The training ground was on the highest level of the underground city.
"Highest level" wasn't entirely accurate—the entire underground city was beneath the earth, and the so-called highest level was merely the one closest to the surface. Cain later learned that the Dawnblade's stronghold had hollowed out an entire hill, divided into seven levels from top to bottom. The training ground and armory were on the top level. Below were the storage rooms, mess hall, dormitories, classrooms, medical bay, and at the very bottom, Marcus's command room and the dungeons where prisoners were held.
Cain now stood at the entrance to the training ground, his left arm still strapped across his chest, his face still bandaged. But already, a sword was in his hand.
A wooden sword.
The blade was blunt. The body was pine. It weighed less than a third of a real iron sword. But for a ten-year-old boy with a useless left arm and a right arm already trembling from exhaustion, that wooden sword felt as heavy as a bar of iron.
"Your left shoulder needs at least a month to heal." Hank stood before him, arms crossed over his chest, his rough-hewn face utterly expressionless. "That doesn't mean you get to lie around waiting. Starting today, you come here every day. Use your right hand. One thousand swings a day. Don't eat until you finish."
Hank was the Dawnblade's chief instructor. He was in his early fifties, his shoulders as broad as a door, the muscles of his arms knotted like tree roots. His left ear was half-gone. A deep knife scar ran over his right eyebrow. When he spoke, his voice sounded like it was being squeezed out from between rocks.
Cain nodded.
"Don't just nod," Hank said. "I need to hear 'Yes, Instructor.'"
"...Yes, Instructor."
Cain's voice was barely audible, but in the open space of the training ground, it still echoed back clearly.
Hank stared at him for two seconds, then turned and walked toward the center of the training ground. The space was about half the size of a soccer field, the floor packed dirt, the ceiling overhead a grid of thick wooden beams and interlaced tree roots—beyond that, soil and grass. A dozen or so people trained here. Some sparred. Some swung swords. Some shot arrows. The clash of steel, the twang of bowstrings, the sounds of panting and cursing all mixed together like a boiling pot of porridge.
Hank led Cain to the farthest corner of the training ground. There, three wooden posts stood upright, their surfaces covered with cut and slash marks.
"This is your spot," Hank said. "Starting today, you train here. First day: one thousand swings. Second day: eleven hundred. Third day: twelve hundred. Increase by one hundred every week until you reach three thousand."
Cain looked at the posts. Their surfaces were already splintered and shattered, wood chips scattered on the ground. Some cuts were so deep they nearly split the posts in half.
"What are you staring at?" Hank's voice cracked like a whip. "Begin!"
Cain gripped the wooden sword, raised it over his head, and brought it down with all his strength.
The wooden blade struck the post with a dull thud. The post didn't budge. Cain's palm went numb from the shock.
"Too light!" Hank roared. "Are you dusting furniture? Harder!"
Cain clenched his jaw, raised the sword again, and brought it down.
This time he put everything he had into it. The sword struck the post and rebounded with enough force to almost tear it from his grip. His entire right arm trembled from shoulder to fingertip. A burning pain flared in his palm—the skin had torn.
"Continue."
Cain raised the sword. Brought it down. Raised it. Brought it down. Raised it. Brought it down.
After ten swings, his breathing quickened.
After fifty, his right arm felt like it was filled with lead.
After one hundred, his palm had raised blisters, and the hilt of the wooden sword was slick with sticky blood.
After two hundred, he couldn't feel his arm anymore. It just moved mechanically—up, down, up, down—like a wind-up machine. The blisters had burst. Blood ran down the hilt, dripped onto the ground, and was absorbed by the dirt.
Hank never left. He stood behind Cain, arms crossed, silent as a stone statue.
Three hundred.
Cain's vision began to darken at the edges. Not from pain. From exhaustion. He had barely slept the night before—not because he didn't want to, but because every time he closed his eyes, he saw his father's back standing in the lightning, heard his mother's heart-rending scream. He had lain on the hard wooden plank, eyes open, counting the water droplets on the ceiling. One drop, two drops, three drops... until the silver moss began to brighten and footsteps echoed through the tunnels.
Four hundred.
His form had completely broken down. The sword came down crooked and uneven. The sound of impact changed from a solid "thud" to a wet "slap," like hitting stone with a damp towel. His lips were pale. Cold sweat covered his forehead. His breathing came in ragged gasps, like a fish thrown onto dry land.
"Stop."
Hank's voice cut through like a knife, severing Cain's mechanical rhythm.
Cain's sword froze mid-swing. His whole body went rigid. He turned his head and looked at Hank through blurred vision.
"In your condition, a thousand swings won't teach you anything," Hank said. "Go back. Continue this afternoon."
Cain opened his mouth to say "I can continue," but before the words came out, his knees buckled. He stumbled, caught himself with the wooden sword, and barely stayed upright.
Hank looked at him. His brow furrowed—the first time Cain had seen any expression other than cold indifference on the iron-faced instructor's face.
"The first day is always like this," Hank said, his voice lower than before. "Your body isn't used to it yet. It will protest. It will hurt. It will tell you 'enough.' But you need to learn to listen to another voice—not the voice of the body. The voice of will."
He took the wooden sword from Cain's hand and looked at the bloodstained hilt. Then he raised his head and fixed his gray-blue eyes on Cain.
"Your father was my friend," Hank said. "Fifteen years ago, he and I were surrounded by Godservants in Ironwood Forest. He saved my life."
Cain's pupils dilated slightly.
"He wasn't a warrior," Hank continued. "He had no training. He had never killed anyone. His hands shook when he picked up a sword. But he stood in front of me and took a blade with his own body."
Hank handed the wooden sword back to Cain.
"You are not him. You will become a warrior. But first, you must learn one thing—endurance. Endure pain. Endure exhaustion. Endure fear. When you can endure everything, you will no longer be just a man."
He turned and walked away, leaving Cain alone in front of the wooden post.
Cain looked down at his right palm. Raw and bloody. The burst blisters had exposed the tender flesh underneath—bright red, agonizing to the touch.
He used his left hand—the one still strapped to his chest, the one that shot pain through his body with every movement—to grip the hilt of the wooden sword. His right hand covered it. Two hands together.
Then he raised the sword.
Four hundred and one.
At noon, Iris found him.
Cain was still standing in front of that wooden post, swinging the sword mechanically. His movements had slowed to the pace of walking through water. Several seconds passed between each swing. The wooden sword was covered in blood—some his own, some old dried blood from the post that he had smeared onto it. His face was blank. His lips were cracked. His eyes were bloodshot.
"You're insane." Iris walked up to him and snatched the wooden sword from his hand. "Time to eat."
Cain didn't resist. His body no longer obeyed him. When the sword was taken from his grip, his right hand remained in the holding position—fingers curled, stiff as chicken claws.
Iris looked at his palm. Her brow furrowed.
"How many did you do?"
"...Four hundred fifty."
"Four hundred fifty?" Iris's voice rose. "Your hand is destroyed! Didn't Hank tell you that you don't have to finish on the first day?"
"He told me," Cain said. "But I didn't finish."
Iris stared at him for several seconds, then sighed. She pulled a clean cloth from her pocket, tore off a strip, and began to wrap his palm.
Cain stood still and let her wrap it. Iris's movements were practiced—not the practiced skill of someone who had learned first aid, but the practiced skill of someone who had done this many times. She kept her head down, her eyelashes casting a small shadow beneath her eyes, her lips pressed together slightly, her expression focused as if she were defusing a bomb.
"You've wrapped other people's hands before?" Cain asked.
"Yes," Iris said without looking up. "Many people. Everyone here has."
Cain was silent for a moment.
"How long have you trained?"
"Three years," Iris said. "I came here even younger than you. Marcus found me in the market—I was stealing food. He caught me red-handed. He didn't hit me. He didn't turn me over to the guards. He crouched down and asked me: 'Do you want to eat your fill?' I said yes. He said: 'Then come with me.'"
She tied off the cloth strip and looked up at Cain.
"Three years. I'm still alive. A lot of people I met here... are not."
She stood up and shoved the wooden sword back into Cain's hand.
"Let's go. Eat. I'll train with you this afternoon."
The mess hall was on the third level of the underground city, a hall that could seat two hundred people. Long wooden tables were arranged in rows, their surfaces covered with knife scratches and spilled soup stains. The air smelled of black bread, salted meat broth, and sweat.
When Cain followed Iris into the mess hall, dozens of eyes turned toward him.
Not hostile stares. Not friendly ones either. It was a more complex kind of look—curiosity, appraisal, wariness, and something else that defied easy description, as if to say: Newcomer. You, too, were broken by the gods?
Cain didn't avoid those gazes. He looked back at each one in turn. His amber eyes glowed like two lamps in the cold light of the silver moss.
A boy stepped out from the crowd.
He was about fifteen or sixteen, a head taller than Cain, with broad shoulders, messy black hair, and a half-smile curling the corner of his mouth. In his right hand, he held a short knife. Its sheath was set with a dark red gem—not decorative, Cain later learned. He had pulled that gem from the corpse of a Godservant.
"You're the new one?" The boy stood in front of Cain, looking down at him. "Aldric's son?"
Cain didn't answer.
"I asked you a question." The boy's smile didn't change, but his eyes went cold. "Your father's dead. Your mother's dead. Just you and your sister left. I heard your sister cried all day. You haven't shed a single tear."
Cain's fingers tightened slightly around the hilt of his wooden sword.
"Victor." Iris's voice was cold as ice. "Move."
Victor—that was the boy's name—glanced at Iris, shrugged, and stepped aside. But as Cain walked past him, he murmured:
"This place doesn't raise dead weight. If you can't cut it, get the hell out."
Cain didn't stop.
But he remembered the name.
Victor.
After the meal, Cain returned to the training ground.
He stood before the wooden post, raised his sword, and began his afternoon training.
Iris kept her word. She came to train with him—not alongside him, but at the post next to his. She used a real bow, shooting at a target fifty paces away, every arrow hitting the bullseye. Her movements were fluid—draw, nock, aim, release—as natural as breathing.
Cain watched her for a few arrows, then turned back to his post and kept swinging.
Five hundred.
Six hundred.
Seven hundred.
His palm was bleeding again. The cloth Iris had wrapped around it was already soaked through, dark red, sticking to the wound. Every swing tore at the flesh. He clenched his jaw and made no sound.
Eight hundred.
Nine hundred.
His vision began to blur. Not from tears—he couldn't cry anymore. From exhaustion. His body was screaming. Every muscle, every bone, every nerve was shouting stop. But his will said continue.
One thousand.
The wooden sword slipped from his hand and hit the ground with a dull thud.
Cain dropped to his knees. Not to pray. His knees simply could not hold his body any longer. He braced himself with both hands on the ground, gasping for breath, sweat dripping from his chin and splashing into small craters in the dirt.
A hand reached out in front of his face.
Cain looked up. Iris stood before him, her right hand extended, her emerald eyes holding an expression he couldn't read.
"One thousand," she said. "You did it."
Cain looked at her hand. He hesitated for one second. Then he took it.
Iris pulled him to his feet.
"Tomorrow it's eleven hundred," she said.
Cain nodded.
"Can you still take it?"
Cain didn't answer. He bent down, picked up the wooden sword, gripped the hilt with his raw, ruined palm, and turned to face the post.
Raised the sword.
Brought it down.
One thousand and one.
Iris stood behind him, watching his back. Her lips moved, but in the end, she said nothing.
She just picked up her bow, nocked an arrow, and aimed at the distant target.
The bowstring twanged. The arrow split the air. Bullseye.
Behind them, at the entrance to the training ground, Marcus and Hank stood side by side, silently watching the two children.
"His will is stronger than I expected," Hank said.
Marcus didn't speak. He just watched Cain swing the sword over and over, his gray-blue eyes reflecting that small, stubborn figure that refused to fall.
"Like his father," Marcus finally said, his voice very low. "But he also has something his father didn't."
"What?"
"Hate," Marcus said. "His father had no hate in him. Cain does. That's a double-edged sword. Wield it well, and it's a weapon. Wield it poorly, and it's a grave."
He turned and left the training ground, his footsteps fading into the tunnel.
Hank stayed where he was, watching a while longer. Then he, too, left.
Only Cain and Iris remained on the training ground—one swinging a sword, one shooting arrows. Neither spoke.
Only the sound of the blade cutting through the air.
Only the sound of the bowstring twanging.
Only two people whose lives had been destroyed by the gods, underground, forging themselves into weapons, one swing at a time.