When Cain woke, the first thing he felt was pain.
The ache in his left shoulder was like a pair of red-hot tongs, biting from his shoulder blade all the way to his fingertips. His left arm was strapped across his chest with coarse linen bandages that smelled of herbs—bitter and sharp, like crushed ginger mixed with dirt.
The second thing he felt was cold.
He lay on a hard wooden plank covered with a layer of straw. The air was damp and chill, carrying the scent of stone and rust. Above his head, a rough rock ceiling wept moisture from its cracks—every few seconds, a drop landed on his face.
The third thing he felt was light.
Not moonlight. Not firelight. A faint, silver-white glow emanating from the moss growing on the walls. The moss clung to the cracks in the stone like a thin layer of silver frost, illuminating the space.
Cain sat up slowly.
He was in a cave—no, not a natural cave. The stone walls bore clear tool marks, square and deliberate, as if someone had carved them out with hammer and chisel. The room was small, maybe three meters square. Nothing in it except his wooden bed and an iron water jug in the corner.
He looked down at his left arm. Beneath the linen wrapping were bandages. Beneath the bandages were splints. Beneath the splints was a shoulder that had stopped swelling but was still black and blue. Someone had set the bone while he was unconscious and dressed his wounds.
The gash on his left cheek had also been treated, coated with a green salve that felt cool against his skin.
The door—thick wood reinforced with iron bands—pushed open.
A girl walked in.
She was maybe a year or two older than Cain but looked older than her age. Dark brown hair was braided into a thick rope that hung over her right shoulder. Her eyes were emerald green, like fresh spring leaves—completely out of place in this gloomy underground world. A few freckles dotted her face. Her chin was sharp, her lips pressed together slightly, as if she were sizing up a wounded wildcat.
She carried a wooden bowl. Steam rose from it.
"You've been unconscious for two days," the girl said. Her tone was flat—neither sympathetic nor impatient, just stating a fact. "Your left shoulder was dislocated. Your left cheek took seven stitches. Hank said you were lucky the branch missed your eye."
She set the bowl beside Cain's bed, took a step back, and crossed her arms.
Cain looked down at the bowl. Thin porridge. Rice grains settled at the bottom, a few wild vegetable leaves floating on the surface.
He didn't move.
The girl waited a few seconds, then raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to eat?"
Cain said nothing. He stared at her, his amber eyes blank.
"Fine." She shrugged. "Don't eat, then. This place doesn't feed the lazy, and food isn't exactly plentiful."
She reached for the bowl.
Cain's hand moved faster. He grabbed the bowl with his right hand and took a long drink. The porridge was warm, the rice half-cooked, the wild vegetables bitter. But he drank greedily, as if afraid someone would take it away.
The girl watched him drink. The corner of her mouth twitched—impossible to tell if she wanted to laugh or sigh.
"My name is Iris," she said. "Marcus told me to look after you."
Cain emptied the bowl, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and set the bowl aside.
"What's your name?" Iris asked.
"Cain."
"Just one word?"
"Just one word."
Iris looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded, as if confirming something. "All right, Cain. Finish your porridge and follow me. Marcus wants to see you."
She turned toward the door, took two steps, then stopped and spoke without looking back:
"Your sister is alive. She's in another room. Marcus isn't keeping you apart to torture you. He just knows that if she sees you like this, it'll hurt her more."
Cain's fingers tightened slightly, clenching the bedsheet.
This was the first concrete news he had heard about Lyra. Not "she's safe." Not "we found her." But "she's alive."
Those two words weighed more than anything else in the world right now.
The underground city was much larger than Cain had imagined.
Iris led him through tunnel after tunnel. Some were wide enough for five people to walk abreast. Others were so narrow he had to turn sideways. The glowing silver moss grew everywhere, bathing the entire underworld in a dim, cold light.
Cain saw many things along the way.
He saw a forge. The fire burned hot. A bare-chested man hammered a sword blank on an anvil, sparks flying, sweat rolling down his back.
He saw a storage room. Stacked with burlap sacks and wooden crates. Two women sorted dried beans and salted meat.
He saw a training ground. A dozen people sparred. The clash of steel echoed through the tunnels like unending thunder.
He saw a classroom. Several children sat around a long table. An old man pointed with a wooden stick at a map on the wall—not a map of Ashvale, not a map of Mount Skyreach, but a map of the entire continent, marked with the locations of the Twelve Pillars.
And he saw people.
Many people. Men. Women. Elders. Children. Some carried supplies. Some cleaned weapons. Some just sat against the walls, staring into empty space with hollow eyes.
They all shared one thing in common—scars.
On faces. On arms. On visible places. On invisible places. Everyone carried wounds, like the tool marks on the walls of the underground city—proof of where they had been dug out from.
"Dawnblade," Cain said quietly.
Iris didn't turn around, but her steps slowed. "Marcus told you?"
"Yes."
"Then you should know, this isn't a charity," Iris's voice hardened suddenly. "No one's forcing you to stay. You want to leave? Leave. But if you stay—"
She turned. Her emerald eyes locked onto Cain's.
"—you train. You fight. You become a blade."
Cain looked into her eyes and saw something familiar.
Hatred.
Not his kind of hatred—the revenge kind. Iris's hatred was deeper. Heavier. Colder. Like a stone that had been pressed under ice for years. You thought it was gone, but it was always there, waiting for the day it would break through.
"Your family?" Cain asked.
Iris's expression didn't change. She turned and kept walking.
"Gone."
Two words. Said with the same flat tone as "the porridge is in the bowl."
Cain didn't press. He knew what "gone" meant. In the underground city, everyone knew.
Marcus's room was at the deepest point of the underground city.
The room was small, sparsely furnished to the point of poverty: a wooden bed, a wooden table, two chairs, and on the wall, a battered old shield and a longsword with a notched blade. On the table lay several sheets of parchment covered in lines and symbols—Cain recognized some of the symbols. They matched the carvings on his father's silver coin.
Marcus sat behind the table, holding a tin cup. Water, not wine.
When he saw Cain enter, he didn't stand. He just tilted his chin toward the empty chair.
"Sit."
Cain sat. Iris didn't follow him inside. She closed the door, and her footsteps faded down the tunnel.
Marcus stared at Cain for a long time, like a man appraising a weapon.
"Your father was a good man," he finally said. "But he was also a fool."
Cain's fingers tightened slightly on his knees.
"Don't get angry yet." Marcus took a sip of water. "I call him a fool not because he stood up to the oracle. I call him a fool because he stood up with empty hands."
He set the cup down, leaned forward, and drove his gray-blue eyes into Cain's pupils like two spikes.
"Your father knew what was wrong. But he didn't know how to change it. All he could do was stand there, spine straight, and say 'no' to the gods in the sky. Then he died. Did that help? No. The gods don't change because one mortal yells at them. The gods only care about one thing—power."
He paused.
"You have your father's blood. But try not to have his brain. A brain is for thinking. Not for getting yourself killed."
Cain was silent for a long time.
Then he spoke. His voice was soft, but every word sounded like it had been chiseled from stone:
"I want to kill gods."
Marcus leaned back in his chair. A glint of light passed through his gray-blue eyes.
"Everyone who comes here says that," he said. "But most of them can't even kill a single Godservant. Do you know why?"
Cain shook his head.
"Because their hearts are full of hate," Marcus said. "Hate is fire. It can make a man burn. But it can also burn him to ash. A man driven by hate sees only his target. He can't see the traps at his feet. He charges in. And he dies. Just like your father."
He stood, walked to the wall, took down the battered old shield, and turned it over.
On the back of the shield, words were carved. The letters were worn, but Cain could still read them:
"Fight for the living."
"Those words were carved there when I was young," Marcus said. "Not for revenge. Not for killing. For the people who are still alive. Your sister is alive. Every child in this underground city is alive. You can throw your life away on revenge. But if you die, who protects them?"
He hung the shield back on the wall and turned to face Cain.
"So I want you to answer me a question. Not now. Think about it. Are you staying here to kill? Or to protect?"
Cain opened his mouth, but Marcus raised a hand to stop him.
"Don't answer now. Sleep on it. Tomorrow morning. Training ground."
When Cain returned to his small room, Iris was leaning against the wall beside the door, waiting.
"Finished?" she asked.
Cain nodded.
"Did Marcus ask you that question?" Iris said. "To kill or to protect?"
Cain looked at her.
"He asked me too," Iris said. Her emerald eyes held a weariness beyond her years. "I said 'to kill.' He said, 'Then go kill. When you're done, you'll find yourself still empty.'"
She looked down, drawing invisible patterns on the floor with her toe.
"Later, I understood what he meant. Hate doesn't die. You kill the one you hate, and the hate is still there. It finds another target. Then another. Then another... until you become the very thing you hated most."
She looked up at Cain.
"Your sister is in Room Seven. East tunnel, third intersection turn left, then fifty paces. The room number is on the door."
Cain's heartbeat quickened. He turned to go, but Iris's voice came from behind him again:
"She's asleep. Don't wake her."
Cain stopped for a moment. Then he went anyway.
He didn't go to Room Seven.
He just stood at the intersection of the tunnels, looking at the door from a distance. It was closed. The number "VII" was painted on it in white. A faint silver glow seeped through the crack beneath the door—quiet, like a curled shadow.
He stood there for a long time.
Long enough that the patrol walking the tunnels glanced at him more than once as they passed.
Then he turned and went back to his room. He lay down on the wooden plank covered with straw and stared at the ceiling, watching the water droplets fall one by one.
He didn't sleep.
He was thinking about Marcus's question.
To kill? Or to protect?
He closed his eyes. In his mind, he saw his father's back as he stood in the square—that straight spine, those outstretched arms, and that final look before he died.
There was no hatred in that look.
Only peace.