Meanwhile, things weren't looking pleasant for the Erk group.
Garrun and Yalaz were training the group of four made up of Hazar, Sevda, Yavuz, and Devran.
Though to Hazar, this wasn't training—it was a hell.
The training ground was a flat stretch beside the village. Soil that might once have been alive, now hardened and cracked. Stones arranged around it drew a kind of border; Garrun had told them to run circles around those stones.
He hadn't said how many laps. That was the worst part—not knowing where the end was.
His breath was giving out, his chest burned, and with every step his knees felt about to buckle. The weight on his back had carved itself into his shoulders. He was no longer struggling to take steps but to keep from being driven into the ground.
'Why should a person have to run for meters with kilograms of weight on them?'
But he didn't stop; if he stopped, he'd fall behind. And he didn't want to fall behind.
Now and then Hazar cursed himself for choosing Erk over Sezi. He had affinities for both Erk and Sezi. But since the arts of reverie sounded foreign, he'd chosen the more familiar martial arts training.
Maybe it was a bad decision.
'I wonder if Sezi would have been better?' Murmurs escaped his mouth amid his breathless running.
Then he went on.
'I should try that one too, later.'
Yalaz stood in the middle, motionless. He didn't speak either. He just watched. When someone slowed, he'd turn his gaze to them and do nothing else. Still, that gaze felt heavier to Hazar than any shout.
Garrun, on the other hand, walked among them now and then, saying short things. "Breathe out through your mouth." "Don't swing your arms, you're wasting energy."
Hazar heard each one, but his body responded late. The sack on his back—he didn't know whether it held sand or stones—drove his spine down a little more with each step. Sweat ran into his eyes, the salt of it stinging. There was a taste of iron in his mouth.
'This has a meaning,' he told himself. 'It must.'
He wasn't sure whether it did.
Beside him the others were fighting their own battles too.
Sevda was at the very front. Hazar noticed she hadn't fallen back even once—her breath was as ragged as his, her face as red as his, but she'd made staying one step ahead into a matter of principle. Letting someone pass her seemed to hurt her more than the running itself.
Yavuz was different. He didn't speed up, didn't slow down. Always the same pace, always the same breath. He wasn't trying to get ahead, just choosing not to burn out.
And then there was Devran. Smaller than him, frailer than him. The load on his back was enormous for his frame, his shoulders sagging forward. He'd fallen behind, having done a few laps fewer than the others.
When Yalaz's voice came—"All right, you can stop"—Hazar's lungs refused for a moment to process the words.
Then he understood and stopped.
His knees bent, his hands on his knees, his head dropping forward. For a while he just breathed.
As Garrun passed by, he gave Hazar's shoulder a light tap.
"You ran well," he said. His voice was calm, kind. More an observation than praise.
Hazar didn't raise his head. "Thanks," he said, his voice cracked.
When he looked at the others, he felt a little better.
Sevda had thrown herself onto the grass, lying on her back. Her arms spread to either side, her eyes closed—as if she were playing dead. Yavuz was sipping from the leather flask in his hand as if he hadn't had water in days. Devran stared blankly at the horizon, his mind clearly somewhere else entirely.
Hazar sank onto a rock. His clothes were soaked through and stank. The smell and the dampness bothered him so much that the urge to bathe wouldn't leave his mind.
In the warm, comfortable bath of his home that he missed…
"Don't relax just yet."
Yalaz's voice came down over the group like a roar.
Sevda opened her eyes. "But—"
"This isn't a rest break," said Yalaz. "Now we'll teach you your first breathing technique."
Then Garrun taught them the same breathing technique. Hazar sat cross-legged and began to count.
Five. Seven. Stop.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, Yavuz's voice was heard.
"Master… I feel a warmth in my belly. Is this normal?"
His voice was uneasy.
Yalaz's distant eyes opened. He paused for a moment.
"This quickly?" he murmured—close enough that only Hazar could hear.
He clenched his teeth.
That Yavuz had succeeded so easily made the dull burn in his own lungs feel all the more meaningless. The same technique. The same ground. The same sun.
But Yavuz was already there.
"Normal," said Yalaz. "Keep applying the technique."
Hazar closed his eyes. He began again.
Minutes passed. At one point he heard Garrun stop beside Sevda and say something in a low voice; and Sevda's murmur, as if in agreement. A little way off, Devran's breathing had slowed and fallen into a rhythm.
Hazar returned to his own breath.
Five. Seven. Stop.
And on a single breath, with nothing having changed, something changed. As the energy passed through, a part of it caught—in the middle of his belly, a small, warm knot. It didn't leave.
Hazar didn't move. He pressed his palm to his belly, as if it wouldn't escape if he held it down.
One more breath. Five. Seven. Stop.
Still there.
And then, just as he was exhaling, at a moment he didn't expect, something happened in his back.
Right in the middle of his spine. It was like the one in his belly but not the same—softer, more fluid. The two stood within him at the same time. One warm, one cool.
Two similar things. Two separate places.
Holding both at once was hard. When he gave his attention to the one in his belly, the one in his back faded; when he turned to his back, the one in his belly loosened. Two boats, one oar. Whichever he leaned on, the other fell behind.
But neither left. They stood there like a dangerous balance—one warm, like the embers of a hearth; one cool, like water rising from the deep. Hazar almost forgot to breathe.
His fingers clenched despite himself.
'What is this?'
Garrun came to his side at that very moment. He stopped. He waited a while.
Hazar held his breath. He didn't want to do something wrong and lose it.
Garrun finally spoke. His voice was different from usual. More careful.
"What do you feel?"
Hazar opened his eyes.
Garrun was looking at him. There was neither anger nor surprise on his face. But he was searching for something.
Hazar opened his mouth to answer. He stopped.
'How do I describe it?'
"Two," he said at last. "Two separate… warmths. One here." He pointed to his belly. "One…" He brought his hand to his back, indicating the middle of his spine. "Here."
Garrun said nothing. He just looked.
Then he slowly turned and looked at Yalaz.
Yalaz was looking at him too.
Not a single word passed between them.
Hazar looked at the two of them, unsure what to say.
The sun and the two stars at the peak lit the steppes of the Ruined Lands with their hot light. Even the shadows…
Far away, very far away beyond the mountains, on the empty plain, a shadow sat. The shadow hadn't shown the slightest movement in a long time.
Sunlight pierced through some parts of its body, leaving a few pale gaps in its dark silhouette.
As if it didn't care, the shadow went on staring at the stone altar before it, never taking its eyes off the glowing symbols and the black sword.
The symbols flashed quickly on and off, at times even glowing with far more light than usual, as if trying to give some signal across the ill-omened plain.
But suddenly the flashing stopped, the brightness fading.
After days, the shadow moved: it turned its head and looked at the sword.
There was no blood on the sword, nor on the altar…
The shadow stayed where it was a while longer, waiting. Then the glow on the altar dimmed completely and went out.
There was a slight stir. The sunlight began to bend, the surroundings to darken.
The shadow slowly rose to its feet, the holes in its body slowly closing.
The shadow took a few steps toward the altar.
When it reached the stone altar, it grasped the sword driven into the center of it. It pulled lightly and took it in hand.
Slowly it turned around and looked beyond the mountains, far, far into the distance. It saw the white eyes shining in the darkness.
The shadow took a step, and another, and another…
With slow and small steps…
Before it lay mountains hard to cross. Among them, creatures lying in ambush, fleeing the light, without names.
And it had a task. A task that had to be completed, no matter what.
It didn't stop, it pressed on.
It had to press on.