The stone floor was cold enough to ache.
Kymani pressed his palm flat against it, feeling the chill seep through skin and muscle until it settled somewhere deep in his bones. Cold was better than the alternative. Cold meant the day's lessons hadn't started yet. Cold meant he could still think clearly, could still hold onto the small, private thoughts that made him something other than meat and screaming.
The cell—they called it a "sanctuary," but cells didn't stop being cells just because you dressed up the language—measured seven paces by five. He'd counted them so many times the numbers had worn grooves into his mind. Seven by five. Thirty-five stones total. The third stone from the door had a crack shaped like a crooked finger. The nineteenth stone, near the back corner, was darker than the rest, stained with something that had dried to the color of rust.
He was nine years old, though age meant little in the Choir of Purity. Some children arrived older and lasted weeks. Some arrived younger and never spoke again. Time was measured differently here—in lessons, in trials, in the slow erosion of whatever you'd been before the white-robed Shepherds started teaching you what purity actually cost.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside.
Kymani's breathing didn't change. His heartbeat didn't spike. That was one of the first things the body learned, before the mind fully understood: panic was waste. Fear was inefficiency. The Shepherds could smell both, and they had special lessons for children who couldn't control themselves.
The footsteps passed.
He released a breath he hadn't consciously held and sat up, pressing his back against the wall. The surface was damp. Everything in the undercroft was damp, moisture seeping through ancient stone from some source no one could identify. The Shepherds said it was the world's impurity weeping through the cracks. Kymani thought it was probably just water, finding its way down through layers of rock and suffering until it had nowhere left to go.
Light filtered through the narrow gap beneath his door—not sunlight, never that. The Choir's compound existed in one of Catalim's interior zones, sealed between walls so massive they created their own weather. The light came from oil lamps burning in the corridor, their flames fed with rendered fat that filled the air with a greasy, organic smell.
His stomach cramped.
They'd fed him yesterday. Thin gruel, mostly water, with bits of something that might have been grain floating in it like pale maggots. Not enough to stop hunger, just enough to prevent death. Starvation sharpened the senses, the Shepherds said. It brought you closer to understanding what the body truly was: a shell, a prison, a thing that could be refined through denial until it became something greater.
Kymani pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping thin arms around them. His ribs pressed against his forearms, each bone distinct beneath skin that had forgotten what healthy looked like. He'd been here for—how long? Time slipped. Sometimes he thought it had been years. Other times, he could still smell the rain from the night they'd taken him, and it felt like days.
The memories before the Choir were fragmented. Hazy. There had been… someone. A woman's voice, maybe. The impression of warmth. Then darkness, confusion, and waking up to white robes and soft words that promised salvation through suffering.
You are blessed, they'd told him. Chosen. The pain you will endure is not punishment—it is refinement. Like ore in the forge, you will burn until only the purest metal remains.
He'd believed them, at first. Children believed what they were told, especially when the alternative was believing they'd been abandoned to monsters.
The door opened without warning.
Kymani didn't flinch. Flinching was reaction. Reaction suggested fear. Instead, he looked up slowly, meeting the eyes of the Shepherd who stood in the doorway with the same blank, patient expression he wore for everything.
"Good morning, Kymani." Brother Aldric's voice was pleasant, warm even, like a favorite uncle greeting a beloved nephew. He was a tall man, thin in the way of people who chose asceticism rather than having it forced upon them. His white robes were clean, unmarked by the filth that permeated the undercroft. His hands were folded in front of him, fingers interlaced in a gesture of peaceful contemplation.
Kymani had seen those hands do things that defied the peaceful image they projected.
"Stand, please. It's time for morning prayer."
Morning prayer. The euphemism was almost elegant in its dishonesty.
Kymani stood, legs trembling slightly as blood flow adjusted. He'd learned not to stand too quickly—fainting was interpreted as weakness, and weakness earned additional lessons. He moved toward the door with measured steps, keeping his gaze lowered in the approximation of humility the Shepherds preferred.
Brother Aldric stepped aside, gesturing for him to enter the corridor. "You're looking well today. The fast seems to be agreeing with you."
The statement required no response. Kymani gave none.
They walked through passages carved from living rock, the ceiling low enough that Brother Aldric had to duck occasionally. Other doors lined the corridor, identical to Kymani's. Behind them, silence. The other children had learned the same lessons about conserving energy, about not wasting breath on screaming when screaming changed nothing.
Sometimes, late at night when the lamp oil ran low and darkness pressed close, Kymani could hear them breathing. Thirty-seven doors in this corridor alone. Thirty-seven children. He'd counted, the same way he counted stones, because counting was a way to hold onto something concrete when everything else felt like it might slip away.
How many had been here when he arrived? He couldn't remember. The faces blurred together.
They climbed stairs worn smooth by centuries of feet. The temperature rose incrementally with each step—less moisture, less cold, but not warmth. Never quite warmth. At the top, Brother Aldric pushed open a heavy wooden door reinforced with iron bands, and they emerged into the compound proper.
The Choir of Purity occupied an old fortress, one of dozens scattered throughout the zone in the ages before the current theocracy consolidated power. Stone walls rose thirty feet high, topped with iron spikes that served no defensive purpose—the real threats didn't come from outside. Inside those walls: barracks for the Shepherds, meditation halls, training yards, and beneath it all, the undercroft where miracles were made.
Dawn was breaking. Actual sunlight filtered through the permanent cloud cover that blanketed this part of Catalim, turning the sky the color of old bruises. The air tasted like ash. Three days ago, the Wallwardens had burned a village to the north for harboring "impure elements." The smoke still hung in the atmosphere, a reminder of what happened to those who strayed from righteousness.
Other children were already gathered in the central courtyard, standing in neat rows with their hands clasped behind their backs. Kymani recognized most of them—Sera with her scarred forearms, Davos who'd stopped speaking after his third trial, little Mira who still cried sometimes when she thought no one could hear.
Thirty-one children total. The number had dropped by six since last month.
He took his place in the back row, between Sera and a boy whose name he'd never learned. The boy had arrived two weeks ago, still carrying the soft edges of a life lived outside. He wouldn't last long. You could see it in the way his hands shook, the way his eyes darted toward the gates as if escape was something that could be achieved through wanting it badly enough.
Brother Aldric moved to the front of the formation, joined by three other Shepherds. Brother Matthias, who taught the philosophy of purification. Sister Celene, who administered the physical trials. And Father Gregorius, the compound's highest authority, whose serene smile never quite reached his eyes.
Father Gregorius raised his hands, and the children bowed their heads in unison.
"Children of the Choir," he began, his voice carrying easily across the courtyard. "Another day dawns, another opportunity to shed the impurities that bind us to this fallen world. You have been chosen for a sacred purpose. Where others stumble through life in ignorance, you walk the path of enlightenment. Where others cling to comfort, you embrace the refining fire."
Kymani had heard this speech, or variations of it, hundreds of times. The words washed over him like rain on stone.
"Today, some of you will take the next step in your journey. You will prove that your dedication is more than words, that your flesh has begun to understand what your mind already knows: suffering is not your enemy. It is your teacher."
A cold weight settled in Kymani's chest. Trial day. They happened irregularly, without warning, designed to keep the children in a constant state of anticipation. Some trials were simple—endurance tests, fasting, isolation. Others were not.
Father Gregorius's gaze swept across the assembled children, and Kymani felt it pause on him. Just for a moment. Just long enough.
"Kymani. Step forward."
The courtyard was silent except for the wind moving through the fortress walls. Somewhere distant, a bell tolled the hour.
Kymani walked forward, his bare feet silent on cold stone. He kept his breathing even, his expression neutral. Inside, in the small, private space where his real self still existed, something coiled tight.
Father Gregorius smiled. "You've been with us for nearly two years now, haven't you?"
Had it been two years? The number felt impossible. Also inevitable.
"You've endured much. Learned much. Brother Aldric tells me you haven't cried in eight months. Sister Celene says you complete your exercises without complaint. These are signs of progress, child. Signs that the ore is beginning to refine."
The praise felt like a weight. Kymani said nothing.
"But progress must be tested. Refinement must be proven. Today, you will demonstrate how far you've come." Father Gregorius turned, gesturing toward a door on the courtyard's far side. "The Chamber of Clarity awaits."
Kymani knew that room. Every child did. Some had entered and returned. Some had entered and been carried out. One had entered and never emerged at all, the door sealed for three days before the Shepherds finally opened it to find—
He pushed the thought away. Dwelling didn't help.
"Do you understand what's being asked of you?" Father Gregorius's voice was gentle, almost kind.
Kymani met his eyes. "Yes, Father."
"And do you accept this trial willingly, as a devoted child of the Choir?"
What happened if you said no? He'd never seen anyone refuse. The question itself was probably part of the test—proof that you understood the illusion of choice.
"Yes, Father."
The smile widened. "Then go with our blessings. May your suffering purify you."
Kymani turned and walked toward the door. Behind him, he heard Father Gregorius address the remaining children, beginning the morning's sermon proper. The words faded as distance grew.
The door was plain wood, unmarked except for a symbol carved at eye level: a circle bisected by a vertical line. The Choir's mark. Purity through division—separating the sacred from the profane, the refined from the base, the worthy from the waste.
He opened the door and stepped through.
The Chamber of Clarity was smaller than he'd imagined. Perhaps ten feet square, with walls of smooth stone and a floor that sloped gently toward a central drain. No windows. No furniture. A single oil lamp hung from a chain in the ceiling, casting flickering shadows that made the walls seem to breathe.
Brother Aldric was already inside, having entered through a side passage. He'd removed his outer robe, working now in a simple tunic that allowed freedom of movement. On a table beside him lay an array of implements, each cleaned and organized with careful precision.
"Close the door, please."
Kymani did.
The latch clicked with a sound like breaking bone.
"Are you frightened?" Brother Aldric asked, not looking up from his preparations.
The honest answer was yes. Fear was a biological response, autonomic, impossible to fully suppress no matter how much discipline you cultivated. But honesty wasn't always what the Shepherds wanted.
"Fear is impurity," Kymani said instead, reciting the catechism. "To fear is to doubt. To doubt is to resist the path."
"Correct." Brother Aldric selected a thin rod from the table, examining it in the lamplight. "Fear serves the flesh, not the spirit. Today, we'll help you understand the distinction more clearly."
He turned, and the lamplight caught his eyes. They were calm. Focused. The eyes of a craftsman approaching familiar work.
"Kneel in the center of the room."
Kymani knelt, positioning himself over the drain. The stone was cold and slightly damp. He placed his hands on his thighs, palms up, and straightened his spine. Proper posture. Proper form. Everything the Shepherds did had a form, a right way to suffer.
Brother Aldric approached, footsteps measured. "This trial has three parts. First, endurance. Then control. Finally, transcendence. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Brother."
"Good. We'll begin with endurance."
The rod came down across Kymani's shoulders.
Pain was an old companion by now. He'd learned its languages, its rhythms. This was sharp, bright, immediate—the kind that made your body want to flinch away, to protect itself through motion. He kept still.
Another strike, lower. The rod whistled slightly as it cut through air.
"The body," Brother Aldric said, his tone conversational, "is a liar. It tells you that pain is danger. That damage means death. But pain is simply information. Damage is simply change. The flesh screams, but the spirit can learn to listen to something deeper."
Three more strikes in quick succession, each placed with careful precision across Kymani's back.
He focused on breathing. In through the nose, slow count of three. Out through the mouth, slower count of five. Breathing was control. Control was power. If he could control his breath, he could control his response. If he could control his response, he could endure.
Blood began to trickle down his back, warm against cold skin.
"Good," Brother Aldric said. "Very good. You don't scream. You don't beg. This is progress, Kymani. Two years ago, you would have been sobbing by now."
Had he sobbed? The memory was vague, like something that had happened to someone else.
The strikes continued. Methodical. Patient. Brother Aldric wasn't angry—anger would have been easier to understand, easier to categorize. This was something else. Dedication. Duty. He genuinely believed he was helping.
That was the worst part. Not the pain. The sincerity.
"Now," Brother Aldric said, setting the rod aside, "we move to control."
He returned to the table and selected a small knife, its blade no longer than a finger. The edge caught the lamplight, gleaming.
"Hold out your left hand."
Kymani extended his arm, palm up. His hand trembled slightly—blood loss, adrenaline, the body's autonomic responses asserting themselves. He willed it steady.
Brother Aldric took his hand gently, almost tenderly. "I'm going to cut you. Three lines across the palm. Not deep enough to cripple, but deep enough to test. Your task is to remain absolutely still. If you pull away, we start over. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Brother."
"Then we begin."
The first cut was a line of fire across his palm. Kymani watched the blade part his skin, watched blood well up in its wake, dark and thick. The pain was different from the rod—more intimate, more precise. His fingers wanted to curl, to protect themselves. He kept them open.
Second cut, perpendicular to the first.
His vision grayed at the edges. Breathing was harder now, each inhalation a conscious effort. The room felt smaller, the walls pressing in.
Third cut, diagonal.
Blood dripped from his palm onto the floor, pattering against stone. The drain caught it, swallowing it into darkness below.
"Excellent." Brother Aldric released his hand and stepped back. "You didn't flinch. Not once. This is the control we seek, Kymani. Mastery over the body's base instincts. The flesh screams, but you—the true you, the pure essence—remain steady."
He cleaned the blade carefully, returning it to its place among the other implements.
"Now comes transcendence. The final test."
From the table, he lifted a clay bowl filled with clear liquid. The smell reached Kymani before the bowl did—sharp, acrid, chemical.
"This is purifying solution," Brother Aldric explained. "Salt, rendered ash, and several other components that encourage the body to remember its lessons. When applied to open wounds, it creates sensation that the flesh interprets as agony. But agony is just another word for intensity. And in intensity, we can find clarity."
He knelt beside Kymani, bringing the bowl level with his ruined hand.
"Place your hand in the bowl."
Kymani looked at the liquid. Looked at his bleeding palm. Looked at Brother Aldric's calm, patient face.
This was the moment. This was where children broke, where the illusion of control shattered and the screaming started. He'd heard it through the walls. Heard other children being carried back to their cells, their voices raw from shrieking.
He thought about refusing. Thought about pulling his hand back, about standing up and walking to the door. What would happen? Would they stop him? Would they hold him down and force his hand into the bowl anyway? Or would they simply mark him as failed, as impure, and dispose of him the way they disposed of all the children who couldn't be refined?
There was no good choice. There was only the choice that let him keep walking forward.
Kymani placed his hand in the bowl.
The liquid touched his cuts and the world became pain.
There were no words for it. Language failed. Thought failed. Everything collapsed into a single burning point of agony that consumed all other sensation. His hand wasn't a hand anymore—it was a sun going nova, it was a scream made flesh, it was every nerve ending firing at once in a cacophony of stimulus that the brain couldn't process.
He heard screaming. Distant. Getting closer.
His own voice. He was screaming.
The room tilted. He was on the floor, didn't remember falling. His hand was still in the bowl—or was it? He couldn't tell. Couldn't separate the pain from his body from reality itself.
Brother Aldric's voice, somewhere above: "Breathe, Kymani. Find the center. The pain is there, but so are you. You exist beyond it. Find yourself in the fire."
Nonsense. Meaningless platitudes. There was no self beyond the pain. There was only—
Something shifted.
Deep inside, beneath the screaming and the fire and the part of him that was breaking against the rocks of what the Shepherds called refinement, something moved. It felt like a door opening. Like a lock clicking into place.
The pain didn't stop. But his relationship to it changed.
He could… observe it. Not as something happening to him, but as a phenomenon occurring in proximity. His hand hurt. The sensation was immense, overwhelming. But he—the part that was doing the observing—that part was separate. Untouchable.
His screaming stopped.
Kymani pulled his hand from the bowl and looked at it. Blood mixed with the purifying solution, running down his wrist in pale pink streams. The cuts were deeper than he'd thought, edges white and swollen. He should feel this. Should be writhing.
Instead, he felt nothing.
No. Not nothing. He felt the pain. Acknowledged it. But it couldn't reach the place where he'd retreated. The pain was happening to his body. His body wasn't him.
Brother Aldric was staring at him with an expression Kymani had never seen on any Shepherd's face before.
Wonder.
"Stand up," Brother Aldric whispered.
Kymani stood. His legs worked fine. Balance intact. He looked down at Brother Aldric, still kneeling beside the bowl, and felt a distant, abstract curiosity. Was this transcendence? Was this what they'd been trying to teach?
"Say something," Brother Aldric said.
"What would you like me to say?"
His own voice sounded strange. Flat. Empty of inflection.
Brother Aldric rose slowly, his movements careful, as if afraid sudden motion might break whatever was happening. "How do you feel?"
Kymani considered the question. His back was shredded. His hand was ruined. Blood loss made the room swim slightly. How did he feel?
"Pure," he said.
It was the right answer. Brother Aldric's face transformed, wonder shifting into something like rapture.
"Father Gregorius needs to see this. Wait here."
He hurried from the chamber, leaving Kymani alone with the lamp and the blood-stained bowl and the quiet sound of his own breathing.
Kymani looked at his hand again. Flexed his fingers experimentally. They moved, though the cuts pulled and fresh blood welled. Pain was there, constant, but it felt… distant. Like a storm happening on the other side of a window.
He'd broken something inside himself. Or maybe broken through to something. The distinction felt irrelevant.
Footsteps in the corridor. Multiple people, moving quickly.
The door opened, and Father Gregorius entered, followed by Brother Aldric and Sister Celene. The compound leader's eyes went immediately to Kymani's hand, then to his face, searching for something.
"Show me," Father Gregorius said.
Kymani held up his bleeding palm.
Father Gregorius approached, taking Kymani's wrist gently. He examined the cuts, then looked into Kymani's eyes. Whatever he saw there made him release a slow, satisfied breath.
"Do you feel pain, child?"
"Yes, Father."
"But it doesn't touch you."
"No, Father."
Father Gregorius smiled. It was the most genuine expression Kymani had ever seen on the man's face. "Two years. Two years, and you've achieved what some take five to reach, if they reach it at all. You've found the space between flesh and spirit. You've learned to exist in the gap."
He released Kymani's wrist and turned to the other Shepherds. "Mark this day. We have our first true success. After all the failed attempts, all the children who couldn't transcend their base natures… finally, proof that the methods work."
Sister Celene stepped forward, producing a roll of clean bandages. "We should treat his wounds. He's lost significant blood."
"Yes, yes, of course." Father Gregorius waved a hand. "Take him to the infirmary. Give him proper food, clean water. He's earned care."
As Sister Celene began wrapping his hand, Father Gregorius placed a hand on Kymani's shoulder. "You've made us very proud today, child. The path ahead will be difficult, but you've proven you have the strength to walk it. Soon, we'll begin teaching you to harness what you've discovered. To turn your transcendence into something useful."
"Thank you, Father," Kymani said, because it was expected.
Inside, in the cold, empty space where he'd retreated from the pain, a different thought crystallized:
They think they've created something holy. They have no idea what they've actually made.
The thought had no emotion attached to it. No anger, no fear. Just observation.
He let Sister Celene guide him from the chamber, back into the courtyard where the other children still stood in formation, their morning sermon concluded. They watched him pass with hollow eyes, seeing the blood, the bandages, the way he walked without limping despite obvious injury.
Little Mira was crying again, silent tears tracking through the dirt on her cheeks.
Kymani looked at her as he passed. Looked at all of them. Thirty-one children. Some would break in the trials. Some would transcend like he had, finding the terrible peace that came from separating self from suffering. Some would die.
All of them were victims of people who thought they were doing good.
The thought crystallized further: The cruelest monsters are the ones who think they're righteous.
The infirmary was in the fortress's western wing, a clean room with actual beds and medical supplies. Sister Celene settled him on one of the cots and brought fresh water, clean bandages, a bowl of actual stew with meat floating in it.
"Eat," she said, not unkindly. "You'll need your strength."
Kymani ate. The food had no taste, but his body needed it, so he consumed it mechanically. Sister Celene worked on his back, cleaning the wounds from the rod, applying salves that should have stung but didn't.
"You're special," she said as she worked. "Father Gregorius has waited a long time for a child like you. Someone who can achieve true purity, who can become one of the Choir's saints. Do you understand what that means?"
"No, Sister."
"It means you'll be a weapon. A holy weapon, wielded in service of righteousness. The impure fear us already, but with saints in our ranks, we can expand the Choir's influence. Cleanse entire zones. Bring purity to those who've strayed."
Kymani stared at the ceiling while she talked. The wood beams were old, dark with age. Cracks ran through them like veins.
"You'll be taught to fight," Sister Celene continued. "To channel your transcendence into power. The body you've learned to separate from—it can become so much more when you stop being limited by its weakness. You'll be stronger, faster. Untouchable."
Untouchable. The word felt accurate.
He'd spent two years having pieces of himself carved away. Fear. Attachment. The basic human responses that made people hesitate, that made them vulnerable. The Shepherds thought they were refining him. Really, they were just hollowing him out.
And now they wanted to fill that hollow with purpose.
"Rest," Sister Celene said, finishing with his bandages. "Tomorrow, your true training begins."
She left him alone in the infirmary. Outside, the sun climbed higher, burning through the perpetual ash-haze to cast pale light through narrow windows.
Kymani lay on the cot and stared at nothing.
Two years in the Choir of Purity. Two years of systematic torture dressed up as enlightenment. Two years of watching children break or die or disappear.
And now, finally, he understood what he'd become.
Not pure. Not holy.
Empty.
The Shepherds had wanted to create a saint.
They'd created something else entirely.
In the cold space where his self resided, separate from pain and fear and all the things that made people hesitate, a single thought formed:
This won't be the last time someone tries to break me. But it will be the last time I let them succeed.
The thought had weight. Purpose. It felt like the first real thing he'd felt in months.
Outside, somewhere in the compound, a bell rang. Training hour for the older children. The sound echoed off stone walls, multiplying until it filled the air.
Kymani closed his eyes and began to count.
Seven paces by five.
Thirty-one children.
Two years.
Numbers were concrete. Numbers didn't lie.
And somewhere in those numbers, in the mathematics of suffering and survival, lay the foundation of what he would eventually become.
Not a saint.
Not a weapon.
Something the Shepherds couldn't imagine.
Something that would make them regret every lesson they'd taught.
But that was later. For now, he was nine years old, lying in a clean bed for the first time in months, his body broken and his mind fractured and his future crystallizing into something terrible and precise.
For now, he simply existed.
Empty.
Waiting.
Ready to be filled with purpose of his own choosing.
The counting continued, a steady rhythm beneath consciousness:
One. Two. Three. Four…
All the way to thirty-five stones, to thirty-one children, to infinity if necessary.
Whatever it took to stay separate.
Whatever it took to survive.