The gate had groaned shut, a heavy, final sound that echoed the closing of a fence door. The scent of ozone and power left by the retreating White Beast, Shiva, dissolved quickly into the dry, metallic air of the valley, leaving Elric utterly exposed. He stood just inside the perimeter of the fenced-in yard, the obsidian grit cool beneath his bare feet, facing the man who was now his keeper, his reluctant master, and his only link to the world he craved.
The silence that settled between the six-year-old boy and the sixty-year-old knight was denser and more profound than the perpetual gloom of the Forsaken Land. It was not the natural quiet of the wilderness, but the strained, heavy silence of two utterly different wills taking each other's measure.
Elric stood motionless, his small hands still clenched from Shiva's departure. His vivid red eyes were locked on Aric. In his short, wild life, he had never stood so close to a true, unaltered human—not merely a corrupted echo or a ghostly memory. Aric was solid, real, and possessed the hard, angular lines of the beings that had cast him out. For the first time since he asked Shiva that desperate question at the Barrier, Elric felt a surge of unadulterated, childish hope—a sensation so unfamiliar it felt like a brief, dizzying fever.
"Another one," the thought spun in his young mind, unedited by years of human constraint. "I am not the only human. There is another standing here, breathing this same air. I am not truly alone." It was a fragile, burning realization that made the rhythmic thump-thump of his Heart of Darkness beat with a quickened, almost human pulse.
Aric, meanwhile, stood with his arms crossed over his thick chest, a posture of absolute stillness that spoke of decades of military training. His gaze, fixed on Elric, was the cold grey of glacial ice, entirely unblinking. His mind, the disciplined mechanism of a former Knight Commander, was churning through calculations.
"A child. No more than six summers." Aric's internal voice was low and gravelly, a constant commentary honed by solitude. "But healthy. Too healthy for this air. A mere human child, even one of pure virtue, would have sickened within a fortnight of breathing the corruption near the Black Pass. This one is not merely surviving; he is nourished."
Aric had been in the Forsaken Land for a generation. He had seen the occasional pathetic remnant of human intrusion: madmen, disgraced priests, or captured soldiers left to rot. But a child, untouched by the corruption's physical decay, yet clearly bearing the Heart of Darkness—the pure, raw antithesis—was a phenomenon Aric had only heard of in Temple whispers.
"The Temple was right to fear this line," Aric thought, the grim knowledge a bitter taste in his mouth. "Such potent darkness, born of high human blood, is rare. The child's resilience is unnatural. He is a vessel, indeed. And the White Beast brings him to me, of all people, to teach him deception."
A minute stretched between them—a silent contest of wills, of which Elric, driven by pure instinct, was incapable of losing. He simply stared, a small, unblinking creature observing a fascinating, dangerous species.
Finally, Aric exhaled, the sound a soft, weary gust of air. The moment of silent appraisal was over.
"You look like a bundle of spoiled rags that a raven dragged across the ash fields," Aric grated out, his voice rough and immediate—the first spoken command Elric had ever received from a human. "We will not speak of the world of Light until you cease to look like a feral beast's discarded toy."
Elric blinked, the words cutting through the fragile bubble of his hope. A rug? He looked down at his intricately woven leaf-tunic, the result of Shiva's careful instruction, and suddenly saw it through Aric's eyes—as crude, wild, and utterly wrong.
Aric turned abruptly toward the cabin door. "Come inside, boy. We start with the surface of things."
Elric hesitated only for a heartbeat, his instincts screaming about confined spaces and unknown masters, but the burning need for the "secrets" of the Light Realm was stronger. He followed the knight into the dark, timber cabin.
The interior was surprisingly organized. It was Spartan but clean, smelling faintly of dried wood smoke, iron, and old parchment. Against one wall, neatly stacked, were various piles of coarse, dark fabric.
Aric went immediately to one of these piles, rummaging through it with efficient, scarred hands. "These are remnants. Goods I salvaged from a supply convoy that crashed near the Barrier thirty years ago. They are of the Human Realm, and they will suffice."
He pulled out a folded set of dark, heavy wool. It was an old shirt, once a tunic, and a pair of trousers or shorts. Both were clearly oversized for the six-year-old.
"This will be your uniform," Aric said, turning to hand them over. "It is too large, but I have no other. Now, you will follow me. The first lesson is cleanliness. It is the most basic deception a civilized man employs."
Aric opened the gate and strode purposefully out of the yard, heading not toward the obsidian rocks but into a narrow ravine leading down into the valley floor. Elric, clutching the heavy, unfamiliar clothing, hurried to keep up with the man's long, disciplined strides.
They walked for a quarter of a mile until the low sound of moving water reached them.
Aric had carved out a small miracle here. Nestled in a deep fold of the valley, sheltered from the highest concentrations of the oppressive dark mass, was a river. It was shallow but constant, fed by a deep, unseen spring. The water was clear, flowing over smooth, dark stones, and Aric had clearly maintained the area—removing corrosive debris, building up small rock walls, and ensuring the purity of his sole source of hygiene and drinking water.
"The flow is strong enough to resist the local corruption," Aric explained, pointing to the river with an unadorned finger. "You will bathe here. Fully. Strip off that leaf-rag and wash the last six years from your skin. I will stand guard. I have no interest in your anatomy, but I have a vested interest in your continued existence. This water is a magnet for the corrupted, so I will ensure you are not interrupted."
Elric, having lived his entire life guided by Shiva's instruction, had no concept of modesty or hesitation. He was hot, tired, and smelled of ash and rabbit grease. The flowing water looked like a revelation.
He dropped the wool clothes and the leaf-tunic without a thought. He waded into the cold, clear current. The water, startlingly crisp after the stagnant air of the Forsaken Land, immediately invigorated his senses.
He submerged himself, running his hands over his body, feeling the thick cake of dirt and ash begin to dissolve and peel away. He found a small, smooth, flat river stone and, just as Aric had done when cleaning his slate knife, he used it to meticulously scrape and scrub the grime from his limbs, chest, and back. It was a cleansing that went deeper than the skin; it felt like washing the very environment from his soul.
Aric watched from the riverbank. He stood like a statue, his steely gaze scanning the obsidian peaks for any sign of movement or ill intent. Yet, despite his declared indifference, his eyes kept returning to the boy.
As Elric scrubbed away the last vestiges of the Forsaken Land's dust, the startling truth of his lineage was revealed. The feral edge that the dirt and leaf-clothing had given him vanished. Beneath the grime was porcelain skin of unnatural paleness, untouched by the sunless gloom, but utterly flawless. His small frame, while wiry and strong from hunting, was defined by delicate, noble lines. The angles of his face, the shape of his jaw, the high brow—they were the features of the high aristocracy of the Light Realm.
"A noble with a Heart of Darkness," Aric thought, the phrase dropping into his mind with the cold, absolute certainty of a prophecy. "The Temple's fear was not just of the corruption, but of the power the line might wield if its potential were twisted by the Shadow. He looks like a Prince of the Light."
Aric swallowed, the movement barely perceptible. It was a terrible, dangerous combination—high pedigree, inherent darkness, and the training of the wild. If this child ever walked free, he would be a catastrophe, capable of infiltrating the very core of the Human Realm before unleashing the power of the Sins.
The bath is finished. Elric, shivering slightly from the cold but feeling profoundly renewed, climbed onto the stones, his skin glistening. He looked at the clothes Aric had provided, a curious, almost fearful expression on his face.
He pulled the shirt over his head. As Aric had predicted, it hung on his small frame like a collapsed tent, the sleeves dangling past his fingertips. The shorts were a little better, pooling around his ankles.
Aric walked over, retrieving a length of coarse, thick twine from a pouch on his belt. With two precise, practiced movements of his slate knife, he severed the long, flapping sleeves of the shirt at the elbow.
"The sleeves will interfere with movement and camouflage," Aric stated, his hands moving with the competence of a man who had dressed armies. "Your body is built for stealth, not ornamentation."
He then looped the twine around the waist of the shorts, cinching them tightly until the wool bunched up, holding the garment securely above Elric's knees. The clothes were still too large, the dark wool stark against his pale skin, but he was recognizable now as something other than a creature of the forest floor. He was a boy, clad in human cloth.
Aric stepped back, performing a final, critical assessment. The boy's wild essence remained in his posture and his unwavering, red eyes, but the superficial evidence of his feral existence was gone. He looked less like a beast's cub and more like a lost, damaged human of powerful stock.
"The cleansing is complete," Aric announced, tucking the knife away. He looked at Elric, whose expression was a mixture of uncertainty and eager attention. "Now, the work begins. The exchange of debt starts now."
Elric tilted his head, the dark hair falling over his forehead. "Work? Shiva said you would teach me the secrets of the outside."
"She said I would train you," Aric corrected, his voice hardening, the cold discipline returning full force. "And training begins now, because without it, you will die the moment you pass the Barrier."
Elric's red eyes narrowed slightly, confused by the sudden change in atmosphere. "Training? For what?"
Aric met the boy's gaze, his own steely eyes locking on the Heart of Darkness that beat so fiercely in the small chest. He did not soften his words; he delivered them like a physical blow.
"To escape this hell, you must become strong enough to withstand the hell of the Light Realm. They are not like Shiva's beasts, who hunt by scent and fear. They hunt by ritual, by certainty, and by the righteous fire of their Temple. You asked if you could hide your darkness. The answer is yes—but only if the disguise is absolute."
Aric pointed his finger, not at the mountains, but at Elric's chest. "The Heart of Darkness is the most powerful force in the land. But it is a screaming, wild thing. If they sense even a flicker of it, they will kill you swiftly, and they will call it mercy."
He dropped his hand, settling back into his severe posture.
"My debt to Shiva is to keep you alive and teach you their weakness. But my discipline requires you to be capable of survival on your own terms. Your life here was built on instinct and shadow. Your life out there must be built on silence, discipline, and pain. I will teach you to think like the men you hate, to move like the soldiers they fear, and to conceal the power they were born to destroy."
Aric's expression was grim, a promise of torment. "Welcome to your training, Elric. The hardest trial you will ever face starts now."
The former knight turned and walked back toward the fortress cabin, leaving Elric alone by the clean river, the new, heavy wool clothes a foreign weight on his shoulders. The boy stared at the reflection in the water—no longer a feral blur, but a pale-faced, red-eyed noble child—and followed his new master, stepping across the threshold into the rigorous, brutal, and entirely human existence that lay ahead.