On his seventh day in the underground city, Cain finally saw Lyra.
It wasn't that Marcus had forbidden him from seeing her. It was that he hadn't dared to go. Every day after training, he would walk down the tunnel that led to Room Seven, stop at the intersection, and stare at the door with "VII" painted on it from a distance. The silver moss bleached the doorframe white. The light seeping through the crack beneath the door lay across the stone floor like a thin silver thread.
He stood there for a long time. Longer each day.
But he never walked over.
He didn't know what to say to Lyra. I'm sorry? I came too late? I'll avenge you? These words spun through his mind a thousand times, but every time he reached that intersection, they all jammed in his throat, unable to come out.
Until the seventh day, when Iris made the decision for him.
"How long are you going to stand at that intersection?" She had appeared behind him without him noticing, a bowl of soup in her hands. "She sees you standing there every day. Do you think she doesn't know you've come?"
Cain turned and looked at Iris. The silver moss light fell on her face, making her emerald eyes shine brighter than usual.
"You're afraid to see her because you feel you owe her," Iris said. "But the longer you stay away, the bigger the hole in her heart grows."
She pushed the bowl of soup into Cain's hands.
"Take it to her. Don't talk. Don't explain. Don't apologize. Just stand there and let her see that you're alive."
Cain stood outside Room Seven, holding the bowl of soup.
His hands were trembling—not from post-training exhaustion, but because his heart was beating at an irregular rhythm. He took a deep breath, raised his hand, and knocked.
No answer.
He waited a few seconds, then knocked three more times.
The door opened from the inside.
Lyra stood in the doorway, much thinner than he remembered. Her hair hung messily over her shoulders. Her eyes were red and swollen. Dried tear tracks still marked her cheeks. She wore a coarse linen shirt two sizes too big, and her bare feet stood on the cold stone floor.
She looked at Cain. Cain looked at her.
Neither spoke.
Then Lyra cried.
Not a wailing sob. A silent, full-body tremor of weeping. Tears poured silently from her eyes, rolled down her cheeks, and dripped onto the floor. Her lips trembled, but no sound came out—just as she had learned on the road of flight, swallowing every sound into her stomach.
Cain set the bowl of soup on the floor, stepped forward, and reached out with his right hand—his left was still strapped to his chest—and pulled Lyra into his arms.
Lyra's body was much smaller than he remembered. She was thin as a frightened cat, her shoulder bones pressing against his chest. She buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder and finally made a sound—not a sob, but a suppressed, trembling breath, like a drowning person finally grasping a branch on the riverbank.
Cain did not cry.
He held Lyra, his chin resting on the top of her head, his eyes fixed on the dying oil lamp in the corner of the room. His eyes were red at the rims, but no tears fell.
He remembered his mother's last words.
"Cain—run!"
He had run. He had survived. But his mother had not.
He closed his eyes and swallowed those words back into his stomach.
That night, Cain did not go to the training ground.
He sat by Lyra's bedside and watched her finish the now-cold bowl of soup. Lyra ate very slowly, chewing each bite for a long time, as if confirming that the food had actually entered her stomach.
"Mother is dead," Lyra said suddenly. Her voice was very soft, as if she were talking about something that had nothing to do with her.
Cain nodded.
"I saw her hit the tree," Lyra said. "Her eyes were open."
Cain said nothing. His right hand clenched into a fist on his knee, his fingernails digging into the old wounds on his palm. The newly formed scabs split open, and a thin line of blood seeped out.
"Did you cry?" Lyra asked.
Cain shook his head.
"Why not?"
Cain was silent for a long time. So long that Lyra thought he wasn't going to answer.
"Because tears are useless," he finally said. "When Father died, Mother cried. Then she died too. Tears don't help anyone."
Lyra looked at his face, at the reflection of the silver moss light in those amber eyes.
"You've changed," she said.
Cain did not deny it.
"You'll change back, right?" Lyra's voice carried a hint of pleading. "You won't stay like this forever, right?"
Cain did not answer.
He simply reached out, brushed the tangled hair from Lyra's forehead, stood up, and walked out of the room.
As the door closed behind him, he heard Lyra's voice from inside the room.
Very soft, but he heard it clearly.
"Don't become like them."
Cain stood outside the door, his back against the cold stone wall, his eyes closed.
Don't become like them.
He didn't know who Lyra meant by "them." The gods? The Godservants? Or those who had been consumed by hatred and eventually turned into monsters?
But he knew one thing—he had already begun to change.
As for what he would become, he didn't know that either.
When training entered its second week, Hank gave Cain a real sword.
Not an iron sword. A steel sword. The blade was longer than Cain's arm, its weight five times that of the wooden sword. The edge was not sharpened—Hank said Cain wasn't worthy of touching a sharpened blade until his fundamentals were solid.
"Starting today, your swing count drops to five hundred," Hank said. "But every swing must be at full power. I don't want quantity. I want quality."
Cain took the sword. He almost dropped it. The weight of the steel sword was much heavier than he had imagined. The muscles in his right arm immediately tensed, veins bulging against his skin.
"Your body is starting to build muscle," Hank said, looking at the lines just beginning to form on Cain's arm. "But it's nowhere near enough. Your opponents aren't wooden posts. They're Godservants. Those things have been corrupted by divine power. Their speed and strength far exceed mortal limits. At your current level, you can't even touch the hem of their robes."
Cain gripped the hilt, raised the sword over his head, and brought it down.
The steel blade struck the post with a dull metallic clang. The post shuddered violently. Several wood chips flew into the air.
Hank's eyes brightened slightly.
"Again."
Cain raised the sword and brought it down. Raised it. Brought it down. The weight of the steel sword turned every swing into a battle. His breathing quickly fell into chaos. Sweat dripped from his forehead and blurred his eyes. But he did not stop.
By the five hundredth swing, his arm had lost all sensation. The steel sword slipped from his grip, hit the ground, and bounced twice.
Hank walked over, picked up the sword, examined the new scratches on the blade, then looked up at Cain.
"Starting tomorrow, we add physical conditioning. Running. Rope climbing. Obstacle courses. Your body is your first weapon. You need to forge it into steel."
He paused.
"One more thing. Your sister has been assigned to the classroom. She's learning to read and do sums. Marcus says she has talent."
Cain's breath caught.
"She asked about you," Hank said. "She told me to tell you—she's waiting for you to come back for dinner."
Cain looked down at his scarred, calloused hands and said nothing.
Hank stuck the steel sword into the ground, turned, and walked away.
After a few steps, he stopped and spoke without looking back:
"Your sister is a good kid. Don't disappoint her."
Week three.
Cain's left shoulder was finally free of its sling.
Hank put him through a set of rehabilitation exercises—arm raises, shoulder rotations, fist clenches, stretches. Every movement came with tearing pain, but Cain gritted his teeth and finished them all.
"Good enough," Hank said. "Starting today, train both hands. Your left shoulder is healed, but the strength isn't there yet. Start with wooden swords. Five hundred each hand, daily. After one week, switch to steel."
When Cain gripped the wooden sword with his left hand, his entire arm trembled. Three weeks of immobilization had atrophied the muscles of his left arm. An arm that had never been strong now looked as thin as a stick of firewood.
He raised the wooden sword and brought it down.
The movement was crooked and clumsy. The force was feeble. The wooden blade left only a faint white mark on the post.
"Ugly," Hank's voice came from behind. "Again."
Cain clenched his jaw and raised the sword again.
This time he put his whole body into it. The muscles of his left arm protested. The old injury in his shoulder screamed. But the sound of the wooden blade striking the post finally changed from a "slap" to a "thud."
"Again."
Cain swung the sword over and over. His left arm gave out quickly. The sword flew from his grip twice. Each time, Hank picked it up without changing expression and shoved it back into Cain's hand.
"Your left hand is your greatest weakness," Hank said. "Everyone has weaknesses. But the difference between a weakness and a fatal flaw is that a weakness can be trained. A fatal flaw cannot. You need to train your left hand until it's as strong as your right."
Cain said nothing. He just kept swinging.
Five hundred with his right hand. Five hundred with his left.
One thousand.
When he finished, both arms felt as heavy as if they were filled with lead. He didn't have the strength to lift them. He slid down against the wooden post until he was sitting on the ground, gasping for air.
Iris walked over and handed him a waterskin.
"Drink."
Cain took the waterskin and tilted his head back for a long gulp. The water was cold, with a faint taste of rust, but it flowed down his throat like a spring stream over cracked earth.
"You did two hundred extra today," Iris said. "With your left."
Cain wiped his mouth and said nothing.
"You're insane." Iris sat down next to him, laying her bow across her knees. "Normal people stop at five hundred. You had to add another hundred."
"My left arm is too weak," Cain said.
"Another hundred tomorrow?"
"Yes."
Iris looked at him. She was silent for a few seconds, then said something that surprised Cain:
"I'll add a hundred arrows tomorrow too."
Cain turned his head and looked at her. Iris wasn't looking at him. She was looking at the distant target, the silver moss light reflecting in her emerald eyes.
"You add a hundred swings, I add a hundred arrows," she said. "I don't want to fall behind you."
Cain looked at her profile. His lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing.
He just turned back, looked at the battered wooden post in front of him, and silently counted the number of swings he would do tomorrow.
Five hundred with his right, five hundred with his left—no, six hundred with his left.
Eleven hundred.
Tomorrow was another day.
One month later, Cain was finally allowed into the armory.
The armory was next to the training ground, a stone room sealed by an iron door. Hank opened the door with a heavy iron key. The hinges screeched like they hadn't been used in a long time.
Cain walked inside. His eyes couldn't take it all in at once.
The walls were covered with weapons—longswords, short swords, curved blades, battle axes, spears, daggers, bows, maces, flails. Every weapon was polished to a shine, gleaming with cold light under the glow of the silver moss. In the corner were stacked several shields—some round, some square, some rimmed with iron, some covered in leather. Against the wall, a dozen crossbows sat on iron racks, their strings taut, ready to fire at a moment's notice.
"Choose one," Hank said. "From today, it's yours. Eat with it. Sleep with it. Train with it. You need your hand to remember its weight, your body to remember its balance."
Cain walked slowly along the wall, his gaze sweeping over each weapon. Longswords were too long. Short swords were too light. The curve of the curved blades felt wrong. Battle axes were too heavy. Spears weren't suited for close combat.
He stopped at the farthest corner.
A sword hung on the wall.
Not a longsword. Not a short sword. A single-handed sword that fell between the two. The blade was straight, double-edged, with a cross-shaped guard. Black leather cord was wrapped around the hilt. A thin fuller ran from the guard to the tip of the blade.
The sword had no decoration. No gems. No inscriptions. Only the raw texture of steel. It didn't look like a weapon. It looked like a piece of iron that had been ground into the shape of a sword—pure, cold, lethal.
Cain reached out and gripped the hilt.
In that moment, he felt as if the sword had been waiting for him.
The curve of the hilt fit perfectly against his palm. The weight was just right. The balance was exactly where it should be. He raised the sword and traced an arc through the air. The blade cut the air with a faint hum.
"Good sword," Hank's voice came from behind. "This was Marcus's blade when he was young. He killed seventeen Godservants with it. Then the blade went dull. He got a new one, but he kept this one."
Cain turned and looked at Hank.
"He said that if the right person ever came along—someone worthy of this sword—to give it to him."
Hank looked at the sword in Cain's hands. He was silent for a moment. Then he nodded.
"I guess he found his person."
Cain looked down at the face reflected in the blade.
It was a face he barely recognized anymore. One month ago, he had been a silent ten-year-old boy in Ashvale. Now, a seven-stitch scar marked his left cheek. His hands were covered in calluses and scars. And in his eyes was something he had never had before.
Not hatred.
Something colder. Heavier. Quieter.
Resolve.
He slid the sword into the leather scabbard Hank handed him and buckled it at his waist. The bottom of the scabbard tapped against his thigh with a soft thud.
"Let's go," Hank said. "Time to train."
Cain followed Hank out of the armory. The iron door closed heavily behind him.
His right hand rested on the hilt, feeling the rough texture of the leather cord.
From today, he had a weapon.