CHAPTER 55: THE FLICKER OF WILL

The iron weight strapped to Soren’s forearm felt like it had been forged from a fallen star, impossibly dense and growing heavier with each passing moment.

His shoulders burned, muscles twisting into knots that would take days to unravel.

Twenty repetitions had become thirty, then fifty, then "until I say stop"...which apparently meant until his body betrayed him or the sun burned out, whichever came first.

"Higher," Kaelor barked, circling like a predator. "Edge level, wrist locked. You drop that blade again and I’ll add another plate."

Sweat trickled into Soren’s eyes, salt stinging worse than the lash of Kaelor’s training sword. He blinked it away, refusing to spare even a hand to wipe his face. The last time he’d made that mistake, Kaelor had cracked his practice blade across Soren’s knuckles hard enough to leave them swollen for days.

"Footwork," the swordmaster growled, his single eye narrowed to a slit. "You’re dragging your heel like a drunken farmer. Again."

Soren reset his stance, ignoring the trembling in his thighs. Four hours into today’s special training, and they’d barely scratched the surface of what Kaelor had planned. The other recruits had finished their drills long ago, casting sideways glances of mingled pity and satisfaction as they retreated to the relative comfort of the barracks.

The training yard shimmered in the afternoon heat, dust hanging in the air like suspended gold. Each breath felt like inhaling fire, the grit coating his throat and lungs. Soren tasted copper, blood from where he’d bitten the inside of his cheek during a particularly vicious correction. He’d learned not to spit it out. Showing weakness only extended the torment.

"First sequence," Kaelor commanded, his voice cutting through the haze of pain and exhaustion. "Full extension. And if your form wavers once more, we start from dawn tomorrow."

The threat wasn’t idle. Twice now, Kaelor had dragged him from his cot before sunrise, forcing him through punishing drills while the other recruits slept. The message was clear: failure had consequences beyond mere pain.

Soren drew a ragged breath and began the sequence, thrust, parry, riposte, cut. Movements that had once seemed complex now flowed from muscle memory, his body responding despite the screaming protest of overtaxed tendons. The weighted practice sword cut arcs through the dusty air, each position flowing into the next with hard-won precision.

Kaelor stalked around him, training sword tapping against his leg in a rhythm that matched Soren’s heartbeat. Waiting for a mistake. Hungry for it.

"Faster," he ordered as Soren completed the sequence. "A real opponent won’t stand politely while you arrange your feet."

Soren bit back the retort that threatened to escape, that no real opponent would fight someone wearing iron plates strapped to every limb. Talking back only earned extra weight and extra hours. He’d learned that lesson on the second day, when a single muttered complaint had resulted in a weighted helm that left his neck aching for days.

He began again, driving his exhausted body through the movements with renewed intensity. Thrust, extending fully despite the weight dragging at his arm. Parry, redirecting an imaginary blow with a twist that sent pain shooting through his wrist. Riposte, a lightning counter that required perfect timing to avoid overbalancing. Cut, the final strike, delivered with whatever strength remained in his trembling muscles.

Again and again he repeated the sequence, each repetition blurring into the next. Time lost meaning. The world contracted to the next movement, the next breath, the next moment of enduring. His lungs burned. His vision narrowed, darkness creeping in at the edges. Still, he continued, driven by something beyond mere stubbornness.

’Don’t fall,’ he told himself as his knees threatened to buckle. ’Don’t you dare fall.’

"Combination sequence," Kaelor barked suddenly, changing the pattern without warning. "Everything. Now."

Soren’s mind raced to catch up with the command. The combination sequence blended all the forms they’d practiced over the past week, a punishing series of attacks, defenses, and counters that required perfect recall and execution. Under normal circumstances, it was challenging. With weighted limbs and hours of exhaustion already dragging at him, it seemed impossible.

But impossible had become his daily bread in House Velrane.

He launched into the sequence, forcing his body to obey through sheer will. Sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes, soaking the thin shirt that clung to his back. His breath came in harsh gasps that tore at his raw throat. The iron weights seemed to double, then triple, defying the laws that governed such things.

Halfway through, his vision began to swim, the yard blurring into smears of gold and brown. His lungs couldn’t draw enough air, each breath shallower than the last. The shard against his chest, which had remained cool and silent throughout the ordeal, suddenly flared warm, a pulse of heat that matched the frantic rhythm of his heart.

’Don’t stop,’ he commanded himself as darkness threatened to swallow him whole. ’Finish it.’

The final movements of the sequence approached, a complex combination of thrust, turn, parry, and decisive cut that required perfect balance and timing. His body moved by instinct now, conscious thought drowned beneath waves of pain and determination.

As he executed the final cut, something shifted.

For a single heartbeat, the practice sword felt different in his hands, heavier, yes, but also more substantial, as if its presence had somehow expanded beyond the physical constraints of wood and leather. The movement felt cleaner, sharper, his will extending through the blade and beyond it.

The air before him rippled faintly, dust motes dancing in a pattern that couldn’t be explained by mere physical movement. A whisper of pressure, like the moment before a storm breaks, pulsed outward from the blade’s edge.

Soren’s eyes widened, his exhausted mind struggling to process what had just happened. Had he imagined it? Some hallucination born of pushing his body beyond its limits?

But no, the sensation had been real. For that single, perfect moment, he’d touched something beyond mere physical technique. The sword aura Kaelor had demonstrated days ago, he’d grasped it, however fleetingly.

Then it was gone, the moment passing so quickly he might have missed it had he blinked. The practice sword returned to being just wood and leather, heavy in his trembling hands. The air stilled, dust settling back into its random patterns. The shard cooled against his chest, its brief flare of heat fading like a memory.

Soren completed the sequence, his movements mechanical once more, the transcendent moment already slipping away despite his desperate attempt to hold onto the feeling. Empty. He felt suddenly, inexplicably empty, as if something essential had been offered then snatched away.

He looked up, expecting Kaelor to have missed the momentary phenomenon. Instead, he found the swordmaster’s single eye fixed on him with an intensity that felt physical, his weathered face unreadable.

Kaelor had seen it. Somehow, he had known exactly what to watch for.

Silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken assessment. Soren waited for acknowledgment, for confirmation that he hadn’t imagined the moment of connection. For perhaps the first time since training began, he craved Kaelor’s approval, some recognition that the endless punishment had purpose beyond mere torment.

"Again," Kaelor said finally, his voice betraying nothing. "Until it isn’t a mistake."

The words hit harder than any physical blow. Not praise. Not even acknowledgment. Just a raising of the bar, a new standard to meet. What had been impossible yesterday was now merely expected, and falling short was no longer an option.

Soren reset his stance, muscles screaming, lungs burning, vision still swimming at the edges. The emptiness inside him crystallized into something harder, more determined. If that brief flicker of aura was possible once, it could be summoned again. He would force it to answer his call, bend it to his will.

The sun began its descent toward the western horizon as Kaelor drove him through the sequence again and again. No matter how perfectly he executed the movements, the momentary connection with something greater remained elusive. Each failure added another layer of frustration, another coal to the fire burning in his chest.

By the time Kaelor finally called a halt, the yard lay in shadow, the first stars appearing in the deepening blue above. Soren could barely stand, his legs threatening to fold with each heartbeat. His arms hung like dead things at his sides, the practice sword a distant memory his fingers could no longer feel.

"Remove the weights," Kaelor ordered a servant who had materialized at the yard’s edge. "Same time tomorrow."

With that, he turned and walked away, his uneven gait carrying him into the gathering darkness without a backward glance. No acknowledgment of the breakthrough. No guidance on how to recapture it. Just the expectation that tomorrow would bring more of the same punishing regimen.

The servant worked in silence, unbuckling the iron plates that had become extensions of Soren’s limbs. Each removal brought a conflicting sensation, relief as the weight disappeared, agony as blood rushed back into compressed tissue. By the time the last plate came off, Soren felt hollowed out, an empty vessel wrung dry of everything but stubborn determination.

He stood alone in the yard, swaying slightly, the cool evening air raising goosebumps on his sweat-soaked skin. The stars multiplied overhead, indifferent to the small drama that had played out beneath them.

’I did it,’ he thought, the realization settling into his bones despite Kaelor’s dismissal. ’I touched it. Just for a moment, but I touched it.’

The shard pulsed once against his chest, a flicker of warmth that might have been acknowledgment. Valenna’s presence, which had remained distant throughout the day’s training, suddenly sharpened in his mind.

"A spark," she whispered, her voice like cool water over stones. "Not a flame, not yet. But yes, what you felt was real." Her tone carried an edge of satisfaction he rarely heard. "The barest echo of true aura, but more than most achieve in years of training."

’How do I hold it?’ he asked silently, desperate for guidance Kaelor had refused to provide. ’How do I make it stay?’

"You don’t," she replied, her presence already fading back to its usual distance. "Not yet. First the body breaks, then the will hardens. Only then can the spark become flame."

Soren dragged himself toward the barracks, each step a negotiation between determination and collapse. His body was half-ruined, muscles torn and rebuilt so many times they no longer remembered their original purpose. But his mind remained fixed on that single, perfect moment, the ripple in the air, the extension of will beyond flesh.

Tomorrow would bring more pain, more punishment, more impossible demands. Kaelor would push him beyond today’s limits, forcing him to find new reserves of strength and determination. The other recruits would watch with mingled fear and fascination as he was systematically broken and remade.

But something had changed. That brief connection with something greater had shown him a glimpse of what might be possible. Not just technique, not just physical mastery, but something transcendent, power that extended beyond the constraints of flesh and bone.

He would find it again.