Two years turned like pages in a slow, steady book.

  The dazzling night of Nurmir’s Dawn became a warm memory, then a fond story, then finally just the marker of a season that had passed. Faizan was fourteen. The sharp lines of older childhood had begun to etch his face—high cheekbones, a defined jaw that was usually relaxed in a lazy expression. His eyes, a deep and striking blue that caught flecks of lighter silver in certain lights, were his most notable feature. His dark hair, thick and perpetually resisting order, fell across his brow. He had a lean, tensile build, all coiled potential and lazy grace, and the wooden pole in his hands felt less like a toy and more like a promise.

  The festival’s inspiration had not ignited a blaze, but a slow, stubborn coal. In the months that followed, he applied himself with a focus he'd never known. He read the primers until he could recite passages, practiced forms until his muscles ached, and dragged Ali and Fatima along with a leader’s insistence that was half enthusiasm, half obligation. For a long while, the rhythm held. They improved.

  But Faizan’s old nature was a deep current. The daily, repetitive grind of mastery—the thousandth thrust, the five-hundredth page on crystal harmonics—was a war his brilliant, lazy mind was destined to lose. His focus frayed. Mornings slipped. Books gathered dust. The disciplined cadence of their training slackened back into the comfortable, familiar rhythm of their friendship: less drill, more play; less strategy, more wandering the woods. It was a cycle of fits and starts, but across two years, the fits added up. They were better than they had been. They just didn’t push further.

  The high summer sun beat down on Firstdawn, baking the clay-tile roofs and drawing the scent of warm pine and dry earth into the air. Kamran walked the village lane, his tall frame moving with a leader's heavy purpose, a mental ledger of names and dwindling coin—copper for the market, silver for the Guild—weighing on him. His tour of the village that afternoon did nothing to ease his mind.

  He stopped at each of the five houses. Naveed sat outside, his hands with their faded blue tracery resting in his lap, able to hold a cup but not a tool. Young Yara, the village’s only female hunter, lay inside her darkened home, her breathing shallow. Halim, Rafay, Rahim. Five providers, their strength sapped by the same creeping sickness.

  Kamran spoke to each family, his voice a low, steady reassurance that rang hollow even in his own ears. The village’s share from the hunts—the portion meant for tools, for seed, for hard winters—was now funneled into keeping five extra households fed. The worry in people’s eyes was no longer just for health, but for bread.

  His path ended at Hassan’s house, where his friend sat in the shade of an overhang, running a whetstone down the blade of his axe with a slow, shhhick-shhhick rhythm. Kamran leaned against the post, the steady grey of his eyes clouded with calculation."

  “Still five,” Kamran said, leaning against the post. The words were a full report.

  “Aye,” Hassan grunted. “Yara’s fever broke, but she can’t stand without swaying.” He set the stone aside, his face grim. “Channel Burn. They say it’s a risk. You use a Siphon, you strain the channels. Maybe one in a thousand strain them to the breaking point. But five? In a village our size? In just a few years? That’s not bad luck. That’s a plague.”

  “I know,” Kamran said, the frustration a familiar stone in his gut.

  A long silence stretched, filled with the buzz of cicadas. Hassan finally sighed, looking out at the sleepy lane. “Remember the festival? Two summers back. Fatima still has one of those paper-crystal lanterns hanging in our place. Misshapen thing.”

  A faint smile touched Kamran’s lips. “Faizan tried to build one out of reed-paper for weeks. Made a terrible mess.” The memory was a brief, warm relief. Then his brow furrowed slightly. “You know… that merchant from the capital. The loud one with the big hammer.”

  Hassan’s eyes narrowed in thought. “The one we made a spectacle with? What about him?”

  “That Siphon hammer,” Kamran said, searching for the right words. “When it activated, it was… quiet. Smooth. No harsh feedback through the grip. Just a clean pull.”

  The two men looked at each other. The unspoken comparison hung in the air: their own Siphons, the ones issued by the Guild for village use, always had a rough edge to them, a vibration that bit into the palm.

  “Our tools bite,” Hassan said quietly, voicing the thought. “We thought that was just how Siphons were. The tax you pay.”

  “But if it’s not…” Kamran finished. He pushed off the post, his decision made. “I’m sending word to the Guild outpost. Not a query. A formal request from the village leader for a full inspection and potential replacement of our hunting-grade Siphons. I’m citing the Burn rate. They have to answer that. They have to at least send someone to look.”

  “Good,” Hassan nodded. Then he jerked his chin toward the lane. In the distance, Faizan, Ali, and Fatima laughed in the shade of the old well. “What about the boy? He’s in one of his lazy spells again.”

  Kamran followed his gaze. “He works hard when he’s interested. Then he gets bored.”

  “So give him something he can’t get bored of,” Hassan said, a grin spreading. “Test him. A real spar. Him and his little squad. A proper scrap. You against all three of them.”

  Kamran shot him a look. “I’m not going to beat my son black and blue to motivate him.”

  “Who said anything about beating him?” Hassan laughed. “Right now, he’s practicing against shadows. Let him feel what a real wall feels like. It’ll light a fire under him. Or it’ll show him he needs a different kind of fuel. And,” he added, a grin returning, “it’ll tire out my daughter. She’s been pestering me to practice against someone who isn’t old and slow like me.” He said it with a father’s pride.

  She’s got your spirit,” Kamran said.

  “Damn right she does. So? You in? Or are you just going to let that sharp mind of his rust from boredom?”

  Kamran considered it, watching the trio. “You think it’ll help?”

  “Won’t know until you try. Better than watching him doze in the sun.”

  ---

  That evening, after the meal, Kamran broached it. “Faizan. You and your friends have been training a long time. I’d like to see your progress. A spar. Tomorrow morning. What do you say?”

  Faizan looked up from the dust where he'd been sketching. “A spar? With you? ”

  “Yes.”

  "That’s… not a spar, Father. That’s a foregone conclusion. I’ve seen you fight." Faizan said it without bitterness, as a simple fact.

  “Then see it from the other end of the spear,” Kamran said, his voice calm. “And you won’t be alone. Your friends may join you. All three against one. A test of your unit, not just you.”

  Across the room, Ali’s head snapped up, his eyes wide behind his spectacles. Fatima, who’d been listening in, snapped her head up, a fierce, wild grin spreading across her face. Her mismatched eyes—one sapphire, one hazel—lit up with predatory gleam. “Really?!”

  “It is not a game, Fatima,” Kamran said, though a corner of his mouth twitched. “But yes.”

  Faizan looked at his friends. Ali's face said he’d been asked to wrestle a bear. Fatima's expression belonged to someone handed a festival sweet. The strategic part of his mind, the one that loved problems, woke up. Three against one was still terrible odds against Kamran Darius, but they were different odds. He saw a puzzle, not just a defeat. “Alright,” he said, the word quiet but firm. “We accept.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  ---

  They met on flat, sun-baked ground at the tree line. The morning air was already warm. Kamran stood at one end in a simple kurta and trousers, a simple, worn wooden pole in his hands. He settled into a relaxed stance, but his solid build and broad shoulders made him look like an unmovable part of the field itself. At the other end, the trio assembled.

  Faizan held his own pole, his grip steady. Fatima hefted two crude but solid wooden hatchets, her sturdy frame coiled and ready. A few strands of her emerald-green hair had escaped her braid and stuck to her temples. Her expression was one of intense concentration, her mismatched eyes narrowed on Kamran. Ali stood slightly apart, profoundly out of place. He carried no weapon. Instead, he wore his large, overfull satchel against his chest like a shield, one hand clutching the strap as if for dear life.

  Kamran blinked. “Ali? Where’s your weapon?”

  Ali patted the satchel. “I’m… prepared, sir.”

  Kamran coughed, covering a laugh. He shook his head. “Very well. The rules are simple. Disarm or make your opponent yield. Begin when you are ready.”

  He settled into a relaxed, open stance, a teacher waiting for the first move.

  Faizan took a steadying breath, and the world sharpened into the crisp clarity of a challenge. The casual slouch vanished from his posture. His deep blue eyes, usually half-lidded with disinterest, became sharp and all-consuming. He gave a sharp nod. Ali adjusted his glasses with a trembling finger, his large green eyes wide behind the lenses, scanning Kamran for any opening his books couldn't predict.

  The attack came fluid, not chaotic. Faizan moved first, a direct thrust to center mass, meant to engage. Kamran sidestepped with effortless grace—and had to immediately duck as a thick book spun end-over-end where his head had been. What in the—?

  The distraction was enough. Fatima struck—a whirl of wooden blades swiping at his legs. He parried one, dodged the other, but the rhythm shattered. Faizan’s pole came at his back; he twisted to block it, wood cracking against wood. They weren’t fighting as three separate kids. They were moving like parts of one thing, covering each other’s openings, attacking in the spaces he left. Their movements dovetailed with an eerie, unspoken precision, as if they were three parts of a single mechanism. Faizan controlled the center. Fatima harried from the flanks—a whirl of controlled fury, her emerald braid flying as she darted in and out. Ali… Ali was a tactical nuisance, books appearing from the satchel to force a flinch, block a line of sight, create a momentary distraction. Where is he even getting all those? Kamran thought, batting aside another volume with a twitch of his pole.

  He'd underestimated them. A spark of true focus ignited in Kamran’s gaze. With a grunt of effort, he planted his pole and used it to vault high, clearing a low swipe from Fatima and spinning in the air to land with a two-handed swing that cracked against both Faizan’s and Fatima’s weapons. The force, controlled but immense, sent both children stumbling back, their arms going numb.

  Another book sailed at his face. He deflected it with a flick of his wrist, sending it spinning back toward Ali, his soft face pale with alarm, who yelped and dove behind a nearby birch tree. "I didn’t even want to do this!” The voice was muffled, terrified.

  Kamran didn’t smile. He studied the two remaining. They breathed hard, but their eyes locked on him, communicating without words. The coordination—uncanny for their age. He took three deliberate steps back, giving them space. “Again,” he said, his voice a low rumble of respect.

  They came at him from opposite sides this time, a pincer move. He met them, his pole a blur of defensive arcs. The thwack of wood on wood cut sharp through the summer air. He stood as wall; they moved as water—flowing, testing, adapting. Just as he caught their new rhythm, they disengaged again.

  Kamran looked up. A shower of books rained down—not one or two, but five or six, a fluttering, distracting storm of paper and leather. He moved—not with panic, but with swift, economical motions, using his pole to bat them aside. For a crucial second, the chaotic screen filled his vision.

  That was all the opening he needed. He stopped holding back.

  He moved. One moment, five paces from Fatima. The next, inside her guard. A sharp, precise tap to each wrist—her hatchets flew, thudding to the dry grass. She gasped, shock more than pain. He'd already turning.

  Faizan met the next strike, held his ground with desperate strength—one heartbeat, two, teeth gritted—then his pole was wrenched from his grasp, spinning away into the grass. A gentle but firm shove to the chest knocked the wind from him and sent him to the ground.

  Kamran stood over his son for a moment, then turned his gaze toward the birch tree. He began walking, his steps slow and deliberate.

  To Ali, peeking out, the village leader suddenly filled the whole field—walking toward him with calm, unstoppable purpose. “Okay! Okay, you win!” Ali fumbled with his satchel, finally just shrugging it off and letting it thud to the earth. He thrust his hands into the air. “There! I’m disarmed! I surrender!”

  A rich, rolling laugh broke the tension. Hassan stepped out from the edge of the woods where he’d been observing. “By the skies, Kamran! You could’ve let them think they had a chance for a minute longer! Look, you’ve gone and bruised my daughter’s pride!”

  Fatima, who was indeed scowling fiercely as she rubbed her wrists, stomped her foot. “I am not bruised! And I’m not weak! I’ll beat you both one day, just you wait!” The proud gleam in her eye undercut her declaration as she looked at her father.

  Ali crept out from behind the tree, picking up his scattered books with a sigh. “Well… that proved that method is insufficient. I need a better system. ”

  Faizan picked himself up, retrieving his pole. He wasn’t angry or sullen. He was awestruck. He pushed the sweaty, dark hair back from his forehead, his sharp-featured face alight with a new kind of understanding, the galaxy-like depth of his eyes wide with revelation. The gap wasn’t just skill—it yawned as chasm: experience, control, and power. The speed, the economy of motion, the sheer controlled power even without a whisper of a Siphon or an Aspect. “You were playing with us at the start.” he murmured, the realization dawning.

  “I was observing,” Kamran corrected, clapping a hand on his son’s shoulder. “And what I saw was promising. The three of you… you move together. That is a rarer skill than raw strength. Remember the feeling.” He looked at each of them. “Now you know how far there is to go. The work starts now.”

  ---

  The next day, a new, quieter determination took hold. No grand declarations. Just action. Faizan rose at dawn again, but now his drills were different. He replayed the duel in his head, again and again, practicing not just forms, but the specific parry Kamran had used to disarm him. Fatima shadowed her father, not with hatchets, but mimicking the agile footwork and fluid upper-body shifts of her father's practice drill, her face a mask of imitation. Ali, sitting on the well-rim, balanced an open book on his knees while awkwardly holding a wooden sword, trying to align the stances in the diagrams with the feel of his own body.

  They trained through the morning, broke for lunch—flatbread and cheese, their silence companionable, focused. In the afternoon, Ali remembered a chore for his caretaker. Fatima scampered off to 'inspect some traps.' Faizan, muscles singing a pleasant ache, returned home. The house was quiet, cool after the summer heat outside. He moved toward his bedroom, the floorboards creaking under his boots.

  He had just pushed his door open when the front door of the house burst inward with a shocking crash.

  A voice, tight with raw panic, tore through the quiet house. “Leyla! Leyla, come quick! It’s Kamran! He’s—”

  The voice was cut off—cut by a sound that froze Faizan’s blood: the shatter of a clay plate from the kitchen, then his mother’s gasp. From where he stood frozen, the edge of her sage-green dupatta caught his sight as she spun toward the door.

  Time stopped. The pleasant ache in his muscles vanished, replaced by a void of cold. The world narrowed to the hammering of his own heart, a deaf drum in the silence that now poured from the kitchen. No words, no sobs. Just a silence more terrible than any sound.

  The thing he had feared, the ashen blue vines, it had come home.