The morning sun spilled across the training yard, warming the dirt where small hands gripped wooden staves and scuffed boots beat uneven rhythms. Shouts and laughter rang out as the children pushed through their drills, sweat dampening their thin shirts.
On the far side, under the shade of the old hall, the sick ones lay on makeshift beds. Their breathing was shallow, their faces pale. Eyes too old for their years watched silently, tracking each swing and stumble of their companions. Some clenched their fists weakly, as if willing their bodies to rise and join. Others only stared, hollow with envy.
"Keep your stances steady!" the man barked, clapping his hands. His voice was firm but warm, guiding without cruelty. The children straightened, puffing out their chests, eager to impress.
Kairo moved among them with precision, his strikes sharper than most despite his ragged frame. Igron was at his side, restless energy crackling in each motion. Yet Kairo's eyes drifted—again and again—to the shadows under the hall. To the children who could not stand.
One boy, no older than seven, met his gaze. His lips trembled as if he wanted to shout encouragement, but all that came was a cough, thin and broken. Still, he forced a smile.
Kairo's chest tightened, though his face betrayed nothing. The words Igron had spoken the night before coiled in his mind:
It was your fight that caused this.
The man strode between the rows, adjusting a child's grip here, correcting a stance there. He never looked toward the beds. Never once let his voice falter.
But Kairo did. His next strike landed slower, his focus broken. His crimson eyes lingered where they shouldn't, where guilt rooted him.
Igron noticed. He frowned but said nothing. For now.
The sound of training filled the yard, but beneath it all lay another rhythm—the quiet, steady gaze of the forsaken, watching, waiting, their hopes pinned on a future their bodies might never let them see.