The soreness doesn't wait until morning to hit me.
It's already there when I wake up, layered on top of yesterday's fatigue like something deliberately stacked on purpose. My shoulders feel twice as heavy as they should. My right knee won't straighten all the way at first—it locks up halfway and I have to ease it slowly through the rest of the motion.
I lie still for a minute and just breathe through it.
Jonric shifts in his sleep across the room. I keep my movements small and quiet as I sit up, testing carefully to see how much I can move before something sharp makes itself known. Nothing stabs. Just this dense, thick resistance in every muscle. That's something I can work with.
I get dressed on autopilot. Thinking too much about it invites hesitation, and hesitation makes me late.
Outside, the air feels colder than yesterday morning. Or maybe I'm just warmer—my body is holding onto heat longer now, even when I'm standing still. I make a mental note of it as I walk toward the hall.
The training hall lamps are still burning when I arrive. I'm earlier than yesterday, just like the instructor told me to be. There are fewer people waiting outside this time. Some of the faces from yesterday are missing. I don't bother looking for anyone specific.
Inside, the hall is exactly the same. Bare stone. Quiet. Waiting.
The instructor doesn't waste a single second.
"Move," he says, and we move.
There's no warm-up today. Or maybe this is the warm-up and yesterday was just the introduction to pain. We start with the same movement patterns as before, but faster this time. Less time to think about what we're doing. More demand on our timing and balance.
My body starts complaining immediately.
The tightness from yesterday hasn't gone anywhere. It just stacks on top of itself. Every shift of my weight pulls against muscles that haven't recovered yet. I adjust my stance automatically, shortening my stride, keeping my center of gravity low.
The instructor notices right away.
"You're compensating again," he says flatly.
"I know," I tell him.
"That's going to cost you later."
"It already has," I say.
He studies me for a long moment, then gives a single nod. "Good. At least you're paying attention to what your body's telling you."
We keep moving.
The conditioning exercises follow the movement drills. Holding positions. Repetitions. Static strain that forces every weakness in your body to reveal itself. My arms start shaking sooner than they should. My shoulders burn deep, the ache spreading inward toward my spine instead of staying on the surface.
I don't stop.
Around me, people's breathing grows ragged and uneven. Someone curses under their breath. Someone else just drops out without saying a word and walks toward the exit. Each time someone leaves, the space around me opens up a little more.
The instructor walks past, his boot heels echoing softly on the stone floor.
"Why are you still standing?" he asks without stopping to look at me.
I answer without thinking about it. "Because I still can."
He stops walking then. Turns around to face me directly.
"That's not a real answer," he says.
I swallow hard and adjust my grip on the position I'm holding. The tremor in my arms gets worse. "Because if I stop now," I say carefully, "it'll cost me even more tomorrow."
He watches me closely for what feels like forever. For a moment, I genuinely think he's going to tell me to drop out anyway.
Instead, he nods once and keeps walking.
By the time he finally calls an end to the session, my arms feel like they're not even attached to my body anymore. When I release the final hold and lower them, sensation comes flooding back all at once—pins and needles, heat, pressure, everything hitting me simultaneously.
I stay on my feet somehow.
Outside, the morning sunlight feels way too bright. My vision swims for a second before it settles back into focus. I blink several times until the world sharpens into something I can navigate.
The walk home is slower today. Not because I'm choosing to take my time—because my body is demanding it. Every single step requires a small adjustment, a quick recalculation of how much I can push without crossing into something dangerous.
At the loading docks, the foreman notices something's off immediately.
"You're late," he says, looking up from his clipboard.
"Barely," I reply.
He squints at me, taking in how I'm standing. "You feeling alright?"
"Yeah."
He grunts and looks back at his papers. "Just don't drop anything today."
I don't drop anything.
But every single lift costs more than it did yesterday. My shoulders start protesting earlier in the day. My grip falters once—just enough that I have to stop and reset my hands on the crate. I hear someone nearby chuckle softly at that.
I ignore them and keep working.
By midday, the tightness in my muscles has turned into a constant, low-grade throb. It doesn't spike into sharp pain. It doesn't fade away either. It just stays there, steady and unavoidable. I adjust my movements again, making everything narrower and more efficient, conserving energy wherever I possibly can.
The workday feels like it lasts twice as long as usual.
When I finally make it back home, my legs feel completely hollow, like someone scooped out all the strength and replaced it with something dense and heavy. I sit down on the edge of my bed and don't move for a full minute, just waiting for the world to stop spinning.
Jonric is watching me from the doorway.
"Your hands are shaking," he says quietly.
I look down at them. He's right—they're trembling slightly. I curl them into tight fists and hold them there until the shaking stops.
"It's from the training," I say.
He steps closer into the room. "This is only day two, Raven."
"I know what day it is."
"You're not supposed to look like this on day two. Nobody is."
I shrug as carefully as I can. "I'm not supposed to look like anything in particular."
He lets out a long, slow breath. "You're carrying it all over. The strain isn't resetting."
"Yeah," I admit.
"That's bad. That's really bad."
"Maybe," I say. "Or maybe it's just the truth showing itself."
He doesn't say anything else. Instead, he sits down on the bed beside me, close enough that our shoulders are almost touching. He doesn't try to talk me out of continuing. He never does.
Later that night, lying flat on my back, I can feel every single place where yesterday hasn't ended yet. The strain hasn't reset or recovered. It's just waiting there, layered under the surface of my skin, ready to have today's pain stacked on top of it.
That's the real difference now.
Before the training started, exhaustion ended when the day ended.
Now it carries forward. It compounds.
I stare up at that familiar crack in the ceiling until my breathing finally evens out again. In for four. Hold. Out for six.
Tomorrow will add more weight to what's already there.
I don't know yet how many days I can let it keep building before something breaks.
But I'm going to find out.