Rain came before dawn.
Not the heavy kind that battered windows or turned soil to sludge. This rain was gentle—thin, persistent, whispering through the eaves and soaking the courtyard stone until it glistened like oil. The Academy was quieter in the rain, as if even the buildings were holding their breath.
Izen sat alone in the refectory, his fingers loosely curled around a cup of something warm and tasteless. He hadn't touched the food. Across the hall, other trainees murmured over bowls of pale broth and thin gruel, heads low. The air smelled of wet wood and saltless starch.
He studied the sheen of water sliding down the glass panes. His reflection stared back—sharper than he remembered. The boy in the window had darker circles beneath his eyes, a thinner mouth, a longer silence in the spaces between breaths.
The boy looked more like his father.
An hour passed before the summons came. A bell, low and resonant, rang once—just once. No instructions. No warning. But everyone knew what it meant.
The final part of the lesson.
The culling.
They gathered in silence beneath the inner atrium. The ceiling arched high above, a glass dome laced with veins of iron. Rain tapped against it like fingers against a drum. The room itself was circular—colder than the others, more hollow. Statues lined the walls, each depicting a cloaked figure without a face.
Instructor Cael stood at the center. His mask today bore a long, downward curve—like a scythe made from ivory. His arms were crossed behind his back.
"There is no graduation," he said. "There is no ceremony."
He turned slowly, voice low and steady.
"You are here because you were chosen. But choice means little if you are not useful. We do not raise survivors here. We raise weapons."
A pause. The rain thinned.
"This morning, each of you will enter the Mirror Room. Alone."
The Mirror Room was a legend among trainees—half-rumor, half-nightmare. Some said it showed you your future. Others, that it held a copy of you, and only one could leave. No one ever explained it. No one ever returned the same.
As they were led, one by one, through the black iron doors, no one asked questions.
Izen watched three go before him.
None came back.
When his name was called, he rose without a word.
The corridor to the room was narrow, lit by flickering sconces that hissed with damp. The walls seemed to close in with every step, and the floor dipped slightly, just enough to give the impression of descending.
At the end was a tall wooden door.
A handprint had been scorched into the wood.
He pressed his palm to it.
It opened.
The Mirror Room was not what he expected.
It was warm. Dry. Bright.
No steel. No stone. Just polished wood, candlelight, and silence. The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling mirrors—each angled subtly, their reflections overlapping like shattered glass.
And in the center: a single chair.
Wooden. No straps. No chains. Just... waiting.
He stepped inside.
His reflection moved with him.
Not one reflection, but dozens—each mirror showing him at a slightly different angle. In one, he looked taller. In another, younger. One showed his left eye twitching subtly. Another gave the illusion of a scar running down his jaw that he didn't have.
None of them matched him perfectly.
He sat.
Nothing happened.
He waited.
Then the door shut.
And the lights dimmed.
A sound like wind swept through the room, though no windows existed.
The mirrors darkened—slowly, each one turning to shadow until only one remained.
In it, he saw himself.
Not distorted. Not twisted.
Just him.
But older.
The man in the mirror stared at him with tired eyes. He looked stronger. Paler. There were faint lines at the corners of his mouth, like he'd forgotten how to smile. His hands bore callouses in the exact same places as Izen's did now, but they were deeper. Hardened.
And around the older Izen's wrist, a band of metal pulsed faintly—like a cuff, etched with runes he couldn't read.
It ticked.
Soft. Rhythmic.
Like a clock buried beneath his skin.
Izen leaned closer.
The man in the mirror did not.
His reflection didn't move.
Didn't mimic.
It simply watched.
And then—
It smiled.
Just barely.
And whispered, "She begged."
Izen jerked back.
The sound was too soft to be real. Barely audible. Like memory had risen and slipped from his mouth in a dream. But he knew what it meant.
He saw her then.
Not in the mirror. Not in the room.
In his head.
His mother. Curled in the dark, clutching something to her chest. Her mouth moving soundlessly. Her eyes full of something raw and broken.
He remembered the blade in his hand.
And the way it shook.
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the mirror was empty.
Just his own reflection.
Still. Waiting.
The door opened.
He stood.
His legs felt wrong. Slower. Like he was dragging something behind him. But when he looked, there was nothing.
No one spoke as he exited the corridor.
No instructor waited.
Only the Academy's silence, heavier than before.
That night, the dormitory was half-empty.
Beds stripped. Names crossed from the lists on the wall.
A faint chemical smell lingered in the air, like bleach and rust.
Izen lay in his bunk and stared at the ceiling.
He hadn't spoken to anyone since the Mirror Room.
And no one asked him what he saw.
Because none of them wanted to share their own answers.
Days passed.
Training resumed.
Now, every drill bore sharper teeth.
Knife practice drew blood.
Disarmament was taught using real blades.
Mistakes were punished with bone-deep bruises and cold-eyed reprimands. But the students didn't complain. They moved faster now. They obeyed. Not out of fear, but purpose.
Those who remained were not here by chance.
They were here because they endured.
Instructor Cael began to speak less often.
When he did, it was only to pose questions.
"What does it mean to kill without hatred?"
"How do you remain invisible in plain sight?"
"What do you leave behind when the body falls?"
No answers were given.
Only silence.
Izen began to notice things others missed.
How the guards in the west wing wore different boots—wider soles, meant for traction, implying the terrain outside was different.
How the knives they trained with had minute variations in weight, suggesting a preference test.
How the courtyard pillar had a faint seam along its base, as if it could be moved, or opened.
And the instructors?
They weren't military.
Their postures were wrong. Too fluid. They moved like actors playing soldiers. Every gesture practiced. Every threat performed.
Which meant—
They were watching for something more than obedience.
One night, Vellin approached him again.
They sat on opposite ends of a stone bench beneath the open sky. Rain had stopped earlier. The air was sharp and clean, smelling faintly of wet earth and iron.
"You changed," she said.
"I didn't."
"You did," she insisted. "Your eyes stopped asking questions."
He didn't respond.
But she wasn't wrong.
The truth was, the Mirror Room hadn't shown him anything he didn't already know.
It had just named it.
Made it impossible to bury.
"I think," Vellin said after a pause, "they're not just looking for killers. I think they're looking for people who can erase themselves."
He glanced at her. "Why?"
"Because killers can be found anywhere," she murmured. "But someone who can forget what they used to be? That's harder to make."
He said nothing.
Because that, too, felt true.
In the weeks that followed, they began being taken in groups of two or three to speak with higher instructors. Maskless. Older.
They asked questions that had nothing to do with combat.
"What do you remember of your parents?"
"What would you give up to protect an idea?"
"Do you believe truth can be shaped?"
Izen answered only what he needed to.
No more. No less.
Each time, he left with the sense that they weren't measuring his answers—but his limits.
Then came the promotion ceremony.
No banners. No fanfare. Just a folded piece of parchment on each bed, bearing a name, a crest, and a directive.
Izen's read:
"Initiate Izen. Cohort Epsilon. Knife Rank granted. Await second clearance."
A single phrase beneath it was written in an ink that shimmered faintly, like oil on water.
"Remember your silence. It is your blade."
And beneath that?
A smaller note, tucked into the envelope's inner fold.
Scrawled in handwriting he recognized, but couldn't place.
"Tick, tock."