Awareness returned with weight.
Not the dull weight of hunger or the sharp edge of cold—this was something else. A settling. A sense that something had come to rest inside him, patient and exacting.
Anders lay on his back, swaddled in wool that smelled of smoke and lanolin, staring up at the longhouse ceiling. The beams were familiar now. He knew the knot where the wood twisted. He knew where soot darkened the grain. He knew which shadow meant the fire was low and which meant someone had crossed between flame and wall.
The pressure was there, faint but present, like a held breath that had not yet been released.
Then the blue light bloomed.
It didn't announce itself. It didn't chime. It simply was, hovering in the air before his eyes, steady and precise.
He did not panic this time.
He read.
Name: Anders Skjold
Level: 1
Strength: 1.2
Endurance: 3.0
Agility: 1.1
Perception: 2.4
Will: 5.0
Honor: ——
The numbers meant nothing at first.
Then they did.
His strength—barely above nothing. That made sense. He could barely lift his own arms. His agility was little better, his movements clumsy and delayed by a body still learning itself.
Endurance, though—
Three.
It was too high. He felt it immediately, a quiet certainty in his bones. He had endured more than he should have. Cold. Hunger. Silence. The system had counted.
Perception, too. Higher than it should be. He noticed things. Patterns. Rhythms. The world had edges now, sharper than before.
And Will.
Five.
That number sat heavy in his mind.
He didn't feel strong. He didn't feel powerful. But he knew—without needing explanation—that this was where the system had weighed him and found him… resistant.
His eyes drifted to the final line.
Honor.
Unmeasured.
The blue light faded before he could think further, leaving behind only the pressure. It felt different now. Less curious. More deliberate.
As if something had decided it was time.
Voices stirred nearby. Footsteps approached. A new presence entered the longhouse—slow, deliberate, accompanied by a hush that followed him like a shadow.
The elder.
Anders had seen him only a few times before, always at a distance. He was old, older than most, his back bent but his eyes sharp. His hair was white, braided thin, his beard bound with a simple ring of bone. When he walked, people moved aside without being told.
He stopped near Anders.
Said nothing.
The elder watched.
Not the way adults watched babies—with fondness or distraction—but with focus. Anders felt the weight of it immediately. The man's gaze didn't drift. Didn't soften. It studied.
Anders did not cry.
He did not smile.
He watched back.
The elder's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
A draft slid through the longhouse as the door opened and closed again. Anders felt the chill creep in, familiar now. His body tensed instinctively. Hunger followed close behind, sharp and insistent.
The pressure descended.
This time, it was unmistakable.
It did not urge him to endure. It did not encourage restraint.
It waited.
Crying would bring warmth. Milk. Comfort. There was no deception in that—only instinct. He was a baby. That was what babies did.
But something inside him recoiled at the ease of it.
He understood, suddenly, that this was not about suffering.
It was about truth.
To cry now would not be survival—it would be performance. A way to force the world to respond.
The pressure tightened.
The elder's gaze sharpened.
Anders held his breath.
Seconds stretched. His chest burned. His body trembled, small muscles shaking with effort. The world narrowed to sensation—cold, hunger, breath.
He endured.
The pressure shifted—not lifting, not easing—but recording.
A line of blue text flickered into existence, faint as frost.
Honor Registered.
Status: Steady.
Something settled deep inside him, heavy and permanent. Not warmth. Not relief.
Alignment.
The elder exhaled slowly, as if he hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath.
Outside, wings beat against the air.
Anders felt it before anyone spoke—the sudden stillness, the prickle along his spine. Two shapes landed on the roofbeam above the fire, black against smoke-dark wood.
Ravens.
They were large. Larger than they should have been. Their feathers drank in the firelight, their eyes bright and unblinking.
They watched.
No one spoke their names. No one needed to.
A murmur rippled through the longhouse. Someone bowed their head. Someone else muttered a prayer they pretended was casual.
The elder inclined his head—just slightly.
A sign.
Not of blessing. Not of curse.
Of attention.
Anders lay silent, the pressure receding into watchfulness once more. His mother shifted beside him, uneasy, pulling him closer as if to shield him from eyes that could not be shielded against.
The blue screen did not return.
The ravens remained until the fire cracked and sparked, then lifted as one and vanished into the smoke hole above.
Life resumed slowly, cautiously.
But something had changed.
As sleep crept back over him, Anders understood the shape of the path ahead more clearly than ever before.
Strength would come later.
Endurance could be built.
Will could be tempered.
But Honor—
Honor would decide how the world answered him long before he was ready to answer it back.