Kaelen sat on the edge of his bunk, unwrapping the old cloth from around his knuckles. New blisters had formed beneath. Blood had dried into the bandages.
"You keep punching like that," Soren said from across the room, "you'll grind your bones to dust before the masters get the chance."
Kaelen didn't look up. "Then I'll just hit harder."
Soren was the only one he had a connection to in this place, you can't afford to make friends,not in a place like this.
But Soren was different,he was much of a friend, he was more of an inspiration,some form of mentor . He had been here longer than Kaelen, over two years more. He had shown Kaelen the way to live here.
Soren gave a short, humorless laugh. "You're different now. Quieter."
Kaelen looked at him. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"I'm saying it like it's a warning."
They didn't say anything after that for a while. The kind of silence that only came when two boys were trying not to admit they were afraid.
Outside, the horn sounded.
Kaelen stood, rolling his shoulders, bruises stretching with every move. "What is it today?"
Soren grabbed his cloak. " Who knows, but more broken bones is assured ".
-----
The camp taught one lesson, over and over: survive — or don't.
And yet, Kaelen was still there.
He moved quieter now. He struck faster. The boy who had once cried in the forest now bled without a sound.
Soren noticed.
"You're keeping up," he had told Kaelen one evening as they sat with scraped knees and bloodied knuckles. "Didn't think you'd last this long."
Kaelen didn't smile. "I'm not here to last. I'm here to become."
This evening was going to show it.
The rain came down like pebbles, hitting the boys that stood silently under it.
The boys stood shirtless in the mud, lined up before a long path carved through the trees. Kaelen's breath fogged in the cold. Soren stood beside him, jaw tight.
A masked master stepped forward, voice flat.
"No weapons. No food. No rest."
He pointed to the path ahead. "Three miles through the black pines. If you reach the other side, you live."
One of the smaller boys — barely older than ten — raised his hand.
"What's in the woods?"
The master didn't answer.
Then the horn blew, and the boys began to run.
---
The woods were more than trees. It was more than Kaelen expected.
Barbed vines hidden under dead leaves. Pits filled with stinking water. Thorns that sliced ankles and palms. At some point, Kaelen soon realized that he was not alone.
Other boys weren't just running.
Some were waiting. Ambushing. Fighting.
The masters had said nothing about enemies. But this was the real lesson.
Only the ruthless made it through.
Kaelen ducked a branch, rolled under a swinging trap, then slammed into another body.
A boy with fire in his eyes lunged at him, teeth bared, fists wild.
Kaelen didn't think — he just moved.
A punch to the throat. A kick to the knee brought the taller boy down on his knees. He grabbed a rock and swung hard.
The other boy didn't get back up.
He wasn't breathing.
Kaelen froze. Chest rising. Rain hitting his face.
He's dead.
He didn't feel victorious.
He didn't feel guilty either.
He felt… nothing.
Soren came limping out of the trees minutes later. Blood down his arm. His eyes locked with Kaelen's.
"You alright?"
Kaelen nodded. "One of them attacked me."
"Yeah," Soren said flatly, "I saw three boys gut another. Stripped him for his boots." Soren thought for a moment slowly. "This is one of the exercises for the senior boys". He said realizing.
"What some sort of graduation exercise?" Kaelen asked eyes wide
"Yes,we have to go now,we don't want to be caught in a fight with those boys"
Kaelen had seen these senior boys,they were all over fourteen, they had been trained into perfect weapons, a coldness in their eyes, some had been here all their lives.
"Let's move" Kaelen said
They kept moving.
---
By the time they reached the clearing at the end, fewer than half had made it.
The masters waited.
Some of the boys were limping, bleeding. Some stared into nothing. One was carried in, unconscious.
A number of them never returned at all.
The masters walked past them, silent, studying.
The Master brann finally spoke.
"You want to know why we sent you in there?" He looked around at the ragged survivors. "Because in war, you will kill people you've never met. And most of them will look like you. Some of them will even beg."
He pointed at a body being dragged from the edge of the woods.
"This one failed. He thought mercy would save him. It didn't."
He stepped closer to Kaelen, looking him in the eye.
"Tell me, boy. Did you hesitate?"
Kaelen looked up. Cold. Hard.
"No."
The master Brann smiled faintly.
"Good."
Kaelen looked at Solen who gave him a soft smile.
The master noticed this and a smirk grew across his face.
----
---
Kaelen was beginning to understand that this place wasn't built to train boys — it was built to break them. To carve the fear out of their bones and fill it with something colder.
Every part of the camp was designed to teach pain. There were no soft lessons here. No second chances. If you fell, you bled. If you broke, you were left behind.
The Masters moved like shadows through it all — twelve in number, though no one dared say their names too loud. Each ruled over a different corner of discipline. Each sharpened a different blade of survival.
There was the tall one with the scorched gauntlets — Thornek. He trained pain. Fire, cold, breathlessness — he broke boys down and built only the ones who didn't scream.
Then there was the pale-eyed woman, always silent, always watching — Vyla. She trained the mind. Fear. Focus. Control. She could unravel you without touching you.
The whisper-fast one was Calen, almost never seen, only felt when your legs gave out from a blow you didn't see. He taught silence. Speed. How to end a life without sound or shadow.
Brann, wide as a doorframe and heavy as a mountain, hammered endurance into his trainees. Shields, body weight, resistance.
Sillan, all laughter and madness. He taught unpredictability,to be what they don't expect. His lessons made no sense until they did — and by then, you'd dodged death or met it.
There was Elara, who rarely raised her voice but could peel back a boy's pride in five words or fewer. She trained discipline — not obedience, but inner control.
Rovan, the commander, stood above them all. He never trained anyone directly — he chose who lived, who advanced, who disappeared.
Then came the newer faces — less talked about, but no less feared.
Drenna, cloaked in black, taught poisons and anatomy. He didn't care how you killed — just that it was clean, efficient, and irreversible. He was the one who treated Kaelen when he first arrived.
Kohr, the brute with tattoos carved into his arms, taught close-quarter brutality. Elbows. Knees. Teeth, when necessary. No grace. Just survival.
Maelrik, the old man with ink-stained fingers, trained map-reading, codes, tactics. He looked harmless — until you realized every smart boy in camp passed through his tent and came out colder.
Kaelven, a former war priest turned master of weapons, turned steel into scripture. Sword, axe, bow — he knew every blade and how to use it.
And finally, there was Serah — calm, quiet, merciless. She focused on recovery, endurance, and pressure points — how to keep fighting when your bones screamed to stop.
Kaelen didn't know what they were making him into.
He just knew they didn't care who he'd been.
Only what he could survive.
----
"The boy is a lot like his father" Kaelven the master of blades said. "There's something different about them,they move differeny, almost as if they were made to be warriors".
The twelves masters had gathered in the same hall they had met Kaelen in the first time
" He's faster than the boys his age,even some older,he moves quicker and more swiftly, it's as if a blade was always meant to be in his hands" Vyla said, looking at Rovan the commander.
"I noticed " Rovan said,eyes cold and unfeeling "He's not halfway there yet"
Rovan looked at Brann "Set it up" He said,then stood up and left
Brann smirked again