CHRONOFOUDRE Book 1: The Awakening Chapter 5: Road to Arkan-Tor
The wagon smells like unwashed bodies and fear.
I'm wedged between two other conscripts on a hard wooden bench, my trunk beneath my feet serving as the world's least comfortable footrest. The morning chill seeps through my clothes despite Kira's crooked scarf wrapped around my neck.
To my left sits a girl maybe sixteen, rail-thin with tangled red hair and freckles scattered across her nose like paint flecks. She hasn't spoken since I climbed aboard, just stares at her hands folded in her lap. Her knuckles are white from gripping too hard.
On my right, a boy roughly my age—stocky build, farmer's tan, jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscle jumping beneath his skin. He glares at nothing in particular, radiating hostility like heat from a forge.
The fourth conscript, a younger kid perched on his own trunk in the wagon bed, can't be more than twelve. Dark-skinned with wide, terrified eyes that dart between us like he's watching for threats. His feet don't quite touch the floor.
We're a pitiful collection of stolen futures.
The driver—a grizzled veteran with sergeant's stripes and a face carved from old leather—hasn't bothered with introductions. Just gave us the basic rules when we started: no fighting, no trying to escape, piss breaks when he says so and not before.
Real welcoming.
We've been traveling for maybe two hours when the hostile boy finally cracks.
"This is horseshit," he announces to no one in particular.
The girl flinches. The kid shrinks smaller. I just wait, sensing this outburst has been building since dawn.
"I mean it. Complete horseshit." He kicks at his trunk. "I'm not even Awakened. The crystal didn't do anything when I touched it. Barely flickered. But they're dragging me to the capital anyway because my village needs to meet its quota."
"Quota?" I ask, though I probably shouldn't encourage him.
"Every settlement owes the Empire Awakened for the war effort. My village hadn't produced one in five years, so when the testers came through and found me marginally magical—" He spits over the side of the wagon. "Here I am. Property of the state."
The girl finally speaks, her voice barely audible. "At least you had a choice."
"Choice? What choice?"
"You could have run. Hidden. I couldn't." She extends her hands, and I see what I'd missed before—her fingertips are blackened, like severe frostbite. "Ice magic manifested three months ago. Can't control it. Everything I touch freezes. Had to wear gloves constantly, couldn't help with cooking or cleaning or anything useful. My family..." Her voice cracks. "They were relieved when the testers came."
Silence settles over us, heavy and uncomfortable.
The hostile boy deflates. "Sorry. That's rough."
She shrugs, tucking her hands back into her lap. "What about you?" she asks me. "Why are you here?"
I consider lying. Downplaying. But what's the point? We're all trapped in this wagon together.
"My village was raided. I Awakened during the attack. Killed about twenty orcs and goblins when my power exploded." I keep my voice neutral, factual. "Spent three days unconscious afterward. Woke up with these."
I pull back my sleeves, revealing the lightning-scar patterns on my forearms. Both conscripts lean in to look. Even the kid stops cowering long enough to peer over.
"That's incredible," the boy breathes. Then catches himself. "I mean—not incredible that you had to kill people. Just... the scars. They're like art."
"They're permanent proof I'm a weapon now," I correct, but without heat. He's trying to be kind in his clumsy way.
"What element?" the girl asks. "Fire? Lightning?"
"Both. Kind of. It's complicated." I pull my sleeves back down. "The testers called it Chronofoudre. Time lightning."
"Never heard of that," the boy says.
"Neither had they. That's part of the problem."
We lapse back into silence, but it feels different now. Less isolating. We've established we're all equally screwed, which creates a strange camaraderie.
The kid finally ventures a question, his voice high and uncertain. "Will they really train us? Or just... use us until we break?"
It's the driver who answers, surprising us all. "Depends on your rank and how well you follow orders." He doesn't turn around, just keeps the horses moving at a steady pace. "Ranks F through C get basic training, then deployed to garrison duty or support roles. Ranks B and above go through advanced programs. Might actually survive long enough to make it home someday."
"And if we wash out?" the hostile boy asks.
"Labor battalions. Digging ditches, hauling supplies, all the grunt work nobody else wants." The driver spits tobacco juice over the side. "Still beats execution for desertion."
Cheerful bastard.
"What rank are you?" the girl asks me quietly.
"Classified as D. For now."
"For now?"
I hesitate, then figure honesty can't hurt worse than the anxiety of keeping secrets. "The measuring crystals broke when I touched them. Twice. The testers don't actually know my real rank. Could be D, could be B, could be—" I stop myself before saying S-rank. That sounds too much like bragging.
"Could be anything," the boy finishes. He whistles low. "That's either really good or really bad."
"Probably both."
The girl extends one blackened hand toward me. "Mira. Originally from Reed's Hollow."
I shake it carefully, mindful of her frostbite. "Kael. Ash-Borough."
The hostile boy follows suit. "Gregor. Twin Rivers." His grip is crushing, overcompensating. "Rank F, apparently. Barely worth conscripting."
"But conscripted anyway," Mira points out.
"But conscripted anyway," he agrees bitterly.
The kid doesn't offer his name, just shrinks back when we look at him. Gregor shrugs, letting it go.
We stop around midday at a garrison town—one of dozens that dot the road between the frontier and the capital. The place is more military outpost than settlement, all barracks and warehouses clustered around a central drill field.
The driver orders us out for food and to stretch our legs. "Fifteen minutes. Don't wander."
The garrison mess hall is serving some kind of stew that's more water than substance, but it's hot and we're hungry. We eat standing up, too exhausted to talk, watching soldiers drill in the yard outside.
They move in perfect synchronization, a hundred men and women executing complex formations without a single voice command. Officers walk among them, correcting stance here, adjusting grip there. It's beautiful in a terrifying way—the human body transformed into a weapon through endless repetition.
"That'll be us soon," Gregor mutters around a mouthful of bread.
"Maybe not that extreme," Mira offers hopefully. "We're Awakened. Different training, right?"
"Still soldiers," I point out. "Still property."
The kid finally speaks, his voice barely above a whisper. "My name is Finn. I'm from Copper Creek." He stares into his bowl like it holds answers. "I manifested earth magic. Accidentally crushed our plow horse when it spooked me. My father..." He trails off.
We don't ask him to finish. The pain in those two words says enough.
"The Academy will teach you control," the driver says, appearing beside us like a ghost. How does someone that size move so quietly? "That's what the first year is for. Control, discipline, theory. Second year is practical application. Third year—if you make it that far—is specialization."
"Three years?" Gregor sounds horrified.
"Minimum. Longer for higher ranks." The driver dumps his own bowl in the wash basin. "Time's up. Back to the wagon."
We trudge back, bellies full but spirits low. Three years. Three years of being reshaped, reformed, turned into something useful to the Empire.
I think about Father's words. The forge doesn't ask what you want to become.
The afternoon passes in monotonous discomfort. The road deteriorates, forcing the wagon to slow, jostling us constantly. Mira tries to sleep and fails. Gregor stares at the passing landscape with barely concealed rage. Finn curls into himself, practically invisible.
I pull out Father's journal, thinking I might write something. But what? Dear Kira, the conscription wagon smells terrible and I'm surrounded by equally traumatized children. Hope you're well.
Instead, I flip through his old entries. His handwriting is precise, each letter carefully formed despite years of hammer-work that should have destroyed his fine motor control. He's documented techniques, temperatures, alloy ratios. But between the technical entries are personal notes.
Kael helped with his first commission today. Twelve years old and already showing promise. His mother would be proud.
Kira asked about Elira again. How do I explain death to a child who never knew life with her mother?
Border raids increasing. Captain says the north is restless. I should teach Kael to fight, not just forge. But I want him to build things, not destroy them.
My throat tightens. I close the journal before the words blur too much to read.
"Family?" Mira asks softly. She's given up on sleep, watching me with curious eyes.
"My father. He's a smith. Was teaching me the trade before..." I gesture vaguely at everything.
"My mother was a seamstress," she offers. "Tried to teach me, but I kept freezing the fabric. Made it brittle, unusable." She flexes her blackened fingers. "Everything I touched turned to ice. Even myself."
"Will they fix it? At the Academy?"
"The driver says they have healers. Specialists in magical maladies. Maybe." She doesn't sound convinced.
Gregor snorts. "The Empire doesn't fix things. It uses them until they break, then finds replacements."
"You're awfully cynical for someone our age," I observe.
"You're awfully optimistic for someone who just killed twenty people."
The words land like a slap. Mira sucks in a breath. Even Finn looks up, startled.
I could get angry. Could lash out. Instead, I just nod. "You're right. I did. And it doesn't feel real yet. Probably won't until I'm alone in the dark and the nightmares come."
Gregor blinks, apparently not expecting honesty. "I didn't mean—"
"Yes, you did. And that's fine." I lean back against the wagon side, watching clouds drift overhead. "We're all processing this differently. You're angry. Mira's scared. Finn's shutting down. I'm... I don't know what I am yet."
"Numb," Mira suggests quietly. "You're numb."
Maybe she's right.
We stop for the night at another garrison town, larger than the first. The driver secures us bunks in the transient barracks—a long building filled with narrow beds and the smell of too many bodies in too small a space.
"Stay together," he instructs. "Don't trust anyone who isn't wearing your same conscript tag." He taps the leather strip around his neck, identical to the ones we were issued this morning. "Lights out at sunset. We leave at dawn."
He disappears, probably to find better accommodations. Officers don't sleep in the common barracks.
We claim four bunks in the corner, creating a small territory of familiar faces in a sea of strangers. The other occupants are a mix—soldiers rotating through, merchants with Imperial contracts, a few other conscript groups heading to different training facilities.
One group particularly catches my attention. Five teenagers, all wearing the same purple armband, clustered around a game of dice. They laugh too loud, bet too recklessly, act like they're on vacation rather than being conscripted.
"Academy transfers," a voice says behind me.
I turn to find an older woman—maybe thirty—with corporal stripes and a world-weary expression. "Sorry?"
"Those kids." She nods toward the dice game. "Already went through initial Academy training. Being transferred to advanced specialization in the capital. They're celebrating because they survived the first cut."
"First cut?"
"About thirty percent of conscripts wash out in the first year. Can't hack the training, can't control their magic, or just break mentally." She studies me with sharp eyes. "You look like you'll make it. Got that stubborn set to your jaw."
"Thanks. I think."
She smirks. "Word of advice—don't make friends. People die in training. Magic is dangerous, accidents happen, and attachment just makes it hurt worse when someone doesn't come back from a drill."
"Cheerful."
"Realistic." She moves past me toward her own bunk. "But hey, what do I know? Maybe your batch will be different."
I rejoin my group—are they my group already?—and relay what the corporal told me.
"Thirty percent," Finn whispers, going even paler. "That's... that's a lot."
"Better odds than I expected," Gregor admits grudgingly. "Thought it'd be higher."
"Maybe the thirty percent are the lucky ones," Mira suggests. "Washing out means going home, right?"
"Labor battalions," I remind her. "Remember?"
"Oh. Right." Her shoulders slump. "So either way we're trapped."
"Either way we survive," I counter, surprising myself with the conviction in my voice. "We learn, we adapt, we get through this. Three years. That's all. Then maybe—maybe—we get some control over our lives again."
"Maybe," Gregor echoes, but he sounds less hostile. Almost hopeful.
We settle into our bunks as darkness falls. The barracks fills with the sounds of settling bodies, whispered conversations, someone snoring already. Outside, I can hear the night watch changing, boots on gravel, distant commands.
I lie awake, watching shadows play across the ceiling, thinking about three years. Three years of transformation from Kael the blacksmith's apprentice into Kael the Awakened soldier.
Will I recognize myself at the end?
Will Father? Will Kira?
The wooden hammer digs into my hip through my trouser pocket. I shift it to my hand instead, holding it like a talisman. This small thing, carved by my sister's inexpert hands, might be the only piece of my old life that survives what's coming.
"Kael?" Mira's voice drifts from the bunk below mine. "You awake?"
"Yeah."
"I'm scared."
"Me too."
"But we'll be okay, right? We have to be."
I want to promise her that. Want to lie convincingly enough that she believes it and can sleep. But I'm tired of lying.
"I don't know," I admit. "I hope so."
Silence. Then: "Thanks for being honest."
"Anytime."
She doesn't speak again. Eventually, her breathing evens into sleep's rhythm. Gregor is already snoring softly. Even Finn seems to have found unconsciousness.
I remain awake, keeping vigil over these strangers who aren't strangers anymore. Somewhere between the wagon and here, we've become something. Not quite friends—too soon for that. But allies maybe. Fellow survivors of the same catastrophe.
Tomorrow we'll travel closer to Arkan-Tor. Tomorrow the Crystal Towers will grow from distant gleam to looming reality. Tomorrow we'll edge one day nearer to the Academy and everything that entails.
But tonight, in this barracks full of other people's nightmares, we're just four scared kids trying to survive until morning.
I can work with that.
Dawn arrives with a bell clanging somewhere outside, harsh and unforgiving. We stumble awake, groggy and disoriented, joining the flow of bodies toward the wash stations and latrines.
The morning routine is efficient but dehumanizing—fifty people using four water pumps, fighting for space at the troughs, scrambling for the least-disgusting latrine stall. I learn quickly to move with purpose. Hesitation means getting shoved aside.
Breakfast is porridge and hard biscuits that could double as building materials. We eat standing in the mess yard, too rushed to sit.
The driver appears as we're finishing. "Wagon leaves in five. Be on it or be left behind."
We scramble to gather our few belongings. I nearly forget the journal, grabbing it at the last second from beneath my bunk. Finn almost leaves his entire trunk before Gregor catches him, hauling it alongside his own.
Back in the wagon. Back to the monotonous rhythm of travel. But the landscape is changing now, becoming less wild. More farms, more villages, more signs of civilization organized around the Empire's needs.
And on the horizon, barely visible through morning haze, a shape that doesn't belong to nature.
The Crystal Towers.
Even from this distance, they're impossible to ignore. Spires of some material that catches light and fractures it into rainbows, reaching so high they seem to pierce the sky itself. The capital, Arkan-Tor, built around and upon these ancient structures that predate the Empire by millennia.
"Holy shit," Gregor breathes.
Mira just stares, mouth slightly open.
Finn makes a small sound that might be awe or terror.
"They're real," I say stupidly, as if I'd doubted their existence.
"Wait until you see them up close," the driver comments. "They sing."
"Sing?"
"Resonate. The crystal conducts magic somehow—nobody understands it fully. When Awakened use their powers in the capital, the Towers sing in response. Different notes for different magics." He glances back at us. "Lightning users make them scream. Fair warning."
Great. My magic will make ancient alien structures scream. That's not ominous at all.
The day passes differently than the previous two. Now we have a destination we can see, growing larger with each hour. The anticipation is almost worse than the journey itself—at least traveling, we could pretend arrival was distant, abstract.
Now it's real. Now it's inevitable.
We pass through increasingly large settlements as we approach the capital's sphere of influence. Towns become small cities. Traffic on the road multiplies—merchant caravans, military convoys, nobles in ornate carriages that force everyone else aside.
And everywhere, Awakened.
I see a woman levitating crates onto a warehouse loading dock, the boxes floating on invisible currents while she directs them with hand gestures. Two men in Guard uniforms with fire dancing between their fingers, showing off for a crowd of admirers. A child, maybe eight, casually growing plants in a street vendor's stall, accelerating their growth from seed to harvest in minutes.
Magic, everywhere. Casual and commonplace.
We're entering a different world.
We reach Arkan-Tor's outer walls as the sun angles toward evening. The walls themselves are sixty feet high, thick enough that the top serves as a road for patrols. Guard towers punctuate the circuit every hundred yards, each bristling with ballistae and what I assume are magical defenses.
The gate is a fortress unto itself. Three sets of portcullises, murder holes in the ceiling, arrow slits in the walls. We wait in line with a hundred other wagons and travelers while Guards check papers and search cargo.
When our turn comes, a Guard with lieutenant's insignia examines the driver's documents, then peers at us.
"Conscripts for the Academy?"
"Four of them. Due for intake processing tonight."
The lieutenant studies each of us in turn. When he reaches me, his eyes linger on the lightning scars visible beneath my rolled sleeves. "What element?"
"Lightning, sir. Time-aspected."
His eyebrows climb. "Time-aspected? That's—" He catches himself. "The Academy will know what to do with you. Move along."
The gates open with a groaning of metal and magic. We pass through, into Arkan-Tor proper.
The city unfolds like nothing I've imagined. Buildings five, six stories tall. Streets paved with actual stone, not packed earth. Gaslights already flickering to life as evening descends, casting everything in warm golden glow.
And everywhere, the Towers.
Up close, they're even more impossible. The nearest rises maybe a thousand feet, its surface smooth and seamless, no joints or construction marks visible. The crystal shifts colors as we pass—blue to violet to silver-green. And yes, it's singing. A low harmless hum that resonates in my bones.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Finn mutters.
"Hold it together," Gregor advises. "At least until we're out of the wagon."
We wind through streets that grow progressively more organized, more military. Civilian buildings give way to barracks, administrative structures, training grounds. Finally, we arrive at a complex of buildings surrounding a central courtyard, all enclosed by another wall.
The Academy.
It's less impressive than I expected. Functional rather than grand. Three-story stone buildings arranged in a square, their windows small and barred. The courtyard is bare earth, churned into mud by countless feet. Training dummies line one wall, their stuffing leaking from sword cuts and scorch marks.
The driver pulls to a stop at the main entrance. "End of the line. Everybody out."
We climb down on shaky legs, retrieving our trunks. Other wagons are arriving too, disgorging their own cargo of conscripts. I count maybe thirty new arrivals total, all looking equally lost and terrified.
A woman in uniform—Instructor's rank, I note—emerges from the main building. She's maybe forty, stocky with muscle, her face a professional mask of neutrality.
"Form a line!" she barks. "Single file, trunks at your feet!"
We scramble to obey. The line is ragged, uneven, but apparently good enough because she doesn't comment further.
"I am Instructor Kael," she announces, and I nearly laugh at the coincidence. Same name. "You will address me as Instructor or ma'am, nothing else. You are now Awakened conscripts in service to the Empire. Your previous lives are irrelevant. Your families are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether you have the strength to survive training and become useful."
She begins walking the line, examining each conscript like they're livestock at market. She pauses at a boy who's crying silently. "Tears are weakness. Weakness gets people killed. Stop crying or leave now."
The boy chokes off his sobs, terror replacing grief in his eyes.
She continues down the line. Reaches me. Sees the scars.
"Lightning?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Time-aspected?"
How does everyone know that already? "Yes, ma'am."
"We'll test that claim. If you're lying to seem impressive, you'll regret it. If you're telling the truth—" She pauses. "You'll still regret it. Advanced magic means advanced training. Advanced training means higher mortality rate."
"Understood, ma'am."
She moves on. Reaches the end of the line. Turns to address us all.
"Welcome to the Imperial Awakened Academy. Over the next three years, assuming you survive, you will be transformed from random magical incidents into disciplined soldiers. Many of you will fail. Some of you will die. The ones who succeed will earn the right to serve the Empire in its time of need."
She lets that sink in.
"You have tonight to settle into your barracks, meet your squadmates, and come to terms with your new reality. Tomorrow at dawn, training begins. Questions?"
No one dares speak.
"Good. Follow me."
We grab our trunks and follow Instructor Kael—I really need to start thinking of her as Instructor, this name thing is going to get confusing—into the Academy proper.
The barracks are spartan. Bunk beds, forty to a room, a single footlocker per person. The conscripts are divided roughly by age and arrival time. Mira, Gregor, Finn and I end up in the same squad purely by chance.
Or maybe not chance. Maybe they group wagon-mates together deliberately, figuring we've already bonded on the road.
Either way, we claim bunks near each other. Unpack our meager possessions. Try not to think about tomorrow.
Other conscripts filter in. Some introduce themselves. Others remain isolated, wrapped in private terrors. I learn names I'll probably forget, see faces that blur together.
One stands out though. A girl, maybe seventeen, with short dark hair and eyes like chips of ice. Literally ice—her irises are crystalline blue, reflecting light in unsettling ways. She claims the bunk across from mine without speaking, organizes her things with military precision, then sits cross-legged on her bed and doesn't move.
"Friendly," Gregor mutters.
"Leave her alone," Mira advises. "Everyone processes differently, remember?"
Night falls. The barracks quiets. Someone extinguishes the lamps, plunging us into darkness broken only by moonlight through high windows.
I lie in my bunk, listening to forty people trying not to cry, and think about tomorrow. About whatever "training begins" actually means.
The Academy will transform us. The forge will heat and hammer until we're what's needed.
I just hope something of Kael Ardent survives the process.
Outside, one of the Crystal Towers sings a single, mournful note.
I fall asleep to that sound, dreaming of violet lightning and futures I can't control.
End of Chapter 5