Morning after the dream had been stiller than any Azit could remember.
The chaos in his chest had coalesced into something dense but unmovable. Such as the stillness before war, or the stillness before an old truth breaks through the calm. Sunlight crept through the thin curtains, golden and calm. Outside, a bird had cried once, and then was still as though the world itself was sleeping soundly.
Azit sat up in bed, his muscles sore, but stronger than the previous day. The afterimage of the nightmare clung around him like smokescreen, but he had begun to breathe through it. To confront it.
He glanced at the door.
He knew what he had to do.
Down the hallway, Mr. Mahmoud stood by the window, reading something Azit couldn't see. He didn't glance over as Azit entered, but no sooner had the boy crossed the threshold than the older man spoke to him.
"You slept longer than most would, after what you saw."
Azit hesitated. "Did you see it?"
"No," said Mr. Mahmoud, setting down the paper on a nearby table. "But I've seen things like it."
There was a silence.
Azit paced further into the room, standing rigid at first, then straightening his spine.
"I have to know," he breathed. "Whatever that was. Whatever it is inside me. I won't turn my back on it. I won't."
Mr. Mahmoud finally broke and turned to him. His face didn't alter still calm, still unreading but something in his eyes sliced. Judging. Almost. distant.
"You believe it's something to be learned?" he asked, low voice.
"I think if I don't learn to control it," Azit said, "it'll control me. Or worse it'll kill me. Or kill someone else."
That brought an answer. A small one, but a shift in the old man's position. A glimmer of approval? Of worry?
Mr. Mahmoud walked slowly across the room, the floorboards creaking under his feet. He stood before Azit and looked into his eyes, not like a man seeking dishonesty—but like a person searching for something else. Something more.
"You don't even know what you're asking," he said at last.
"I know enough," replied Azit. "And I know you know something more than you're saying."
Silence again.
Then
I can breathe to you," muttered Mr. Mahmoud, his voice low. "But training is not power. It is truth. And discipline. And endurance. You will bleed for every lesson. You will sacrifice parts of yourself you think you need. And when you are done, you may not be happy with what is left."
Azit did not blink. "I don't like what's there already.".
For the first time, Mr. Mahmoud had smiled but it wasn't the gentle reassuring smile of previously. This one was fringed. It was a soldier's smile. A teacher's. A warning.
"Then we begin at dawn."
That night, Azit did not dream.
But he could sense the darkness still, beating low and level under his skin.
Waiting.
The following day
The stairs groaned under their weight, and each step plunged into the cold dampness of the basement. A thin strip of lamplight lay out before them, with long shadows dancing on the stone walls. Azit lagged behind, his heart pounding not in fear, but anticipation. His fingers curled up too, awaiting something to hold onto. Something to battle.
Mr. Mahmoud went ahead in silence. No sermon, no lecture—merely a deliberate, gradual movement. The type that did not court attention but required it.
Down the stairs, the room widened out. It was enormous unexpectedly so. Old stone floors worn smooth with time. High above, arches. Chill iron and dust permeated the air.
And at the far end of the room there stood a single, tall wardrobe.
It looked so misplaced an old wooden thing, thin and looming, etched with markings from centuries past Azit did not know. No shelves of arms, no pedestals or racks only this.
Mr. Mahmoud approached it, resting one hand on the central panel. He spoke something too softly to make out.
A click.
The doors creaked apart, not to wardrobes or garments, but to lines of arms inside, each lying in velvet-lined niches swords of various lengths and curves, daggers with hilts darkened, shining spears with runes inscribed near tips, even a few strange devices Azit could not recognize. They seemed as good as belonged to a king's own armory or a war priest's hoard.
But something more. they called to him.
Not in words, but in weight. With presence. Each hummed softly, vibrating against some filament in him he'd never known he had.
"Choose," withdrew Mr. Mahmoud.
Azit waited not.
His hand was nearly of its own volition, closing around the hilt of a long black-handled sword. The curved blade, balanced, chilled in his hand. The moment he closed his fingers over it, he could sense something shifting in the air. The sword wasn't just steel it was alive.
Mr. Mahmoud watched him calmly. Then he nodded once.
"Good," he said. "Now—attack me."
Azit blinked. "What?
"You heard me," spoke Mr. Mahmoud, stepping into the room's center. "Come. Attempt to strike me."
Azit's heart pounded faster. He stepped forward, sword held firmly with both hands. He lowered his guard, focused, and charged.
Quick.
Too quick.
Mr. Mahmoud was water-like in his movement, evading each blow with silky precision. Azit tried again three swift slashes, crisp and committed.
All missed.
Then wham. One stride, a change, and Azit was knocked off the ground by a snap kick. The sword clanked beside him.
Mr. Mahmoud loomed over him, calm and untroubled.
"You're too aggressive," he said in a deadpan. "You fight like the answer is always ahead. As if strength is the only truth."
Azit strained a groan, sitting up. "It's what I have."
No, said Mr. Mahmoud. "It's what you rely on. You apply your mind like a hammer. But power without awareness is mere destruction. You'll burn out. Or worse burn others."
Azit folded his head, fists clenched in his hands.
"Close them," said Mr. Mahmoud.
"What?"
"Close your eyes."
Azit resisted and then closed them.
"Now," Mr. Mahmoud breathed, beginning to pace around him, "stop trying to see me. Listen."
The darkness behind his eyes pulsed with silence.
"Listen to floor the way it whispers when I move. Feel shift in air. Listen to my breath. and yours."
Azit focused.
There was only static at first. His own breathing was loud, raspy. His heart beat like a drum against his ears.
But slowly. things sharpened.
The muffled scrape of foot on rock. The gentle creak of movement. A pressure shift in air. A counted breath. Not his.
"Let it come to you," Mr. Mahmoud said. "Let the space talk. Let your body hear."
Azit changed position. He didn't think—he felt. The sword moved up in his hand, not as a sword, but as an extension of his sense.
And when he struck—moved, moved quickly, accurately—there was a whispered hiss of disturbed air. He missed. by millimeters.
A silence.
Then the low, racking laugh of Mr. Mahmoud.
"Better," he said. "Now we begin."
Azit's sword flashed through the air.
Close.
But not close enough.
Mr. Mahmoud moved like water, slow, controlled. He did not retaliate. He did not need to. All Azit's blows met with nothing but thin air, and with each that missed, his fury sharpened faster than the blade in his hand.
He rushed again.
Missed.
Twirled around.
Missed.
He was panting now. His shoulders burned. All his muscles were tensed.
But Mahmoud… hadn't even begun to perspire.
"You're fighting me," the old man said, sidestepping with smooth ease as Azit staggered forward, "when you ought to be fighting yourself."
Azit's foot snagged on rough stone just short of falling and he regained his balance with an awkward flail.
Mahmoud dodged, caught his wrist, spun
Pain
and Azit's sword sailed from his fingers.
Before he even had time to respond, a hard kick hit his chest.
He hit the ground flat. Stone touched his spine. The wind was knocked from his lungs.
A familiar weight nestled in his chest—rage. Helplessness.
But this time, he didn't rise up at once.
This time, he heard.
Mahmoud circled him, moving with slow deliberation. Not smug. Not cruel. Just calculated.
"You rely on strength," he said. "Because that's all you've ever known. All you have faith in."
Azit coughed, gritting his teeth as he pulled himself onto his elbows.
"I'm strong," he muttered again, voice raw.
Yes," Mahmoud agreed. "But power without awareness is shouting into the wind. You strike too early. You approach too aggressively. You think quicker is better, but it's not speed that you lack."
Azit stayed on the ground, forehead bowed.
Fists clenched.
Not with rage.
With understanding.
He was still gasping, still in pain but somewhere in the pain, the lesson was sinking in.
He recalled the single instant just before the final swing when he'd felt Mahmoud's location. Not looked. Felt. The quiver of the air. The held breath. The gentle sweep of a foot against stone.
He'd come close.
Not due to quickness.
But because he'd been listening.
He looked up now, his eyes focusing.
"You told me that I use my mind like a hammer," he said. "That I don't listen.".
Mahmoud stopped circling, meeting his gaze.
Azit nodded, slowly. "You're right."
A pause.
Mahmoud tilted his head slightly, a flicker of something approval? passing across his face.
"But understanding a thing," he said, "is not the same as mastering it."
Azit pushed himself fully upright, wincing. "So teach me."
"I am," Mahmoud said simply.
He nodded toward the sword, still lying on the stone floor.
Azit looked at it really looked.
It had been used as a weapon before. A tool to win. To conquer.
Today… it felt different.
Still powerful.
But not powerful enough.
Not alone.
He crawled to reach it and took it again not frantically this time, but in respect. The knife felt heavier now. Or maybe he just knew better what it was like to carry it.
Mahmoud walked past him, towards the stairs.
"Tomorrow, we begin again," he said. "Tonight, think."
Azit didn't move.
He stayed there on his knees, sword across his thighs, the coldness of stone against his knees and the warmth of realization only just beginning to stir in his heart.
He wasn't a match for Mr. Mahmoud.
Not yet.
But he was beginning to get why
The cellar was colder than yesterday.
The air thick with quiet, as if it, too, was waiting to catch sight of what Azit would do.
Mr. Mahmoud was in the same stance, arms folded behind his back. Kept quiet at first. Only nodded when Azit entered, sword in hand, eyes focused.
Azit walked into the center of the room.
No words.
No orders.
Only silence.
He inhaled slow, deep.
This time, he attacked.
But without blind fury.
He stepped forward cautiously, sword low, watching Mahmoud's shoulders, not his hands. Mahmoud shifted a fraction of an inch—Azit changed angle, cut wide, but not committed. It was a test.
He's luring me in, Azit thought. If I follow too far—
Mahmoud shifted to the right, just as he had done before.
But this time Azit didn't overextend. He turned with the motion, letting the sword ride the air rather than forcing it. It still missed—but it wasn't reckless.
Mahmoud raised a brow.
"You're thinking now," he said quietly. "Good."
Azit didn't respond.
He was already turning again.
He circled Mahmoud slowly, feet floating over the stone. He breathed steadily. His mind was keen. He tried to feel the movement the slight nuances of the air, the rhythm of steps, the sound of every breath.
He fights left-handed, Azit realized, eyes tightening. But switches to right when he presses forward. It's not showmanship habit.
Another strike.
Mahmoud deflected once more but more tentatively this time.
Azit trailed behind him. Wait wait
Azit was propped on the hard stone, chest rising and falling, sweat seeping through the back of his t-shirt. The hurt in his wrist still hadn't dissipated. His lungs ached. His pride ached more.
Mahmoud's steps faded away, but Azit didn't budge.
"I still lost."
He stared at the ceiling. The same ceiling he'd stared at yesterday.
"Though not the same way."
He turned his head toward the sword lying a few feet away from him.
"I'm starting to see it now the rhythm, the balance, the way he reads me like an open page."
He shut his eyes briefly, trying to replay the last moments.
"I went right when I should have held back. I let my body get ahead of my mind. I landed a hit, but I didn't control the fight not for a second."
The silence in the basement was thicker now, not vacant but with the lesson.
"He's not just testing my power. He's testing what I think. How I learn."
His hand slowly balled into a fist.
"I can feel it when I'm close. That blade edge as if I'm almost touching something real. As if I'm not batting around wildly anymore. As if I belong here. Almost."
He breathed in deeply. He sat up, gritting muscles.
"But almost isn't good enough."
His eyes dropped onto the sword again.
"If I am to learn what's within me. If I am to make it through what's to come."
He reached over and took the sword again, but not with enthusiasm this time, but with still fervor. Respect.
"Then I have to just keep losing like this."
He stood up slowly, running the sword down his back until it rested against his spine. The cold of the blade held him back.
"Until one day, I don't."