The field was quiet that morning—too quiet. A thin, ghostly mist clung to the dirt, and the cadets stood shoulder-to-shoulder, exhausted but alert, waiting for Captain Draevin’s next act of sanctioned violence.

  Draevin paced in front of them like a wolf inspecting a flock of particularly malnourished sheep. Then he stopped, turned, and grinned.

  “Cadets…” he boomed, his voice sharp enough to slice through the fog, “it’s time for ROUND FOUR of the free-for—”

  A unified groan rolled across the formation so loud it might’ve registered on seismographs. Ray nearly dropped to his knees. Rowan actually whimpered.

  Draevin held the silence, then burst out laughing. “HAHAHA—look at your faces! By the gods, you look like condemned prisoners!”

  The cadets stared at him with dead eyes.

  Draevin wiped a tear from his scarred cheek. “Relax! I’m kidding. Mostly. No free-for-all today.” Half the division collapsed in relief. The other half looked like they might faint from the sudden emotional whiplash.

  Draevin’s grin sharpened, turning cold. “Today, children, we begin the next phase of your education. The survival test.”

  The air shifted. Whispers spread like wildfire. “Already?” “My sister said this was hell—”

  “The Crucible,” Draevin announced.

  The name hit like a thrown spear. Ray felt his stomach perform a slow, heavy somersault.

  “For the next three days, you will survive in the wilderness with minimal food, minimal rest, and zero support,” Draevin said, pacing between the rows. “The Crucible will test your endurance, your instincts, and your moral courage. You will march more than fifty-thousand paces. You will face combat. You will sleep—if you’re lucky—one hour at a time. You will learn what true exhaustion feels like.”

  He stopped directly in front of Rowen, who was trying very hard not to tremble. “You will break,” Draevin said softly, dangerously. “All of you will break.”

  Ray swallowed. Oh good, misery was on the schedule.

  “But…” Draevin lifted his chin, his voice rising with a rare, genuine pride. “…if you endure… if you crawl out the other side of the Crucible alive and mostly coherent… you will earn the right to be called Junior Squires.”

  The cadets straightened. A new arc. New suffering, yes—but a tangible goal. Ray felt his pulse quicken. This was a real trial. A real step toward being something more than the boy who kept passing out in the infirmary.

  “Pack light. Drink water. Say your goodbyes to your comfortable beds.” Draevin pointed toward the rising sun. “At dawn tomorrow—we enter the Crucible.”

  Ray threw his bag onto his bunk and stared at it like it was a coffin. “…So,” he said finally, “what exactly do we pack for three days of misery?”

  Calen flopped onto his own bunk and groaned. “A will and testament.”

  Rian, carefully folding his spare uniform, remained the voice of reason. “Food, water, bandages. Draevin said to pack light because we have to carry every ounce of it over forty-five miles.”

  “Yeah,” Harel muttered, “the entire point is to watch us starve.”

  “No,” Ray corrected, pointing a finger. “The entire point is to break us spiritually.”

  Ray began stuffing items into his bag—then immediately taking them out. “Okay: bedroll, extra socks, compass, rope, flask—do we bring knives? Are we allowed knives? They didn’t say we’re not allowed knives.”

  Calen raised a brow. “Ray, why would you need a knife?”

  Ray deadpanned. “To defend myself from Rowen.”

  Rian hummed thoughtfully. “I’m not worried about Rowen. He’ll trip over his own ego before he trips over a root.”

  “True,” Calen agreed.

  Ray sighed, dropping onto the edge of his mattress. “Do you think there are actual monsters out there?”

  Harel shrugged. “Draevin said ‘combat.’ That probably means senior squires jumping us at 3:00 AM.”

  “Or illusions,” Calen added cheerfully. “Or traps. Or those horrifying log-swinging contraptions from the old knight trials.”

  Ray paled. “I don’t like how casually you said that.”

  Rian stretched, his joints cracking like dry wood. “The real challenge won’t be the fights. It’s the lack of sleep. Three days… barely any rest… the mind collapses long before the body does.”

  Silence filled the room. Then Calen pointed dramatically at Ray. “…You’re screwed.”

  “HEY!” Ray shouted.

  “He’s right,” Harel cackled. “You fall asleep during lectures on empire geography!”

  “That’s different! Professor Halden has a voice like a sedative!”

  “Point remains,” Calen said. “You’re going to be the first one to sleepwalk into a ravine.”

  Ray buried his face in his pillow, let out a muffled scream, then looked up. “We stick together? Together we survive?”

  Rian nodded. “Brothers in suffering.”

  Harel saluted. “Bonded by trauma.”

  Ray sat up, heartened. “Yeah… okay. Together. We can do this.”

  A moment of proud unity washed over them. Then, Calen added, “…Except Rowen. He can fall in the ravine.”

  Ray grinned. “Agreed.”

  Tomorrow would be hell, but at least they were marching into it together.

  The barracks were quiet. Too quiet.

  Ray lay in his bunk, staring at the wooden slats above him. His roommates were a symphony of unconsciousness: Rian was snoring like distant thunder, Calen was mumbling something about "aerodynamic ducks," and Harel was twitching like he was fighting a losing battle against an imaginary swarm of bees.

  Ray, however, was wide awake.

  Tomorrow was the start of the Crucible. Three days of pain, hunger, and exhaustion. Despite his bravado earlier, a knot in his chest refused to loosen. I should be sleeping. I need to be sleeping. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw himself sleepwalking off a cliff or being judged by a panel of disappointed ancestors.

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  He rolled over, exhaling a frustrated breath.

  Knock… knock…

  A soft tapping came from the open barracks doorway. Ray froze. Slowly, a silhouette stepped inside—a gentle, blue-green light pooling softly from her palms.

  “Ray?” a soft voice whispered. “Are you awake?”

  Ray blinked, rubbing his eyes. “…Elaine?”

  A gentle laugh answered him. She stepped closer, the faint glow of healing magic outlining her frame. “Sorry to disappoint you,” she whispered, smiling warmly. “It’s me—Celestine.”

  Ray sat up immediately, suddenly and painfully aware of his sleep-mussed hair and the fact that he was wearing his "good" undershirt with the small hole in the shoulder.

  “C-Celestine? What are you doing here at midnight?”

  “Elaine asked me to deliver something.” Her voice softened, almost apologetic. “She said I needed to give it to you tonight, before the Crucible begins.”

  Ray’s eyes widened. “Elaine? Why didn’t she… I mean, why didn’t she come herself?”

  Celestine hesitated. It was just a flicker—barely noticeable—but Ray caught the slight downturn of her lips. “She’s… busy,” Celestine said gently. “But she wanted you to have this.”

  She reached into her cloak and pulled out a small, polished orb etched with swirling silver sigils. Ray’s breath caught. The device pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat trapped in cold glass.

  “…Uh. Celestine… what is this?”

  Celestine’s smile didn’t fade, but her eyes held a complicated expression. “It's a bomb,” she said simply.

  Ray made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. “WHY IS SHE GIVING ME A BOMB?!”

  “Not just any bomb,” Celestine whispered, leaning closer so the others wouldn’t wake. “An Engramic Sigil Charge—crafted by Elaine herself.”

  Ray’s stomach plummeted. Celestine continued, her voice low and clinical: “This one has a force output stronger than Lucien’s lightning strike.”

  Ray nearly ascended to the heavens right then and there. “STRONGER THAN THAT?! The lightning he used when he tried to erase me from the census?!”

  Celestine tilted her head, thinking. “Yes. Much stronger.”

  Ray covered his face with his hands. “I’m dead. I’m a dead man.”

  “No you’re not,” Celestine said gently. “Elaine wants you to use it during the Crucible… only if absolutely necessary.”

  Ray stared at the glowing orb sitting innocently in his hands. It looked like a toy, yet felt like a mountain. “What does it… do? Precisely?”

  Celestine shook her head, the ribbon in her hair swaying. “Elaine says that it goes boom—and it takes out whatever is in front of it.”

  “…Boom as in… small boom?” Ray motioned with his fingers. “A little puff? A festive firecracker? A celebratory sparkler?”

  Celestine blinked once. “No. Boom as in BIG boom,” she said sweetly. “Whatever you throw it at… won’t be standing afterward. Or existing, really.”

  Ray’s stomach dropped into his boots. “…W-Won’t that take me out, too?”

  “Elaine said a shield will form automatically. It’s designed to protect whoever is behind the blast.”

  Ray exhaled a shaky, ragged breath of relief. “Oh thank the gods—”

  “But,” Celestine added lightly, “whoever isn’t behind you…” She tapped the bomb with one delicate finger. “…That’s a different story.”

  Ray stopped breathing entirely.

  Celestine giggled softly—a sound as gentle as ripples on a pond, completely at odds with the horrifying weapon of mass destruction she had just handed over. “She told me to tell you, um…” Celestine cleared her throat and mimicked Elaine’s refined, authoritative voice: ‘If you must blow something up, Ray, do try not to vaporize your classmates.’

  Ray choked. “Vaporize—?!”

  Celestine prompted a cheerful nod. “Yes. She was quite specific.”

  Ray held the bomb like it might explode if he breathed on it with too much carbon dioxide. “Oh gods… what has she made…?”

  “Something to help you survive, Ray Melborne.” The warmth in Celestine's voice didn't quite hide the warning beneath it. “Elaine says that you tend to attract trouble.”

  Ray’s eye twitched. “I what?”

  Celestine lifted a single finger and began counting with deadly innocence. “Well… there was the smoke explosion at the graduation… and the panic in the Great Hall… and the time you got struck in the head twice in one minute… and then the time Rowen tried to set you on fire… and—”

  “OKAY,” Ray hissed, clutching the bomb closer to his chest. “Okay, I get it! I'm a chaos magnet!”

  Celestine smiled—soft, sincere, and almost pitying. “Elaine just wants you to have something… reliable. Something that will protect you when the time comes. This is for emergencies only.”

  Ray stared at the device—small, innocuous, horrifying. “…Define ‘emergency.’”

  Celestine shrugged. “She said you’d know.”

  Which is the worst possible answer, Ray thought, groaning into his hands. Celestine gave him one last reassuring smile before slipping back out into the night.

  Ray lay back down, staring at the ceiling. His roommates were still snoring—loudly, violently, unapologetically. Meanwhile, he had a tactical nuke under his pillow. A bomb made by Elaine Avery. A bomb that could vaporize a grown man. A bomb that might go off if he had a particularly restless dream.

  Ray pulled the pillow tighter, whispering a frantic prayer to the universe: “Please don’t explode… please don’t explode… please don’t explode…”

  Sleep did not come. Paranoia did.

  But eventually, exhaustion dragged him under, clutching a silver orb like a teddy bear that could end the world.

  Morning.

  The horn blared before dawn, ripping Ray out of a dream where the bomb had grown tiny legs and was chasing him across a desert. He jolted upright, his heart hammering against his ribs.

  His roommates were in various stages of a morning-after-trauma collapse. Calen rolled out of his bunk face-first with a dull thud. Harel sat bolt upright, screaming—a tradition at this point. Rian stood silently, rising like a prophet from a long meditation, already checking his laces.

  Ray reached under his pillow. His fingers brushed the cold, silver surface of the orb.

  Still there. It hasn't gained legs. Thank every deity ever invented.

  They dressed in silence, limped out of the barracks, and joined the gathering masses of first-year knights in the training field. A thick, grey mist clung to the grass, making the world feel small and claustrophobic. Behind Captain Draevin, the forest loomed like a wall of jagged teeth.

  The Captain was already there, pacing the mound. He looked far too energetic for the hour, his grin wide, merciless, and genuinely delighted.

  “GOOD MORNING, LITTLE CHICKLINGS!”

  A low, collective groan rippled through the ranks. Draevin slammed his gauntlet against his chest, the sound echoing like a drum. “Today marks the beginning of your REAL training! The path where children are stripped of their comfort and forged into the warriors of Velvraine!”

  Ray swallowed hard.

  “And now…” Draevin raised his arm like a war herald, pointing toward the dark canopy of the trees. “THE CRUCIBLE—BEGINS!”

  A horn blasted, its note long and mournful. The squires swung open the heavy iron gates. And one hundred exhausted, terrified, half-healed first-years were shoved—quite literally—into the wilderness.

  The march began.

  The transition was instant. The manicured grass of the Academy vanished, replaced by tangled roots and thick mud that tried to swallow their boots with every step. Low-hanging branches scraped at their faces like skeletal fingers. The mist didn't dissipate; it curled around their ankles, hiding the uneven ground.

  Ray dragged himself forward, clutching the straps of his pack. His heart was pounding, not just from the exertion, but from the weight of the silver orb resting against his chest under his shirt. It felt like a second, much louder heartbeat.

  “This is fine,” Ray whispered to himself, his breath hitching. “No big deal. Just a three-day death march through a haunted forest. With a tactical nuke. Totally normal Academy experience.”

  Calen stumbled beside him, his face pale in the morning light. “No. Ray. None of this is normal. My ancestors are definitely shaking their heads right now.”

  Harel wheezed, already struggling with the weight of his gear. “I want to go home. I want a blanket. I want a very large bowl of soup.”

  Rian nodded grimly, his eyes fixed on the cadet in front of him. “Be strong. We only have to survive until sunrise… three days from now.”

  Ray’s soul briefly left his body. Three days. They marched deeper. The towering trees closed in behind them, cutting off the view of the Academy walls. The forest swallowed them whole, and the silence of the woods was broken only by the sound of rhythmic, heavy breathing and the squelch of mud.

  The Crucible had begun.