2026-01-04 21:44:25Elias claimed a bottom bunk near the door, dropped his wrapped bundle, and sat. No one approached him yet. They were sizing him up the quiet one who’d walked through the trials like they were practice.
Thorne materialized in the corner, invisible to everyone else, arms folded.
“Smells like a barracks before a losing battle,” he said. “You’ll either make friends here or a lot of enemies. Probably both.”
Elias grunted. He was unwrapping Crimson Reaper, checking the edge, when the door slammed open.
A mountain walked in.
The cadet was huge at least six-foot-eight, shoulders broad enough to block the doorway, russet fur tufts at his ears and neck marking beastkin blood. Wolf lineage, by the look. Scars crisscrossed his bare chest; he wore only loose trousers and wraps on his fists. Golden eyes swept the room and landed on Elias.
“New meat,” he rumbled, voice deep enough to vibrate the bunks. “Heard one of you carved raiders like roast boar. That you?”
Elias met his gaze calmly. “Maybe.”
The beastkin grinned, showing fangs. “Name’s Ragnor Ironfang. Friends call me Rag. I like fighting. I like eating. I like people who fight good.” He jerked a thumb at the empty bunk above Elias’s. “This one free?”
“It is now.”
Rag laughed a booming sound that made half the hall flinch and tossed a massive pack onto the top bunk. It landed with a thud that shook the frame.
“Good. You feed me, I watch your back. Deal?”
Elias almost smiled. “We’ll see.”
Rag dropped down beside him, the bunk creaking. “Heard you saved Veyne’s squad. Liora don’t like owing people. Means you’re interesting.”
Before Elias could answer, a group of older outer-ringers sauntered over five of them, led by a lean third-year with a serpent tattoo coiling up his neck.
“Freshies think they own the place already,” the leader sneered. “Beastkin and waste rat sharing a bunk. Cute.”
Rag’s ears flattened. He started to rise.
Elias put a hand on his arm gentle, but firm. “Mine,” he said quietly.
Rag paused, golden eyes curious, then sat back with a grin. “Okay, boss.”
The tattooed cadet laughed. “Look at that. Waste rat thinks he’s in charge.”
Elias stood slowly. He didn’t flare the aura, didn’t draw Reaper. Just looked at the leader.
“You want the bunks?” he asked. “Take them.”
The cadet blinked, thrown by the lack of fear. Then his face hardened. “Yeah. I do.”
He swung.
Elias caught the fist mid-air, twisted, and slammed the cadet face-first into the stone floor. One precise knee to the back of the neck, and the boy went limp.
The other four hesitated.
Elias looked up. “Anyone else?”
They backed away, muttering.
Rag let out a low whistle. “Fast. Clean. I like.”
Thorne snorted. “You just made enemies on day one. Efficient.”
The hall settled after that. Word spread fast: the new quiet one doesn’t talk much, but don’t touch his stuff.
Dawn training began with a horn blast that rattled windows.
First-years were herded to the lower yards for basics: formation drills, endurance runs, sparring under instructor watch. Elias moved through it all without standing out too much strong, fast, but not impossibly so. He kept the aura tightly leashed.
Mid-morning brought paired sparring.
The flame-scarred instructor from the trials Instructor Valeria walked the lines, pairing cadets.
When she reached Elias, her mechanical arm whirred as she pointed across the yard.
“Voss. You’re with Veyne.”
Liora was already waiting in the circle, sword drawn, violet eyes unreadable.
Valeria smirked. “No mana suppression. No holding back. First to yield or disarm. Begin.”
The yard quieted. Cadets formed a ring.
Liora saluted crisply. Elias drew Crimson Reaper still wrapped in cloth to dull its presence and returned the salute.
They circled.
Liora struck first storm mana crackling along her blade, a thrust fast as lightning. Elias parried, felt the shock travel up his arms. She was strong. Precise.
He countered with a low sweep. She leaped, came down with an overhead slash that cratered the ground where he’d stood.
They flowed into a flurry steel ringing, sparks flying where storm mana met crimson edge. Liora’s style was elegant, lethal efficiency; Elias’s was raw instinct honed by bloodline.
She pressed, forcing him back step by step. Spectators murmured.
Then Elias let the aura slip just a flicker.
He blurred forward, inside her guard, Reaper’s flat pressing against her throat.
Liora froze.
A heartbeat passed.
She stepped back, lowered her sword. “Yield.”
The yard erupted in cheers and groans bets settled.
Valeria’s scarred mouth curved. “Voss wins. Next pair.”
Liora sheathed her blade, breathing hard. A thin line of blood traced her collarbone where Reaper’s edge had kissed skin.
“You held back,” she said quietly as they left the circle.
“So did you.”
“Not as much.”
Elias met her eyes. “Didn’t want to hurt you.”
Something softened in her expression, gone as fast as it appeared. “Don’t get used to winning, waste rat.”
Rag was waiting at the edge, grinning wide. “Good fight! She pretty when angry.”
Liora shot him a glare that could freeze fire. Rag just laughed.
Afternoon brought free training. Elias found a quiet corner yard, practicing forms Thorne drilled into him ancient patterns from the Primordial age.
He was mid-swing when a small figure darted from the shadows.
“Eli?”
His heart stopped.
Mira stood there older than memory, auburn hair longer, freckles darker, but those green eyes unmistakable. She wore a servant’s smock two sizes too big, face streaked with dirt and tears.
Elias dropped Reaper, crossed the yard in three strides, and pulled her into a crushing hug.
She sobbed into his chest. “They said you were dead. I knew you weren’t. I knew.”
He held her until the shaking stopped, rage and relief warring in his chest.
“How are you here?”
“Ran,” she whispered. “After they took you, things got worse. Harlan… he started looking at me different. I stole a uniform, hid on a supply wagon. Been working kitchens three months, looking for you.”
Elias’s arms tightened. The bloodline roared, visions of Harlan’s throat under his blade flashing bright.
Thorne’s voice was soft. “Easy, boy. She’s safe now.”
Mira pulled back, wiping her face. “You’re different. Stronger.”
He managed a smile. “Got lucky.”
She didn’t believe him he saw it but she didn’t push.
Rag lumbered over, Liora trailing curiously.
“This little one yours?” Rag asked.
“Sister,” Elias said. “Not by blood.”
Mira looked at the massive beastkin warily. Rag crouched to her level, gentle despite his size.
“I’m Rag. I protect boss Elias. Now I protect you too. Want honey cake?”
Mira’s eyes widened. She nodded shyly.
Liora watched the exchange, something complicated in her gaze.
“You have people who need you,” she said later, when Mira was safely with Rag devouring stolen pastries.
“I do.”
“Then don’t die here, Elias Voss.” Her voice was low. “I still owe you. And I hate owing.”
She walked away before he could answer.
That night, in the dormitory, Elias sat on his bunk cleaning Reaper while Mira slept curled on Rag’s massive spare blanket.
Thorne hovered nearby.
“You’re building something dangerous, boy. Allies. Debts. Family.”
Elias looked at Mira’s sleeping face, then at Rag snoring like a bear.
“Good,” he said.
The bloodline thrummed in agreement.
Greyhaven was forging him.
And he was just getting started.
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Latest Chapter
The Price of Victory
The throne hall air hung heavy with the smell of copper and charred flesh, Seraphine’s body still warm on the marble, blood pooling beneath her in a slow, dark mirror that reflected the guttering torches and Harlan’s roaring flame aura in fractured, mocking shards. Her eyes were closed now my doing and the wound in her chest still leaked in weak, rhythmic pulses, the gurgle of her last breath echoing faintly in the high ceiling like a whisper that refused to die. My hands were slick with her blood, Reaper dripping red onto the stone in fat, wet drops that splattered and spread, the metallic tang thick on my tongue, mixing with the bile rising in my throat. Liora stood frozen beside me, lightning still crackling faintly along her blade, blue white arcs dying in the air like dying stars. Her face was pale, eyes wide, locked on Seraphine’s body, the scar on her cheek stark against skin gone gray. Kora’s wind had stilled, dust settling around her feet in a soft, choking cloud, her hands
The Hall of Broken Promises
The throne hall doors had barely groaned shut behind us when the air turned thick with the smell of old fire and fresh blood, the gold plated walls reflecting the last guttering flames in warped, distorted patterns that made every shadow look like it was bleeding. The floor was cold marble streaked with old scorch marks and newer, darker stains dried blood from older fights, fresh from the loyalists we’d just cut down in the antechamber. The echo of their dying screams still lingered in the high ceiling, bouncing back faint and hollow, like ghosts too tired to scream anymore. Harlan stood at the far end, flame aura roaring around him in a crown of white-hot fire, eyes locked on me with that same smirk he’d worn when he pushed me out of the airship years ago, the one that said he’d already won. Lord Voss sat the throne behind him old, broken, flame dim and flickering like a candle in a draft, but his eyes were still sharp, watching, calculating, the way a dying man watches the vultur
The Slaughter at the Threshold
The throne hall doors loomed ahead like the jaws of a dying beast, gold plating cracked and blackened from failing wards, the faint hum of dying mana vibrating through the stone floor and into my boots, each step sending small tremors up my legs that made the stitches in my side tug with fresh, dull pain. The air in the antechamber was thick, hot, heavy with the stink of scorched metal, old blood, and the sour rot of mana cores that had finally given up the ghost, the smell clinging to my tongue and making every breath feel like swallowing ash and regret. The last loyalists had pulled back deeper inside only a handful remained here, crimson plate gleaming dully under flickering torchlight, flame auras low but steady, eyes hard with the kind of fanaticism that doesn’t flinch at death because it’s already decided the cause is worth it. We burst through the side corridor in a tight wedge me at point, Reaper drawn and low, crimson mist already coiling around the blade like living smoke;
The Whisper’s Origin
The whisper had been growing louder for days, no longer just a faint vibration in the stone but a voice that seemed to speak directly into the marrow, soft and persistent, repeating my name in tones that felt both ancient and intimately familiar, like someone who had known me long before I knew myself was trying to remember how to speak. It came most clearly in the hours when the cavern was still, when the fire had burned down to embers and the only sounds were Rag’s deep, rhythmic breathing and Mira’s small, occasional murmurs in her sleep; it rose then, threading through the quiet like smoke, curling around my thoughts until I could no longer tell where my own mind ended and the voice began. I lay awake that night, Liora curled against my side, her head on my chest, silver hair spilling across my shoulder in loose strands that caught the last red glow from the dying fire. Her breathing was slow and even, one arm draped across my waist, fingers loosely curled against the bandage on
The Last Threshold
The manor had finally stopped pretending it could hold on. It drifted downward in exhausted, uneven lurches now, each drop accompanied by a deep, metallic groan that rolled through the mountain like thunder trapped in stone, the lowest spires no longer scraping but gouging long, jagged scars across the upper platforms, sparks flying in brief, angry bursts that lit the gray dawn like dying fireflies. The air carried the heavy, acrid scent of molten gold cooling too fast, mixed with the faint, wet rot of mana conduits that had given up entirely, leaving only the throne hall’s solitary glow high above a pale, flickering gold that looked less like defiance and more like a lantern someone had forgotten to extinguish before abandoning the house.I stood at the forward ledge in the thin, cold light of pre dawn, cloak pulled tight against the wind that bit harder now, carrying flecks of ash and the sharp tang of exposed wiring that stung my nose and made my eyes water. The ache in my side ha
Still Here, Somehow
The cavern smelled like old smoke and damp stone and the faint copper tang of blood that never quite washed out of the air no matter how many times we tried to scrub the floors. The embers in the fire pit were down to almost nothing, just a dull red line that barely reached the walls, throwing shadows that moved slow and tired, like they were as exhausted as the rest of us. I sat against the crate, back to the rough wood, legs stretched out in front of me, the ache in my side a steady pulse now, not screaming anymore, just reminding me with every breath that I was still leaking a little inside, still not quite whole. Liora was curled beside me, head on my shoulder, silver hair loose and tangled from the wind and the sweat of the last push. One arm draped across my chest, fingers loosely curled in my tunic right over my heart, like she was checking it was still beating even while she slept. Her breathing was slow, even, but every now and then she’d hitch, a small catch in her throat,
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