The recruits stood in the center of the battered training arena, the stone floor still scarred from yesterday’s battle against the constructs. Overhead, the sky beyond the open oculus burned grey and cold, a heavy mist rolling off the distant mountains.
Pag rolled his aching shoulders, wincing. Every muscle screamed from the previous day's punishment. His mana reserves, still fragile, felt like glass ready to shatter with a single misstep.
Commander Vaelen paced before them, his boots sharp against the cracked stones.
"Yesterday you fought machines," he said, voice flat and unforgiving. "Today you fight each other."
Pag tightened his fists at his sides.
Around him, the other recruits shifted uneasily. Some looked eager. Others, grim. All understood: today, there would be no holding back.
Vaelen gestured to the ring etched into the center of the arena—a perfect circle, blackened by old blood.
"One-on-one duels," he said. "Victory by incapacitation. Surrender if you wish to keep your limbs. Failure..." He glanced at the ring’s edges where the healers waited, their robes stained with dried crimson. "You will wish it had killed you."
A low murmur rippled through the crowd.
"First pairing," Vaelen barked. "Pag. Versus Cainen."
Pag stepped forward automatically, heart hammering. Across the ring, a stocky, broad-shouldered recruit rolled his neck, a slow grin spreading across his scarred face.
Cainen flexed his arms, and shimmering runes along his forearms pulsed with red light.
Pag squared his shoulders.
No Emberkin, he reminded himself.
Not yet.
The horn sounded.
Cainen came at him like a falling wall, fists ablaze with rune-light.
Pag ducked under the first brutal punch, the air rippling from the force, and rolled aside. He lashed out with a snap kick to Cainen’s knee—but the brawler absorbed it with a grunt and retaliated with a backhand that Pag barely managed to block.
Pain bloomed through Pag's forearm.
Cainen pressed forward, relentless, throwing a flurry of blows that Pag dodged by the barest margins, each missed strike gouging divots in the stone.
Too strong, Pag thought grimly. Can't match him hit for hit.
He needed to fight smart.
Pag twisted his body, letting momentum carry him out of range, and with a quick flick of his fingers summoned a thin wall of shimmering heat between them—not enough to burn, just enough to distort.
Cainen charged through blindly—and Pag struck.
He dropped low, driving his elbow into the inside of Cainen's knee, followed by a burst of focused heat magic that seared the brawler’s balance.
Cainen staggered.
Pag pivoted, using the opening to slam his palm against one of Cainen’s rune-etched arms and unleash a compressed mana burst.
The rune flared—then cracked.
Cainen howled, clutching his arm.
Pag didn’t hesitate. He kicked out hard, sending Cainen sprawling backward out of the ring.
The horn sounded.
Victory.
Barely.
Pag staggered back, chest heaving, sweat pouring down his spine.
He could feel it—the ember inside him—stirring.
Not out of rage.
Not out of fear.
Out of hunger.
He clenched his jaw, forcing it back down.
Vaelen nodded once. "Survived," he said flatly. "Barely. Next match."
The day blurred into a relentless cycle of combat.
Pag fought again and again, his body a battlefield of bruises and shallow cuts. His magic drained, refilled, drained again until he was left scraping the bottom of his reserves.
Against a nimble wind-caster who spun razor-sharp gales.
Against a twin-wielding shadowmancer who struck from blind angles.
Against a raw mana brute who simply hurled waves of force like battering rams.
Each fight pushed Pag closer to the edge.
Each strike, each dodge, each moment where he faltered and tasted blood brought the Emberkin fire clawing higher toward the surface.
By the fourth duel, tiny sparks of blue-white fire began leaking from the cracks in his skin whenever he pushed his magic too far.
Unseen by most—but not by all.
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Commander Vaelen’s sharp eyes tracked him from the balcony, arms folded.
Watching.
Measuring.
Final Duel
The last duel of the day.
Pag’s opponent this time wasn’t a recruit.
It was a Core Veteran—an instructor brought down into the ring to test him personally.
A tall woman clad in bone-white armor, a heavy stave crackling with kinetic energy in her hands.
>Instructor Selvarin: Core Vanguard Specializes in counter-magic and shockwave suppression.<
The horn sounded.
Selvarin moved fast—inhumanly fast—closing the gap between them with a single lunge.
Pag blocked the first sweeping blow by sheer instinct—and was hurled backward across the arena, rolling and skidding hard against the stones.
Before he could stand, Selvarin was on him again.
A thrust of the stave. A burst of compressed air that punched into his ribs, knocking the wind from his lungs.
Pag stumbled, seeing stars.
He raised a shaky hand—tried to conjure another kinetic spike—
—but Selvarin dispelled it mid-cast with a flick of her stave, unraveling his spell like a piece of string.
"Sloppy!" she barked, bringing the stave down toward his head.
Pag barely dodged.
The ember inside him flared hot.
He felt it flooding his veins, screaming to be unleashed.
He could burn her down.
He could win.
No.
He bit down hard on the temptation, forcing himself to his feet.
Selvarin smirked slightly. "Good," she said. "You can think under pressure."
She struck again—this time slower, testing.
Pag blocked.
Countered.
Survived.
Minutes dragged on, an eternity of brutal exchanges, until finally—
Selvarin slammed the butt of her stave into the stone, sending a rippling shockwave through the arena that hurled Pag clear out of the circle.
The horn blared.
Defeat.
Pag lay there, panting, staring up at the grey sky.
The ember pulsed once, furious.
But he didn’t give in.
Not yet.
Vaelen approached, standing over him.
"You survived longer than expected," the commander said. "Barely."
He turned to the other recruits.
"Those who remain standing after tomorrow's trial will be formally inducted into the Core. for now you each have missions. Come forward as i call your name to be briefed"
Pag sat up slowly, every muscle in his body shaking.
He had survived another day.
But he could feel it.
The ember inside him was growing restless.
And next time?
It might not stay contained.
The briefing was short, sharp, and left no room for argument.
"You’re being tested," Commander Vaelen said without preamble, pacing before the gathered recruits in one of the Arcane Core’s subterranean halls. Stone walls sweated condensation. The cold seeped into Pag’s bones.
Vaelen’s voice was as sharp as the sabre strapped across his back.
"There is a shipment moving tonight. Weapons for the front lines—artifacts the Crown cannot afford to lose. Your assignment: escort it from the Core’s eastern vault to the Outpost at Silverreach."
He turned, meeting each of their gazes in turn.
"You move fast. You move quiet. You do not fail."
Pag flexed his fingers unconsciously. He felt the ember inside him—still banked, still simmering—press against the inside of his skin.
Vaelen’s gaze settled on him for a half-second longer than the others.
A warning.
And a challenge.
Hours later — Midnight
The caravan was a lean operation—two heavy wagons laden with crates, each bearing the seal of Draggor’s royal house. A handful of Core initiates and instructors rode alongside, armored lightly for speed rather than defense.
Pag sat atop the lead wagon, the night air cold against his face. His dagger was sheathed at his side, and a faint residue of magic crackled under his skin like a caged storm.
Beside him, Faelan rode silent and tense. Ellen scouted ahead, a shadow among the rocks. Borin trudged near the rear, hammer slung across his shoulders, muttering curses about "damned secret errands" and "lousy pay."
The road to Silverreach twisted through dense forests and narrow ravines. Perfect ambush territory.
Pag kept his senses sharp.
The ember inside him whispered—warnings he couldn't quite understand.
Movement. Breath. Watch.
A faint rustle. A wrong shadow.
He opened his mouth to shout a warning—
—but the first bolt struck before he could speak.
A flash of green light seared through the night, punching through the second wagon’s axle. The wood exploded in a splintered howl, pitching the cargo sideways.
Screams. Shouts.
Figures dropped from the trees, cloaked in armor of matte grey and black. Their faces hidden behind crescent-moon masks. The sigil of the Lunar Empire gleamed silver on their chests.
>Enemy Identified: Imperial Strike Cell - "Shroudblades" Designation: Assassination and Sabotage Specialists<
Pag cursed and vaulted down from the wagon, landing hard.
The Shroudblades moved like liquid death—silent, coordinated. Already two Core initiates lay bleeding in the dust.
Borin roared, charging into their ranks with his hammer swinging wide. Faelan disappeared into the shadows, arrows already flying.
Pag sprinted toward the nearest attacker, thrusting out a hand.
"Ignis fractum!"
A jet of flame burst forth, forcing the Shroudblade to twist aside, cloak smoldering.
But more were coming—at least a dozen.
Pag fought, spell after spell tearing from him in rapid succession, but he was burning through mana faster than he could replenish. Each cast left him weaker, slower, more vulnerable.
A blade kissed his side—shallow, but deep enough to sting. Blood slicked his ribs.
Another bolt of green fire shot toward Ellen—and Pag threw himself between them, a shield of pure instinct snapping into existence just in time.
The blast struck him square in the chest, sending him flying backward into the rocks.
Pain detonated behind his eyes.
His vision blurred.
And that was when the ember inside him, pushed beyond exhaustion, stress, and pain—
Finally snapped.
Pag's body arched off the ground.
Flames erupted from his mouth in a choking scream—blue-white fire, too bright, too hot for the human eye to track cleanly. His cracked skin bled molten light, runes blooming across his arms and spine in jagged, ancient patterns.
The world around him buckled under the sheer force of the eruption.
The Shroudblades recoiled, shielding their faces against the nova blast.
Pag stumbled upright—no longer fully Pag.
Something more.
Something forged of pain and pressure and unspent power.
His HUD flickered wildly:
>Warning: Full Emberkin Manifestation in Progress Status: Unstable. Unpredictable. Collateral Risk: Extreme.<
Pag didn’t read it.
He felt it.
The Core wagons smoldered.
The very ground beneath him split and cracked, steam and fire spearing upward through the seams.
The Shroudblades tried to regroup.
Pag lifted a hand.
The air rippled—and the nearest assassin was simply erased in a pillar of condensed fire.
Another lunged at him, blade flashing—
Pag caught the blade with his bare hand.
The metal softened and dripped away in molten streams as he stared into the masked assassin's eyes—calm, cold—and then hurled the man across the clearing like a ragdoll, his body impacting a tree with a sickening crack.
The others broke, retreating.
But it wasn’t enough.
Pag’s fire lashed out on its own, chasing them.
Burning them.
Destroying them.
He stumbled forward, a living furnace, the forest around him catching fire, sparks drifting skyward like fleeing spirits.
"Pag!" Ellen’s voice, sharp, cutting through the haze. "Pull back! You’ll kill us all!"
He turned—wild, uncomprehending.
He saw Borin shielded behind a half-collapsed wagon.
He saw Faelan dragging a wounded recruit to cover.
He saw Ellen, face pale, daggers lowered, reaching for him.
And in that moment, Pag realized—
—he wasn’t fighting the enemy anymore.
He was about to burn his own friends.
Pag clenched his fists.
Fought the roaring inside his blood.
Control it. Control it.
The ember raged, but this time—this time—he reached deeper.
Not to unleash it.
To bind it.
Pag roared, slamming his burning fists into the ground.
The fire coiled inward in a violent cyclone, dragging the raging flames back into his body, searing him from the inside out.
It hurt worse than any wound he'd ever suffered.
But he succeeded.
The clearing was left scorched, smoking, silent.
Only a handful of Shroudblade corpses remained, their armor twisted and half-melted.
Pag collapsed to one knee, steaming, breathing hard.
He was himself again.
Barely.
Borin approached cautiously, hammer ready but lowered.
"Bloody hells, lad," he muttered. "You... you nearly lit up half the kingdom."
Faelan sheathed his bow, eyes still wary.
Ellen knelt beside Pag, gripping his arm firmly.
"You pulled it back," she said quietly. "You won."
Pag shuddered.
"No," he rasped. "Not yet."
Above them, unseen in the drifting smoke, the first Imperial Watchers observed through crystal lenses.
The next phase of the hunt had begun.
And the Emberkin had revealed himself to the world.