Kael's POV
Dawn came too early and too cold.
I arrived at Garrick's training yard with muscles already sore from yesterday's journey and a stomach growling from the meager breakfast my father and I had shared. The gate stood open, and inside, students were already warming up, running laps, stretching, practicing forms with a casual competence that made my inadequacy painfully obvious.
Garrick stood at the center like a monument to violence. He didn't acknowledge my arrival, didn't offer any greeting. Just pointed to the far corner of the yard.
"Run. Twenty laps around the perimeter. Go."
I ran. Or tried to. By the third lap, my lungs burned. By the seventh, my legs felt like lead. By the twelfth, I was stumbling more than running. The other students flowed past me with ease, some of them laughing at my pathetic pace.
"Faster!" Garrick's voice cracked like a whip. "You think monsters will wait for you to catch your breath? Move!"
I pushed harder, but my body refused to cooperate. On the fifteenth lap, I collapsed, gasping, tasting copper in my mouth.
Garrick loomed over me. "Already done?"
"Can't... breathe..."
"Then die. Because that's what happens to people who give up." He nudged me with his boot, not gently. "Get up."
"I can't…"
"You can, or you can quit and prove everyone right about Errors being worthless." His voice held no sympathy, no encouragement. Just cold fact. "Your choice."
Rage flared in my chest, hot enough to burn through the exhaustion. I forced myself to my knees, then my feet. My legs shook violently, but I started running again.
Lap sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen.
My vision narrowed to a tunnel. The world became nothing but the next step, the next breath, the next moment of refusing to fall.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
I crossed the finish line and immediately vomited into the dirt. My entire body trembled uncontrollably. Black spots danced across my vision.
"Acceptable," Garrick said. "Now do fifty push-ups."
The morning continued in that brutal fashion. Every exercise pushed me past what I thought possible. Every drill exposed my weakness. And through it all, Garrick showed no mercy, offered no praise, gave no indication that I was doing anything other than barely surviving.
The other students kept their distance, but I felt their eyes on me constantly. The Error. The boy with no destiny trying to pretend he could be strong.
During the midday break, I sat alone under a tree, too exhausted to eat the bread my father had packed. That's when the golden-haired boy approached.
"You're tougher than you look," he said, sitting down uninvited. "Most people quit on their first day with Garrick."
I managed to turn my head to look at him. Up close, his features were almost too perfect, like someone had drawn the ideal hero and brought the sketch to life. "Haven't quit yet."
"Key word being 'yet.'" He grinned, but it wasn't mean-spirited. "I'm Aldric. Aldric Silvermane."
Even the name sounded heroic. "Kael Ardent."
"I know. Everyone knows." He offered me his water flask. "The Error who came to learn to fight. People are taking bets on how long you'll last."
I took the flask gratefully, too thirsty to let pride refuse. "What's your bet?"
"That you'll surprise them." Aldric leaned back against the tree. "I saw you finish those laps. You were dying, but you didn't stop. That takes something Scripts can't give you."
"What's your Script?" I asked, curious despite myself.
His expression shifted, becoming almost embarrassed. "The Script of Ultimate Victory. I'm supposed to become the greatest hero of my generation, defeat the Demon Lord, bring an age of peace, all that prophesied nonsense."
I stared at him. The Script of Ultimate Victory was legendary, only granted once every few centuries to individuals destined to change the world itself. This boy sitting beside me, sharing his water and talking like we were normal children, was marked by the gods themselves for greatness.
"That's... impressive."
"That's terrifying," he corrected. "Do you know what it's like having everyone expect you to be perfect? Having your entire life planned out before you've even lived it?" He picked at the grass between his feet. "At least you get to decide who you become."
The irony was almost funny. He envied my freedom while I envied his purpose.
"Why are you being nice to me?" I asked bluntly. "Everyone else treats me like I'm diseased."
Aldric shrugged. "My Script says I'll face the greatest evil ever known and barely survive. If that's my destiny, I figure I should learn to judge people by their actions, not their fate. Otherwise, I might mistake an ally for an enemy when it matters most."
There was wisdom in that, the kind that seemed unusual for an eight-year-old boy. Then again, maybe his Script gave him insights beyond his years.
"Thank you," I said quietly. "For the water. And for talking to me."
"Don't thank me yet. Garrick's afternoon sessions are worse." Aldric stood and offered his hand. "Come on. Break's almost over."
I let him pull me to my feet, and together we walked back to the training yard. For the first time since the Ceremony, I felt something other than isolation.
I felt hope.
The afternoon proved Aldric right, it was worse. Garrick paired us for combat drills, and I learned very quickly that knowing sword forms intellectually was vastly different from executing them against an opponent. Even the youngest students disarmed me effortlessly. My wooden practice sword felt awkward and heavy, and my movements were clumsy compared to their Script-enhanced grace.
"Again," Garrick commanded after my fifth consecutive defeat. "And this time, stop thinking. Your mind is too slow. React."
My next opponent was a girl about ten years old with the Script of the Swift Strike. She came at me like lightning, and I barely saw her move before my practice sword went flying.
"Pathetic," Garrick said. "You're not reacting, you're panicking. Clear your mind."
How was I supposed to clear my mind when fear screamed that I was inadequate, worthless, exactly what everyone said I was?
The girl attacked again. This time, something shifted. Maybe it was exhaustion shutting down my conscious thought. Maybe it was desperation overriding fear. But for just one moment, I didn't think, I moved.
My sword met hers with a solid crack. It wasn't a perfect parry, but it was a parry. I'd actually blocked her strike.
The shock on her face matched the shock I felt.
"Better," Garrick said. His tone hadn't changed, but somehow that single word felt like the highest praise I'd ever received. "Again."
We drilled until sunset painted the sky orange and red. Every muscle in my body screamed. My hands bled from gripping the practice sword wrong. My shins were bruised from failed footwork. But I'd managed three successful parries by the end, and once, I'd even landed a strike of my own.
When Garrick finally dismissed us, I could barely walk. Aldric appeared at my elbow, supporting me casually as we headed toward the gate.
"Not bad for a first day," he said.
"I lost every single bout."
"But you finished. That's what matters." He glanced at me with those unnervingly perceptive blue eyes. "Garrick doesn't waste time on people he doesn't think can improve. The fact that he kept pushing you means he sees potential."
I wanted to believe that. Wanted to believe that maybe, somehow, I could become strong enough to matter.
My father waited outside the gate, his clothes covered in soot from working at Garrick's forge. His eyes widened at the sight of me, bruised, bleeding, barely standing.
"Kael.."
"I finished," I said before he could ask. "And I'm coming back tomorrow."
Pride and concern warred in his expression, but pride won. "That's my boy."
Aldric waved goodbye as my father helped me back toward our boarding house. Behind us, the training yard began to empty, students heading home to families and comfortable beds and the certainty of their Scripts guiding them forward.
I had none of that. But I had survived my first day. I had learned something, improved something, proven something, if only to myself.
As we walked through Ashenvale's darkening streets, I made a silent promise. I would return tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. I would train until I couldn't stand. I would fail and fail and fail until failure taught me how to succeed.
Because Aldric was wrong about one thing. I didn't get to decide who I became. The world had already decided I was nothing.
But maybe, just maybe, I could prove the world wrong.