# Chapter 429: The Scars of the Past
The war room's heavy iron door groaned shut, sealing away the maps, the strategies, and the heavy silence of the command staff. Outside, the sanctuary of the Unchained was waking up. The air in the cavernous corridors was cooler here, carrying the damp, mineral scent of the underground river and the distant, rhythmic clanging of the smithy. Soren walked without a destination at first, his boots scuffing against the uneven stone floor. The decision to go after Finn had been made, the objective locked in, but his mind was still spinning, caught between the cold logic of the mission and the burning heat of his own desperation.
He needed to move. He needed to hurt something, or at least feel the resistance of the world against his skin. Sitting in that chair, staring at the schematics of the Spire, made him feel like a spectator in his own life. He was a fighter, not a general. His body understood things his mind couldn't yet process.
The training grounds were carved out of a natural fault line in the sanctuary's lower levels. It was a wide, dusty arena lit by harsh lumen strips that buzzed with a low, headache-inducing frequency. The floor was packed earth, stained dark by years of sweat and blood. When Soren entered, the few other fighters present looked up, their conversations dying mid-sentence. They saw the leader of the Unchained, the man who had broken the Ladder, but Soren didn't see their awe. He only saw the bag in the corner, the wooden dummies, and the space he needed to fill.
He didn't start with a weapon. He stripped off his jacket, tossing it onto a crate, and rolled his shoulders. The muscles in his back bunched and released, tight with tension. He began to move—not the drills Captain Bren had insisted on, the rigid, efficient forms of military combat. This was older, messier. He flowed through a series of katas he hadn't practiced since he was a boy scavenging in the ash.
*Left foot forward. Guard high. Pivot on the heel.*
His body knew the language even if his brain struggled to translate it. He threw a jab, then a hook, his movements sharp at first, then fluid. He was trying to find the rhythm of his own history, to jar something loose in the vault of his mind. The doctors had told him his memories might return in flashes, triggered by scent or sound, but Soren believed they lived in the muscle. They lived in the way his weight shifted when he prepared to strike, the way his hands curled into fists before his conscious mind decided to throw a punch.
"Looking for a fight, or just trying to punch the air into submission?"
The voice rumbled like stones grinding together. Soren stopped mid-flow, lowering his hands. Boro stood by the entrance, leaning against the stone archway. The big man was a wall of muscle and scar tissue, his skin a map of old burns and Ladder-inflicted wounds. He wore simple training leathers that strained at the seams, and he held a wooden practice sword in one hand like it was a toothpick.
"Just clearing my head," Soren said, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.
"Head's a dangerous place to get lost," Boro grunted, pushing off the wall and stepping into the arena. "Mind if I join? I've done enough watch duty. My knees are stiff."
Soren nodded. "Sparring?"
"Sparring. No Gifts. Just hands and feet. Unless you're scared of getting hit by an old man."
Soren snorted, a rare, dry sound. "I've seen you take a battering ram to the chest and keep walking, Boro. I'm not scared of you."
They took their positions in the center of the ring. The air between them grew still, the electric anticipation of combat settling over the dust. Boro didn't adopt a traditional stance. He simply planted his feet, widening his base, and raised his arms. His defensive Gift was passive even without magic; the man was simply immovable. Fighting him was like trying to push over a mountain.
Soren circled left. Boro pivoted, his heavy boots crunching on the dirt. Soren feinted high—a jab toward the jaw—and Boro's arm came up like a portcullis, blocking it effortlessly. Soren ducked low, sweeping for the legs, but Boro just stepped back, the movement surprisingly light for a man of his size.
"You're telegraphing," Boro rumbled. "You want to hit me, you have to make me move where I don't want to go."
Soren came in again, a flurry of strikes. Left, right, uppercut. Boro absorbed them on his forearms, the dull thud of wood on flesh echoing in the cavern. It was like hitting a tree wrapped in leather. Soren stepped back, breathing hard, frustration bubbling in his chest. He was used to overpowering opponents, to using the devastating kinetic force of his Gift to shatter defenses. Without it, he felt small.
"Use my weight," Boro instructed, his eyes calm. "Stop trying to break the wall. Find the crack."
Soren wiped his mouth. He closed his eyes for a second, letting the rhythm of his breathing sync with the thumping of his heart. He stopped thinking about the Spire. He stopped thinking about Finn. He focused entirely on the physical reality of the man in front of him. The way Boro's weight rested on his back heel. The slight drop of his left shoulder when he prepared to block.
Soren moved. He didn't strike this time. He rushed Boro, not with a punch, but with his shoulder, driving into the big man's chest. It was a reckless move, a gamble. Boro braced, expecting the impact, ready to absorb the blow and counter. But at the last second, Soren dropped.
He hit the dirt and rolled, coming up behind Boro. It was a move born of pure instinct, a slippery, evasive maneuver that felt alien to his training as a Ladder champion but natural to something deeper inside him. He scrambled up, grabbing Boro's wrist and twisting, leveraging his own body weight to pull the big man off balance.
Boro grunted, surprised by the sudden shift in momentum. He was too heavy to throw, but he stumbled, his stance widening to compensate. It was the opening Soren needed. He spun inside Boro's guard, his hands seeking the wooden sword Boro held.
*Disarm him. The thought screamed in his mind, not as a tactic, but as a necessity.*
Soren's hands snapped to Boro's wrist, one gripping the thumb, the other pushing against the pommel of the wooden sword. He torqued his hips, a sharp, violent rotation.
And then, the world dissolved.
The smell of the sanctuary—dust and damp stone—vanished. In its place came the choking, acrid stench of burning oil. Soren's vision blurred, the grey walls of the cavern melting into a swirling vortex of orange and black.
He was no longer in the sanctuary. He was kneeling in the ash.
The heat was intense, a blistering wave that dried the tears on his face instantly. Around him, the wreckage of a caravan smoldered. Wheels lay shattered like broken ribs; canvas canopies were reduced to tatters, flapping in the hot wind.
"Focus, Soren. Not with your anger. With your leverage."
The voice was deep, rough, but kind. It was the most beautiful sound Soren had ever heard.
He looked up. A man knelt before him, caked in soot, his face streaked with grey and red. He had Soren's jawline, his eyes, but the hair was darker, touched with iron at the temples. His father.
The memory was terrifyingly vivid. Soren could feel the grit of the ash beneath his knees, sharp as glass. He could feel the small, wooden practice sword in his hand—lighter than the one Boro held, splintered at the tip.
"They are bigger than you," his father said, gesturing to the imaginary enemies surrounding them. "They are stronger. If you fight them on their terms, you lose. You have to be the water, not the stone."
His father reached out, correcting Soren's grip on the wooden sword. His hands were calloused, warm, and steady. "When they strike high, you are already low. When they push, you pull. Do not try to stop the avalanche. Redirect it."
"Like this?" Soren heard his own voice, younger, higher, trembling with fear and determination.
"Yes. Twist here. Push there. It is not about power. It is about geometry."
His father lunged at him slowly, a heavy, overhand strike. Soren reacted. He didn't block; he stepped inside the arc of the blow, his hands moving to the wrist, pushing up and out. The wooden sword clattered to the ash.
"Good," his father smiled, a tired, proud expression that made Soren's heart ache with a physical pain. "That is how you protect your brother. That is how you protect your mother. You use your head, Soren. You survive."
The scene shifted. The sky turned a sickly violet. The Bloom was coming.
"Run!" his father screamed, shoving Soren backward. "Take Finn! Run to the ridge!"
"Father!" Soren screamed, reaching out, but his hand grasped only empty, swirling ash.
The ground shook. The roar of the magical cataclysm drowned out everything. The heat intensified, searing, unbearable. Soren felt himself falling, the ash rushing up to meet him, swallowing him whole.
"Boss!"
The shout was like a thunderclap. Soren gasped, his lungs seizing as he sucked in the dusty air of the sanctuary. His legs gave out from under him, and he crumpled to the packed earth.
He was back. The orange fire was gone, replaced by the harsh buzzing of the lumen strips. The smell of burning oil was just a phantom trace in his nose. But the emotion—the grief, the love, the terror—remained, crashing over him like a tidal wave.
He was on his hands and knees, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He stared at the dirt, his vision swimming. He could still feel the warmth of his father's hand correcting his grip. He could still hear the specific cadence of his voice.
*You survive.*
A shadow fell over him. Boro's massive hand appeared in his field of view, calloused and scarred, offering a lift. Soren stared at it for a moment, the image of his father's hand superimposed over Boro's.
He grasped it, the grip firm and grounding. Boro hauled him up with seemingly effortless strength. Soren swayed on his feet, his legs unsteady, the adrenaline of the vision leaving him lightheaded.
"You alright there, boss?" Boro rumbled, his brow furrowed in genuine concern. He looked Soren up and down, checking for injuries that weren't there. "You checked out for a second. One minute you were twisting my arm, the next you were on the floor."
Soren blinked, the grey haze of the sanctuary sharpening into focus. He looked at his hands—the hands that had just moved with a grace he hadn't practiced in years, the hands that had executed a disarming technique he had no memory of learning. They were shaking.
The memory hadn't just been a dream. It was a key turning in a rusted lock. The technique, the philosophy of redirection—it wasn't something he had picked up in the Ladder. It was a legacy. It was a gift from a man he had buried years ago in the ashes of the Bloom.
"My father..." he whispered, the words feeling foreign and familiar all at once. They tasted like ash and tears.
Boro tilted his head, waiting.
Soren looked up, meeting Boro's eyes. The dazed expression began to harden into something else—realization. "He taught me that move. In the ashes. Before the end."
He flexed his fingers, feeling the ghost of the wooden sword hilt. The confusion that had plagued him, the fog that had surrounded his origins, was thinning. He wasn't just a fighter created by the Ladder. He was his father's son. And that meant something. It meant he had a lineage of survival, a legacy of protecting the weak even when the odds were impossible.
"He was teaching me how to survive," Soren said, his voice gaining strength. He looked toward the exit of the training grounds, toward the direction of the war room. "He was teaching me how to save them."
Boro nodded slowly, understanding dawning in his eyes. "Looks like the old man knew what he was doing. You nearly took my arm off, and I've got armor plating for skin."
Soren let out a breath, a long, shuddering exhale that released the tension coiling in his spine. He wiped the sweat from his face, his hand trembling slightly against his skin. The fear of the Spire was still there, the dread of what they might find inside, but it was no longer paralyzing. He had a foundation now. He had a reason to fight that went beyond debt or revenge.
"We need to get back to the war room," Soren said, his voice dropping into the register of command. "If I'm going to get Finn out, I can't just rely on brute force. I need to fight like him. I need to be smart."
He looked at Boro, a flicker of gratitude in his eyes. "Thank you, Boro."
"Anytime, boss," the big man grunted, retrieving his wooden sword from the dirt. "But next time, maybe warn me before you start fighting ghosts."
Soren managed a grim smile. It was small, but it was real. He turned and walked toward the archway, his step lighter than it had been in days. The scars of the past were still there, etched deep into his mind, but for the first time, they didn't feel like open wounds. They felt like armor.