The road out of the village was no longer a road.
It was a strip of gray ruin.
Ash coated everything — the dirt, the stones, the broken fence posts. The wagon rattled over it, iron wheels groaning with every turn. The sound felt too loud in the open air, like it was announcing them to whatever might still be watching.
Inside the wagon, survivors sat close but not touching.
A gray-haired woman stared at nothing.
Two boys sat shoulder to shoulder, their faces pale enough to look carved from dust.
And Rain sat with the cracked bronze bell resting in his lap.
He kept both hands around it.
Theron didn't ride.
He walked beside the wagon, sword hanging low at his side, gaze sweeping the fields with slow, deliberate patience. Every so often, his gauntleted hand flexed — not nervously, but like he was testing the weight of the air itself.
Like he expected it to fight back.
Rain pressed the bell lightly against his chest.
It hadn't pulsed again since the fire.
Maybe it never had.
Maybe it was just heat. Fear. Shock. His mind trying to invent meaning so it wouldn't have to think about the house collapsing inward, about the way the ceiling had—
He stopped that thought.
The younger boy beside him whispered, "Do they really make us sleep with swords?"
Rain answered without thinking.
"Only if you snore."
The boy froze.
Then he grinned.
Just a small one. Crooked. Missing a tooth. But real.
For a moment, the wagon didn't feel like a coffin.
Theron's voice cut across the space. "Drink."
He held up a canteen.
Rain took it carefully. The metal was cool. The water inside tasted like ash and iron, but it soothed his throat enough to make him cough instead of choke.
"Heavy?" Theron asked, nodding at the bell.
Rain looked down at it. The crack along its surface. The way his fingers seemed to fit its curve too naturally.
He shook his head. "Not really. It just…" He hesitated. "…feels wrong to put it down."
Theron studied him for half a second.
"Then don't."
No judgment. No questions. Just a simple decision, accepted.
The gray-haired woman finally spoke, her voice brittle.
"Captain… they'll let us in? The gates?"
Theron didn't turn around.
"They opened for the worse."
The fields rolled past slowly.
Black stubble where crops had burned. Stone fences knocked flat. Dead wagons half-sunken into dirt. In the haze, shapes moved sometimes — too tall, too crooked to be men.
Rain's spine tightened.
"Eyes down," Theron said quietly. "If they come, you'll know soon enough."
By midday, they reached a checkpoint.
Two soldiers leaned against a timber bar, armor scratched, eyes hollow. Beneath a canvas awning sat a noble officer — posture perfect, cloak clean, boots untouched by ash.
He didn't look up when he spoke.
"Names."
Theron gave them calmly. Then nodded toward Rain.
"Ardent."
The officer's gaze lifted. It flicked briefly to the bell.
"Age?" he asked. Then, without interest, "And put that thing down."
Rain's fingers tightened instead.
"…Fourteen."
The officer snorted softly. "It's a bell. We're not short on those."
Theron stepped forward.
Not fast.
Not threatening.
But the air changed anyway.
"We're short on living," he said quietly. "The bell rides."
The officer studied him for a long moment, jaw tight. Then he turned back to his ledger and marked something down.
"From here to the gate," he said, voice flat, "stay in the center. If it screams your name, you don't stop. If it sounds like your mother—"
Rain whispered without meaning to, "…We don't stop."
The officer's mouth twitched. Almost a smirk.
"At least one of you listens."
The timber bar lifted.
The wagon creaked forward.
Far ahead, the walls rose into view — tall, scarred, patched with mismatched stone. Old damage layered over new repairs. Flags hung limp, their colors washed into gray.
Rain stared at them.
"Is it always like this?" he asked quietly.
Theron walked beside the wagon, steps even.
"Not always."
A pause.
"Sometimes it's worse."
The boy with the chipped tooth let out a nervous laugh. It sounded thin, but real.
Rain almost laughed with him.
Almost.
The wagon rolled to a stop.
The silence that followed felt heavier than the ride itself.
Rain climbed down slowly, the cracked bronze bell pressed against his chest out of habit more than thought. The ground beneath his boots wasn't soft dirt. It was hard-packed, scarred with deep grooves and dents—like the earth itself had been struck again and again until it learned the shape of violence.
This wasn't just a yard.
This was a place where people trained until the ground remembered them.
Ahead stood a row of low stone buildings, dark with age and soot. A black-iron gate groaned open, its hinges protesting like they'd seen too many arrivals and too few departures.
Above the entrance hung a cracked wooden sign. Most of the letters had long since burned away.
Only one word remained.
Lodge.
Theron stopped beside him.
For a moment, he didn't speak. He just looked ahead, eyes narrowed slightly, like he was measuring something invisible.
Then he nodded once.
"Off you go."
No speech.
No reassurance.
Just the words.
Behind them, the gray-haired woman and the two boys were already being guided down a different path, toward the city proper. Rain watched them disappear between the buildings.
The wagon felt empty without them.
And not in a good way.
A sharp whistle sliced through the air.
Rain flinched instinctively.
Across the yard, lines of trainees moved in perfect rhythm, wooden staves slamming into the dirt in unison.
Thump.
The sound wasn't chaotic. It wasn't wild.
It was controlled. Measured. Like dozens of hearts beating as one.
At the center stood a man with dark hair tied tightly back, posture rigid as iron. His hands were folded behind his back as he paced slowly along the line.
"New blood," he called, voice calm but carrying easily. "Line him up."
Several trainees glanced toward Rain.
Some curious.
Some tired.
Some already indifferent.
Theron placed a hand on Rain's shoulder.
The grip was firm. Steady.
"You'll hate it here," he said quietly. "If you live long enough… you'll miss it."
Rain didn't know how to respond to that.
So he just nodded.
Theron's hand lifted.
And just like that, he was already walking away, back toward the gate, back toward whatever waited beyond it.
Rain stood alone for half a heartbeat.
Then he moved.
Near a stack of wooden staves, a girl with pale silver-white hair was correcting another trainee's posture. Her movements were precise. Controlled. Efficient.
"Shift closer," she said calmly. "Like this."
The boy muttered something under his breath, but he adjusted anyway.
Her eyes lifted briefly.
Not to Rain's face.
To the bell.
Just for a moment.
Then she looked away like it hadn't mattered.
Rain didn't know why that unsettled him.
He stepped forward and picked up one of the staves.
The wood was rough against his palms. Heavier than it looked. Splinters pressed into his skin as he adjusted his grip.
The instructor's voice cut sharply through the yard.
"Stand."
The trainees straightened instantly.
"Learn."
The staves struck the ground again.
Thump.
"Survive."
Thump.
A pause.
"Or burn."
The silence that followed felt deliberate.
Rain lowered his stance slightly, mimicking the others. The staff felt awkward in his hands. Too big. Too foreign.
The bell rested against his shin.
For a moment, it felt cold.
Then warm.
Not like heat from the sun.
Like… recognition.
Like it remembered something he didn't.
Rain tightened his grip on the staff.
And stayed standing.