After he wiped away the blood, Izen didn't get much sleep.
Not from fear. Not even from nerves. His body had grown used to sleeplessness the way a prisoner adapts to shackles—slowly, unwillingly, but completely. Even after hours beneath the scratchy wool blanket, he lay motionless in the dark, eyes fixed to the uneven ceiling above his bunk. He traced patterns in the cracks. Imagined stories behind each fault in the stone.
The room smelled of flint and candle wax. The fire in the hearth had died long ago, leaving only a whisper of warmth. Around him, the others breathed in slow, even rhythms. Some snored quietly. One twitched in his sleep, murmuring a name Izen didn't recognize. None of them stirred when the knock came.
Three taps. Barely louder than a thought. But it echoed.
Izen sat up, fully clothed. He had never undressed.
The hallway beyond the door was darker than it should have been. The torches along the walls flickered as if choked by unseen wind, casting long, angular shadows that moved wrong. At the far end, a figure stood waiting. Cloaked in grey, face hidden behind a bone-white mask carved smooth but for three jagged lines across its surface.
Izen approached without speaking. The figure turned, wordless, and began walking. He followed.
Each step seemed quieter than it should have been, like the stone itself was muffled. They passed two corridors Izen didn't recognize and descended a narrow staircase that hadn't existed the day before. The walls were cut clean from the mountain, but not by recent tools—no, these stones were old. Cold. Some etched faintly with curling symbols that vanished when stared at directly.
He kept his hands at his sides. Calm. Alert.
He did not ask where they were going. He already knew it wouldn't matter.
The staircase ended in a wide circular chamber carved into the bowels of the cliff. The ceiling rose impossibly high, disappearing into shadow. Lanterns floated in the air, casting a pale, bluish glow that made the room feel underwater. Izen paused at the threshold and took it in—the symmetry, the silence, the polished black stone floor that reflected his own figure faintly.
Twelve students were already there, arranged in a loose arc facing the center of the room. Deros stood among them, arms crossed, gaze impassive. Izen took his place beside him without glancing over.
No one spoke. Not even to whisper.
Across the room, seven masked figures observed them. Each wore the same pale faceplate, but each mask bore a different symbol: a spiral, a jagged line, a downward-pointing triangle, and others Izen didn't yet understand. The one who had brought him stood near the center, just behind the others, as if subordinate.
The silence pressed down on the room like snowfall. Heavy. Final.
Then a woman's voice cut through it.
"You have passed the Gate and now enter the Circle of First Silence," she said. The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once, neither kind nor cruel, simply present. "From this moment until your soul is claimed by death or duty, your voice no longer belongs to you. It belongs to your handler. Until such a bond is earned, you will remain voiceless in the eyes of this Order."
The masked instructors remained still. Even their robes didn't move with the torchlight.
"You will face your First Lesson now. You will not be warned. You will not be spared. Should you survive, you will remember. Should you fail, you will be forgotten."
There was a pause, and then she added, "Begin."
The lanterns extinguished all at once.
Izen staggered, blinded by the abrupt loss of light. When his vision adjusted, he was no longer standing in the domed chamber. The room around him had changed—walls had closed in, narrowing into a corridor that stretched endlessly ahead, with only faint light leaking in from cracks above. The stone was cracked and wet beneath his feet. The air smelled of mildew and old iron.
He blinked. Touched the wall.
It was real. Cold. Solid.
But none of this had been here a moment ago.
Behind him, there was no door.
He walked.
The corridor seemed to stretch with every step, and yet the walls themselves grew tighter. Almost imperceptibly. He passed strange markings etched in the stone—symbols too worn to read, language too old to understand. At one point, he saw what looked like a blood smear high on the ceiling. Not a splash, but a handprint. Small. Human.
At the far end of the hall, a door stood shut. Its wood was warped with age, iron bands holding it together. There was a narrow slit at eye level.
Izen peered through.
Inside sat a boy.
The chamber beyond was small and bare. One chair. A table. A second chair knocked over. The boy sat hunched in the far corner, chained at the wrist to a metal ring embedded in the floor. He looked about Izen's age, though sickly—his skin pale, lips cracked. His hair was dark, tangled and matted. Blood stained the collar of his shirt.
Then the boy looked up.
And Izen saw his own face.
Not similar. Identical.
The resemblance was uncanny—every scar, every freckle, even the faint misalignment of his left canine tooth. It was like looking at a mirror warped by suffering.
The boy stood, trembling. "Please," he whispered. "Don't hurt me."
The door creaked open.
Izen entered, slowly, stepping with precision. He kept his back from the wall, his eyes from narrowing. Every movement was intentional. He watched the boy—not just his words, but his posture, his tone. The way he avoided eye contact. The way he trembled a little too perfectly.
"I don't understand," Izen said.
The boy's lip quivered. "They said if I spoke to you, it would end."
"What would?"
The boy didn't answer. He sat down again, hugging his knees.
"I didn't ask for this," he murmured. "I didn't want to hurt her. I didn't want to… but she said it. Said I was cursed."
The word sent a ripple down Izen's spine.
"Cursed," he repeated quietly.
His mind flashed back to the night of the blood. His mother's mouth, trembling but resolute. Her hands stained red. Her voice—shaking, but not with fear. With recognition.
The boy looked up again.
His expression had changed. No longer weak. Something lurked behind his eyes now—knowing, sharp.
"You remember, don't you?" he said softly. "The mirror. The knife. The silence afterward. You killed her, didn't you?"
Izen didn't answer.
The boy grinned.
"She knew what you were. That's why she was afraid."
"Who are you?" Izen asked.
"I'm you. Just… honest."
The chains fell away.
The boy stood.
His reflection-voice deepened slightly, wrong in the way dreams can be wrong. "You're still hiding. Still pretending you're just a boy who was brought here. But you remember things you shouldn't. You see things. Feel when time folds."
Izen's eyes narrowed.
"You don't want them to know," the boy said, stepping forward. "But you'll slip eventually. You'll slip, and they'll cut you open to see what makes you tick."
He lunged.
Izen sidestepped, his hand going to the small blade at his belt—not his assassin's blade, but the old kitchen knife he had kept since before the Academy. It wasn't the best weapon, but it was familiar. His fingers moved instinctively, not out of training but out of survival.
The boy moved fast. Too fast.
Izen ducked the first strike, slid under the table, came up on the far side and slashed. The knife caught flesh. The boy—no, the thing—screamed in a voice that wasn't his. The sound was warbled, like it came from underwater.
They grappled.
And then it was over.
The reflection lay still.
Izen stood over it, breathless.
His arm shook, not from fear, but from something else. An old tension. A memory of heat and blood and stillness. For a moment, he felt like he'd killed someone all over again. Not a stranger. Not even an enemy.
Himself.
A version of himself that still remembered how to cry.
The light in the room faded.
And just like that, he was back in the dome.
Twelve had gone in. Only nine stood now.