The first night on the road, Drenn picked a shallow dip in the land as their campsite, a little off the beaten path. The two four-horned mountain rams were tethered near a patch of tough grass, chewing with slow, stubborn jaws, while the wagon was unfolded into a small tent with proper canopies, trapping the heat from the campfire below. The first week of winter was next week, after all, and the air was starting to chill.

  Dain would’ve liked to cling to the wagon. Preferably with a blanket. Preferably with a bowl of warm stew that Rena was currently serving to Sahlir, Kargun, and Drenn too.

  Instead, he was standing a few hundreds meters off in a field of reeds taller than his entire body. The black stalks swayed and clicked against one another like thin bones, and he could barely see his own hands in front of him when he lifted them. Every time the night wind rolled through, the reeds hissed and shifted, and it became impossible to tell what was plant and what was movement.

  Which, he suspected, was part of the point.

  “Why are we doing this again?” he asked, his breaths fogging faintly in front of his face. “You know, in human culture, we tend to make our terrible choices during the day when we can see them clearest—”

  Ilvaren’s voice came casually from somewhere in the reeds. “Dodge this.”

  A reed brushed his cheek. Another grazed his shoulder. His wings flexed instinctively, one pointing right, the other pointing left—and then the blunt edge of a shortsword whacked him on the back of his head, making him stagger forward and wince in pain.

  “What the fuck?” he snapped, whirling around in fury. Ilvaren wasn’t there. If she was, he couldn’t see her. “Hey, you know, why are we doing this? The point of an acquired skill is that you don’t have to spend years training for it. Just give me your blood so I can get windbreath, and then we can both munch on Rena’s stew under a warm blanket—”

  “No,” Ilvaren whispered, and he whirled to the left. She wasn’t there either. The wind was carrying her voice everywhere and nowhere at once. “Windbreath isn’t a skill you can easily buy and hang on your belt, human. In my village, it’s a tradition all wood elves learn before they learn to draw blood. Elders teach it to children beneath moonless canopies, where owls hunt and roots claw in the dark, allowing them to see without seeing, to taste motion with their skill, and to know a step by how the wind recoils, for forest nights give no lanterns and—”

  “Okay, whatever, but I put a Tag on you before, and it says you have windbreath as an acquired skill,” he grumbled. “That means you didn’t learn it the hard way either. You just ate the windbreath Skill Tag, so what the hell are you lecturing me for?”

  There was a beat of silence.

  Then pain exploded on his forehead. The blunt end of her shortsword cracked against his skull without so much as a whisper of air, and he staggered back this time with a sharp hiss, hands flying up too late to block it.

  “Dodge,” Ilvaren said flatly. “Learn how to see without seeing.”

  “... Fuck you,” he groaned, trying to peer through the reeds. The elf was nowhere to be seen again. “How is this supposed to help me learn Windbreath? Am I absorbing wisdom through repeated concussions?”

  Pain flared again—this time from the left—as the blunt end of her shortsword slammed into his ribs.

  “Gods! Are you listening, elf?”

  “Dodge, human.”

  Day two. Midday on the road, Drenn pulled the wagon aside near a shallow creek so the rams could drink, cool their legs, and ready themselves once again for the long journey ahead. Meanwhile, the smell of sizzling meat drifted through the air like a personal insult to Dain. They were having lunch. Sahlir crouched near the campfire tearing into his portion of lamb, Ilvaren lounged on a rock gnawing on hard buttered bread, while Rena hummed and continued stirring her pot, sharing her recipes with Drenn, who was jotting everything down on a notebook while nodding furiously.

  Dain wished he could be there with them and have his fill of lunch. Instead, he stood at the base of a waterfall several hundred meters off from the wagon with Kargun, staring at a scattering of boulders across the shallow basin with freezing cold water reaching up to his knees.

  “Y-You know,” he said, chittering through his teeth, “I’ve been thinking about a more efficient use of our time.”

  Kargun grunted, arms crossed and utterly unbothered. “Aye?”

  “Just give me your blood, I’ll acquire earthpoise, and then we can both get back to lunch instead of letting cold water splatter all over us.”

  “Yer cold from this?”

  “... So that’s a no?”

  “Earthpoise ain’t some tavern trick ye buy with a wink,” Kargun rumbled, crossing his arms. “It’s dwarven bone. Every boy learns it, don’t matter what kingdom ye crawl out of. Deep mines, quake mines, salt tunnels… if ye can’t keep yer feet in any of ‘em, ye die. Simple as–”

  “Okay, but you also have earthpoise as an acquired skill on your Tag. You didn’t learn it normally either.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  Then Kargun walked past him, picked up one of the larger boulders—an ugly, uneven thing the size of a small table—and held it over his head.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Dain raised a brow.

  That’s some impressive strength.

  Then again, I’d expect that much from a giant dwarf—

  Without warning, Kargun dropped the boulder on his head, and his arms shot up in pure reflex. The weight slammed into his shoulders like multiple anvils falling on him. His wings flared instantly, but there was nowhere to fly to under a rock.

  Every muscle in his back screamed. His prosthetic strained with a mechanical whine. His living arm trembled so hard he could feel it in his teeth.

  “Hey, you… fuck,” he hissed, boots sliding in the water as he fought to keep the boulder from crushing him. “Take… the damn… boulder—”

  “Ten minutes,” Kargun rumbled. “Ye want earthpoise? Ye start by learnin’ what it feels like to keep yer legs when the world’s tryin’ to crush ye. Show me fortitude of mind.”

  His shoulders creaked. His whole body shook. For a second, he genuinely saw himself becoming a smear on an Obric road, and he couldn’t decide if it’d be a funny story or just an embarrassing one.

  Whatever the case, he wouldn’t be the one to tell it.

  “Dwarf!” he snapped. “I’m… not… kidding here!”

  “Generations o’ dwarven infants endure this trainin’!” Kargun boasted. “Ten minutes, boy! What are ye, chicken?”

  Morning of day three on the road came with sap-scented air and a forest that didn’t feel like a forest at all. The stretch of woods they’d stopped by to camp in last night was thick with metallic trees—and Dain meant real metallic trees. Trunks the color of tarnished steel and leaves that rang and clanged when the wind moved through them. It was slightly scary to sleep in at night, but in the morning, sunlight glittered off the trunks and canopies like nothing he’d ever seen.

  A shame that, instead of joining Kargun, Ilvaren, Rena, and Drenn for a merry breakfast by the wagon, he was pulled deep into the forest by Sahlir.

  His shoulders still throbbed from carrying Kargun’s boulders. His ribs and head still ached from Ilvaren’s nightly dodging practices. Unfortunately, Sahlir didn’t seem to care about the tribulations he’d been facing the past two days, because now it was time to see what sort of ‘training’ Sahlir was planning to give him.

  Well, at least Sahlir actually learned the Galewind Swordstyle by himself, since it doesn’t show up as an acquired skill on his Tag. He deserves a little bit of my respect.

  However—

  He hissed as he ducked, evading the hawkkin’s unwarned whip-blade strike from halfway across the clearing. The attack ripped into the metal trees behind him, left deep gouges in the bark, and would’ve absolutely bisected him clean through if he hadn’t dodged.

  “Can you not?” he grumbled, his heart skipping a beat as he turned to see the damage to the trees behind him. “Hey, you learned the Galewind Swordstyle the normal way, right? Can’t you just give me your blood so we—”

  “No.”

  The whip-blade snapped forward again in a wide, murderous cleave, forcing him to jump over and tuck his knees in on pure instinct. Once again, the wide-ranged strike cleaved through a few trees behind him.

  “Gods!” Dain stumbled back, heart hammering even faster. “What the hell is wrong with you people? Also, even Ilvaren didn’t use the sharp edges of her blades! Can’t you… use a normal whip or something?”

  Sahlir advanced a single step, twirling and recoiling his whip-blade through the air in a hypnotic, wind-drawn pattern. The forest seemed to lean in around it, metallic leaves chiming softly. “This is hawkkin way,” he said plainly. “You want blood, you earn blood.”

  “Earn it how?”

  “Disarm me.”

  Dain blinked. “I’m sorry?”

  “No relics,” Sahlir said. “No wings. No tricks. Only body. Only hands. You take blade from me, I give blood.”

  “Disarm you?” Dain laughed despite himself. “Can you disarm me without your relics?”

  “Hawkkin babies no talk back.”

  Dain barely had time to suck in a breath before Sahlir closed the distance, whip-blade snapping forward in another lethal arc.

  The third night on the road, after Ilvaren’s nightly pummelling in a field of reeds, left Dain lying on his pelt bedding with throbbing muscles and bruised skin. Sahlir, Kargun, and Ilvaren were already snoring in uneven rhythms under the wagon’s tarp, sprawled across their beddings without a care in the world for caution. He supposed they could afford to do so because Drenn and Rena were still up, tending to the campfire and humming a soft, wandering tune that didn’t quite sound like anything he knew.

  An Obric tune, most likely. He couldn’t sleep next to the three warriors anyways with his aching body, so he listened deeply and breathed even deeper.

  Even if I fail spectacularly at all of their exercises, surely they’ll give me their blood before we reach Karatash, right?

  He wished that was the case. He hoped that’d be the case. If not, and if they were a lot more stubborn than he’d realized, he might be in a bit of trouble.

  But just as Rena’s humming blurred into the wind and sleep began to claim him slowly—a sudden spike of pain stabbed through his skull.

  He sucked in a sharp breath and rolled onto his side as the world fractured behind his eyes. Images burst forward in violent flashes. Steel. Running feet. Blood on stone. Dark gazes snapping towards something unseen. There was no slow descent into memory this time, no careful immersion like before. It was as if someone had taken Stonewraith’s past, shattered it, and hurled the shards straight into his mind.

  It was only now that he remembered he hadn’t finished seeing Stonewraith’s darkest core memories. No better time than now to get the next part of them.

  “Gh—” He jerked upright, coughing hard as bile burned his throat. His vision swam. His hands shook as he pressed them into the dirt, retching dryly until his lungs finally dragged in air again.

  “Dain?” Rena’s voice drifted over immediately, gentle but alert. She leaned in closer from the campfire. “Are you alright?”

  He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, sniffed once, and forced his breathing to steady.

  “... Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “Just… a bad dream.”

  She watched him for a moment longer, eyes slanted, then nodded and turned back to the fire without pressing him.

  The humming resumed, softer than before.

  Dain lay back onto his bedding. His heart was still racing. His head was still throbbing faintly. Unlike seeing Stonewraith’s past directly in a spectral vision like last time, he’d received a full blast of the next part of her memories just now, and they were… difficult to parse through, to say the least. It was almost like he was slammed with the physical stress of everything she’d endured in those memories at the same time.

  But at the same time, now that those memories were his…

  He turned his head slightly, looking at Sahlir, Kargun, and Ilvaren sleeping soundly next to him.

  A tired grin tugged at his mouth.

  Tomorrow’s training might just be a little bit fun, huh?