The morning came slowly in the cavern, though no true sun ever reached its depths. The waterfall thundered endlessly, and droplets clung to Alpha's skin as he rose. His limbs felt heavy, as if the Knight's words from the night before had draped chains across his shoulders.
''The End. The Named. A wife who sang as the world fell into silence.''
Alpha rubbed the scar on his back, where the carved words of his cursed name lay hidden beneath skin. The flesh twitched faintly, though whether it was memory or something else, he could not tell.
The Knight stood by the pool, unmoving. A sentinel. Only the pale flicker of blue flame inside his helm proved he was still tethered to the world.
"On your feet," the Knight said at last. His tone was neither cruel nor gentle. It was necessity given voice.
Alpha rose, gripping the battered blade he had scavenged days ago. Its edge was uneven, its hilt cracked. Yet it was all he had.
"Your hand trembles," the Knight observed. "Your thoughts weigh too heavily. Steel cares not for thoughts. It only answers to the hand."
Alpha tightened his grip until his knuckles whitened. "You spoke of the End," he said quietly.
The Knight gave no answer.
"You spoke of the Named. If they still linger…" Alpha swallowed, the words scraping his throat. "Then what use is this?" He lifted the sword, its edge reflecting only the dim firelight. "What use is training when steel cannot cut what devours the sky?"
The flame inside the Knight's helm shifted, almost like an eye narrowing.
"You ask what use it has?" he said, stepping forward. His armored feet clanged softly on the stone. "It is the only use left. You are mortal. You are frail. You cannot fight the End with hope or songs. But you can learn to fight the things that serve it. And that begins with steel."
He drew his own sword—a relic long rusted, yet still terrifying in the way he held it.
"Raise your weapon."
Alpha obeyed, though his stomach twisted.
The Knight attacked without warning. The blade hissed through the damp air, and Alpha barely lifted his own in time. Steel met steel, sparks scattering like fireflies. The weight of the blow numbed his arms to the bone, sending him staggering back.
"You hesitate," the Knight growled. "Hesitation kills."
Again the blade came. Alpha ducked, too slow, the edge grazing his shoulder. Pain seared through him, and he hissed.
"You flinch," the Knight said. "Pain is no enemy. It is the proof you yet live."
Alpha forced his feet steady, breath ragged. He struck back this time—wild, desperate. The Knight parried with ease, sending his strike aside with a flick of the wrist.
"You fight like a starving beast," the Knight said coldly. "But beasts do not live long in the Labyrinth."
Alpha snarled, his chest heaving. The words stung because they were true. He swung again, this time watching—watching the Knight's stance, the angle of his helm, the shift of his weight. For the briefest moment, he saw it: the intention behind the strike before it came.
He moved. His blade rose at the right instant, and for the first time, the Knight's strike did not shatter through him. It stopped.
The Knight's flame flickered brighter.
"You saw it."
Alpha's arms trembled from the strain, but his eyes burned with something else now.
"Yes," he whispered.
"Again."
The duel dragged on, strike after strike. Alpha bled, stumbled, gasped for breath. His vision swam at times, the world tilting from exhaustion. But again and again, he forced himself to watch. The smallest twitch of a shoulder. The faintest turn of a helm. Each told a story of what would come.
Hours bled into one another. By the time the Knight lowered his blade, Alpha's chest was streaked with sweat and blood, his knees ready to collapse.
"You learn," the Knight said at last. "Too slowly, perhaps. But you learn."
Alpha sank to one knee, his sword dragging against the stone. His lungs burned, his hands shook. And yet… there was a strange fire beneath the fatigue.
He had survived.
Not by chance. Not by luck. By seeing. By anticipating.
The scar on his back pulsed faintly again, the letters crawling like restless insects under his skin. He winced but said nothing.
The Knight seemed to notice. His helm tilted, the fire within narrowing. "When I call you Feylith," he said softly, "your mark stirs. Do you feel it?"
Alpha hesitated. "…Yes."
"Good." The Knight's voice dropped lower, almost reverent. "Then the world has not yet finished naming you."
Alpha did not understand. He did not ask. Some things were better left to time.
He lay down beside the pool, his body aching beyond measure. The Knight stood watch, silent once more. But Alpha felt different now. Still weak. Still hollow. But beneath the emptiness, a thread of something new had taken root.
Not hope.
Resolve.
The stories of the End haunted him, yes. The image of a wife singing against the dark cut him deeply. But they did not break him. If anything, they sharpened him.
And as he closed his eyes, one thought echoed louder than the waterfall's roar:
'If steel cannot cut the End, then I will forge a blade that can.'