"A secret shared is a weapon forged. Whether it is used to protect or pierce depends entirely on the hand that holds it." The Spymistress's Diary, recovered from the ruins of Kal'Thoros
The infirmary reeked of charred valerian root and wet stone, undercut by the metallic tang of old blood. Shinra sat rigid on the cotâs edge, shirtless, as the nurseâs luminescent fingers probed his ribs. Her touch left trails of searing warmth, not healing, but battlefield triage. Knitting torn flesh and mending cracked bone. Each repair felt like hot wire suturing his insides.
"Ki burn," she snapped, withdrawing her hands. The glow faded, revealing cracked knuckles and dirt-edged nails. "Youâre lucky it didnât char your meridians. Force power through untrained channels, they crisp like overcooked sinew."
Shinra flexed his palm. Pale Ki shimmered, thin as smoke, unstable as his stolen life. "How bad is it?"
"Bad." She slapped a frost-cold compress over his swollen eye. The shock stole his breath. "One week, no training. Overextend again, and your channels crisp like pigskin."
He nodded. Hollow advice. Four deaths had taught him pain was transient. Ki burns? A footnote in his book of ends.
"Rest," she ordered, turning away. "Sharp pains? Come back. Or donât. Corpses lighten my load."
Shinra said nothing. Rest was surrender.
***
Night bled into the dormitory, thick and suffocating. Rain lashed the windowpanes like thrown gravel. Shinra sat cross-legged on the floor, cycling Ki through battered pathways. Every pulse flared agony through bruised tissue and scorched meridians. His shoulder screamed where the water-mageâs jet had grazed it. He welcomed it. Pain proved this body still lived.
Jerome watched from his bunk, dagger whispering against whetstone. Steel kissed stone in a loverâs rhythm. "Planning to die before midterms? Waste of good bandages."
"Better than letting someone else do it," Shinra said, eyes still closed.
Jeromeâs chuckle was a dry rasp. "Spoken like a man whoâs met reapers."
Silence. Only steel scraping stone and rainâs relentless drum.
Then, "Youâre not like them." Jeromeâs tone was casual, but his gaze pinned Shinra like a specimen. "First-years piss themselves at Alaricâs glare. You? You move like you own the shadows here."
Shinraâs Ki stuttered. A flicker of pale light escaped. "Maybe I do."
The whetstone stilled. Absolute stillness. "Careful. Words like that get you vanished. Or dissected in the Black Archives."
"Let them try."
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Jeromeâs smile didnât touch his eyes. "I like you. But Aethelgard eats likable fools first."
Dawn bled grey light into the dining hall. It buzzed like a kicked hornetâs nest. Eyes followed Shinra, sharp, curious, hungry. He felt their stares like physical barbs.
"...new guy, Lathrinâ¦"
"...took down Team Nine barehanded."
"...heard he gutted a Slitfang in the wilds."
"...orphanage brat. Smells like gutter magic."
He grabbed stale bread, hard as shipâs biscuit. Salted fish that reeked of low tide. Watered-down juice, faintly sour. Prison rations for disposable soldiers. He carried it to the farthest corner table, back to the wall. Ate without tasting. Ash and regret.
Across the room, Liora lifted two fingers in a mocking salute. Her clique had swelled, vultures scenting a rising star. Half watched her with naked admiration. Half studied Shinra with calculating suspicion. He ignored them. Fame was a noose waiting for a neck.
Until whispers shift.
Until curiosity curdles into demand.
A shadow fell across his table. A student messenger slid a folded parchment across the scarred wood.
Triple-circle sigil pressed into black wax.
Alaricâs mark.
No name. No summons. Just two words,
COME. NOW.
Shinra pocketed the note. The fish turned to lead in his gut.
***
Alaricâs sanctum lay deep beneath the academyâs heart, a stone fist clenched around secrets. No tapestries. No carpets. Only books stacked in leaning towers, training dummies with leather peeling from wooden bones, and blunted weapons hanging on rusting hooks.
The master stood before a narrow slit window, back turned, silhouetted against bruised dawn light.
"Precision." The word struck the silence like a hammer on anvil. "Your arena match. Ugly footwork. Leaky Ki control. But your timing..." He paused. "...surgical."
"Thank you." Shinra kept his spine straight. Arlenâs body wanted to tremble. Shinraâs will held it stone-still.
"Too impressive." Alaric turned. His single eye, cold and bright as a hawkâs, fixed on Shinra. "No academy stances. Your aura bleeds power like a stuck pig. Yet..." He stepped closer, boots echoing. "...you read that water glyph like a childrenâs primer. Slipped the bruteâs guard like you knew his next breath."
Silence thickened, heavy as a shroud.
"Where," Alaric breathed, the word sharp as a dagger point, "did you learn that?"
Shinraâs jaw tightened. The scar on Arlenâs wrist burned. "Mercenaries. Taught me scraps. I practiced alone."
Alaric closed the distance. Old leather, ozone, and something dry and ancient clung to him. "Truth." He inhaled slowly. "But not the whole truth. I smell battlefield rot on you, boy. Old rot. Deep rot."
Shinra said nothing. Some truths were cancerous.
A ghost of a smile touched Alaricâs lips. "Shame youâre not my first enigma." He turned back to the storm. "Iâll watch. But I wonât interfere."
"Why?"
"This world devours men like you. Whole. Screaming. If you can bite back?" He glanced over his shoulder, eye gleaming. "I want front-row seats to the spectacle."
***
Jerome waited by the rain-lashed dorm window, a dagger spinning lazily in his hand. "Made an impression," he drawled.
"Not my intention."
"Intentions are kindling here." Jerome flicked his wrist. A scroll bound with plain twine spun through the air. Shinra caught it. "Youâre drafted."
Shinra broke the twine. Unfurled cheap parchment,
SPECIAL EVALUATION, INDEPENDENT TACTICAL TEST
LOCATION, Eastern Training Grounds
TIME, SATURDAY. Dawn.
SUPERVISOR, Knight-Captain Thalos
"Theyâre testing me," Shinra stated.
"Testing?" Jerome turned. Eyes flat. "Thalos doesnât test. He winnows. Recruits one in ten. Breaks the rest." He nodded at the scroll. "Thatâs not an evaluation slip. Itâs your tombstone draft."
***
Midnight pressed wet and heavy against the libraryâs south wall. Rain sheeted down. Jeromeâs tip echoed, Weak enchantment. Stormâs kiss. One heartbeat of vulnerability.
Lightning cracked.
The wardâs glow stuttered like a dying pulse.
Shinra slid through the gap, shadow merging with deeper shadow.
Inside, stillness choked the air. Dust lay thick as grave shroud. Shelves towered, burdened with grimoires bound in cracked dragonhide and human skin. Yellowed maps sprawled across lecterns, depicting borders erased by forgotten wars.
But Shinra wasnât here for spells.
He was here for history.
Soul anomalies.
Public archives were whitewashed tombs. Here, reality festered. Shinraâs fingers trailed over brittle case reports stained with brown blooms (blood? wine?). Autopsy sketches showed bodies twisted into impossible geometries. War diaries screamed in cramped script,
"Sgt. Vael rose after taking a spear through the heart. Cut down three men with my sword moves before collapsing. Eyes were empty..."
One name bled through the margins,
THE HOLLOWMAN
A figure who allegedly walked through battlefields and "possessed" the fallen. Appearing in one army. Then another. Always wearing a different face. Always fighting with knowledge he shouldnât have.
No one ever caught him.
Most dismissed it as myth.
Shinra wasnât so sure.
He flipped the final page. A sketch of a symbol, two intersecting spirals forming a mirrored eye.
His chest tightened.
Heâd seen that symbol once before⦠in the briefest flicker, carved into the bone of some monsters in the war before.