Dawn found Redspire wrapped in ash and thin fog. The valley below still smoked where fires had eaten roofs and corpses glimmered like dark stones. Daren Kuro stood on the highest parapet, cloak whipping, crimson eyes fixed on the horizon. He had slept little, not from exhaustion but because the world thrummed in his veins—Ruin Blood humming like a restrained beast. It did not let him rest. It demanded motion, practice, and more blood.
Mina moved among the ruined barracks with a small bundle of scavenged linen and a look that had settled into a wary muscle. She had stopped asking the questions that made people soft. Hunger taught better than lectures. Her face was older, lined by ash and necessity; Daren noted it with the same clinical interest he reserved for a new opponent.
A horn sounded from the north—faint, careful. Not the klaxons of an organized host, but the pattern of a scout signaling a parley. Someone came into Redspire's ruined reach and meant to speak. That meant politics, and politics smelled like knives wrapped in silk.
"Don't look surprised," Daren said without turning. "They'll come sniffing. Everyone wants a piece of anything that still breathes."
Mina hesitated, then said, "Who would negotiate with nothing left?"
"Those who see opportunity where others see ruin," Daren replied. His voice was flat, a blade whose edge had been honed by hunger. "Listen. Learn. They teach more by wanting things than by giving them."
The scout who stepped into the courtyard was not garbed as a mercenary. His cloak bore an emblem—an obsidian fang framed by a ring of ash. The Obsidian Throne. Daren's eyes narrowed. The Throne's reach was long; its deals were expensive.
"You are the youth who claimed Redspire?" the scout asked, voice polite but cold. "Word moves faster than the wind. The Throne sends emissaries when opportunity rises."
Daren's mouth flattened. "Opportunity often smells like death," he said. "What piece of ash do you wish to trade for your coin?"
The scout's smile was thin. "A quiet alliance. Information for weapons. Safe passage for Throne caravans through this valley. In return, protection. Your—reputation—will increase if you befriend us."
Daren cocked his head. Protection from the Obsidian Throne was protection wrapped in chains. He considered the offer as he would consider a blade: weight, balance, and hidden edge.
*"Chains are useful to hang enemies,"* he muttered, but aloud he said: "Protection costs freedom. I am not fodder. Leave your coin and go. Or stay, and learn what it is to be useful."
The scout's eyes flickered—amusement, perhaps respect. "There are other ways to become useful," he said and stepped back. "The Throne gifts rare tutors for those who show promise. A woman named Soraya Dusk—fallen from high sect favor, exiled—travels with the Throne. She teaches the arts of exchange."
Daren's interest sharpened. Dual cultivation tutors—dangerous and valuable—were instruments that could be bent. Power exchanged willingly and with skill could accelerate growth beyond brute training.
"Tell your masters that I prefer to collect my own tutors," Daren said. "Also—tell Soraya that predators accept only equals, not debts."
The scout bowed once, and left as quietly as he had come. At his back, one could almost hear the marketplace of petty promises resuming its chatter. Daren turned to Mina.
"You understand the game?" he asked. He did not expect an answer, but she gave one anyway. "I understand enough," she said. "Is Soraya good?"
Daren shrugged. Opinions were tools until proven. "Skill is not goodness. Skill is leverage."
***
They spent the afternoon cleaning what could be cleaned and sharpening the tools they could find. At dusk, a deliberate knock came—three taps, pause, one tap. A pattern older than mercenary codes: an offer of parley, but not parley of men—parley of blades.
A woman entered. Soraya Dusk. The stories softened her edges; she was taller in truth, with hair the color of ash, eyes like cut amber, and a posture that suggested someone who had been both tutor and punished pupil. Her cloak bore no Throne sigil now; she walked as a woman who had shed all safety to survive on skill.
"Daren Kuro?" Her voice was silk over steel. "You've made a name for yourself in a single night—a prodigy of ruin. I hoped it would be someone more polite."
Daren smiled without warmth. "Politeness is a weight. I prefer actions."
Soraya inclined her head once. "Good. Then we shall speak only in terms of actions." She produced a small vial that glowed faintly—an elixir used to attune meridians and stabilize energy flow during exchange. "I offer guidance. Dual cultivation is not sex for pleasure—though pleasure may be a byproduct. It's a pairing of meridians, a disciplined channeling of Yin and Yang. Done correctly, it can sharpen the body, burn through blockades, condense internal force into a weapon."
Mina's breath hitched. Daren's eyes went narrower. Dual cultivation explained—the tutor's terms, the cost, the risk—was wealth. The right tutor could make a body into a fortress. A wrong one could hollow the soul.
"You teach?" Daren asked. It was less a question than a test.
"I tutor," Soraya said. "For a price. My body is not charity. My knowledge is not free." Her smile cut like a practiced blade. "I can show you how to bind Ruin Blood into a conduit that answers your will instead of your appetite. I can teach you to temper the hunger."
The hunger—Ruin Blood's pull toward violence, toward losing oneself in the rush—was a hand in Daren's chest. To temper it was to hold a leash on a wolf. To master it was to make the wolf kill for the rider.
"And the price?" Daren's voice was a low snarl of interest.
"Exchange," Soraya said simply. "I require a partner who can match focus with need. I require consent, discipline, and a vessel to practice upon. I do not bargain for lives, only for moments, and the right to train." Her eyes landed on Mina. "A raw vessel, guided by steel will, will yield faster results."
Mina flinched at being called a vessel. Daren noticed and let the small flame of her defiance die for practicality's sake. He had plans. He never wasted potential.
"You will teach," he said, final. "But under one condition: I keep what I take. No Throne bonds, no debts. Training is one thing. Ownership is another."
Soraya studied him as if deciding whether his spine could take the burden. Finally, she nodded. "One moon. One cycle. I will push you to the brink, and you will return whatever remains. If you break, I do not rebind you. If you succeed, power will follow."
Daren's hand closed into a fist at his side, not from fear but from that hungry, iron certainty that had become his compass. "Then instruct," he said, voice cold and focused. "Teach me to turn pain into law."
***
That night, within the battered hall that once hosted feasts, Soraya prepared the ritual space. The ruins rang with the subtle hum of stored chi as she traced lines with a bone stylus and scattered powdered herbs. Candles—remnants of some private chapel—cast trembling light on the cracked stones. The air smelled of iron, resin, and the sweet tang of power.
"Understand this before we begin," Soraya murmured. "Dual cultivation is a conduit. You and the partner form a loop. One must guide, the other must yield—but both must consent to the flow. The Ruin Blood complicates matters: it feeds on violent stimulus and can overload the receiver if not tamed."
Daren knelt. He inferred the anatomy of the practice from her words and from the shifting shadows: meridian lines, Yin and Yang loci, pressure points that open like locks. He thought like a strategist—where to press, where to hold, where to withdraw.
Mina sat across from him, hands trembling slightly. She had been given no choice in many things, but her nod was quick—she knew what she'd bargained for in following him. This was survival-weapons training under the sharpest of tutors.
Soraya produced a thin ribbon of glass—an attunement band—and wrapped it around Mina's wrist. It glowed faintly and pulsed in time with Mina's heartbeat. "Consent," Soraya said softly, "is more than saying yes. It is focus. It is agreement of the soul's will. If the partner resists, the flow ruptures. If both flow, power binds."
Daren's fingers brushed Mina's hand as he took her wrist in his grip. The contact was electric—immediate pressure, a heat blooming between them. For a heartbeat, the Ruin Blood surged, curious, hungry. He kept his face calm, voice flat. "Focus on the pain. Let the pain teach you. Don't let it own you."
Mina inhaled. The first wave hit—not pleasure, not yet—but a raw, searing clarity as energy moved. Soraya chanted low, guiding the currents like a conductor. Daren felt the flow sync to his breath; Mina's breath answered. The link formed, fragile and keen.
This was no shameless indulgence. It was an exchange of force and will—an intimate tactical maneuver. When Mina's channels opened, Daren felt his Ruin Blood resonate, like two blades striking and producing a ringing overtone. Power threaded into him—sharper reflexes, clearer sight, a cold edge at the back of his mind.
But it was not without cost. Mina staggered as a backlash hit her—nausea, a shiver that crawled like frost. Soraya's hand was quick at her shoulder, steadying. "Breathe through it," the tutor instructed. "Your body will learn if your soul consents."
Daren tightened his grip briefly, not cruelly, only to maintain the channel. He watched the data of power in his mind—where the energy flowed, which node overfed, which meridian needed tempering. He loved the cold mathematics of it. Power was a problem you solved.
After one cycle, Soraya halted the ritual. Mina was pale but breathing steady. Daren felt the world notch sharper—sounds crisped, colors sharpened. The Ruin Blood had taken a taste of a new conduit and liked the flavor.
"You will burn if you continue without rest," Soraya warned. "Ruin Blood seeks trauma to grow. It must be tempered, or it consumes the soul's scaffolding."
Daren smiled, small and feral. "Then we temper it."
Mina looked at him through exhaustion and new knowledge, something like respect flickering. "I felt… stronger," she whispered.
Daren's reply was dry and true. "Then remember the taste. Use it. Don't thank me."
***
Word moved like wildfire. A tutor of the Throne had come and left, and Redspire had been taken in a night by a youth who did not bow. Caravans rerouted, scouts reported, and the Obsidian Throne catalogued his name. The valley would not remain silent for long.
As they prepared for the next day, Daren stood outside where the wind had cleared ash into thin ribbons. He watched the horizon, feeling the echo of the exchange in his limbs. Soraya's teaching had been surgical; the ritual had focused his Ruin Blood into something akin to restraint—and a sharper blade.
He spoke quietly into the dark. "The world learns names quickly. Let them whisper Black Dragon between their teeth. Let them fear the lesson I bring."
Mina rested beside him, and for a moment something like a fragile camaraderie existed—born not of comfort but of shared survival and shared burden. Daren looked at her and said, without ceremony:
"Keep your mind like a blade, Mina. Hone it on steel. Never let pity dull you."
She nodded, understanding that pity killed as surely as a blade. The night held its breath around them. Somewhere, the Throne plotted. Somewhere, other teeth—larger, older—grinned in the dark.
The first ripple of war had been cast. Daren felt it in his bones, and he smelled the promise of more—more power, more bodies to test his measures on, more lessons to etch into the valley.
He smiled, thin and steady. *"Teach me more,"* he thought, and the Ruin Blood answered, a low, hungry drum beneath his ribs.
The Black Dragon was learning to temper his hunger into a weapon—and the world would soon discover whether the beast was a savior, a tyrant, or simply another blade that cut too wide.
*This was only the beginning.*