The summons came at dusk, carried by a single horn note stretched thin through the cold air. Not the training bell. Not the meal call. This horn was deeper—a warning pulled from the academy's spine. Every trainee in the dining hall went still at the sound. Spoons stopped halfway to lips. Conversations died mid-sentence.
Even the instructors paused.
Whispers spread quickly.
"The Night Circuit…"
"No, not for First-Years—"
"They never do it this early."
"Someone said last year's cohort cried."
Taren swallowed his entire cup of water wrong and nearly choked. Lira's hand froze around her fork, knuckles whitening. Rowen lifted his head slightly, expression unreadable. Alden inhaled once, slow and steady, as if preparing. Kael's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
Serene felt the shift in pressure like the tightening of a noose.
Her ribs pulsed faintly.
Her hands went cold.
But her posture did not change.
Commander Eira entered the hall moments later, stepping through the main archway with her cloak trailing behind her like a shadow. Every trainee scrambled to stand—not because she ordered it, but because her presence demanded it.
Eira walked to the center, voice steady.
"First-Years. Outside. Now."
A single ripple of fear passed through the hall.
Not panic.
Not chaos.
Just the sharp, collective understanding that something would change tonight.
Serene set her spoon down quietly, wiped her fingers, and stood. Lira rose beside her, swallowing. Taren trembled visibly but followed. Kael moved with rigid control. Rowen's expression did not change, but he adjusted his gloves, a small ritual Serene had noticed in high-pressure moments.
Outside, the air was colder than the season warranted. Wind sliced across the courtyard, carrying the smell of salt and stone—sharp enough to sting. Torches burned along the path to the training cliffs, their flames bending violently in the breeze.
Thane waited there, arms crossed, eyes scanning the trainees with a look that held neither sympathy nor disdain—just expectation.
"You will not be told the course," Thane said, voice as flat as steel. "You will not be given lengths, times, or warnings."
A few trainees exchanged frightened glances.
"Your only rule," he continued, "is to keep moving."
Kael's shoulders stiffened. Lira's breath hitched. Taren muttered a prayer to whoever was listening. Serene stood perfectly still, letting the wind lash against her braid.
Thane stepped aside. Behind him, the cliff staircase descended into shadows and mist.
Commander Eira stood at the entrance.
Her voice cut through the cold like a blade.
"This is the Night Circuit."
Taren whimpered quietly. Lira flinched. Even Kael's eyes flickered with something like disbelief.
Eira continued.
"You will break."
Her gaze swept over them, calm and merciless.
"Some of you will break early. Some of you will break late. Some of you will wish to quit. Some of you will wish you had never come here at all."
The wind roared behind her like the sea agreeing.
"But you will not stop."
Serene drew a quiet breath. It wasn't bravery. It wasn't fearlessness. It was simply acceptance.
"We begin," Eira said.
And the world shifted.
The first section was a steep downward run along loose stone. Not jogging.
Not controlled descent.
Full sprint.
The kind designed to test instincts, not muscles.
The moment Thane blew the horn, the trainees surged forward. Gravel slid beneath boots. The path twisted sharply, a narrow cliffside trail that allowed no room for missteps.
Taren screamed almost immediately when he slipped and grabbed the air uselessly. Lira reached for him, missed, then steadied herself. Kael burst ahead with brute determination. Rowen maintained a measured pace, letting the terrain dictate his steps. Alden ran with silent precision, reading the ground.
Serene ran without looking down. Her ribs ached from the first impact of foot against gravel, but she kept her posture aligned, arms tight.
Halfway through, a trainee in front of her slid violently and fell on his side. Serene leapt over him, barely avoiding his flailing arm. Pain shot up her right ankle when her foot hit uneven ground, but she didn't slow.
You cannot stop.
The trail ended abruptly at a rope ladder descending into fog. Wind whipped it back and forth like a living thing. Students reached for it with trembling hands.
Kael didn't wait—he grabbed the rope and swung downward, boots slamming against the ladder rungs. Rowen followed, smooth as breath. Alden waited the fraction required to avoid destabilizing the ladder, then began his descent.
Serene reached it as the ladder twisted violently. Her arms screamed in protest as she grabbed a rung and hauled herself onto it. The rope burned against her palms. She forced her breath smaller so she wouldn't freeze.
Halfway down, someone above her panicked.
"I—I can't—! I'm slipping—!"
The ladder jerked. Serene's ribs hit a rung so hard she gasped.
Her grip loosened.
Her foot missed.
Her stomach dropped.
She fell—
a slip, not a plummet—
but enough for the ladder to swing wildly.
Alden's voice reached her from below, not loud, not panicked, just steady:
"Hold. Reset your left hand."
Serene gritted her teeth, swung her arm up, and gripped again. Her shoulder burned. Her ribs screamed. But she did not let go.
You will break, Eira had said.
But you will not stop.
When Serene finally reached the bottom, her arms shook uncontrollably.
She didn't allow herself a single breath of rest.
The next trial waited.
A sand crawl.
Ten meters of wet, heavy sand beneath a wooden beam so low only elbows could drag the body forward. The cold of the ground sank into bone instantly.
Lira entered the crawl shaking. Taren whimpered loudly and got stuck at the start. Kael threw himself forward so aggressively he scraped his forearms raw. Rowen lowered himself quietly and moved with terrifying economy.
Serene slid into the sand.
Cold shot through her body.
She pulled herself forward an inch.
Then another.
Then—
Her ribs seized in burning pain.
She froze.
Sand stuck to her cheek. Her breath hitched, turning sharp and embarrassing. For a moment—just a moment—her mind screamed to stop, screamed that her body couldn't do this, that she wasn't meant for this place, that she should quit now before she humiliated herself further.
It hurt.
It hurt more than anything she had felt at the academy.
Other trainees passed her. Some cried. Some swore. One vomited at the end of the crawl and kept moving because Thane shouted at him.
Serene closed her eyes. Her arms trembled violently. Sand clung to her lips.
Then she moved.
Not with strength.
Not with determination.
With nothing but a shattered breath.
Her body broke piece by piece. Her elbows burned. Her ribs felt like fractured glass. Her pulse thundered in her skull.
By the time she crawled out of the sand, she couldn't feel her hands.
She stood.
Barely.
But she stood.
Ahead, the next station waited—
a freezing water trough they had to wade through chest-deep.
Serene stepped toward it, vision blurring.
She was already breaking.
And the Night Circuit had barely begun.
The water hit like a blade.
Serene stepped into the freezing trough and the cold struck her lungs so violently she inhaled wrong, choking on her own breath. The water climbed past her waist, then her ribs, then her chest, each inch a punishing reminder of everything her body had endured.
Students cried out as they entered—ragged, choked sounds pulled straight from instinct.
Lira gasped sharply and clutched the rail, teeth chattering uncontrollably.
Taren screamed an apology to every god he knew.
Kael gritted his teeth and forced his breath shallow.
Rowen's jaw tightened, but his movements remained controlled, cutting through the water like someone who had memorized pain.
Serene stepped forward.
The cold wrapped around her ribs, seizing them in a vise. Her breath hitched again, sharper this time. She clamped her jaw shut so the sound wouldn't come out.
One step.
Her knees wobbled.
Another.
Her heart stuttered painfully under the shock.
Another.
Her arms shook, fingers numb, body trembling so violently she nearly slipped beneath the water.
Around her, trainees fought their own battles, all of them silent or screaming or struggling to breathe. A boy ahead of her sobbed openly, chest heaving as he tried to stay upright. Another cursed with every breath. A girl bit her lip so hard it bled, refusing to make a sound.
Serene focused on her breath—tiny, controlled exhales.
Inhale.
Pain.
Exhale.
Shivering.
Inhale—
her ribs spasmed so sharply she froze.
Just stop.
Her mind whispered it.
Just stop for one moment.
She hated that voice.
She hated that it was hers.
A wave of water slapped her side as someone stumbled. Serene staggered, nearly falling. Her fingers clawed at the railing. The cold stabbed deeper.
She broke.
Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
Just a single, involuntary sound—
a small, raw gasp she couldn't stop.
Her breath shattered.
The cold cut straight to her bones, and her vision blurred. She felt herself folding inward, her body refusing to obey.
Alden, one space ahead, turned slightly—not in concern, but in awareness.
His voice came low, steady, the way a smith speaks over hot metal.
"Three steps left. Don't freeze."
She swallowed hard. Her throat ached. Her legs trembled so violently she couldn't feel the ground beneath the water.
Three steps.
She forced one.
Pain shot up her spine, merciless and cold. Her ribs screamed. She choked but didn't fall.
Second step.
She couldn't think anymore.
Couldn't feel her fingers.
Couldn't breathe without something tearing inside.
Third step—
Her foot slipped.
A sharp cry ripped from her throat before she could swallow it down.
Her shoulder hit the trough wall.
Her breath vanished.
For a moment she saw nothing—just black spots exploding across her vision.
Hands didn't grab her.
Voices didn't call out.
No one was here to save her.
That was the academy.
That was the truth.
She pushed herself upright with whatever was left in her shaking arms, staggering through the last stretch.
When she stepped out, her knees buckled.
She caught herself on the stone, trembling harder than she ever had in her life.
She had broken.
And she was still breaking.
The next station waited mercilessly.
A steep uphill climb—almost vertical—requiring hands, feet, and raw grip strength. Ropes dangled at intervals, swaying in the wind. Students ahead of her struggled, some crying, some yelling encouragement to no one in particular.
Serene's fingers were numb.
Her breath was ragged.
Her ribs pulsed with sharp, tearing pain.
Her legs barely held her weight.
But she walked toward it.
Kael reached the climb first. His arms shook violently with exertion—he wasn't recovered from the cold. He grabbed a rope, pulled, slipped, cursed, and tried again. His pride was breaking faster than his muscles.
Lira reached the base, eyes glassy with tears she wasn't letting fall. She lifted her trembling hands toward the rope and froze for a heartbeat.
Rowen passed quietly between them, grabbed a rope, and began climbing—slow, steady, efficient. Every muscle in his body obeyed.
Alden followed. His movements were clean, controlled, methodical.
Serene reached the base of the wall.
Her hands shook violently. She couldn't tell the difference between cold and pain now. Her body was a single throbbing ache. Her knees threatened to fold with every step.
She placed one hand on the rope.
Her fingers slipped.
The humiliation burned hotter than the cold.
She tried again.
Slipped again.
Her breath trembled. A sound built in her throat—panic, frustration, shame—but she forced it down.
She braced her feet against the stone and pulled.
Her arms screamed, but she lifted off the ground.
Half a foot.
A full foot.
Two feet.
Then her hand slipped again.
She fell—not far, but far enough for pain to explode through her entire body.
The impact knocked the air from her lungs. Her palms stung. Her ribs spasmed so violently she pressed a hand against her side to breathe.
For a moment she lay there, staring at the ground.
Not moving.
Not thinking.
Just shaking.
Her mind whispered the truth:
She couldn't do it.
Not like this.
Not tonight.
Above her, a girl sobbed, clinging to a rope.
A boy clung halfway up, shaking, unable to continue.
Another trainee stood at the top, vomiting from exhaustion.
Kael slammed his fist against the rock in frustration when his arm failed.
Lira clung to the rope with eyes shut tight, tears running silently.
Serene felt something inside her crack again—
deeper this time, raw and humiliating.
She wasn't stronger.
She wasn't exceptional.
She wasn't better trained.
She wasn't better in any way.
She was failing just like everyone else.
The only difference was that she didn't want anyone to see it.
She pressed her forehead lightly against the cold stone.
Just a moment.
Just a single breath.
Then—
A sound above her.
Alden's voice.
Calm.
Quiet.
"There's a foothold to your left."
He wasn't helping.
He wasn't pitying.
He wasn't offering a hand.
Just information.
Serene swallowed the tightness in her throat.
She found the foothold.
She reset her grip.
She pulled herself up again.
Half a foot.
A full foot.
Two feet.
Her muscles trembled so violently she thought her arms would rip free from her body. The cold rock bit into her fingertips. Her breath fractured with every upward pull.
She slipped again.
Her foot dangled uselessly for a moment before she caught the rock and slammed her heel into the ledge with desperate strength. Her ribs screamed. Her shoulders burned.
She kept climbing.
Not gracefully.
Not steadily.
Not like Rowen.
Not like Alden.
She climbed with nothing left except the refusal to let her broken body stay on the ground.
By the time she reached the top, she collapsed onto her knees. The world spun around her. Her breaths came in sharp, painful bursts. Her vision blurred. Her hands shook uncontrollably.
She made it.
Barely.
But she made it.
Ahead, the final stretch waited—the long run back to the courtyard.
Serene pushed herself upright, legs wobbling beneath her. She felt nothing but pain and cold and humiliation and emptiness.
But she walked.
Then she ran.
Slow.
Unsteady.
Breaking with every step.
But still moving.
Still standing.
Still alive.
The courtyard drew nearer with every labored step, torches flickering like distant, indifferent stars. The run back was supposed to be simple—straight line, no traps, no tricks—but tonight nothing felt simple. Every stone seemed to throb under her feet. Every breath she took rattled like a bell with a cracked clapper.
She fell into a rhythm that was almost prayer: one foot, the next; one breath, the next. For a while, the world narrowed to the sound of her boots and the ache behind her ribs. The rest of the Night Circuit became an echo from a different life—rope ladders, cold troughs, walls that wanted to keep her beneath them. Now there was only the run, and every step threatened to unspool her.
Around her, other trainees were also coming in—some recovered enough to jog, some being half-carried by instructors, some collapsing outright and left to lie while medics checked them. A boy she knew only by sight vomited at the path's edge and then staggered forward anyway. A girl who had laughed in the dining hall all week now curled into herself and sobbed quietly on the cold stone. The academy had stripped them bare of the comforts they arrived with; the privilege of a house name meant nothing here tonight.
Serene's legs burned with a heat that felt both foreign and intimate; it belonged to her now, as much a part of her as the ribbon at her wrist. She told herself nothing grand. No speeches. No imagined crowds. Only a single, private vow: finish. Finish and put this night inside her chest so it could not be used to hurt her later.
She nearly fell when her ankle twisted on an unseen rock. Pain lanced up and she almost let herself hit the ground. For a second—an honest second—she thought of unfastening her sword and walking away, of asking someone to carry her to the infirmary, of slipping quietly into rest and never showing her face in the yard again.
She thought of her father, of how he would say nothing and let the shame do its work. She thought of the Valehart crest hanging in that cold hall at home, and the way everyone expected grace to look effortless. She thought of lilies—soft, pale, and relentless. She thought of the line Lilia's hilt bore: "Even petals cut when handled without care."
Then she pushed up, tasted blood at the corner of her lip from biting down too hard, and ran.
The courtyard gates loomed. Torches cast long, wavering shadows. Below the Academy balcony, a small cluster of instructors watched in measured silence—Commander Eira, Thane, Rhett among them. Eira's face was impassive, unreadable. Thane's jaw was tight. Rhett's eyes burned with the quiet calculation of someone who cataloged failure and used it to sharpen others.
Kael stood at the gate as she approached, arms folded across his chest, face an unreadable map of exhaustion and something harder—regret, maybe, or a dawning, pained self-knowledge. He had not sought her out. He had not come to offer comfort. He simply watched as the line of trainees staggered toward finish. When Serene's figure appeared in the torchlight, he stepped a fraction closer—no words, only presence.
She crossed the threshold and didn't slow. She fell instead: knees buckled as her body finally surrendered. She hit the ground hard enough to feel the impact in her teeth. For a long, dizzy moment the world went white at the edges. Voices blurred into a single, faraway tide. The immediate, physical sensation of failure was loud and ugly.
Someone's hand—firm, practiced—caught her by the forearm and hauled her into a sitting position. It was Alden. His face was pale in the torchlight, but he didn't look away. He held her steady without speaking. Lira dropped beside her like a soft thing and put trembling fingers to Serene's wrist, checking the pulse as if it might disappear. Taren sat a little farther off, hands covering his face, guttural breaths wrenching from his chest.
"You did it," Alden said, low and flat, not triumphant. It was neither praise nor pity—only fact.
Serene's knees shook. Her vision swam. The taste of metal in her mouth was sharp, almost sickening. She was not brave. She had not done something heroic. She had simply kept moving when every sensible part of her begged for pause.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, not to anyone in particular, but for everything—her weakness, her failure to be composed, the mess of her breathing that made the world taste small.
"No apologies," Lira said quickly, voice breaking. "You finished. That's what matters."
Serene stared at her hands, at the cracked skin on her palms, sand embedded beneath the nails. She let Lira's words wash over her without allowing them to cure anything. They were the kind of truth she would accept like medicine: bitter but necessary.
Around them, medics tended to the worst. Bandages went around raw wrists. Hands were rubbed with salve. Shivering students shivered harder beneath wool blankets. A few trainees—some who had come in with courage—packed their things reluctantly and walked toward the barracks to write letters home; whispers about leaving and not returning tangled through the courtyard like thread. The academy allowed departures on a case-by-case basis, but the very notion of leaving so soon was itself a kind of wound.
Commander Eira watched this unfold with the quiet concentration of someone weighing a thousand small decisions. She did not move to console; she had never been an instructor who comforted. Instead she waited, as if patience itself were a lesson.
At some point, Kael crouched a little way off, head lowered, hands on his knees. He had mud streaked across his cheek, and his training cloak hung limp. He had the look of someone who had discovered how thin the line between dominance and failure could be. He watched Serene the way a man watches a mirror of himself—recognizing an angle he had been missing.
Rowen, meanwhile, remained at the far side of the yard. He had finished with his usual composed efficiency, his face as still as a mask. He helped others without fuss, lifting someone to their feet, offering a hand to aid a shaky climb. He did not speak much. When he did, his words were small and contained but useful.
Serene tried to stand. The effort felt monumental. Her legs trembled. Her hands wouldn't steady. Alden's grip tightened, and he hauled her upright like a man hauling an anchor. Her knees protested. She swayed dangerously, and someone—she didn't know who—caught her by the elbow.
"You need to go to medics," a voice said softly. Maybe Thane's. Maybe Rhett's. Maybe someone older with more patience than a young body could afford.
Serene shook her head. "I'm fine," she lied, voice a raw rasp.
"You're not," Lira countered, sharp and immediate. "You'll only make things worse."
Reluctantly, Serene allowed herself to be led toward the infirmary. As they walked, she noticed a few small things that cut deeper than her wounds: the way a first-year boy avoided meeting her eyes, the quiet, almost respectful nod of a second-year who had once scorned her, the ink-stained hand of a medic moving with efficient calm. Little markers of a world she had just started to unravel.
In the infirmary, the healer—an older woman with hands like soft iron—cleaned the abrasions on Serene's palms and wrapped thin strips of cloth with practiced gentleness. She bathed the bruises and pressed cool salve to the worst—over a rib that drew a soft hiss from Serene when touched.
"You pushed too hard," the healer observed, not unkindly. "Pride and necessity are different weights. Learn to tell them apart."
"How long?" Serene asked, throat raw.
"How long what lasts?" the healer asked without looking up.
"How long before this isn't a wound, but a lesson?"
The healer paused. "Depends on the person. For some it will be weeks. For others, months. For a few—years. But the memory remains. Use it."
Serene closed her eyes and let the salve cool the burning. Part of her wanted to rage at the world for the way it had demanded this from them. Another part wanted simply to curl into the curve of the bed and never get up.
Outside the infirmary window, torches still burned. The Night Circuit would not forget them either. Its tracks would remain in her muscles, her memory, the ache under her ribs. Tonight would shape them.
When she finally stepped back into the courtyard, the night felt different—clearer, somehow, like the air after rain. The trainees who had broken beyond repair were gone. Some had requested to leave; others had been kept under watch. A few were already on slow, hollow patrols around the grounds—punishments for losing control.
Kael met her there. He had cleaned the worst of the mud from his face. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't angry. He stood facing the open sky, hands tucked into his cloak as if hiding something fragile.
"You came back," he said finally, voice low.
Serene met his eyes. They were tired—older in that moment. "I had to."
He paused, then took a step closer than he had all night. It was not a reach for comfort. It was an admission, a small one: that he had seen something in her that night that he couldn't quite name.
"You didn't look like someone who could break," he said, clumsy in the way of someone not used to vulnerability.
Serene almost laughed—a short, humorless sound. "Neither did you."
They stood there in silence for a while, two figures among many, both damaged in differing ways. Neither offered grand solace. Neither needed to. Both had learned something fundamental: this place asked everything, including the parts of you you wanted to keep private.
Later, in the quiet of her dormitory room, after bandages were tucked and salves applied and a single bowl of warm porridge swallowed, Serene sat on her narrow bed and watched the moon cross the sky. Her body ached—bruises painted dark on pale skin, wrists tender, ribs burning with phantom strikes. Her mind was fogged with fatigue. Her soul felt raw and rubbed thin.
She had not been heroic. She had not been exemplary. She had been ordinary in a most honest way—she had failed and then continued. She had finished, but it had cost her something that could not be sewn back on. The night had taken from her something soft and left behind something harder. Not a crown. Not a title. A knowledge.
She slept that night not easy, but nevertheless slept—her breath finally finding a rhythm that matched the dark. She woke with her ribs tight and her hands swollen, and for the first time, the Valehart crest on her ribbon felt less like a mask she wore for others and more like a map of what she had to become.
She had broken. Parts of her were broken. But she stood. That was enough—today. Tomorrow she would try again. The academy would demand more. The world would not be kinder. But in the space between failure and motion, she had discovered a stubbornness that wasn't pretty, wasn't loud—and would, one day, be dangerous in the best possible way.
She closed her eyes and breathed, thinking of lilies and steel and the blade that had once been carried under her cloak. Somewhere in the ruins of the Night Circuit, a small, relentless truth had been forged: surviving did not mean being unbroken. It meant keeping whatever was left and moving forward anyway.