The scent of burning oil and damp canvas filled the camp at dawn. Fires smoldered low as Dominion banners flapped coldly above, bright red against a slate sky. Kael barely registered them anymore. He stood at the edge of their clearing, boots sinking into churned mud, eyes hollow.
Somewhere behind him, Ayla was sharpening her blades again, scraping metal in slow, methodical drags that bit at Kael's nerves. Garrick was quiet, still chewing on a strip of dried meat that had long since lost its taste. Lyren stood close, arms crossed, watching everything — especially Toma. None of them spoke of Nell. Her absence felt like a physical wound.
The Dominion made no gesture of condolence. Instead, they brought reinforcements.
A line of new recruits filed in under heavy guard. Ten in all — five boys, five girls — each with lean, wary eyes that scanned the camp like trapped animals. Their boots were too clean, their shoulders too stiff. Some looked scarcely older than Kael had been when he first joined, though his own youth felt like another lifetime.
"Fresh blood," Garrick muttered beside Kael, voice flat. "Because we're bleeding out faster than they can patch it."
Kael said nothing. He studied the newcomers — the uncertain way they clutched their issued blades, the nervous shifts of weight. One boy at the end of the line kept glancing at Kael's squad with wide, almost worshipful awe. Another girl, dark hair pulled into a severe braid, glared right back at him with open challenge. It reminded Kael too painfully of Ayla in their early days.
Captain Elric appeared with two Dominion officers trailing behind, their ledgers clutched to chests like shields. He wasted no time.
"These are your new squad mates. They'll fill the ranks left by recent... losses." His pause was pointed. Toma flinched. Ayla's hand tightened on her knife. "Learn their names, train them well, or bury them quickly. The Dominion doesn't care which."
The new recruits shifted uneasily. One of the officers began reading names, scratching them into his log. Kael barely listened. He caught fragments — Mikel, Sorrel, Dara, Jurn, Cass — but they blurred together. They were bodies first, names later. That was how this place worked.
Training resumed by afternoon. Kael found himself paired with a boy named Ivar, all long limbs and hollow cheeks. His strikes were too wide, leaving his guard open. Kael corrected him with terse, biting instructions, knocking his blade aside again and again until frustration burned in Ivar's eyes.
"Stop swinging for the kill and learn to survive," Kael snapped. "The Seethe don't care how heroic you look."
Nearby, Lyren oversaw three recruits with far more patience, showing them the delicate motion to drive a dagger up under a dreadborn jaw. Toma stood off to the side with two others, but his usual easy camaraderie was missing. Even Garrick seemed subdued, eyes always flicking back to where the Dominion had set up a new row of tents — medical, they claimed, though everyone knew it was for experiments.
By evening, the newcomers were bruised and exhausted. Ayla barked them into ranks for meal distribution, her voice sharper than ever. Kael watched her, recognizing the edge. It was fear fear twisted into discipline. If she kept them terrified enough, maybe fewer would die. Or maybe they'd just die quicker, better prepared. He wasn't sure anymore.
That night Kael lay awake, staring at the canvas above him. A sliver of moonlight cut across the fabric, bright and cold. He thought of Nell, of Daric, of countless others whose names were now lines in Dominion logs. Of how Toma avoided his gaze, and how Lyren never let Toma out of sight.
He closed his eyes, but rest didn't come. Somewhere beyond the camp, deep in the blight's gloom, he could almost hear the dreadborn murmuring or perhaps it was his own monstrous half whispering from within.
The field outside the fortress was alive with the clash of steel and shouts of instructors. Dust and sweat rose in heavy clouds under a dark sky, streaked with crimson lines where the sun fought through the veil. The new recruits trained under Captain Mareen's watchful eye, while old members of Kael's squad stood nearby, arms crossed, watching the fresh blood try to prove themselves.
Kael stood off to the side, his white coat stirring in the chill breeze, dark hair falling over one eye. A glint of white in his strands caught the dim light—a mark that still startled some of the newcomers when they noticed it. His expression was as distant as ever, but inside, something coiled and restless, gnawing at his ribs.
Lyren stepped up next to him, folding his arms. "They look better than we did on our first day."
Kael let out a breath, almost a ghost of a laugh. "That's not hard."
Nearby, Ayla and Nell were sparring, Ayla's blade quick and precise while Nell dodged with unpolished scrambles and bursts of risky counters. Garrick lounged on a crate, giving raucous encouragement to both, tossing bits of bread at them when they missed a swing.
The newcomers were spread across the yard. Mael moved like water through a line of straw dummies, staff blurring in disciplined arcs. Orien stood alone at the far end, slicing at a post again and again with eerie deliberation, each stroke measured like he was dissecting something still living. Siria and Keira competed in marksmanship, firing bolts at moving targets with quiet intensity. Naris and Rurik were wrestling in the dirt, laughing, while Halden cheered them on. Lumei sat on a barrel sketching quietly, Vell at her side, eyes darting to every shadow like she was cataloging threats no one else could see.
Gin wandered between them all with a smirk that didn't quite reach his eyes, making slick comments that earned smacks from Siria and dry glares from Keira. Even Toma hovered at the edges, arms crossed, jaw tight, saying little.
---
Training ended at dusk. Mareen barked orders and the squads broke off, trickling toward mess for cold stew and hard bread. Kael's squad plus the new recruits clustered around a long battered table under hanging lanterns. The lanterns swung in the wind, making the shadows crawl.
Garrick slapped Halden on the back so hard he nearly face-planted into his bowl. "Steady there, young pup! You'll grow into it. Maybe."
"Maybe my fist will grow into your face first," Halden muttered, grinning despite the threat.
Lyren chuckled, arms resting along the bench back behind Kael. "Try to avoid breaking Garrick. He's only useful intact."
Siria rolled her eyes and stole Garrick's bread outright, eating it with a smirk. Across from her, Nell and Naris giggled over some whispered joke. Keira kept one hand on her knife, glaring at anyone who tried to bump her shoulder.
Kael pushed food around his plate more than he ate. His stomach rebelled at the idea of swallowing anything. The noise, the banter—it should've been comforting. Instead it grated against something raw inside him. Ever since Daric's death, since feeling his warm blood coat Kael's hands… it had been harder to stay here. To breathe.
Ayla's hand brushed his under the table. He tensed, then shifted away slightly. She didn't say anything, just lowered her gaze.
---
Later that night—long after most had drifted to sleep—Kael sat against a wall outside the barracks, staring up at a sky bruised with roiling clouds. A few lanterns burned low. The air smelled of wet earth and steel.
Footsteps crunched. Mael appeared, settling down on a crate beside him without a word. For a time, they sat in silence.
"You ever wonder," Mael said at last, his deep voice quiet, "why it's us that keeps surviving? When so many others don't?"
Kael didn't look at him. "Not anymore. Wondering doesn't change anything."
Mael gave a small nod. "Fair enough."
A bit further off, Orien stood alone in the yard, rolling a blade over and over in his hand. Watching shadows. Watching nothing. Watching everything. Even from a distance, Kael felt that strange unsettling pull—like something in Orien was deeply wrong, or maybe far too right for this bloody world.
---
By the next day, drills started anew. Captain Eryz led them—sharp and severe, his commands like knives slicing through hesitation. He paired old squad members with new recruits in brutal combat rotations. Kael found himself sparring Mael, their movements almost elegant in counterpoint. Meanwhile, Ayla faced Siria, blades flashing, both grinning despite sweat dripping from their jaws.
Toma trained against Orien. Watching them clash was like watching two animals from different jungles test each other. Toma moved with brute force, Orien with surgical grace. When Toma shoved Orien back hard enough to skid him through the dirt, Orien only smiled—a thin, unsettling curl of lips—and lunged again, even faster.
Lyren fought Keira. Neither spoke, only traded blows so fierce the air cracked around them. Sparks from clashing blades danced around their feet.
---
As the days rolled on, the new recruits slowly knitted into the fabric of the squad. Garrick tried to teach them filthy songs. Naris started pilfering double rations from the mess with Nell. Fen and Vell found common ground in quietly fixing gear. Rurik often ended up slung over Kael's shoulders after getting too drunk in the evenings.
But there was still a tension under it all—a feeling like the ground beneath them wasn't solid, like something vast and hungry waited just beneath the crust to swallow them whole. Kael felt it most acutely when he woke at night, breath caught in his throat, the echo of monstrous howls still in his ears.
---
One evening near the end of the week, the entire squad plus new recruits gathered in a circle near the old well. Someone had broken out a small cask of stale ale. Laughter drifted up toward the night sky.
Kael stood a little apart, arms crossed. Watching. Always watching. Ayla stood nearby, her eyes on him more than the gathering. Toma leaned against a post, sullen but present. Lyren was telling some exaggerated story that made Siria roll her eyes.
Then Orien's voice cut through the din—soft, almost lazy, yet it sliced into Kael's spine like ice.
> "Ever wonder if the Dominion keeps us alive… not to fight the Seeth, but to see which of us will last long enough to become one?"
Silence fell. Even the wind seemed to hush. Mael turned, eyes narrowing. Ayla's grip on her mug tightened. Lyren's jaw clenched so hard the muscle twitched.
Kael just stared at Orien, whose dark eyes glittered in the lantern light, face calm, almost amused. Like he'd merely asked the weather.
No one laughed. No one could.