William woke to quiet and the faint smell of herbs.
No rain. No screaming. No thunder of boots on a gate.
Just the crackle of a small hearth fire and the dull, stitched ache in his chest every time he took a deep breath.
The infirmary chamber in Lockhart Keep was dim, shutters cracked just enough to let in a strip of pale morning light. It cast a line across the little glass shard on the bedside table—the one the priests used when they tested him yesterday.
It didn't glow now.
But somewhere beneath his breastbone, there was a warmth that hadn't been there before. Like someone had tucked a coal under his ribs and walked away.
He lifted a hand, half-expecting some spark, shimmer, anything.
Nothing happened.
The door squeaked.
"Good," the healer said, stepping in with a tray. "You're awake. Saves me the trouble of kicking you."
"Morning to you too," William croaked.
"Drink," she ordered, setting a cup in his hand. "Before your noble family parades you around and pretends you didn't die in a ditch."
He took a sip—bitter, hot, with something that cleared the fog behind his eyes.
"Your mother wants you at the family table," the healer continued. "I told her you can walk if you go slowly. If you try to be heroic, I will sedate you."
"I thought that was Germanian work," William said.
She gave him a look. "Stand," she commanded.
With her shoulder under his arm, he did.
The world tilted once, then steadied. His ribs burned. His legs felt like someone else's. But he was up.
"That'll do," she said. "Family hall. Straight there, straight back. No detours to the yard. If you so much as look at a sword, I'll know."
"I can't even sneeze properly," William muttered.
"Good," she said. "Less chance of you breaking my stitches."
The private Lockhart hall was warm, bright, and full of home smells.
Not the great hall with banners and echoing stone—this was the smaller room upstairs, where the family ate when they weren't on display. One long table. A big hearth. Windows overlooking the inner yard.
"Will!"
Erica nearly fell off the bench when he entered.
She sprinted down the table, socks slipping on the rushes, and remembered the bandages at the last second. Her hug was fierce but careful.
"You're not dead," she announced, as if confirming a rumor.
"So I'm told," William said. "Good morning."
She made a face. "You look terrible."
"Everyone keeps saying that," he said. "I'm starting to take it personally."
At the head of the table, Lady Helena Lockhart pushed back her chair and stood.
"William," she said.
He straightened as much as his ribs allowed and bowed his head. "Mother."
She crossed the room, and up close, he saw the dark circles under her eyes, the way her hands shook before she stilled them.
Then she pulled him in, arms around his shoulders, careful of his chest.
"You frightened me," she said quietly, so only he could hear.
"Sorry," he said. "The Germans didn't consult me."
She let him go, smoothing his cloak like he was ten again. "Sit before you fall," she said briskly, voice back to normal.
Henry was already half out of his chair—white and blue officer's coat, cloak over the backrest, hair shorter and more disciplined than William's.
He came around the table, clapped William's arm, then pulled him into a quick hug.
"You couldn't wait until I came back to do something stupid," Henry said.
"You'd have just tried to out-stupid me," William said.
Henry grinned. "True."
Further down the table, Aunt Cecilia dabbed delicately at the corner of her mouth with a napkin.
"Well," she said. "At least he has the decency to be alive for breakfast. That will make certain renegotiations less awkward."
"Aunt," Erica hissed.
William pretended not to hear and let Henry steer him into a chair between them. The healer hovered just inside the door, arms folded.
Food covered the table:
- Round sunrise loaves, crusts glossy from egg wash, steam curling up from torn edges.
- Knight's ham sliced thick, edges dark with spice and honey.
- Bowls of porridge heavy with cream, berries, and a drizzle of dark honey.
- A skillet of fried potatoes with onion and bacon bits—marchers' hash.
- Soft eggs in small brass cups, yolks gold like the sun on their banners.
- A pot of strong sunrise tea and a crystal jug of pale citrus cordial mixed with water—the Lockhart "morning sun."
William's stomach made an undignified noise.
"Before we begin," Lady Helena said, hands folded on the table, "I will say one thing plainly."
The room fell silent.
"William," she said. "I am furious with you."
There it was.
He met her eyes. "I know."
"You disobeyed a superior officer," she said. "You chose to hold a broken gate with a handful of men and farmers. You died. If the colonel's letters had told a different story, we'd be burying you under the chapel and explaining to the Crown why a Lockhart thought himself above orders."
"I didn't think I was above—" he began.
She cut him off with a sharp look. "I am not done."
He shut his mouth.
She drew a breath, let it out slowly.
"And yet," she continued, "if you had retreated, Ashford-on-Lea would be gone. Those people would be ashes, and we'd have one less village, and the same war. Your father admits as much. The colonel admits as much. So I am furious... and proud... and very tired of having both feelings about the same son."
Something hot pricked his eyes.
"I'll try," he said. "To make you feel one at a time."
"That would be a welcome change," she said dryly. "Now eat. You look like a ghost in borrowed clothes."
The tension broke. Plates were filled. Cups topped up.
William dipped his spoon into the porridge.
The first mouthful almost undid him—heat, cream, honey, the bite of berries. Not mud. Not blood. Not camp water.
"Are you going to cry into your oats?" Erica asked, fascinated.
"It's good," he said.
"It's porridge," she replied.
"It's not just boiled wheat and fear," William said. "The standard is different."
Henry snorted into his tea.
"So," he said, more serious once they'd all taken a few bites, "the priests say the tests glowed. The rumors say you woke up shining like a cathedral painting. How does it actually feel?"
Cecilia's eyes sharpened. The room quieted again.
William stared at his hands.
"Wrong," he said at first, then corrected himself. "Different. Like there's weight under my ribs that wasn't there before. Warm. It's not doing anything. It just sits there until I remember the gate. Then it feels... heavier."
"Can you call it?" Erica asked, leaning forward. "Like—bam—light on your hand?"
She held up her fist for emphasis.
"Erica," their mother warned.
William tried anyway.
He frowned at his palm. Thought of the sun on shields in training yards, of old paintings of Sun-Knights, of the coal in his chest.
Nothing happened.
"It doesn't listen," he said.
Aunt Cecilia sniffed softly. "See? This is what comes of making promises to cadet branches. The Maximilians should have kept Crown Light where it belongs."
Lady Helena turned her head slowly.
"Cecilia," she said. "Finish your porridge or leave."
Cecilia flushed and looked down.
Henry bumped William's arm lightly. "You'll learn," he said. "You didn't pick up a sword and win a tourney on the first day either."
"This feels less... solid," William said. "Swords you can see. This is just sensation."
"Then you will learn to make sensation into something," his mother said. "The priests, the Paladins, someone. The realm won't let fresh Crown Light sit idle when we are at war."
"Do I get a say in that?" William asked quietly.
She held his gaze. "You made a very loud 'say' at Ashford," she said. "The rest will be arguments about what to do with the boy who made it. We will fight what needs fighting. You will eat. That is today's work."
Later, with real food in his stomach instead of camp gruel, William was the one who said:
"Yard?"
Henry didn't even pretend to argue.
"Finally," his brother said. "If you'd asked to go lie down again, I'd have started checking for Abyssal possession."
They took the stone stairs down together, the healer trailing behind like an annoyed shadow with a pulse.
The practice yard opened ahead—a rectangle of packed sand, scarred dummies, weapon racks. It looked exactly as it had his whole life. Somehow that made his chest tighter.
Harrow was there.
Of course he was.
Old leather coat over training blacks. Scar bright against brown skin. Arms folded while two younger boys hacked at each other with wooden swords.
"Elias, if you lift your shoulders any higher I'll hang laundry off them," Harrow barked. "Tom, that's a broom sweep, not a cut. Out. Both of you. Before I start charging tuition."
The boys scattered, saw William, and went even wider-eyed before fleeing through the arch.
Harrow watched them go, then turned.
His eyes skimmed William. Bandages under the shirt. Careful breath. The slight hitch on his left side.
"You look like a banner that's been through one too many storms," he said. "But you're upright. I'll take it."
"Good morning to you too," William said.
Henry lifted a hand. "Mother cleared 'light exercise,'" he said. "I voted that meant 'yard,' not 'sit and think about almost dying.'"
Harrow snorted. "For once, the officer has a brain. Shoes off, Lockhart."
The healer started. "I said he could walk, not—"
"Bare feet in sand," Harrow cut in. "If the boy can't manage that, I'll haul him back myself and you can smash my head with your medicine box. Until then, this is standing."
William took his boots off and stepped onto the cold sand.
His body remembered the texture. His legs wanted to drop into stance before his ribs reminded them they'd been punctured recently.
"Slow," Harrow said, circling him. He nudged one ankle with his toe. "Wider. You're not bowing to a duchess. Bend—bit more—no, less, I'm not having your stitches pop in my yard. There."
William let his weight sink, knees soft, spine aligned. Familiar. Right.
"This part you know," Harrow said. "Martial base. First thing I ever taught you, and the last thing you forget if you want to live."
Henry dropped in beside him automatically, mirroring the posture, because that's what their bodies did down here.
"You've been using Muti for years," Harrow went on. "Don't let priests make you feel like you just grew a new soul because you glowed once in a chapel."
"I've never—" William started.
Harrow cut him off with a snort. "What do you think happens when you flood your legs to sprint? When you dig into the last lap on the walls? When you drop into Headhunter and your body takes more than it should?"
He tapped William's chest with two fingers—just above the bandages.
"That's your well," he said. "Aura. Soulstuff. Call it whatever makes the chapel happy. Bucket of water inside the ribs. When you fight, you open a tap and pour it through muscle. That's Martial Muti. That's one spoke."
William frowned, but it was the frown of someone tracking something familiar, not hearing it first time.
"The Association calls it the bucket and tap," he said. "They mutter about it when they think we're not listening."
"Good. Means their lectures aren't a complete waste," Harrow said. "Bucket is how much aura you've got. Tap is how fast you can spit it out. All you've ever done is pour into the body—legs, arms, lungs. That's why you hit harder and run longer than boys your size."
He exhaled once, deliberately, and let his shoulders drop.
"Watch," he said.
Harrow drew in a slow breath.
The air around him shifted.
William felt it before he properly saw it: a pressure, a weight, like the yard itself was paying attention. The outline of Harrow's body seemed to thicken. A faint dull shimmer clung to his limbs—no bright color, just a distortion, like heat over stone.
"Martial aura," Harrow said. His voice carried a low hum now. "Tap's open. I'm just soaking the frame. You know this. You've done this every time I shouted at you to 'put your will in your legs'."
Yeah. William felt it then—the recognition. That push under the skin when he committed to a strike. He'd never had a name for it. He did now.
Harrow lifted his right hand, fingers loose, palm up.
"Same well," he said. "Different spoke."
He inhaled again, sharper, and something changed.
The neutral shimmer around his forearm darkened. Threads of color bled into it—ember streaks, deepening to a muted red that crawled up from his wrist toward his elbow. The air above his palm warped.
The healer took a step forward. "Harrow—"
"Relax," he grunted. "I'm not trying to impress anyone."
A spark snapped into existence above his hand.
It started as a pinprick of angry orange, then swelled, drawing in the red from his aura. In a heartbeat it was a tight ball of flame, the size of a clenched fist, hovering just off his palm.
Heat licked across William's face. The red around Harrow's arm flared, veins of color pulsing, barely controlled.
Harrow's jaw tightened. Sweat beaded along his hairline.
"Elemental spoke," he said through his teeth. "Fire. Same aura, different channel. Instead of sending it through the muscle, you twist it, you tell it burn."
The fireball sputtered, bulged, shrank again. The red aura around his arm flickered, threatening to tear.
"I'm not built for this," Harrow added. "My bucket and tap were trained for Martial. A Vinlan lunatic taught me this trick in a winter I'd rather forget. I can manage a parlor candle and intimidation. Anything bigger and I start cooking my own fingers."
The fireball flared, straining against his control.
"Case in point," he growled, and snapped his wrist.
He sent the orb arcing at a battered practice dummy.
It hit with a dull whump—flame blooming, wood blackening. For a heartbeat, the dummy's chest was a small bonfire. Then it guttered and died, leaving scorched wood and a thin ribbon of smoke.
All at once, the pressure in the yard dropped.
Harrow's aura went from red back to nothing visible. He blew out a breath and flexed his hand like it cramped.
"That," he said, shaking out his fingers, "cost me more than it looks. My well's not tuned to Fire. But it's the same well. I didn't grow a 'Fire soul' and a 'Martial soul.' I just dragged my aura down a spoke it doesn't like."
Henry let out a low whistle. "You've been hiding that from us?"
"If I were proud of it, you'd have seen it every week," Harrow said. "I'm showing you because you need to understand the difference between fuel and shape."
He pointed two fingers at William's chest again.
"Your bucket didn't change at Ashford," he said. "Your spokes did. Or rather, one more woke up. You've always had Martial. Now the Light spoke's sitting there, waiting. Same aura. Different way it wants to move."
William glanced at his own hands.
"So why won't it listen?" he asked quietly. "The priests say 'think of the sun' and all I get is a headache."
"Because Martial answers to move," Harrow said. "Fire answers to burn." He tapped his own sternum once. "Light's going to answer to something else—oaths, protection, standing in front of things instead of away. Whatever language that spoke knows, you don't speak it yet. That's priest and Paladin work."
He hooked a thumb at William's ribs.
"My job," he went on, "is making sure that when Light does answer, your bucket and tap are solid enough you don't crack in half trying to carry it."
William thought of the gate. Of not moving. Of villagers pressed behind him like wheat in a storehouse.
The coal under his ribs pulsed—there and gone. Just sensation. But sharp.
"So I keep training," he said. "Martial first."
"Body first," Harrow said. "Stance, breath, strike. Aura you already know how to move—you just pretend you don't because no one painted you on a cathedral ceiling for it. We'll clean your Martial channel, teach you exactly how much you can pour before you go fuzzy. Then, when some sun-blooded fanatic finally gets your Light to flicker, you'll have somewhere safe to put it."
The healer huffed. "He's pale," she said. "And you're sweating like you just ran laps around the walls. That's enough demonstration for one morning."
"I'm fine," William lied.
His legs trembled a little. Not from Muti—just from being out of bed and on his feet too long.
Harrow saw it anyway.
"You heard the general," he said. "Off you go. Come back when you can cross the yard without wobbling."
Henry clapped a steadying hand to William's shoulder and grabbed his boots.
As they turned toward the arch, William looked back once.
Harrow was already barking at a new pair of cadets, aura quiet, hands correcting grips, boots kicking stances wider. Same yard. Same drillmaster. Same work.
Only now William had seen the line drawn clear:
Well. Aura. Spoke. Shape.
He couldn't touch Light yet. Couldn't make so much as a spark.
But he knew this part. Feet in sand. Breathe steady. Martial first. The rest would come.
One spoke at a time.