Chapter 2

The moment he turned toward his room, he spotted his brother down the corridor and ducked out of sight without thinking.

An instinctive, cornered reflex.

The gesture itself — the sheer reflexive fear behind it — angered him more than anything Dar had ever actually done to him. Something inside his skull cracked quietly, like a stone giving way under pressure.

“Asin, I think he finally broke and ran off,” Dar said, glancing at Fate’s brother with a smirk. “Three days now since anyone’s seen him around the academy.”

“I hope you’re right,” Asin answered, “but Fate’s weird in a few ways. Remember three months back, when we broke his leg? Next day he still limped into class like nothing happened. He’s like a cockroach — doesn’t matter what you do to him, he just keeps surviving.”

“You’re right,” Dar admitted. “But something’s different this time. He missed class for the first time ever, and now he’s just — gone. I think he’s finally figured out nobody here wants him around.”

Asin nodded slowly. “If you’re right, then in twenty-three more days I’ll be able to pull his tuition and be done with the whole mess. Big thanks, Dar. Won’t forget it.”

Dar clapped him on the shoulder, grinning wide. “No problem. We had plenty of fun playing with him ourselves.”

The others burst into laughter, the sound bouncing off cold stone down the corridor.

As they passed the alcove where Fate crouched hidden in shadow, he shook his head slowly. Something cold settled behind his eyes.

So it was about the money the whole time, he thought. No wonder my brother started in on me. He was always greedy, even as a child.

Fate finally made it to his room and stood under a long, scalding shower, letting the water beat down against bruised skin. Steam curled thick around him. Afterward, he used the small elemental heater built into the wall to dry off properly.

Under normal circumstances, he’d never have wasted elemental stones on something as trivial as comfort. But the old Fate — cautious, frugal, resigned — was gone.

Someone else was living inside this body now.

Fate had never been a warrior, not in this life, and not in the one before it either.

But the next morning, after finally sleeping properly for the first time in longer than he could remember, something new stirred in him. The first real flicker of purpose he’d felt in years.

He strapped on his sword and walked out — not toward the classrooms, but toward the library instead. He spent long hours there, combing through every book he could find on cultivation and the mysteries of the human body.

After three straight days buried in the stacks — six in the morning until ten at night, dust and old leather thick in the air around him — he finally caught sight of the possibility he’d been searching for.

Fate tried to avoid meetings with other people. It was his way of postponing problems until he could face them. He knew it was the wrong instinct. He still felt like he was running.

Once he’d formed his own theory about ki, he was ready to start training. But the problem stayed the same. No teacher would help him, no matter what he did.

Fate thought for a long time, turning the same memory over in his skull.

If I remember correctly, that girl trains alone, always at the edge of the forest. I was going to speak to her a few times, but obviously I was too shy to do it.

At five in the morning, Fate went to the edge of the forest, to a partly hidden clearing, and watched a girl a few years older than him train with her sword.

She had the kind of beauty that made the world slow down around her. Her eyes were a shade of green, deep and sharp enough to cut straight through you.

But it was her hair that truly defined her. Cascading down her shoulders in soft, natural waves, it was a striking electric blue that seemed to shimmer with its own light. She carried an effortless air of mystery — delicate features paired with a wild, unforgettable colour.

After an hour, she left.

Fate didn’t try to hide this time. He realized now she probably already knew he’d been watching her, more than once before. No point hiding. But he didn’t try to speak to her either.

Instead, he studied her. Every movement. Every step of her routine, burned into memory.

When she left, he began mimicking her, clumsy at first, drawing on all the life energy he’d stolen and stored to push through it. Fate could heal his tired muscles before fatigue even set in, so he trained for hours before he ever needed to stop.

When he did stop, it was only to meditate, eat, or sleep.

Fate didn’t move from that clearing for days. He’d decided that leaving would waste time better spent training. The girl, still a few years his senior, came each morning without fail, training for at least an hour.

Neither of them made a move to speak. Fate simply watched, intent, trying to steal her technique with his eyes alone.

Nothing changed for a whole week.

Then one day she swapped her single sword for two and ran through a two-sword routine instead. The moment she left, Fate grabbed his own sheath and tried using it as a makeshift second blade.

That didn’t work.

He tried a stick he found lying in the dirt. The balance was all wrong.

In the end, he left the school grounds and bought another cheap sword just for practice. Once he had it in hand, he went straight back to the clearing and started again.

The next day, she didn’t bring two swords.

She brought a spear.

That was when Fate finally understood what was happening.

He walked up to her.

“You’re really playing with me now.”

She looked at him, noticed the two swords strapped to his back, and burst out laughing.

“Now, those were not the first words I expected from you. They don’t suit the shy-boy image.”

Fate smirked. “Who says I’m shy? I simply didn’t have a reason to speak to you before.”

“And now you do.” She held out a hand, asking to see his new sword. She turned it over once she had it. “See this? I spent most of my savings on this piece of junk. Useless in a real fight, and I know it — but I bought it anyway, just to train with.” A wry, almost childish smile tugged at her mouth. “You know the teachers would lend you a practice sword for free, if you asked, right?”

Fate’s smirk didn’t waver. “Do you think that if I were in any position to ask a teacher for a favour, I’d be crouched here spying on you instead of just walking up and asking one to teach me how to fight?”

She studied him, waiting for the punchline. Waiting for the moment he’d laugh and admit it was all a joke.

It never came.

Slowly, her smile faded into a frown.

“Aren’t they supposed to help every student here? You are a student, aren’t you?” Her eyes flicked over him, lingering on the uniform, like she could see straight through the fabric to whatever truth he was hiding.

“Sure. My father paid for three years of tuition, but the teachers decided my talent wasn’t worth the effort. Mostly I get ignored — no proper sparring partner in martial class, nothing. I can’t leave, since I’m still officially enrolled, so I’ve just started ignoring the classes instead. Training myself. Without them.”

he let out a slow breath. “I suppose I owe you a thank-you, then — your spying actually helped me work out my footwork. But that little stunt of yours was cruel, you know. Especially for someone who’s about to spend the next few months figuring out how to feed himself after blowing his money on a sword he can barely swing.”

Fate sighed and turned back toward his side of the clearing. Behind him, the girl watched with an expression too complicated to read.

He decided there was no point studying her spearwork now, so he ignored her entirely and ran through his two-sword routine instead. A pathetic copy of what she’d done days earlier, but the best he could manage having only watched it once.

“Your moves need to flow more,” she said, unprompted. “And pay attention to your footwork. There’s no point throwing pretty swings if you can’t hold your balance while doing it.”

She kept correcting him, small honest pieces of advice, right up until it was time for her to leave.

Fate stopped and turned to face her.

“Why waste your time helping me? You could be training instead.”

“Let’s call it payback for making you blow your savings on that sword.” She slung her spear over one shoulder. “Will you be here tomorrow?”

Fate wasn’t sure if she meant it honestly, but he had no reason to lie either. He pointed past the trees, toward a small tent half-hidden in the brush.

“I spend most of my time out here now. No real point going back to the Academy, even though it’s close — I’d rather use those minutes training instead. I sleep there. Train here. Not planning to leave this spot for a few more days, at least.”

Sari gave him a strange look, then walked over to check for herself. After a moment, apparently satisfied by what she found, she frowned.

“You actually live here?”

Fate picked his sword back up and resumed his stance before answering. “I train here. Right now, I don’t have time to live — I’m too weak for that.”

Sari wanted to say something. She held it back.

It wasn’t as though she’d never known weakness herself — just never anything close to this. But she recognized the look in his eyes. The same drive that dragged her out of bed every morning, sometimes deep into the night as well.

Looking at the boy training alone in that clearing, half-swallowed by the trees, she didn’t see a small, dark-haired stranger.

She saw herself — weak, lost, lonely, training until her palms split open and her muscles gave out from underneath her.

The words left her mouth before she’d fully decided to say them.

“If you want, I could help you train. In my free time.”

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INDEX

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