dangerous.
And what he lacked in brute force, he carved out in technique, instinct, and his growing mastery of weapons
The second year bled into the third. That final year, the rhythm shifted. No longer spar after spar, but stillness, breath, silence. The instructors demanded meditation.
One, a woman named Seya, with eyes like deep water, explained simply: "Without clarity of mind, awakening devours you. Meditation binds your body, spirit, and mind together. Those who lack balance are consumed."
Azrael endured, though he hated it. He found a way to cope by meditating while touching a weapon the coldness of the steel, brought clarity. Between hours of quiet meditation, he continued his private training with Nuel. Chains, gauntlets, then blades he added the katana to his arsenal, drawn to its elegant cruelty. It suited him, a weapon of precision and killing.
By the end of three years, none could match him in weapon mastery. Every form, every strike, every tactic, Azrael learned faster, struck harder, and adapted sharper than any of his peers.
The day came.
Three years had crawled by, and the air itself felt heavier, charged with a power none of them fully understood.Each and every one of them had trained for this moment. Even the walls of the courtyard seemed to bow beneath the weight of what was coming.
The Awakening.
Azrael stood among them, calm, hands in his pocket. Never lose composure, he only heard it once but it stayed with him for years and would stay longer.
"Finally," he murmured, lips curling. "Let's see what kind of power I get." The awakening had already been explained to them. Inside every soul lay a sigil. To awaken an Arcanum was to drag that sigil from shadow into light.
One by one, the children lay on the stone floor, their backs pressed flat, their hands folded over their chests. Attendants moved between them, placing a small, round pill on each tongue. The Soul Pill, a key to the mind realm where the sigil waited. It would draw them into a half dead state for at most a day. if you couldn't awaken in that period your soul sigil would vanish entirely. Condemning you too a normal life.
Those who endured and wrestled their truth into form… they would return bearing an Arcanum.
Azrael swallowed his pill without hesitation. No sooner had it slid down his throat than darkness claimed him.
And then, light.
He stood in a world aflame. Corpses littered the ground, some fresh and blood-slick, others decayed into husks. The shells of collapsed buildings clawed at the horizon. Above, the sky bled crimson, spiderweb cracks running across its surface as though reality itself was splintering. The moon hung high, shattering, as it did pieces of it were falling unto the earth like meteors. The ground cracked beneath his feet, dry and brittle as if it had not known life for a thousand years. Rivers had turned to ash.
Azrael lifted his gaze, unblinking.
His awakening had begun.