The training hall was silent, bathed in the cold, blue-white light of the moon through high windows. The only sound was a wet, rhythmic thudding.
Kael was a piston of motion, driving his fists into the unyielding torso of a leather training dummy. There was no technique, only a brute, punishing rhythm. His knuckles were split open, smearing dark blood across the dummy's scarred surface with each impact. He hit until his arms were lead, until the pain in his hands was the only thing he could feel. Finally, his strength gave out. He slumped forward, his bloody hands clutching the dummy's shoulders, his forehead pressed against the cold leather. A raw, choked sound escaped him a sob, torn from somewhere deep and buried.
He went very still. The air behind him was different. Colder.
Kael pushed off the dummy and turned, his body coiling. The man from the hallway stood watching from the edge of the training mat.
Tobey. He stood with an infuriating casualness, his academy robe hanging open over dark clothes. He had the lean, scarred look of a seasoned knife fighter, his most striking feature his eyes a flat, pale grey that seemed to absorb the moonlight rather than reflect it. He looked at Kael not with anger, but with a familiar, disdainful curiosity, like a master finding a rusted tool he'd once owned.
"Still using your fists on dead things when you're upset," Tobey observed, his voice a low rasp. "Some reflexes never die. The first thing they teach you is to channel rage into the blade, not waste it on leather and straw. You never learned that, did you? Too busy feeling sorry for yourself."
In a flash of steel, Kael's daggers were in his hands. He didn't speak. He launched himself forward, a silent, lethal blur, his first slash aimed to kill.
The daggers passed through empty air. Tobey's form dispersed into a wisp of black smoke that evaporated before it touched the ground.
"Predictable. And slow. You always led with your anger. It made you easy to read then, and it makes you easy to read now."
The voice came from the side. Kael whirled. Tobey now stood by the weapon racks, not even looking at him, running a finger along the edge of a practice axe before dismissing it.
"You know, we never did get along," Tobey continued, his tone conversational, as if discussing the weather. "All that simmering potential, but you fought the grindstone every step of the way. Let's talk about the merchant convoy. The one you botched. Simple job. A hit and run. Fast, clean, profitable. Our people were in position, the signal was yours to give." Tobey's voice lost its casual edge, gaining a sharp, lecturing quality. "But then you saw it. The Frost family crest on the lead carriage. Your own blood, out for a summer ride. And you froze. Just for five heartbeats. Just long enough for your hesitation to scream louder than any signal flare."
He finally turned to face Kael fully, his grey eyes glinting. "Those five heartbeats were all Garrick's platoon needed to close the trap. They'd been tailing the convoy, waiting for the ambush to spring so they could catch us in the act. Your delay was their starting pistol. Our team walked into a counter-ambush. Good men were captured because you got nostalgic looking at a dumb crest."
Kael said nothing, the memory a cold knot in his stomach. The burning in his knuckles was the only heat in his body.
"You think that made you the innocent victim?" Tobey asked, his head tilting. "You think Garrick saw a poor, conflicted boy and saved you? He didn't save you. He collected you. The only reason you're not in a dungeon with the rest of the crew is because he thought a branded, traitorous Frost heir might be more useful above ground. A tool with a famous name." A harsh, sudden laugh burst from Tobey, short and mocking. "Innocent victim. That's rich. You were the pivot point of the whole disaster. Your sentiment was the weapon that gutted your own team."
The laughter cut off as quickly as it started, replaced by a veneer of cold amusement. "That mission was the perfect lesson, wasn't it? It showed you the real cost of an attachment. And look at you now. Playing student. Wearing their colors. Building a new little team. Do you truly think you've escaped the consequences? The Revivers are not a company you resign from. It's a cult. The only way you leave is when they carry your body out. So don't think you got away. You've just been... temporarily misplaced."
"What does the organization want from this academy?" Kael demanded, his voice tight, each word measured, forcing the conversation forward, away from the memory.
Tobey's thin smile returned, pleased at the redirect. "Straight to business. I always liked that about you, underneath the angst. Certain artifacts of significant power are here. My task is to secure them. That requires evaluating and utilizing all local assets." His pale eyes locked onto Kael, pinning him in place. "Asset, which is you. You can be the key that smooths the way... or the rusted lock that gets broken off."
He took a few slow, circling steps, a predator sizing up prey. "But, for old time's sake, I'll offer you a choice. Be useful. Your position here, your access to restricted areas, your trusting little team... it's the perfect cover. Or, be a problem." Tobey stopped, his expression shifting into one of cold, analytical cruelty. "And if you are a problem, I won't start with you. I'll start with the talkative one, Wren. I'll let you find him, but you won't recognize the pieces. Then the righteous leader, Raven. I'll dismantle his sense of order piece by piece. The girl, Lira... she's a frontal attacker, isn't she? All aggressive force, straight lines. I'll use that. I'll make sure her every charge meets an immovable object. I'll let you hear the sound when her own momentum breaks her. I'll save the fiery one, Adam, for last. So you have plenty of time to sit in the dark and understand that every snap of bone, every choked scream, is a direct result of your sentiment. Your failure."
The threat was delivered not with rage, but with the calm precision of a surgeon describing a procedure. It was a detailed, psychological dismantling. Kael felt the old, familiar terror, the one that had lived in his bones as a child, threatening to surge up and swallow him whole. He saw in Tobey's flat gaze that this wasn't a bluff; it was a simple, executable plan.
Tobey saw the understanding dawn and his smirk deepened. He stepped in close, well inside Kael's guard, and tapped the flat of Kael's dagger with a condescending finger. "Think it over. The tool remembers the hand that shaped it. You can serve your purpose, or you can spend your last days as a spectator to my work. And my work is very... thorough."
He didn't wait for an answer. He turned and walked toward the deepest pool of shadows near the far wall. "Don't take too long to decide. Sentiment is a luxury. Your friends' lives are the price."
He seemed to blend into the darkness between one step and the next, leaving not a sound, not a ripple in the air.
Kael stood frozen. The silence rushed back in, heavier than before. Slowly, mechanically, he sheathed his daggers. He looked down at his bloodied hands, held them out before him in the cold moonlight.
They would not stop shaking.