They had no idea. The pain had swallowed all sense of time. Day or night, hour or minute, it had all bled together into an endless torment.
Taria's voice trembled. "And the shadows? They... they stabbed us for seven days?"
Thalso shrugged. "Of course. What kind of training would it be if shadow fighters didn't stab you?"
They recoiled at the casual way he said it. Seven full days. Of piercing agony. Of being turned into meat, remade by fire and shadow and steel.
"That's insane," Rauk muttered. "We should be dead. Or mad. That pain... it wasn't something a person should survive."
He touched the side of his neck where one of the daggers had gone in. The memory came in flashes, ice, fire, and the crushing weight of wanting to end it all.
"Shadow blades," Thalso said, as if that alone explained it.
"What?" Rauk blinked. "Shadow blades?"
"Oh, right." Thalso scratched his neck. "You know nothing."
He looked at the three of them, then gave a slight nod.
