I wake up to the sound of my knee locking.
It happens right in the middle of sitting up—this sudden, abrupt resistance, like something inside my leg just refuses to cooperate. I freeze completely, holding my breath, then carefully ease myself back down until the tension releases. When I try again, moving much slower this time, it straightens with a faint click that I feel more than actually hear.
That's new. That's definitely new.
I sit there for a long moment, one hand resting lightly on my thigh, not daring to test anything else yet. My shoulders are still tight from yesterday. My arms still feel heavy. But it's the knee that has all my attention right now.
I stand up as carefully as I can.
It holds my weight. No sharp stabbing pain. Just this... reluctance. Like it needs to be convinced before it'll do what I'm asking.
Jonric stirs in his bed as I start getting dressed. "You doing okay?" he asks, his voice rough and thick with sleep.
"Yeah," I say on reflex.
He squints at me through half-open eyes. "You hesitated just now."
"So did you," I shoot back, tugging my boot on and lacing it even looser than yesterday.
He watches me for longer this time, but he doesn't push the issue. When I finally leave, he's still sitting up in bed, just staring at me.
The walk to the training hall takes longer today. Not because I'm choosing to go slow—my stride has shortened all on its own without me consciously deciding it. Each step feels like it's asking a question before fully committing.
The lamps outside the hall are burning again. There are fewer people waiting than yesterday.
I count them without meaning to.
Yesterday morning, there were eleven of us.
Today, there are only eight.
Nobody says anything about the missing people. Nobody asks where they went. But we all notice. You can feel it in the air.
Inside, the instructor looks us over once with an expression that gives nothing away.
"Move," he says simply.
We move.
The patterns are exactly the same as the previous days. But my body isn't responding the same way anymore. That right turn still lags behind—not more than yesterday, but definitely not any less either. I compensate automatically, shifting my weight earlier to protect the knee without even thinking about it.
The instructor's boot appears beside me and stops.
"Stop adjusting," he says.
"I have to," I tell him.
"Why?"
"Because it doesn't snap back fast enough," I explain.
That gets his full attention.
He crouches down slightly so his eyes are level with my legs. "Show me what you mean."
I turn slowly, deliberately. The delay is subtle—most people probably wouldn't notice it. But it's there. My knee resists the rotation just long enough to break the smooth flow of the movement.
He nods once, understanding. "That's going to stay with you."
I swallow hard. "For how long?"
He straightens back up to his full height. "Longer than you're going to want it to."
We keep training.
The conditioning exercises come next. Holds that put all the pressure on your joints instead of your muscles. I feel it immediately—pressure building up in places where yesterday's strain still hasn't cleared out. I adjust my position without being told this time, redistributing my weight across my body, protecting the knee even though it costs my shoulders more.
Someone drops out halfway through. Then another person follows a few minutes later.
By the time the instructor finally calls an end to the session, there are only six of us still standing.
I'm one of them.
Outside, I test my leg again in the morning light. It moves when I tell it to. It works. But that resistance hasn't gone anywhere. It's settled in deep now, like something that's decided to stay put until someone proves it should leave.
On the walk back home, I realize something else strange.
I'm not as sore as I was yesterday.
Not overall, anyway.
Some specific places feel worse than before—the knee especially. But that deep, bone-deep exhaustion that usually makes my thoughts slow down and my balance unreliable has actually eased up a little. It's not gone completely. Just... reduced somehow.
At the loading docks, I notice it even more clearly.
My shoulders get tired early like they always do, but they don't degrade and fall apart the way they normally would. My grip holds on longer than it probably should, even while my leg is forcing me to constantly adjust how I'm standing. I finish all my tasks slower than usual—but I'm steadier while doing them.
The foreman frowns at me once during the afternoon. "You're favoring that leg."
"Yeah," I admit.
"That's a bad habit to develop."
"It's not a habit," I correct him. "It's a limit."
He doesn't like that answer at all. But he doesn't press me on it either.
When I finally get back home that evening, Jonric notices immediately.
"You're limping," he says, standing up from his bed.
"Barely limping," I say.
Without asking permission, he kneels down in front of me and presses carefully along the outside of my knee, testing it. I don't stop him from doing it.
"This wasn't here before you started training," he says quietly.
"No. It wasn't."
He looks up at me, concerned. "And it's not going to be gone by tomorrow either, is it?"
I don't answer that question.
That night, lying flat on my back staring at the ceiling, I test the movement in my knee again. The resistance is still right there. Completely unchanged. Not worse than this morning. But not better either.
But something else is different now too.
The blanket of fatigue that usually covers everything hasn't fully arrived tonight. Parts of my body actually feel... stabilized somehow. Like all the strain has consolidated itself into specific places instead of spreading everywhere.
I stare at that familiar crack running across the ceiling, breathing slow and steady.
This is what it actually costs.
Not pain that eventually fades away.
Change that decides to stay.
I close my eyes and settle into the feeling.
Tomorrow morning, I'll find out what else has decided it's going to remain.