No one was allowed to go to war before the age of twenty-one.
That was the law spoken in courts, repeated by officers, written neatly in records that smelled of ink and authority. It was a law meant for sons with names worth remembering. For boys whose deaths would cause questions. For families that mattered.
The lowest army lived outside such laws.
No one checked their ages.
No one inspected faces closely.
No one cared enough to ask.
If a body could carry steel, it could stand in a line.
If it could bleed, it could serve.
Imann was sixteen when he decided to become a soldier.
Oldmark had been his entire world.
The old king's city—stone layered upon stone, built when the crown itself was still uncertain. His family had lived there since the city's birth, when streets were nameless and walls were still rising. They were not nobles, not soldiers of note—just people who endured.
Imann had grown up listening to stories of loyalty, of banners held high, of men who became legends because they stood when others fell.
He believed those stories.
He believed war was a proving ground.
He believed courage was enough.
He believed becoming a warrior meant becoming a man.
His father knew better.
The armor lay hidden beneath loose floorboards.
Old leather. Dull steel. Scarred and battered in places where blows had once landed and not quite killed the man wearing it. Imann had discovered it years ago, by accident, and never spoken of it.
His father had worn it once.
Long ago.
The night before Imann left, he knelt beside the boards and pulled it free. The weight surprised him. It smelled faintly of iron and smoke and age.
His father stood in the doorway.
"You found it," the old man said.
Imann froze.
"You're not going," his father continued, voice firm but tired. "Not like this."
"I need this," Imann replied quietly. "And I need to go."
"You're sixteen."
"They won't ask."
His father stepped forward, anger flashing briefly before something heavier replaced it.
"That armor isn't a costume," he said. "It's a grave that didn't close."
Imann lifted the chest piece. "Then let it protect me."
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, his father reached for the helmet—plain, full-faced, its surface scratched until no shine remained.
"If you do this," the old man said, placing it in Imann's hands, "you wear this at all times. No one sees your face. No one knows who you are."
Imann nodded.
"Not your name. Not your age."
"Yes."
"And you never stand out."
Imann hesitated—then nodded again.
That night, before dawn broke over Oldmark's rooftops, Imann left.
He wore his father's armor beneath a borrowed cloak. The helmet stayed on his head, heavy and enclosing, narrowing his vision and dulling sound. He welcomed it.
It made him someone else.
He slipped through the city gates with merchants and laborers, just another shape among many. No one stopped him. No one cared.
Beyond the walls, the army camp sprawled like a careless wound across the land.
Fires burned low. Men slept where they fell. Armor lay stacked without order. Discipline thinned the farther one moved from banners and officers.
Imann walked straight into it.
A clerk barely glanced up.
Name—misspelled.
Division—lowest.
Age—unasked.
"Stand there tomorrow," the man muttered.
That was it.
That was how a boy vanished into an army.
The helmet did its job.
No one saw his face. No one questioned his voice. When others removed their helms to laugh or shout, Imann kept his on. Sweat soaked the padding. His neck ached. His vision narrowed.
But he remained unseen.
Training was chaos disguised as preparation.
Men swung blades without form. Shields cracked. Spears bent. Some had never held steel before.
Imann watched closely.
These were not warriors.
They were offerings.
Farmhands. Hunters. Boys too thin, too eager, too scared. Men gathered not because they were strong—but because they were available.
At night, they talked.
About glory.
About how war made men.
About how the king's army never lost.
Imann listened in silence.
He trained harder than anyone.
Not out of pride.
Out of fear.
When they marched, the world widened until it felt too big to hold.
The battlefield revealed itself slowly—first as open land, then as movement on the horizon.
Enemy soldiers.
As far as Imann's eyes could reach.
Twenty thousand warriors.
Polished armor. Trained horses. Banners snapping proudly in the wind. They looked rich. Disciplined. Certain.
Imann's breath caught inside the helmet.
Behind him, the king's army stretched wide—twenty-four thousand strong. Larger. Louder. Confident.
"Our king is powerful!" someone shouted.
"We outnumber them!"
Cheers rose.
Some laughed. Some prayed. Some stood frozen.
Imann found himself at the very front.
That was when he saw his father.
Far behind the lines.
Among the rear divisions.
Their eyes met.
The helmet hid Imann's face—but not his knowing.
His father recognized the armor.
He did not shout.
Did not wave.
He only watched.
The horn blew.
The sound ripped through the air.
And the world surged forward.
The war did not begin with blood.
It began with waiting.
Imann stood in the front ranks of the lowest division, the weight of his father's old armor pressing down on his shoulders. The helmet closed around his head, dulling sound, narrowing the world into a thin strip of vision.
He liked that.
It made things feel controlled.
Around him, men shifted uneasily. Boots scraped against packed earth. Hands tightened around spear shafts and sword hilts. Some laughed too loudly, as if sound itself could chase fear away.
"This is it," someone said, voice shaking with excitement. "Real war."
Imann felt it too.
Curiosity. Anticipation. A strange heat in his chest.
This was what he had come for.
The lowest army had marched for days before reaching the field. No banners. No songs. Just dust, sweat, and the slow realization that no one cared whether they arrived whole.
Training had been brief and careless.
They were shown how to stand. How to hold a shield. How to follow the man in front of them.
No one taught them how to survive.
Imann noticed things others didn't.
How officers never walked among them. How supplies reached them last. How wounded men were ignored unless they could still stand.
That was when he first heard the word.
"Weak."
Spoken without malice. Without insult.
Just fact.
The weak ones marched first.
When the battlefield finally opened before them, Imann forgot how to breathe.
Enemy soldiers covered the land.
Not dozens. Not hundreds.
Thousands.
As far as his eyes could go, steel and banners moved in disciplined lines. Horses stamped, armored and trained, their riders calm and certain.
Twenty thousand warriors.
They looked rich. They looked prepared.
Behind Imann, the king's army stretched wide—twenty-four thousand strong. Louder. Larger. Confident.
"Our king is powerful!" someone shouted from the rear. "We outnumber them!"
Cheers erupted behind the lines.
In the front, no one cheered.
Imann felt sweat trickle down his spine beneath the armor. He flexed his fingers inside his gloves, testing grip, testing himself.
This didn't look like the stories.
Some men around him smiled anyway. Some whispered prayers. Some stared ahead with empty eyes.
Imann spotted movement behind the main lines.
His heart stumbled.
His father.
Far back. Safe. Watching.
Imann straightened.
He'll see me fight, he thought.
He'll see I was right.
A distant horn sounded.
Not the charge.
A warning.
Commanders shouted. Lines tightened. Shields rose. The earth itself seemed to hold its breath.
Imann lifted his sword.
For the first time, doubt crept in.
Not fear.
Not yet.
Just a question he didn't know how to answer.
Why are we in front?
The horn blew again.
Louder.
Closer.
The sound rolled across the field like thunder.
And the war began—
not with steel,
but with a sound that would follow him for the rest of his life.