The Refuge of the Fallen offered no solace. There, the days were measured not by the rising of the sun, but by the blood spilled in training, the bones broken in duels and the muffled screams in the test chambers. Kael soon discovered that there was no time for weakness. Compassion was ancient history, forgotten by those who had survived long enough to belong to that hidden world.
The man who had brought him - whom everyone called Master Salen - became his tormentor and his guide. Salen did not explain. He did not warn. He threw Kael into the pit with older, stronger, crueler children... and watched.
-Survive or die - was his only rule.
At first, Kael was the punching bag. His ribs cracked, his lips bled, his legs trembled. But his eyes... his eyes never pleaded. They never cried.
And then, in a night of fever and delirium, something awoke.
The blood that had sealed their pact was still burning in her veins. And little by little, her body began to change. His senses sharpened. His reflexes quickened. He could see the moves before they happened. He sensed the intent before the strike.
The next time he was thrown into a fight, it was he who knocked his opponent unconscious in the mud.
Salen smiled for the first time.
-Steel is unforgiving. He who does not cut, rusts," he said, handing him a rough sword, forged with ancient magic. From this day forward, this will be your master.
Kael took the blade. It was cold, heavy. But he felt he understood. As if the sword could hear his hatred. His hunger.
He learned to move like a hunter. Fast. Lethal. To kill without a second thought. Training was no game: real weapons were used, real poisons, real consequences. Every scar he accumulated was a lesson written in pain. Every teammate who didn't return from a mission was a reminder that death walked beside him.
But Kael wasn't just surviving. He was evolving.
Soon, he was no longer just a student. He became a warning. The one who watched silently, but who, once unleashed, was a gale.
The girl in the mask used to watch him from a distance, sitting on the temple walls, as if she knew something he did not yet understand.
-Do you enjoy killing? -she asked him one day, in a voice that was childish and eternal at the same time.
Kael did not answer. He only looked down at the bloody sword in his hand. In his dreams, the goddess kept calling him. Showing him ancient wars, lost lineages, betrayals and promises.
And in the real world, he was becoming what he had to be to survive: steel tempered in hatred, sharpened by pain.
He had understood the lesson.
In that world, the soul was worthless.
But a sword... a sword could decide the fate of kings and monsters.