Chapter 12: Preparation
Armored Dragon Calendar Year 415 – Claude, Age 10
[Claude POV]
I hit a plateau.
For months, my skills had been improving steadily. Sword techniques becoming smoother, magic growing stronger, the presences inside my head growing clearer with each passing day.
Then everything stopped.
My body refused to advance beyond a certain point, no matter how hard I pushed. The techniques that had been sharpening now blunted against an invisible wall, progress that had seemed inevitable became frustratingly elusive.
"You're forcing it," Paul said after another frustrating training session. Sweat dripped from his forehead despite the cool morning air, evidence I had pushed him harder than usual. "Trying too hard to push past your limits."
"My limits aren't good enough."
He sighed, lowering his practice sword. The weapon was battered now, scored with marks from countless training sessions. We had been through dozens of practice swords over the years, each one beaten into submission by our relentless sparring.
"Claude, you're ten years old. You're already better than most adults."
"Why isn't that enough?"
Because I remember what happens when it isn't enough. Because I've seen the bodies of children I couldn't save, because the orb in the sky grows larger every day, and I still don't know if anything I'm doing will make a difference.
The words rose in my throat, demanding to be spoken. But I swallowed them back.
Paul couldn't understand. No one could understand carrying memories of failures that hadn't happened yet, knowing every moment of weakness might cost lives.
I couldn't say any of that. So I just shook my head and attacked again.
Whoosh.
My sword whistled through the air. Paul parried with the ease of a master, the exchange brutal and brief, ending with his blade at my throat and my weapon knocked aside.
"Again," I said.
"Claude—"
"Again."
The plateau was psychological. I knew that somehow, knowledge from the analytical presence stirring within. The limits weren't physical but mental barriers, artificial constraints I was creating through my own desperation.
Fear of failure creating the very failure being feared. Classic self-sabotage.
The thought came clinical and detached. Easy for buried knowledge to identify, less easy for my body to overcome.
But I kept training, kept pushing, kept searching for the breakthrough that would carry me past this wall.
"Hey! If you're not doing anything useful, at least help me with this shipment!"
My father's voice carried across the smithy yard, accompanied by the rhythmic clang of his hammer.
Clang.
Roland stood at his forge, sweat beading on his brow as he worked iron at the anvil.
"Sorry, Dad. My time is too precious for manual labor."
I waved from the doorway, already turning to leave.
"Too precious? You've been staring at the sky for the past hour!"
"I was training my mind."
"Train your mind while carrying ingots. Two birds, one stone."
I laughed despite myself. My father had never understood my obsession with preparation, but he'd long since stopped trying to change it.
We had reached an unspoken agreement: he wouldn't ask about my strange behaviors, and I wouldn't explain things that would only worry him.
"Fine. But only because you're old and feeble."
"I'm thirty-eight!"
"Like I said."
He threw a rag at my head, which I dodged with more grace than strictly necessary. The motion earned me a raised eyebrow.
"Show-off."
"Learned from the best." I grabbed a stack of ingots and carried them to the sorting area, my enhanced strength making the task trivial. "Though to be fair, you're the second-best smith in the village."
"Second? Who's first?"
"Me, obviously."
Another rag came flying. This time I caught it and threw it back.
We worked in comfortable silence for a while, the rhythm of his hammer providing a backdrop to my thoughts.
My father wasn't a complicated man. He worked iron, loved his family, and tried not to worry about things beyond his control. Sometimes I envied that simplicity.
"You're quieter than usual," he said eventually, not looking up from his work. "Something on your mind?"
"Just thinking about the future."
"Ah." He nodded as if that explained everything. In a way, it did. "You think too much, Claude. Sometimes the future takes care of itself if you let it."
"And sometimes it doesn't."
"True." He set down his hammer and looked at me directly, really looked, in that way parents do when they're trying to see something their children are hiding.
"Whatever you're carrying, son... you don't have to carry it alone."
The words hit harder than they should have. I busied myself with the ingots, not trusting my voice.
"I know, Dad."
"Do you?"
I didn't answer. How could I tell him that I was carrying memories of a disaster that would scatter our family across the world, that I was fighting to prevent deaths that hadn't happened yet?
He sighed, the sound full of a parent's frustrated love. "When you're ready to talk, I'll listen. Until then... at least have dinner with us tonight? Your mother misses seeing you."
"I'll try."
"That's all I ask."
I finished helping with the ingots and left the smithy, my father's words echoing in my head.
He couldn't understand what I was doing or why, but he was still trying to reach me, still trying to be my father despite everything I kept hidden.
It was more than I deserved.
Neither of my parents knew what I'm doing at night. They only knew that I'm training until night.
At night, I led raids. The slaver caravans had learned to avoid our territory, but that only meant they were causing suffering elsewhere.
I expanded operations, sending teams into new regions.
The latest target was a group moving through the northern passes, transporting what our informants estimated as thirty prisoners toward markets in the eastern kingdoms.
We had been tracking them for a week, waiting for the right moment to strike.
"Ready?" Charles whispered from beside me, his scarred face invisible in the darkness.
"Always."
We moved through the forest like shadows, our team of eight spreading into the positions we had rehearsed countless times. Each person knew their role, knew the signals, knew what to do if things went wrong.
The caravan made camp in a clearing that offered excellent visibility but poor defensive positioning.
A common mistake for those who relied on reputation rather than tactical awareness. The slavers had grown complacent, believing their notoriety would protect them from ambush.
They were wrong.
The combat presence guided me through the engagement with cold efficiency. My body moved without conscious thought: step here, strike there, neutralize the one reaching for a weapon.
I was among the guards before they knew we had arrived. The first died to a thrust through the back of his neck, my blade finding the gap between vertebrae with surgical precision.
The second managed to draw his sword before my return stroke opened his throat.
Third opponent: right hand, reaching for crossbow. Priority target.
A thrown knife caught the man in the shoulder, spoiling his aim.
Thunk.
I was on him before he could recover, my sword driving through his chest.
The battle lasted less than two minutes. When it was over, six slavers lay dead, the prisoners staring through the bars with confused hope.
I had stopped counting the bodies. The number didn't matter, only the people we saved, the chains we broke, the children who wouldn't grow up as property.
Sometimes after a raid, I would find myself staring at my hands. They were still the hands of a child, small and seemingly innocent, but they had taken so many lives.
The blood never seemed to wash off completely, no matter how thoroughly I cleaned them. I could still feel the stain beneath the skin, still see the faces of the men I had killed, their expressions frozen in that final moment of surprised pain.
"You're thinking too much again." Charles sat beside me on a fallen log, offering a waterskin. "The target's dead. The prisoners are free. That's all that matters."
"Is it?"
"It has to be." He took a drink himself, his scarred face catching the moonlight. "We can't afford to question what we're doing. Not while there's still work to be done."
He was right. Something analytical in me agreed, the combat presence silent but ready, waiting for the next engagement.
But part of me wondered if there would ever be a point where the work was done, where the killing could stop, where I could be something other than a weapon wearing a child's face.
I drank the water and buried my doubts.
The organization continued to grow despite my personal struggles.
Mira's intelligence network now spanned five territories, feeding us information about slaver movements weeks in advance. She had recruited dozens of informants: stable hands, serving girls, traveling merchants, people who saw things without being seen. The information they gathered let us plan with near prescience.
Tobias had trained a second combat team capable of operating independently for extended missions. The fighters he selected were chosen as much for their judgment as their skill, people who could make hard decisions without waiting for orders.
Charles managed the logistics, ensuring supplies and resources flowed where they were needed. He had developed systems for moving weapons and equipment without attracting attention, networks of caches that let our teams operate far from home.
And new members kept arriving. Former slaves who had heard whispers of an organization that fought back, adventurers who were tired of ignoring the suffering they witnessed, merchants who preferred ethical trade to collaboration with monsters.
Each new member was vetted carefully. We couldn't afford infiltrators, couldn't risk having our operations compromised by someone seeking to curry favor with the slavers. The process was thorough and sometimes harsh, but it kept us safe.
By my eleventh birthday, we numbered over fifty active members with twice that many informants and supporters.
It wasn't enough. The memories in my head whispered of thousands scattered across continents, of a disaster that would tear apart everything I had built.
But it was progress. It was hope. It was something.
"You need to visit Roa," Mike said during one of his reports. He had arrived the previous day, his merchant caravan providing cover for the delivery of supplies and intelligence. "There are contacts there who won't deal through intermediaries. And..." He hesitated. "Rudeus is still there. You should see him."
I hadn't seen Rudeus in years. Our correspondence had continued, growing more honest as time passed. He knew something was wrong with me, I knew something was wrong with him.
We never discussed it directly, but the understanding was there.
His letters had changed over the years. The early ones were complaints about Eris and noble politics.
Later ones had grown more thoughtful, more introspective. He wrote about the weight of expectations, about the fear of disappointing people who believed in him, about the strange moments when he felt like a stranger in his own skin.
I recognized those feelings, recognized the careful way he described experiences that were almost too familiar.
We were both carrying something impossible, something that separated us from the world around us. The letters were our way of acknowledging that connection without having to explain it.
"Arrange it," I said. "I'll need cover for a week's absence."
Mike nodded, already calculating the logistics. "I can have transport ready within three days. You'll travel as a merchant's apprentice, part of my caravan. It's the safest way to move through noble territory without attracting attention."
Before the trip preparations consumed me entirely, I made time for a ritual that had developed over the past two years.
"Claude's here!" Aisha announced the moment I walked through the Greyrat door, her three-year-old voice carrying enough volume to wake the dead.
"I can see that," Paul said dryly from his chair, where he'd been attempting to read.
"Big brother Claude!" Norn toddled over on unsteady legs, and I scooped her up before she could trip over her own feet.
"Hello, princess. Miss me?"
"Mm-hmm."
The letter from Rudeus had arrived that morning, and sharing it had become something of a household event.
Zenith put on tea, Lilia prepared snacks, and even Paul pretended not to be interested while obviously listening to every word.
"What does it say?" Aisha demanded, climbing onto my lap the moment I sat down. I now had a toddler on each knee, a precarious arrangement that somehow felt natural.
"Let's see..." I unfolded the letter with exaggerated ceremony.
"'Dear everyone.'"
"That's boring. Skip to the good parts!"
"Patience, princess." I cleared my throat.
"'Lady Eris has finally stopped trying to punch me during lessons. I consider this significant progress.'"
Zenith laughed. "Oh, that poor boy."
"'However, she has started throwing things instead. Yesterday it was an inkwell. My robes may never recover.'"
"That's definitely Paul's influence," Lilia murmured.
"Hey!" Paul protested.
I continued reading through the letter, pausing to explain for the girls and translate Rudeus's formal language. He wrote about the Boreas estate, about Eris's slow improvement, about Ghislaine's training sessions.
"Is Rudy coming home?" Norn asked when I finished.
"Not yet, princess. He has important work to do."
"Miss him."
"I know." I hugged her a little tighter. "He misses you too."
Aisha had grown bored halfway through and was now playing with my hair, twisting it into increasingly absurd configurations. I let her: it was a small price for these moments of normalcy.
"You should write back," Zenith suggested. "I'm sure he'd love to hear from his big brother."
"I already sent my response." I didn't mention that my letters to Rudeus contained information that would make his parents very uncomfortable: details about slaver movements, warnings about political instabilities, coded messages about the preparations we were both making.
Some things were better left private.
"Will you stay for dinner?" Lilia asked.
"Not tonight. I have preparations to make, I'm traveling to Roa in a few days."
"You're going to see Rudy?" Aisha's interest returned instantly.
"Can I come? Can I come?"
"Not this time, princess. But I'll bring you something back."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
I stayed longer than I intended, letting the warmth of the household wash over me.
Paul and Zenith discussing village matters, Lilia quietly managing everything, the girls playing at my feet and occasionally demanding attention.
This was what normal looked like. What family felt like.
The trip to Roa would serve multiple purposes: establish new connections, demonstrate the organization's reach, and perhaps, in seeing Rudeus again, I would find something I had been missing.
A reminder of why I was fighting so hard. A reminder of the people worth protecting.
The preparations took longer than expected. I spent hours reviewing maps of Roa and its surroundings, memorizing the layout of streets and the locations of key buildings.
The presences in my head offered fragmentary assistance: half-remembered images of a city I had never visited, knowledge of places that might have been real or might have been dreams.
I also had to ensure the organization could function without me. Charles would handle day-to-day operations, Mira would continue gathering intelligence, Tobias would lead any urgent missions that couldn't wait for my return.
They were capable. They didn't need me hovering over their shoulders, second-guessing every decision. But letting go of control was harder than I expected.
"You look worried," Charles observed as I reviewed the plans again. "We've managed before when you were away."
"I know. But this feels different. The orb is growing. Something is coming."
"Something is always coming." He shrugged, the gesture casual but his eyes serious. "We prepare as best we can and handle whatever arrives. That's all anyone can do."
He was right. Worrying wouldn't change anything. But the knowledge didn't stop the churning in my gut, the sense that every moment spent away from preparation was a moment wasted.
Before leaving, I stood on the hill outside the village, watching the orb one final time.
It was definitely larger now, a presence that dominated the horizon whenever clouds didn't obscure it.
The villagers had grown used to it. They called it the "heaven's eye," made up stories about gods watching over them. Children pointed at it and laughed, adults shrugged and went about their business.
They had no idea what was coming.
And I still couldn't tell them, still couldn't find the words that would make them believe without sounding insane.
"I'm trying," I whispered to the orb. "I'm doing everything I can."
The sphere didn't respond. It hung there in the sky, pulsing faintly with energies I couldn't comprehend, counting down to a moment that would change everything.
All I could do was prepare, train, build something that might survive the breaking, and hope that when the moment came, I would be strong enough to matter.
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of distant rain. I turned away from the orb and walked back toward the village, toward the caravan that would carry me to Roa.
Tomorrow, I would see Rudeus for the first time in years. Tomorrow, I would take another step toward the future I was trying to build.
Whatever that future held.
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