The wind cut like a blade as Cael stepped into the next stage of the Trials. The courtyard of Shadowspire, once familiar, now felt alien under the shadow of the high walls and the blackened sky. The air was heavy, scented with blood, sweat, and the faint tang of monster residue from the previous stage.
Brenn walked beside him, silent except for the occasional grunt of exertion. The other trainees were scattered across the stone floor, some already limping from exhaustion, some staring at the darkened corridors ahead with wide, unsteady eyes. Cael felt their fear, but he did not share it. Fear was fuel, and his hatred of what had destroyed Elbhollow burned brighter than any terror.
The first part of the stage was deceptively simple: a gauntlet of restraint and attack. Faintly glowing chains coiled along the floor, cutting paths that tested agility and endurance. Small, twisted creatures — minor demons and malformed beasts captured from previous hunts — were released in waves. They moved fast, feral, and unhesitating. Cael met them head-on, his body still sore from the previous weeks of training, but the mark on his hand throbbed with a quiet, steady power.
Steel rang against steel, claws tore through the air, and blood began to stain the floor. Cael moved with precision now, instincts sharper, strikes measured rather than blind. He could hear the others screaming as they fell, some collapsing under the relentless assault, some barely scraping through. The taste of victory was already bitter, flavored with the knowledge that not all of them would survive the Trials.
Hours passed, though it felt like days. The gauntlet was followed by the Exposure Chamber, a dark hall where the true test began. Here, the air was thick with high-ranking demon blood, simmering in suspended vials and spilling from shallow wounds on twisted mannequins. The chamber seemed alive with whispers, the essence of the blood crawling over Cael's skin and into his lungs. Pain struck immediately, a burning pressure that forced his teeth together, and yet he welcomed it.
Each trainee was forced to endure the exposure alone, their bodies screaming as the cursed materials sought to bond with them, to rewrite flesh and bone. Cael's thoughts went to Elbhollow — to his mother, to the friends he had lost. He let that grief fuel him, channel it into the searing agony clawing at his muscles and veins. He felt the first curse mark bloom across his body, a shadowy pattern that slithered across his arm and down to his torso, enhancing his reflexes and fortifying his endurance.
The mental assault was worse. The whispers of the blood carried visions: monstrous forms, the faces of people he had failed to save, the screams of the dead from his village. Each vision threatened to shatter him, but he clenched his teeth and forced his focus inward. He was not a child anymore. He was not helpless. He would survive. He would become something stronger than anyone who had touched him.
By the end of the day, only a few trainees remained standing. Bruises, cuts, burns, and exhaustion painted their bodies, but in their eyes shone the first spark of something more — the raw, predatory focus that came from surviving where others had fallen. Brenn patted Cael's shoulder. "You've done well. But this is only the beginning. The next stage will take everything you have and more."
Cael nodded silently. Pain was constant, but it no longer dominated him. It sharpened him, tempered him like steel in a fire. Every scream, every fall, every nightmare he endured in the chamber was a promise to the monsters that had destroyed his home: he would meet them. And he would tear through them, tooth and claw, bone and blood, until none remained.
Outside the chamber, the wind whispered through Shadowspire, carrying with it the scent of blood and stone. The sun dipped behind the jagged towers, and in the fading light, Cael felt the mark pulse once more. Strength, pain, survival — all fused together in the dark pattern etched across his skin.
This was only the first true trial. And Cael knew, without doubt, that the road ahead would demand every ounce of hatred, every shred of will, every drop of blood he possessed.
He would endure. He had to.
The Trials had only just begun.