---
Morning did not bring comfort.
It arrived the same way it always had—quiet, pale, indifferent. The sky above the city was clear, almost cruel in its calm, as if nothing beyond the walls existed at all. Birds circled rooftops. Merchants opened shutters. Life performed its rituals without hesitation.
That normalcy felt wrong.
Maxmilian stood in the doorway long before anyone else woke. His gaze was fixed eastward, toward the invisible scar where the Outer Lands began. He did not squint. He did not blink often. He simply watched, as if daring the horizon to admit what it was hiding.
When Rexor finally stepped into the yard, stretching stiff muscles, Maxmilian did not turn.
"You are forbidden," he said.
The word landed heavier than a shout.
Rexor froze. "Forbidden… from what?"
"From going anywhere near the Outer Lands," Maxmilian replied. His tone was flat, absolute. Not a warning. A rule.
Rexor frowned. "I wasn't planning to—"
"You won't," Maxmilian interrupted. "Not today. Not tomorrow. Not until I say otherwise."
Silence followed. Not the sharp kind. The kind that sinks inward.
Rexor clenched his jaw. He did not argue. That, more than anger, unsettled him.
Because the thought formed before he could stop it.
I'm being protected because I'm weak.
The realization stung worse than any insult.
Maxmilian finally turned to face him. "Training starts now."
---
The session was different.
No warm-up strikes. No demonstrations meant to inspire. Maxmilian moved Rexor through drills that felt… incomplete.
"Again," Maxmilian said, as Rexor stepped back instead of forward.
Rexor scowled. "I had an opening."
"And you would have died," Maxmilian replied calmly.
They repeated the motion. Retreat. Angle. Breath control. Timing without attack.
"Why do we keep backing away?" Rexor demanded after the fifth repetition. "When do I strike?"
"When you don't have to ask," Maxmilian answered.
That answer only fed the frustration.
Rexor wanted power. Speed. Force. He wanted the kind of strength that ended fights quickly, decisively. What Maxmilian was teaching him felt like avoidance. Like surrender dressed up as discipline.
"Power doesn't save people," Maxmilian said, as if reading his thoughts. "It makes you visible."
Rexor hesitated. "Visible to who?"
Maxmilian did not answer immediately. He adjusted Rexor's stance with his remaining hand, precise and impersonal.
"To anything worth fearing," he said at last.
They continued until Rexor's legs trembled—not from exhaustion, but restraint. Every instinct screamed to strike harder, move faster. Maxmilian denied him that release.
Anger coiled tight inside Rexor's chest, with nowhere to go.
---
The city was louder by midday.
Aurélia felt it the moment she stepped into the market. Voices carried differently. Laughter ended faster. Conversations bent inward, guarded.
Prices had risen overnight.
Not dramatically—just enough to notice. Enough to make people frown, calculate, hesitate before buying.
She moved stall to stall, basket balanced on her arm, eyes alert. Whispers slipped between vendors.
"…another family near the east gate…"
"…guards won't say where they went…"
"…Outer Lands, maybe…"
No one said the words loudly. Fear preferred quiet.
At one stall, a merchant paused before handing her the fruit. His eyes lingered a second too long on her face.
"You live near the old quarter," he said.
It wasn't a question.
Aurélia's fingers tightened around the basket handle. "Yes."
He nodded slowly. "Be careful."
That was all. No threat. No kindness. Just awareness.
As she walked away, Aurélia understood something she hadn't before.
The city was starting to look at them.
---
Voryn did not take the usual path.
He cut wider, farther east, moving through broken stone and dead ground where even scavengers avoided lingering. The air felt thin, stretched—like it might tear if pressed too hard.
He found signs quickly.
Not bodies. Not blood.
Marks.
Shallow impressions in the earth. Repeated paths. Pauses. Circles.
Scouts.
They did not attack when he revealed himself. That alone was wrong.
They watched.
Three of them lingered at a distance, heads tilted, movements restrained. Their eyes—too focused, too aware—tracked not just Voryn, but his reactions.
He struck first.
The first demon fell easily. Too easily. The second adjusted, retreating at an angle that mirrored his own movement.
Learning.
The third did not engage at all. It fled the moment the others fell, vanishing into the ruined terrain.
Voryn stood alone, chest rising slowly, blood humming in his ears.
They hadn't been hunting.
They had been measuring.
He collected what fruit remained untouched, though his hands shook faintly as he worked. Strength meant nothing if the enemy was patient.
On the way back, he changed routes twice.
Just in case.
---
The report was brief.
Facts only.
"Patterns," Voryn said. "Limited numbers. Coordinated withdrawal."
Maxmilian listened without interruption.
"They're not pushing," Voryn continued. "They're mapping. Testing response times."
Maxmilian nodded once. "Which means?"
"They're deciding," Voryn replied.
Silence stretched between them.
Maxmilian's gaze lowered, not in fear—but calculation.
"I think…" he said slowly, choosing each word like it could bleed, "they're participating."
Voryn's eyes narrowed.
Maxmilian did not look at him when he continued.
"The Seven—"
He stopped.
The air itself seemed to tighten.
"…It's forbidden," Maxmilian said quietly. "Even to say it."
He did not explain who forbade it.
The conversation ended there.
---
Rexor heard only fragments.
He hadn't meant to listen. He had been returning from the yard, mind still burning with unspent anger, when voices carried through the corridor.
"…if it comes to choosing—"
"…numbers don't favor us…"
"…not everyone can be protected…"
Rexor stopped breathing.
His mind filled the gaps with ruthless efficiency.
Choosing who lives.
Who's worth saving.
His fists clenched so hard his nails bit skin.
He backed away before he could hear more.
Some truths weren't meant to be confirmed.
---
Night fell without ceremony.
The city dimmed. Lamps flickered on. Doors barred themselves. Somewhere, a child cried—and was quickly hushed.
Rexor returned to the yard alone.
No instruction. No permission.
He trained in silence.
Strikes came harder than they had that morning. Faster. Sloppier. He ignored pain, chased exhaustion, demanded results from his body it could not give.
When his foot slipped, he did not stop.
When his shoulder tore, he did not scream.
He collapsed only when his strength finally abandoned him.
Maxmilian watched from the doorway.
He did not step forward.
He did not speak.
He simply turned away.
That hurt more than any rebuke could have.
---
The city slept.
Unaware it had already been noticed.
And far beyond its walls, something patient adjusted its attention—
not to the city itself,
but to the fact that someone inside had finally begun to look back.