Dawn never truly came in Ithaca.
The sky merely shifted from obsidian to a sickly hue of grey-blue, as if the sun feared to rise too high over the fortress.
When the bell rang—an uneven clang, as if struck by a half-mad monk—it signaled the beginning of their first day of training.
Siege rose from the rot-stained plank of his bunk, sleep clinging to him like cobwebs.
The moldy mattress had done nothing good for his back, and the draft in the stone room had chilled his bones. Still, he stood.
He wasn't the first awake. A few of the others had beaten him to it, groggy-eyed and slack-jawed, messing with their newly issued uniforms as if they'd just realized they were no longer boys from farms, but conscripted souls in a death march with uniforms to match.
The training yard lay beneath a sullen, cloud-hung sky. The sun—if it could be called that—was a vague white disk smudged behind thin clouds. The air stank of sweat, iron, and old ash.
The straw dummies, mangled and frayed, stood in uneven rows with their stitched-on faces drooping with a permanent look of boredom or horror. Siege couldn't tell which.
An older man stood before them, the same one they'd glimpsed the day before. He wore a fitted tunic of dull grey and a sword so worn it looked more like a relic than a weapon. His expression was carved from ice and just as warm.
"I am Instructor Varl. You will not like me," the man said flatly. "You will listen to me. Or you will die."
*What's with these people and death being the only other option?* Siege internally chastised.
No one spoke.
"Pick up a sword," Varl ordered.
Siege moved toward the rack of weapons, their handles dark from years of use. He chose one that looked manageable with a single arm—shorter, balanced toward the hilt.
It was iron, of course, dull and pitted, and felt heavier than it should have. Like the metal itself regretted its purpose.
Varl paced between them as they fell into a loose line. "You think war is glorious. That dragons are slain by men with noble hearts and heroic grins. You've been lied to. A dragon does not bleed poetry—it bleeds fire. And your bones will feed its hatchlings."
The others shifted uneasily. One of the boys—Siege thought his name was Tomas—made a joke under his breath, some pathetic jab about cooked chicken.
Varl didn't hesitate.
He spun, struck Tomas in the stomach with the pommel of his blade, and knocked the wind from him in one swift motion. The boy folded.
"There will be no laughter in my yard," Varl said, his voice sharp. "Only screams. And those I prefer not to hear."
Siege tightened his grip on the sword. His heart pounded with a bitter mix of anticipation and dread. He'd known this wouldn't be easy. That was never in question. But this was something else. This was a place that burned the soul before it honed the body.
Varl barked the next command: "Swing until your arms fail. Then switch hands. Then swing again."
Siege looked at his stump. His left arm ended below the elbow, wrapped tightly in cloth and bound with leather. His right hand trembled slightly on the hilt.
He began to swing.
The iron sword hissed through the air with a sound like a dying breath. It jarred his arm with every strike. After the tenth swing, his shoulder began to ache. After the fiftieth, the ache became pain. After the hundredth, he stopped counting.
Around him, others began to falter. One dropped his sword. Another vomited. A third simply sat down and wept into his hands.
Siege did not stop.
Pain was something familiar. It lived in him like an old friend with bad manners. The sword became heavier, his breath shallower, but he refused to let go.
Eventually, Varl called a halt.
Siege's fingers were cramping. His muscles twitched involuntarily. But he was standing, and that was more than some could say.
Varl walked up to him and stared.
"You've got half a body, but twice the spine," he muttered. "What's your name?"
"Siege."
"Fitting."
He moved on.
They trained until the light—what little there was—began to fade. Then came drills. Stances, parries, thrusts. All barked out in cold commands, with correction administered by cane or fist.
Lunch was a broth of indeterminate origin, served with hard bread and silence. Siege ate mechanically. The others huddled together in whispers. No one smiled.
After lunch, they were taken below the fortress.
Down past the barracks. Down past the locked doors and crumbling statues, where even torches dared not burn too bright. The corridor was choked with dust and shadows.
The air was colder here. Wetter. Ancient.
They came to a chamber carved in old stone, its walls etched with warnings in a language none could read but all instinctively feared. A sigil, circular and jagged like a broken sun, glowed faintly on the far wall. Beneath it: a pit, sealed with a grate of black iron.
Varl turned to face them.
"This is the Dyfliza," he said. "A prison for what should never be remembered. Sometimes, we throw the unworthy down here. Sometimes, they climb out. Either way, know it exists."
Siege stared into the darkness beneath the grate.
Something shifted down there.
Not sound, not quite—but a thought. A presence brushing against his mind like a cold hand under the skin.
He looked away.
They returned to the upper halls in silence.
Evening brought no rest. They scrubbed the floors. Sharpened swords. Hauled crates. One boy tried to sneak away. They found him an hour later—arms broken, face bruised, screaming about pale things watching from the walls. He was taken below. He did not return.
Siege sat on his bunk that night, staring at the torchlight that danced weakly against the stone. His body throbbed with pain. But his mind... it remained oddly focused.
This place wanted to break him. But the parts of him that could break have already be broken to dust.
All that remained now was steel.
And steel does not bend easily.
And neither does he.