Brandt launched himself forward, his small boots digging into the permafrost for traction. The heavy iron blade was raised high above his head, a clumsy, threatening arc of dull metal against the night sky.
In that fraction of a second, suspended between the impulse to kill and the inevitability of the strike, his mind went blank.
It was a terrifying emptiness.
In his previous life, he had possessed a library of knowledge on violence—anatomical weak points, the psychology of aggression, the mechanics of strangulation. He knew how bodies broke. He knew how joints popped and arteries tore. But he knew these things as a scholar, a voyeur of aftermaths.
He had never held a sword. He had never conditioned his muscles to drive steel through flesh.
Now, occupying the body of a nine-year-old boy, he realised the catastrophic gap between theory and practice.
He had no technique. He had no muscle memory. He had nothing but the raw, unfamiliar hum of mana flooding his veins and a desperate, animalistic need to connect.
The sword felt dead in his hands. It was a heavy, unbalanced bar of iron, not an extension of his will. He gripped the hilt with both hands, his knuckles white, abandoning any pretence of form for sheer, brute force.
He brought the blade down.
It was a wild, telegraphed, heavy-handed blow that screamed of amateur desperation rather than warrior intent. It was a strike born of panic, not discipline.
Through the lens of his analytical mind, Brandt saw the moment through Falk's eyes.
The Master-at-Arms didn't move his feet. He didn't shift his weight. He stood like a monolith in the flickering torchlight, watching the boy charge.
To Falk, this must have looked pathetic. A child who had read too many stories in the library, mimicking the heroes of legend without understanding the weight of the steel.
Falk wasn't just fighting him. He was educating him. He was about to teach the boy the visceral, painful difference between the fantasy of violence and the brutal reality of physics.
Brandt's blade descended, aiming for Falk's shoulder.
Clang.
Steel met steel. Falk had deflected the strike with a casual, almost contemptuous flick of his wrist.
The vibration travelled up Brandt's arms like a bolt of lightning. It rattled his bones, jarring his elbows and shoulders with a sickening, dull ache. The impact felt less like hitting another sword and more like striking the side of a mountain.
He stumbled, his momentum carrying him past the immovable wall of the older man.
Brandt scrambled to regain his footing on the frozen earth, his breath misting in the cold air. He turned, raising the heavy sword again.
Falk hadn't moved. He stood in the same spot, his sword held loosely at his side, his expression bored. He wasn't attacking.
'Fine.'
Brandt gritted his teeth and charged again.
He swung horizontally this time, a clumsy attempt to target Falk's midsection. Falk parried. The shockwave of the impact numbed Brandt's fingers.
He attacked again. An overhead chop. Deflected.
Again. A thrust. Batted aside.
It was futile. It was like trying to cut down an oak tree with a spoon. The futility bred a cold, sharp frustration in his gut, but as the rhythm of the beatdown established itself—strike, deflect, pain, repeat—his mind began to drift.
He wasn't just fighting Falk. He was waiting.
He was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The System had been explicit. Her presence would intensify under conditions of duress, physical pain, and isolation. This was two. He was exhausted, hurting, and fighting a man who could kill him with a backhand.
This was her stage.
He split his focus.
One eye remained locked on the gleaming edge of Falk's blade, watching for the counter-attack that would surely come. The internal eye, the eye of the mind, scanned the periphery of his consciousness for Lilith.
He expected her mockery. He expected the hallucination to overlay reality, for the torches to turn into neon carnival lights, for Falk's face to morph into the doctor's. He expected her cold, sibilant voice to whisper failures in his ear, to critique his form, to laugh at his weakness.
The anticipation of the haunting was a physical weight, heavier than the sword. He braced himself for the intrusion.
He swung again, his arms screaming in protest. Falk blocked.
Nothing happened.
She didn't appear. The silence in his head was profound and unnerving. Where was she? Was she bored? Was she planning something worse? Or was she simply watching, silent and invisible, enjoying the spectacle of his humiliation without commentary?
His eyes glazed over, his focus drifting to the dark spaces between the torches, searching for a ghost that refused to show herself.
"Focus!"
The command was a physical blow. Falk's voice cut through the cold air, sharp and angry.
Brandt snapped back to reality. He looked up to see Falk staring at him with cold disappointment. The Master-at-Arms had lowered his sword.
"Is this all you have?" Falk barked, his breath clouding. "Is this the extent of your resolve? You ask for survival, and you give me daydreams?"
The taunt slapped Brandt across the face. The shame of it burned hotter than the biting cold. He was distracted in a fight. He was disrespecting the threat. He was acting like a victim, waiting for his tormentor instead of dealing with the enemy in front of him.
'Enough.'
He couldn't win this with swordsmanship. He couldn't win with strength. Playing by the rules of knights and chivalry was a losing game.
He adjusted his grip on the hilt. He formulated a plan. It was dirty. It was desperate.
He roared, a childish, high-pitched war cry, and wound up for a massive, over-committed overhead slash.
It looked like a tantrum. It looked like the final, desperate, flailing strike of a tired child who had lost control. He put his entire body weight into it, selling the move completely, leaving his chest and stomach wide open.
Falk's eyes narrowed. He raised his guard, shifting his weight to deflect the clumsy, heavy blow and likely deliver a reprimand.
Brandt lunged.
At the last possible second, just as his forward momentum peaked, he released the hilt.
The heavy iron sword sailed through the air, clattering harmlessly onto the frozen dirt behind Falk.
Freed of the weight, Brandt's speed doubled. He didn't try to recover his balance. He dropped his level, surrendering to gravity, diving forward.
He channelled every scrap of mana left in his channels into his right hand. He clenched his fist, the knuckles protruding like stones.
He used the momentum of his dive to drive that mana-reinforced fist straight toward the side of Falk's kneecap.
It was a street-brawl tactic. A vicious, crippling move designed to dislocate the joint, tear the ligaments, and bring a giant down to the ground screaming.
His fist connected.
Thud.
It felt like punching a solid block of granite.
There was no give. There was no sickening pop of cartilage. There was no scream.
Falk didn't buckle. He didn't even flinch. His leg remained rooted to the earth, as immovable as a tree trunk.
Brandt's knuckles screamed in protest. The impact rebounded up his arm, a shockwave of pain that rattled his teeth. He had just punched a steel wall.
Falk looked down at him, his expression unreadable.
Then, he reacted.
It was a blur. He didn't use his sword. He didn't need to. He simply shifted his hips and unleashed his free hand.
It was a short, controlled punch to the solar plexus. It wasn't a killing blow. Falk held back enough power to prevent the boy's heart from stopping.
But it was efficient.
The air left his lungs instantly, expelled in a violent, agonising whoosh. His diaphragm paralysed. The world went white at the edges.
He was lifted off his feet, the force of the blow sending him tumbling backward across the frozen dirt.
He rolled, his limbs tangling, scraping against the hard, icy ground, before coming to a stop in a heap of misery.
Brandt lay there, gasping like a fish on a dock.
His mouth opened and closed, but no air would come. His chest hitched in spasms. The pain radiated outward from his stomach, a sick, dull ache that made his vision swim.
Humiliation washed over him, colder than the ice.
He got it. He understood. He was weak. He was a bug. Falk was a god compared to him. There was no need for this level of demonstration. There was no need to crush him so thoroughly.
'Damn him...'
The self-pity began to rise, a hot, bitter bile in his throat.
'Stop.'
'I asked for this.'
He had demanded brutality. He had demanded survival training. He had asked to be taught how to live in a world of monsters.
This pain... this humiliation... this was the transaction he had agreed to. Complaining now would be illogical. It would be childish. It would be pathetic.
He forced his diaphragm to unlock. He sucked in a ragged, shallow breath of freezing air. It burned, but it was oxygen.
He heard the crunch of boots on frost.
Falk walked over, his silhouette looming against the flickering torchlight like a judgment. He stopped and looked down at the gasping boy.
His face softened, just slightly. He opened his mouth, likely to apologise. To explain that Brandt wasn't ready for this level of intensity. He expected the boy to stay down. He expected tears. He expected him to quit.
Brandt moved.
He groaned, a low, guttural sound, and rolled onto his knees. He scrambled, his fingers digging into the frozen dirt, and pushed himself up.
He swayed, clutching his bruised arm to his chest. He spat a glob of blood from a bitten lip onto the ice.
He looked up at Falk.
There were no tears in his eyes. There was no fear.
There was only a cold, hungry intensity—a dark, obsessive need to solve the puzzle.
'Again,' his eyes said. 'I'm not done.'
Falk froze.
The apology died in his throat. He stared at the boy, really stared at him, for the first time. He saw something in Brandt's eyes that shouldn't be there.
It wasn't the look of a child.
It was a ghost of the Marquess. It was a resilience that spoke of iron bones and a spirit that refused to break.
Falk nodded slowly. A silent acknowledgment passed between them.
"Enough," Falk said, his voice quiet but firm. "The verdict is reached."
The scene shifted from the violence of the frozen dirt to the relative quiet of a wooden bench on the edge of the training ground.
The adrenaline that had fueled Brandt's suicidal charge began to leach out of his system, replaced instantly by the biting, intrusive cold of the Rimescar night.
His sweat froze against his skin, creating a layer of icy discomfort beneath his tunic. His ribs throbbed with a dull, sickening rhythm where Falk's fist had connected, a preview of the bruising that would bloom dark and ugly by morning.
Falk sat beside him, his breathing even, steam rising faintly from his shoulders.
"Two sessions a week," Falk said, his voice flat. "That is the limit."
Brandt opened his mouth to argue. He wanted to demand daily beatings. He wanted to accelerate the process, to cram years of conditioning into weeks.
Falk cut him off with a raised, calloused hand.
"Do not argue. Your body is small. It is unconditioned. If you break it every day, you will not grow stronger. You will simply break permanently."
The Master-at-Arms looked at him, his expression clinical.
"Recovery is part of the training. You tear the muscle, you let it knit. You drain the mana, you let it refill. If you rush the cycle, you end up a cripple. Is that what you want?"
Brandt snapped his mouth shut.
"Two sessions," Brandt agreed, his voice raspy.
"Good," Falk nodded. "In the meantime, find a weapon. A real one. Not just what you think a lord should carry. Find something that fits your hand and your mind. And footwork. Read about footwork. A man who cannot move is just a target."
Falk leaned back, staring up at the bruised, starless sky. The silence stretched between them, heavy and comfortable.
"Your father," Falk said suddenly, not looking down.
Brandt stilled, turning to watch the older man's profile.
"I am keeping a close watch on the raven tower," Falk continued, his voice low. "I check it every day or so for a letter. But... do not hold your breath, Brandt."
"You think he isn't coming," Brandt stated. It wasn't a question.
"I think the border is shifting," Falk corrected, his eyes narrowing as he watched the torchlight flicker. "The enemy is probing the passes. The King will not release a Marquess when the drums are beating. I suspect he has been kept in the capital."
He looked at Brandt.
"I did not want to crush the twins' hope. They are children. They need to believe he is coming home tomorrow."
Brandt met his gaze.
He processed the intel. The father was a variable, likely removed from the board for the immediate future. The border was heating up. The safety of the keep was an illusion that could shatter if the politics in the capital shifted.
He was on his own.
"In two months," Falk continued, his voice dropping an octave. "When the snows are deepest... regardless of whether the Marquess has returned or not... we will venture out."
Brandt's heart skipped a beat.
"Out?"
"A patrol," Falk said. "A hunt. We need to cull the beast populations near the pass before they get desperate enough to attack the mines. It is practical training. Real blood. Real snow. Beyond the walls."
The world beyond the walls.
It was a terrifying prospect. It was also precisely what Brandt needed. He couldn't learn to survive the world by hiding in a stone box. He needed to see the ecosystem of this nightmare. He needed to see the monsters.
"Take me," Brandt said.
Falk chuckled, a dry, rasping sound.
"It is not a field trip, boy. Men die on these hunts. I will not take a liability."
He stood up, his massive frame blocking out the torchlight.
"You want to go? Prove you are not dead weight."
He pointed a thick finger at Brandt's chest.
"Two months. We will stand here again. If you can manage to injure me then—even a scratch, a drop of blood—I will take you with us."
Brandt stared at him. To scratch a mountain?
It sounded impossible.
It was perfect.
It was a concrete objective. A puzzle to solve. A deadline.
"Deal," Brandt said.
Falk grunted. He reached out and retrieved the torch from the sconce, the shadows rushing back in to claim the space.
"Go to Vorin in the morning," Falk commanded, turning away to extinguish the nearest torch. "Get that arm checked. And your chest. Don't let them stiffen up. Then find me when you know what you want to kill with... and who you want to learn it from."
He walked away, his heavy boots crunching on the frozen earth, taking the light and the warmth with him.
Brandt remained on the bench, alone in the encroaching dark. He was bruised, bleeding, and freezing to death.
He had never felt more focused.
He watched the torchlight fade into the distance, a single spark in the black void of the Rimescar night.
'A scratch,' he thought.
He could do a scratch.