Kiran stood in the square with his palm still sticky where Lysandro had hit him.
Noise clawed at the plaza — vendors, boots, the low hum of loaded crystals — and each sound landed as if testing him.
He had come to enlist as a tester; the banner of the Guild of Horizon hung like a promise above a dozen booths.
Lysandro lounged near the front, silk sleeves clean, chin lifted.
"You lost some color," Lysandro called, voice easy.
"Orphan of the Edge looks thin."
Kiran's jaw worked.
He kept his eyes forward and his hand on the sword at his hip, where rust caught the sun like a secret.
"Name!" the recruiter barked.
His clipboard was a blade of paper and rules.
The plaza smelled of hot metal and old breath.
Candidates pushed forward with chests already open to judgment.
"Kiran," he said.
The recruiter scanned him and flicked a pen.
"Weight test, then wind chamber. First to the crystals."
A group shoved a crate of dampened resonance crystals toward a platform.
The crystals throbbed low, like throats half-cleared.
Lysandro stepped up with a grin that owned the morning.
"Watch how it's done," he said to the men around him.
"Don't break it," someone warned.
The words trembled.
Lysandro lifted.
The crates groaned.
He did three repetitions, shoulders even, breath controlled.
The plaza applauded with the short clapping of people who knew their side.
Lysandro set the crystal down and smirked.
Kiran moved to the crate next.
The world narrowed to weight and wood.
He heaved.
The rope bit his palms and left red lines.
The crystal rose and wobbled.
His knees trembled.
"Steady," the recruiter advised, tone flat.
"You're frail," Lysandro called, amusement sharp.
"Maybe," Kiran said.
He let the rope settle on his fingers and held.
The crystal set down with a dull thump.
Someone muttered; someone else laughed.
Next came the wind test.
A row of metal fans exhaled a low, whining gale tuned to simulate resonance currents.
Candidates planted their feet and tried to keep steady.
The first gust made the world ache in Kiran's teeth.
Voices blurred like cloth.
A girl three stalls over cried out and gripped her stomach.
The wind pushed like a weight against memory.
Kiran's breath shortened; sweat tracked down his spine.
Lysandro stood tall as a mast, barely bending.
"Show spirit, boy," Lysandro called.
Kiran forced his stance and let the wind hit him.
It shoved against his chest with the push of a crowded train.
He swayed.
A knot of nausea rose and stabbed at his throat.
He blinked hard and did not let his knees give.
"Time," the recruiter said.
He marked names, eyes not unkind but exact.
They led losers aside to the ledger.
Kiran's name was on the page with a faint line through it.
The recruiter's pen hovered.
"You're not suited," the recruiter said.
Kiran leaned forward.
"My parents—" He swallowed.
"They were cartographers of the Guild of Horizon."
He kept his voice steady; the word Guild sounded like a key.
"I know the maps. I know stories. I lived routes on their laps."
The recruiter's pen hesitated, then dipped.
"Prove it."
Kiran's fingers tightened around the sword's hilt under his coat.
The amulet in his pocket rubbed a familiar hollow into his palm.
He had no certificates, no names on lists.
He had stories and a broken silver seam.
He stepped closer to the recruiter like a man offering a forged coin.
"You think your line matters here," Lysandro said from the edge of the crowd.
He walked over with slow steps.
"Orphans don't get favored. They break things."
Kiran's voice cut through the hum.
"They made charts that cut through currents. They mapped safe angles around the Borda. If you ask the Guild, they'll remember the Horizon cartography division."
A candidate beside him snorted.
"You expect mercy because of ghosts?"
"Not mercy," Kiran said.
"Consider it data. Cartography helps tests. We need map-readers."
The recruiter made a face that weighed the cost.
Papers fluttered.
"You can spout names. We need results."
He tapped the ledger.
"Test of Silence. One final trial. Five minutes in the chamber with a crystal of Eco Umbral. If you survive, we talk."
Murmurs rippled.
The Test of Silence had a legend: made men pale.
The plaza's air pulled thin.
They escorted candidates through a trapdoor into a chamber that smelled of stone and cold.
A single light hovered above a glassed pit with a small crystal at its center.
The crystal emitted a pulse like a large slow heartbeat; the floor vibrated.
Kiran approached the glass and saw Lysandro's jaw set across the way.
"You go first," Lysandro told him, tone layered with challenge.
The recruiter shrugged.
"Order's order."
Lysandro stepped into the pit, boots finding purchase.
The pulse hit; his hands clenched.
Breath cut.
He staggered at three minutes and fled the platform, face red and proud in a way that did not hide shame.
People around him hissed; someone cursed.
Kiran watched the glass rim catch the light and thought of his hand bleeding on the docks, the taste of iron, the amulet's broken seam.
The sword at his hip was a weight and a question.
He had lied to push the door open; now the door presented an answer.
"You sure about this?" Meira's face swam in memory, a small vote cast across distance.
He could bow out, return to the quay and the petty economy of survival.
He could sell the amulet, take a coin, sleep without the Guild's promises.
Each option had a cost that fit in his palm.
He stepped into the chamber.
The chamber's pulse hit like an ocean against a skull.
The sound was not sound but pressure; ears rang as though the world tried to change its pitch to match the crystal.
Five minutes stretched like joints under strain.
Kiran's legs trembled at the first minute.
Nausea tightened like a band.
He anchored his feet and breathed slow as a practiced man.
The second minute made the world thin at the edges.
He tasted metal.
Lysandro's attempt replayed in his head — the boot, the retreat.
The crowd outside pushed silent faces to the glass.
"Focus," someone muttered behind the observation pane.
Kiran's hands dug into his thighs to stop shaking.
The third minute came with a smell of ozone.
His jaw clenched.
Warmth pooled in the cut at his palm; he did not move to tend it.
The pulse felt like a hammer behind the eyes.
On the fourth minute his vision smeared.
Muscle wanted to fold.
The glass showed his own outline as if he were a ghost observed from a theater.
The recruiter outside scribbled notes and waited to mark his fall.
Kiran's fingers brushed the hilt at his belt.
Habit unhooked muscle before thought.
The sword slid half out, rust whispering.
The metal pressed into his palm.
The pulse hit like a gavel.
His knees buckled.
His hand closed.
Immediately, the pulse stopped.
The silence arrived like a hand unclenching.
The crystal's low glow winked out.
The chamber held a stillness so complete it felt like a choice.
On the other side of the observation glass, Elias's face went rigid with a look that was not curiosity but recognition.
His mouth opened, small and unready for words.
His eyes were wide.
It is Kiran's turn.
He approaches, the crystal's pulse a hammer in his skull.
He falls to his knees.
His hand, by instinct, grabs the rusted sword at his belt.
Immediately, the sound of the pulse... stops.
An absolute, almost comforting silence envelops him.
The crystal stops glowing.
Elias's face, on the other side of the observation glass, shows pure and absolute shock.