The first sound to pierce the veil of sleep was not the chirping of birds or the soft light of dawn, but the sharp, rhythmic thwack of an axe biting into wood. Ardyn opened his eyes to the grey pre-dawn light filtering through the cracks in the walls. The ruins were still, the other children—even Nico—lost in deep sleep. Only one bedroll was empty.
Pushing himself up, careful of his ribs, he made his way to the doorway. Outside, in the crisp morning air, Ethan was already at work. His tunic was damp with sweat despite the chill, his breaths coming in steady puffs of steam as he swung the axe with a practiced, weary efficiency. A small pile of split logs was growing beside him.
Ethan paused, wiping his brow with his sleeve, and noticed Ardyn watching. He gave a short, acknowledging nod.
"You're up early," Ardyn said, his voice still rough with sleep.
"Someone has to be," Ethan replied, hefting another log onto the chopping block. "If I don't get a head start, Seres will try to do it herself before the sun's fully up." He brought the axe down with a solid crack, cleaving the wood in two with a single, clean strike.
He glanced at Ardyn, a flicker of something unreadable in his dark eyes. "She never asks. Just… does things. Even when she's tired. Even when it's too much." He shook his head, setting up another log. "She'll mend our clothes until her fingers are raw, go without food if supplies are low to make sure we have enough, sit up all night if one of us is sick. She gathers herbs for everyone in this place, but I've never seen her take a coin for herself that wasn't for us. For shoes. For tools. For… this." He gestured vaguely with the axe at the wood, at the ruins, at all of them. "She doesn't do it because she expects anything back. She just… does it."
The simple statement hung in the air, heavy with a truth Ardyn was only beginning to understand. This wasn't just about survival. It was a quiet, relentless act of love, a choice made every single day.
Ethan's next swing was harder, the thwack echoing with a frustration that wasn't aimed at the wood. "I hate it when she tries to chop wood. Her shoulders… she's not built for it. So I wake up first."
He listened to Ethan, the words a mix of the familiar and the foreign. He caught the important parts: Seres... no ask... work much... for us. He saw the tension in Ethan's shoulders, the protective edge in his voice when he spoke of her. Ardyn didn't need perfect fluency to understand the meaning. It was in the weary set of Ethan's frame, in the dedicated thwack of the axe.
The raw honesty in the boy's voice struck Ardyn. It was more than responsibility; it was a fierce, protective devotion.
Watching Ethan, a strange impulse stirred within Ardyn. The pain in his ribs was a dull protest, a warning he knew he should heed. But the sight of the axe, the rhythm of the work, the desire to share even a fraction of the burden—it was overwhelming.
"Let me try," Ardyn said, the words out before he could reconsider.
Ethan stopped mid-swing, lowering the axe. He looked Ardyn up and down, his expression a mixture of skepticism and concern. "Your ribs."
"I'll be careful. Just one or two. I… need to feel useful."
Ethan hesitated, his protective nature warring with a reluctant understanding. Finally, with a sigh, he held out the axe. "Fine. But if you tear something, Seres will use my hide for a rug."
The axe was heavier than it looked, the wooden handle worn smooth and dark with years of use. The weight felt both foreign and unsettlingly familiar in his hands. He ran his thumb over the sharp, cold metal of the head.
Ethan positioned a thick, gnarled log on the block. "Aim for the center. And don't try to muscle it. Let the axe do the work."
Ardyn nodded, his focus narrowing to the target. He adjusted his grip, his fingers finding their places as if by instinct. He shifted his stance, his feet settling automatically into a solid, balanced posture he didn't remember learning. He took a breath, raised the axe overhead in a smooth, fluid arc—a motion that felt less like learning and more like remembering—and brought it down.
THWUNK.
The sound was different from Ethan's strikes—deeper, cleaner, a perfect, resonant note of force meeting its mark with absolute efficiency. The log didn't just split; it seemed to explode apart into two perfectly even halves, flying away to either side.
The impact traveled up the handle, a satisfying jolt that resonated in his bones without aggravating his injuries. His body had absorbed the force perfectly, his stance unwavering.
Silence.
Ardyn lowered the axe, staring at the two pieces of wood. There was no strain in his shoulders, no jarring pain in his side. Just a faint, humming echo in his muscles, a sense of rightness so profound it was unnerving.
He looked up to see Ethan staring, his earlier skepticism replaced by pure, unvarnished shock. The boy's mouth was slightly agape, his eyes wide.
"How did you…" Ethan trailed off, his gaze darting from the perfectly split log to Ardyn's hands, then to his face, searching for an answer that wasn't there.
Ardyn had no answer. The action had been pure instinct, a ghost in his machine. He hadn't thought about his grip, his stance, or his swing. His body had simply known. It had moved with a precision and power that belonged to a stranger.
"I… got lucky," Ardyn said lamely, the words feeling hollow.
Ethan didn't look convinced. His wariness had returned, sharper now. "Nobody gets lucky like that on their first try." He gestured at the axe. "Do it again."
Feeling a strange mix of trepidation and a compelling need to see if he could replicate it, Ardyn nodded. Ethan set up another log, this one knottier and tougher.
Again, Ardyn's body took over. His feet planted themselves. His spine aligned itself. His shoulders locked into place. He didn't calculate the force; he simply knew it. The axe became an extension of his will. He swung.
THWUNK.
Another perfect split. The two halves fell cleanly away.
And then another.
And another.
He fell into a rhythm, a terrifying, beautiful rhythm where thought ceased to exist. There was only the weight of the axe, the texture of the handle, the sound of impact, and the deep, muscle-deep certainty of a craft his mind had forgotten. Each swing was flawless, economical, devastatingly effective. This wasn't the work of a laborer; this was the disciplined, powerful motion of a warrior. It was in the way he controlled the follow-through, the minimal wasted energy, the exact angle of the blade that required no second strike.
He stopped after the fifth log, his breathing only slightly elevated, a fine sheen of sweat on his brow—not from strain, but from focus. The small pile of perfectly split firewood had doubled in size in a matter of minutes.
The silence that followed was thick and heavy. The morning birdsong seemed distant.
Ethan hadn't moved. He was no longer just wary; he looked unsettled, a new distance in his eyes as he stared at Ardyn as if seeing him for the first time. The "goldhair" with the soft hands and confused expressions was gone. In his place stood someone who could wield a tool of labor like a weapon of war with innate, terrifying mastery.
Ardyn looked down at his own hands, turning them over. They were the same hands that had fumbled with coins, that had struggled to grind herbs. But for those few minutes, they had been someone else's hands.
He had wanted to feel useful, to share the burden. But he had instead revealed something. Something he himself didn't understand. A fragment of a past life that was supposed to be blank, screaming its existence through the language of split wood and a perfectly swung axe.
He met Ethan's guarded gaze, the unspoken question hanging between them in the cold morning air.
What are you?
The commotion had drawn an audience. The sharp, unusual sounds of perfect splits, followed by Ethan's stunned silence, had roused the others. Seres stood in the doorway, her expression unreadable but her posture taut with attention. Mia, Nico, Kai, and Luna clustered behind her, rubbing sleep from their eyes, drawn by the strange quiet instead of the usual morning noise.
"What's going on?" Nico yawned, then his eyes landed on the sizable pile of neatly split wood. "Whoa. Did you do all that, Ethan?"
Ethan didn't take his eyes off Ardyn. "No. He did."
Four pairs of young eyes swiveled to Ardyn, who still held the axe, looking as bewildered as they were.
"Him?" Kai snorted, a grin spreading across his face. "Did he trip and fall on the axe?"
"Show them," Ethan said, his voice low and serious. He nudged another log—the thickest, most stubborn-looking one left—onto the chopping block. It was a challenge, plain and simple.
The children's mood shifted to playful skepticism. Nico chuckled. Mia bit her lip, a mix of hope and worry on her face. Luna just watched, her head tilted. Seres remained in the doorway, a silent, watchful statue.
Ardyn's palms felt suddenly damp. The axe, which moments before had felt like a natural extension of his arm, now felt heavy and alien again under their collective gaze. He could feel the expectation of failure, the assumption of clumsiness. He adjusted his grip, the memory of the correct stance feeling more like a dream now.
He took a breath, blocking out their faint, amused smiles. He raised the axe. For a heartbeat, he was just Ardyn again, the injured amnesiac who didn't know a copper penny from a bronze shard.
Then he swung.
It wasn't a repeat of the earlier, almost spiritual perfection, but it was damn close. The axe head struck true with a deep, solid CRACK that was utterly final. The tough, gnarled log didn't just split; it surrendered, cleaving into two near-identical halves that thudded onto the ground.
The sound seemed to suck all the noise from the morning.
All traces of laughter vanished from Nico's face. Kai's jaw went slack. Mia's hands flew to her mouth, her eyes wide. Luna took a small, involuntary step back. Ethan just stared, his earlier wariness hardening into something more concrete.
The swing had been too swift, too precise, too brutally efficient. It was the work of a lifetime, not a lucky guess. It was the kind of strike that spoke of trained muscle, of ingrained instinct, of a body that knew violence in a way none of theirs did.
The air hung heavy, thick with a silence louder than any laughter. The disbelief that had been playful a moment ago curdled into something else entirely: a dawning, uneasy realization that the stranger they had taken in was harboring a past far more dangerous than any of them had guessed. Seres' pale eyes were fixed on Ardyn, no longer just observing, but analyzing, reassessing the man standing in the cold morning light with an axe in his hands.
The silence was a physical thing, thick and heavy in the cold morning air. It was Nico who broke it, his youthful exuberance overriding the palpable tension. His eyes, wide with a mixture of awe and unchecked excitement, darted from the split logs to Ardyn's face.
"The axe is for chopping!" he burst out, as if this were a profound revelation. "That's just wood! Wait here!"
Before anyone could stop him, he turned and sprinted back into the shadows of the ruins. They heard the clatter of things being shoved aside, followed by a triumphant shout. He emerged a moment later, clutching a practice sword—a crude, heavy thing made of worn, dense wood, meant for building muscle and learning basic parries, not for finesse. He thrust it toward Ardyn, his breath coming in excited puffs.
"Here! Try with this! A real weapon!"
Ethan made a sound of protest. "Nico, don't be an idiot—"
But Ardyn was already reaching for it. The moment his fingers closed around the rough-hewn hilt, something seismic shifted within him.
The axe had felt familiar, a ghost of a memory in his muscles. The sword felt like coming home.
His grip settled into place without a single conscious adjustment, his thumb finding a specific groove as if it had been made for him. The weight, which should have been awkward and top-heavy, felt perfectly balanced in his hand. The lingering, cautious ache in his ribs faded into nothing, subsumed by a wave of pure, instinctual certainty. His posture straightened, his shoulders rolling back, his feet shifting automatically into a solid, grounded stance that was both defensive and poised for attack. He wasn't just holding a weapon; he was wearing it.
The change was so immediate and so profound that even Nico's eager grin faltered, replaced by a flicker of uncertainty. The others watched, utterly still. Mia's hands were still pressed to her mouth. Kai had stopped breathing. Luna's usual dreamy detachment had vanished, her full attention riveted on him. Ethan's wariness had solidified into outright alarm. Seres remained in the doorway, but her arms were now crossed tightly over her chest, her knuckles white.
Ardyn barely registered them. His world had narrowed to the feel of the hilt and the target—a thick, upright stump they used for splitting kindling. He didn't think. He didn't aim. He simply moved.
It was one fluid, continuous motion. A slight pivot of his hips, a transfer of weight, the wooden sword becoming a blur. It wasn't a wild hack or a heavy chop. It was a cut. A precise, devastatingly efficient arc that carried the full, focused power of his body behind it.
The sound was not the loud crack of the axe. It was a softer, sharper THWIPP, a clean, almost surgical severance.
The top third of the stump slid smoothly away, sheared off as if by a master carpenter's tool, not a battered practice sword. The cut surface was unnervingly smooth, a testament to the impossible speed and precision of the strike. The severed piece toppled to the ground with a dull thud, rolling to a stop at Nico's feet.
The strike carried an eerie, unsettling grace. It was more art than brute strength, a motion so refined it seemed to defy the crude reality of the wooden weapon and the chilly, dirt-strewn yard. To Ardyn, in that fleeting moment, it felt as though he had painted the same perfect stroke across the same canvas thousands upon thousands of times, until the perfection was baked into his very marrow, until it required no more thought than breathing.
He held the follow-through for a heartbeat, his body coiled and poised, every line of him speaking of a lethal discipline that was anything but forgotten. Then, slowly, he lowered the sword. The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the faint whisper of the morning wind.
He looked at his hands, then at the cleanly severed stump, then finally at the faces of the children. Their earlier skepticism and amusement had been utterly obliterated, replaced by a stunned, wide-eyed awe that bordered on fear. They weren't looking at Ardyn the amnesiac, the helpless guest. They were looking at a predator they had unknowingly invited into their den.
Nico was staring at the piece of stump by his feet as if it were a venomous snake. Kai had taken a half-step behind Ethan. Mia's expression was one of pure shock.
Ethan's face was pale, his earlier protectiveness now laser-focused on the potential threat standing before him. His hand had drifted unconsciously toward the real knife at his belt.
And Seres… Seres was no longer unreadable. Her pale eyes were wide, her usual stoic mask shattered. She was looking at him as if she were truly seeing him for the first time—not as a wounded stray, but as a completely unknown and potentially dangerous variable. The truth, cold and undeniable, hung in the air between them all.
Ardyn was no ordinary outsider. The body that had struggled to grind herbs and carry firewood was a lie. The truth was in the perfect cut, the instinctual stance, the lethal grace. He was a weapon, and he had no idea what he was for.
The silence was a thick, suffocating blanket. Ardyn stood frozen, the crude practice sword still held in a grip that felt more natural than his own breath. The severed stump seemed to accuse him. In the faces of the children, wide-eyed and pale, he saw not awe, but a dawning fear. In Ethan's hardened expression, he saw a shield going up. In Seres' unblinking stare, he saw a thousand recalculations. He was no longer a puzzle; he was a danger.
The weight of it was crushing. He had to break it, to prove he was still him, the clumsy, confused man they'd fed and sheltered. Moving stiffly, he bent to carefully set the practice sword on the ground, as if it were a live serpent.
In his haste to dispel the tension, he forgot the world existed below his knees. His heel caught on a stray piece of firewood he himself had split. His arms windmilled wildly, the flawless warrior's grace vanishing in a heartbeat. With a startled yelp, he pitched forward, stumbling three clumsy, staggering steps before managing to crash into the rain barrel, clinging to it for dear life as water sloshed over the sides and soaked his tunic.
The stunned silence held for one more second.
Then Nico exploded. It wasn't just a laugh; it was a full-bodied, knee-slapping howl of pure, unadulterated joy. "He can cut a tree in half but he can't walk straight!" he wheezed, tears streaming down his cheeks.
The dam broke. Kai doubled over, clutching his stomach. Mia's hands flew from her mouth, not in shock, but to contain her own giggles, which escaped anyway in bright, musical peals. Even Ethan, whose hand had been inching toward his knife, let out a sharp, surprised bark of laughter, quickly smothered into a cough, though the grin he tried to hide was unmistakable.
"Maybe that's his real power!" Nico gasped, struggling for breath. "Falling with style!"
Mia, her eyes sparkling, walked over and patted his soaking wet arm. "Don't worry, Ardyn. We can teach you. Walking lessons after breakfast?"
The terrifying warrior was gone, replaced once more by their gold-haired klutz, dripping and embarrassed and utterly, hilariously human. The tension didn't just dissolve; it was washed away by the spilled barrel water and their collective relief. Ardyn, his face flushed, pushed his sopping hair out of his eyes and began to laugh too, a real, genuine laugh that came from deep in his chest. It was the first time he wasn't the source of their mystery or their concern, but the source of their laughter. And it felt, more than any sword strike ever could, like belonging.