Morning in the Guild was colder than winter steel. The air stank of sweat and smoke, the faint tang of blood that never seemed to wash from the stones. Yet the courtyard buzzed with more than drills that day—it thrummed with tension.
Ethan felt it the moment he stepped outside. Eyes followed him, sharp and unblinking. Initiates who once spat insults now kept their distance, but the silence was heavier than jeers. Even those who had mocked him most now whispered his name like a curse they feared might answer back.
Shadowfang padded at his side, golden embers flickering in the wolf's mane. The beast's eyes scanned the crowd with low, restless growls. Ethan laid a hand on his companion's shoulder, though his own chest was tight.
He had survived the Trial of Chains. But survival was not victory. Survival only painted a target on his back.
---
Later, during weapons practice, Overseer Kael's gaze never left him. Kael was a towering figure, bald, scar carved deep across his jaw, his aura heavier than iron. He barked orders with venom, yet today he said little. He only watched.
When the session ended, Ethan was called aside.
"Veyra," Kael growled, his voice like gravel sliding across stone. "The Guild Master has summoned the Overseers. Your name will be spoken there."
Ethan stiffened. "Spoken how?"
Kael's lip curled. "That depends. Some see promise. Others see threat. The Guild is not a place for both."
He leaned closer, eyes hard. "You'd best pray the Master still sees use for you. If not—your chains will be your coffin."
---
The council chamber was a cavern of shadows, lit only by a circle of torches. The Guild Master sat at its head, his crow-mask gleaming dully. Around him stood six Overseers, each cloaked, each bearing the weight of years and scars.
Ethan was not allowed inside. But walls in the citadel were thin, and whispers had a way of finding ears.
Through vents in the stone, he heard fragments.
"—too dangerous."
"—the chains chose him."
"—we cannot allow it."
Then the Guild Master's voice, steady and cold: "Power is never allowed. It is taken. And if he can take it, he may yet be of use."
A silence followed, heavy with dissent. Then Kael's growl: "And if he cannot be controlled?"
The Master's reply was softer, but cut deeper. "Then he will be broken."
---
That night, Ethan paced the barracks cell, Shadowfang restless at his heel.
"They're deciding whether to use me or kill me," Ethan muttered.
The wolf's golden eyes glowed in the dark, his bond pulsing with warning.
Ethan pressed his palm against the stone wall, the faint outline of chains still burned into his skin. Every breath carried weight. Every step felt watched.
He remembered Lyra's words: The chains don't yield. They choose.
If that was true, then he was no longer just another initiate. He was something the Guild feared. And in a place built on fear, that made him prey and weapon both.
---
The Overseers did not wait long.
Two nights later, Ethan was dragged from his cell under the pretense of a "special hunt." No explanation, no briefing. Just orders. He was led to the armory, given only a dagger, and marched into the forest beyond the citadel walls.
The moon was a sliver, the woods a maze of shadows. His escort did not follow him past the treeline. One of them sneered as he turned back.
"Survive, Veyra. If you can."
Ethan knew then—it wasn't a hunt. It was an execution dressed in silence.
---
The forest closed in, dark and suffocating. Every sound was amplified: the crunch of leaves underfoot, the whisper of branches swaying. Shadowfang prowled close, muscles taut, ears flat.
Through the bond, Ethan felt danger coil like a serpent.
Then he heard it: the rattle of chains.
From the darkness, eyes gleamed. Dozens. Shapes emerged—creatures twisted and wrong, their bodies wrapped in broken links of iron. Wolves with jaws too wide. Serpents whose scales clinked like metal. Things that had once been beasts, now warped into nightmares by the same chains that had tested him.
The Guild hadn't sent him to hunt. They had thrown him into a pit of abominations.
---
The first beast lunged, jaws snapping. Shadowfang met it head-on, flames roaring. Ethan ducked low, dagger flashing. The blade tore through sinew, black blood spraying hot across his face. The creature shrieked, chains writhing like worms before it crumpled.
But for every beast that fell, two more took its place. They circled, rattling, a wall of hunger and iron.
Ethan's chest burned. His ribs screamed with each breath. His dagger felt small, laughably small, against the tide.
Then the brand on his wrist flared.
Pain surged, molten and fierce. The chains embedded in his skin pulsed, answering the creatures' rattle with a rhythm of their own.
And for a heartbeat, the beasts faltered.
They recognized him.
Shadowfang growled, fire surging brighter, feeding on the pulse. Ethan's vision swam, chains weaving across his sight like a second world layered atop the first. He raised his arm—and the creatures staggered back, as though pulled by unseen force.
He didn't understand it. Didn't control it. But the chains obeyed.
With a roar, he struck forward. His dagger sliced, but it was the pulse of chains that truly shattered them. Links split, creatures screaming as the iron that bound them crumbled.
One by one, the abominations fell. Not to steel. Not to flame. But to him.
When the last beast collapsed, the forest was silent save for Ethan's ragged breath. His wrist still burned, the faint glow fading slowly.
Shadowfang limped to his side, bloodied but alive. The wolf pressed against him, bond steady, fierce.
Ethan sank to his knees, staring at his arm. "What am I becoming?"
The chains had answered him. Not just once in the pit. Not just now. But fully. Freely.
And in that silence, Ethan understood something chilling.
The Guild had not tested him to see if he could endure.
They had tested him to see if the chains would claim him.
---
When Ethan stumbled back to the citadel at dawn, he expected Overseers waiting. Instead, only silence greeted him. The gates opened without question, the guards' eyes wide as if they had seen a ghost.
No one spoke. No one dared.
But word would spread. He had walked into the forest where none returned—and emerged alive.
The Guild Master's crows would hear. The Overseers would whisper.
And the chains would not stop.
Not until they had dragged Ethan Veyra to whatever destiny they had chosen.
---
Chapter End.
---