Auri slammed the wooden sparring scythe into the ground with one hand, hard enough to make the impact echo across the training field.
It was such a simple motion, but it stopped me cold.
Yesterday, she had looked lazy, the way people look lazy when they are too tired to care whether anyone notices. Half-lidded eyes, loose posture, like she was drifting through the world and letting it happen to her. But now she stood there with her other hand planted on her hip, shoulders squared, chin lifted, and there was something in the way she held herself that made her look completely different. Bold, certain, like she had stepped into the role she was meant to play and had no intention of stepping out of it again.
She looked like she knew exactly what she was doing.
That was the first thing that made me nervous.
The second was the way her voice carried when she shouted my name.
"Ezekiel Veyrath!"
I stiffened.
Auri pointed the scythe at me like she was calling out a soldier in formation, not a half-confused boy who had barely figured out which way his own life was pointing. "You were a lucky miracle," she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "A fortunate accident. But now we will turn you into something useful. A weapon for humanity and the heavens."
Her eyes sharpened as she spoke, and I could feel the weight of everyone listening.
"This training may seem short," she continued, "or hard, or pointless. It may even feel impossible. That is fine. You will stay with us, and you will trust us, because we know what we are doing."
Something about the way she said that made me want to argue, even though I did not know how. Short. Hard. Pointless. Those words all sounded wrong together.
Auri turned and lifted a hand toward the others. "Introduce yourselves while I finish setting this up."
For a moment, nobody moved.
The silence lasted just long enough to get awkward.
Then a tall man stepped forward with calm, easy confidence, as if he had been waiting for the pause on purpose. His hair was black, but there was a faint blue tint to it when the light caught the edges. The first thing I noticed, though, was his eyes. They glowed orange, bright and warm and strange in a way that made them impossible to ignore. They looked cool, honestly. The kind of eyes that made you feel like they could see more than they were supposed to.
He gave me a small smile.
"If nobody else is going first," he said, "then why not me?"
He held out a hand. "Dorian."
I took it automatically, and his grip was firm but not aggressive. "I guess your name is Ezekiel Veyrath?"
"Yeah," I said.
His smile deepened just slightly, like he had confirmed something he already expected. "Of course it is."
I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could say anything else, someone cut in from the side.
A young woman stepped forward with green eyes, brown hair, and a medium build that made her look grounded, like she belonged wherever she stood. She didn't wait for the moment to belong to anyone else before claiming it.
"I'm Mara," she said brightly. "It's really nice to meet you, Zeke. I promise this training is going to go a long way."
That was comforting in theory. In practice, it made me even more uneasy, because the people who said things like that usually knew exactly how much pain was coming next.
Then another stepped in.
"Tess."
Her hair was a soft sapling green, and her eyes were gold, almost too bright to be real. She had this curious energy about her, like she wanted to touch the world just to see what it would do. Before I could even properly brace myself, she was already looking over my face with open interest.
"Hm," she murmured, leaning closer. "You've got a scar here. And this one." Her fingers came up before I could stop her, lightly touching my cheek.
I flinched immediately.
It wasn't because she was hurting me. It was just that I didn't like being touched out of nowhere, especially not by someone I had just met. My body reacted before I had time to think about whether I should be embarrassed about that.
Tess blinked, then looked almost apologetic. "Oh—sorry."
"It's fine," I muttered, which was not really true, but felt easier than explaining myself.
Her gaze softened. "I heard you don't remember how you got them?"
I hesitated, then shook my head.
"That's sad," she said quietly, and there was no mockery in it at all. Just honest sympathy. "I'm sorry."
I didn't really know what to say to that, so I just nodded.
Then, finally, the last of them made themselves obvious.
Dorian's expression shifted as he glanced around. "Wait," he said. "There's one more."
I followed his eyes and saw her.
She was sitting on a giant rock off to the side, short red hair brushing her neck, and fiery red eyes fixed on the field like she was already irritated by it. A yellow spear of lightning rested beside her as if it were an extension of her own body. She looked the toughest of all of them, except maybe Auri, and even then, I wasn't entirely sure. There was something sharp in the way she sat, like she didn't bother pretending she was comfortable around anyone. Like everyone else had to earn the right to exist in her space.
Dorian called out to her. "You haven't introduced yourself yet, Rina."
That name hit me weirdly.
Rina.
It sounded familiar in a strange way. like an echo I couldn't quite place. The feeling made my thoughts stall for a second, and I frowned before I could stop myself.
But before I could make sense of it, Rina stood and began walking toward us.
She was short. Smaller than I expected. But she had the kind of presence that made height feel irrelevant. She looked fierce and fearless despite her feminine features, and when she spoke, it was with the voice of someone who had no patience for weakness, excuses, or delays.
"Listen up," she said sharply. "I don't wait for weaklings. If you want to keep up, then keep up. If you want to complain, keep it to a minimum. And if you want to fall behind, then do it somewhere else."
Her tone made it sound like she was trying to bark discipline into the world itself.
For a second, nobody said anything.
Then one of the others let out the tiniest snort.
Another quickly covered their mouth, but it was too late.
A couple of them were trying not to laugh, and the attempt only made it more obvious that they were amused by how serious Rina was being. She noticed. Of course, she noticed. I saw the expression on her face shift from fierce to offended in a way that was almost funny enough to make me forget how nervous I was.
She looked down for half a second, clearly irritated that nobody was taking her dramatic warning as seriously as she wanted them to. Honestly, though, if all of humanity was resting on one person's shoulders, being strict made sense. Softness was nice for people who had time to waste. We clearly did not.
The others started talking among themselves after that, half joking and half messing around like this was some ordinary gathering and not the beginning of a brutal attempt to turn me into something that could survive hell. They were laughing about some earlier incident I did not understand, and even though I wasn't part of the joke, the easy way they bounced off each other made the whole scene feel weirdly human.
It also made me feel painfully out of place.
I kept standing there with my hands at my sides, wondering when exactly I was supposed to become one of them, or if that was even possible. I knew I needed training. I knew I had to get stronger. But this whole thing felt like walking onto a stage where everyone else already knew their lines, and I had only just realized I was expected to perform.
Auri returned before my thoughts could spiral any further.
She clapped once, sharply, pulling everyone's attention back to her. "Good," she said, "if everyone gets along, that will make this easier."
I looked at her, then at the others, then back at her. "How long is this training supposed to take?"
Auri didn't even hesitate. "Three days."
I stared at her.
"Three days?" I repeated because my brain seemed to refuse the information the first time.
"If you don't break," she said. Then you will be tested on the fifth."
I just looked at her.
That was so short it felt insulting.
"That's not enough time," I said, unable to keep the frustration out of my voice. "I won't even be able to learn anything considerable in three days. That's not even enough time to learn what a cup looks like."
Mara laughed under her breath, and Dorian's mouth twitched.
Auri, however, remained perfectly calm. "Time is tight."
"That's not the same thing as enough," I said.
"No," she replied, "but it is what we have."
Her expression sharpened. "Every day, men, women, and children are dying and going to hell for no reason. Every day, demons slaughter humans, and humans keep using the wrong methods to train. We do not have the luxury of dragging this out because it feels more comfortable."
I wanted to argue again, but there was a kind of hard truth in her voice that shut me up for half a second. She wasn't saying this because she wanted to be cruel. She was saying it because she believed it. Maybe because she had already seen too much death to afford patience.
Auri folded her arms. "You do not need to worry. You will learn a great deal in these three days."
I didn't fully trust that, but I also didn't have the confidence to reject her outright. So I gave her a slow nod.
"Fine," I said. "I'll trust you."
That seemed to satisfy her.
Without wasting any more time, she led us to the first course.
It stretched out ahead of me like a maze built by someone who hated mercy. Wooden obstacles. Walls. Platforms. Tunnels. Rope swings. Narrow gaps between planks and beams. There was no clear sightline through the entire thing. I couldn't see the end from where I stood, which made the whole course feel less like a training exercise and more like a promise that I was going to get lost somewhere inside it.
Auri pointed at it. "Stretch and warm up. Then we'll see how well you can move through your environment and surroundings."
I glanced sideways at the course and back at her. "This is the first test?"
"This is the first test," she said.
So I stretched.
I did it skeptically, because there was no way to look dignified while standing in front of a course that seemed designed to humiliate you. Still, I loosened my shoulders, rolled my neck, bent my knees, and tried to get my body to stop feeling like a pile of tension and bad decisions.
When I was ready, I stepped to the starting line.
"I'm ready," I said.
I was already tense at the starting line when Auri lifted something
My eyes locked onto it immediately.
It looked exactly like a gun.
Perhaps it was a gun.
Abruptly, she pointed it right at me with the same casual confidence she had used for everything else, and my entire body reacted before my brain had time to catch up. My stomach dropped. My brain screamed real gun, my muscles locked for half a second, and then I practically yelped and threw myself sideways in the most undignified stumble imaginable.
I hit the ground hard, rolled once, and nearly scrambled behind the nearest obstacle like my life depended on it.
Auri stared at me for one silent second.
Then she burst out laughing.
Not a polite little laugh, either. Full-on laughing, shoulders shaking, one hand braced on her knee, as if she had just watched the funniest thing in the world. Soon enough, everyone else followed through with laughter.
I blinked up at her, still on the ground. "What is wrong with you?"
She wiped at one eye, still grinning. "Zeke, it's not a real gun."
I stared at the thing in her hand. "Then why are you pointing it at me like that?"
"Because it makes the start more dramatic."
"That is insane."
That only made her laugh harder.
I just lay there for a second, staring at her like she had completely lost her mind, which honestly felt like a very reasonable conclusion. She was way too calm about nearly giving me a heart attack.
I slowly got back up, brushing dirt off my clothes with a glare. "You're crazy."
Auri smiled like that was a compliment. "Maybe. Ready to run?"
Auri lifted and then pointed it toward the air. "On your marks," she said, her voice taking on a smug, almost theatrical edge, "ready, set—"
Bang.
The shot was fired, and I was off.
The first part was easy.
I took off quickly, and for a while the course felt almost generous. I moved over wooden logs, ducked through gaps in walls, swung across ropes, and slipped through openings that looked smaller than they really were. It was fast, but manageable. My body adapted quicker than I expected. My hands found holds before I consciously chose them. My feet landed where I needed them to. I was breathing hard, but not yet struggling.
Then the environment changed.
At first, it was subtle.
The grass got taller. The air got warmer. Trees appeared around me where they hadn't been before. The openness of the starting section slowly vanished behind layers of foliage, and the course began to feel less like a man-made obstacle track and more like something half swallowed by nature.
I kept moving anyway.
The humidity hit next. My skin grew slick with sweat. The air thickened. Every breath started to feel a little heavier, like I was breathing through a damp cloth. The ground under my feet began to soften, and I looked down long enough to realize that what I had thought was dirt was actually dark, wet earth.
Then the swamp hit me.
Water climbed to my knees.
Grass rose around my thighs.
Suddenly, every step demanded twice the effort, and every movement became slower, heavier, more exhausting. The course itself was not just obstacles anymore. It was resistance. The swamp pulled at my legs and made the world feel like it was actively trying to keep me from progressing.
I gritted my teeth and kept going.
Somewhere along the line, the obstacles began to move.
That was when things got ugly.
A wooden platform shifted unexpectedly under my weight. A swinging beam hit my side and nearly knocked me off balance. A hidden log rolled underfoot and forced me to recover with a hard, awkward twist that strained my muscles. I was still moving fast, but my speed was no longer graceful. It was survival. I could feel fatigue building in my limbs, every step a little heavier than the last.
I pushed anyway.
I could not afford to stop.
I had no clear idea how far I had gone when I realized I had crossed into the section that felt impossible. The swamp had deepened. The grass was thicker. The obstacles were tighter. The trees crowded in more closely. Sweat dripped down my face and into my eyes. My lungs burned. My legs were starting to shake.
Still, I kept going.
I told myself not to think about distance. Not to think about time. Not to think about how stupid it would be to fail this early.
Then, roughly eighty percent of the way through, it happened.
I reached what looked like a narrow wooden bridge over a stretch of mud, and for half a second, I thought I had found a path that would let me push through the last section quickly. That was my mistake.
The boards shifted.
Not by a little. Enough to throw me off balance completely.
I tried to correct, but from the side of the course a hidden obstacle snapped outward—some kind of swinging timber arm or weighted beam designed to strike anything moving too quickly—and slammed into my shoulder with enough force to send my feet out from under me.
I hit the ground hard.
Mud. Water. Leaves. My breath exploded out of me in a ragged gasp as I skidded and collapsed, one arm buried in the muck. The impact ripped the rest of my momentum away, and when I tried to get up, my body simply refused. I was too tired, too soaked, too frustrated, too stunned by the sudden hit.
I had failed.
The realization settled over me like a wet cloth.
When the others found me, I was panting so hard I could barely see straight. I had managed to crawl or stagger far enough to lean against a tree, where I sat on the ground with my back half slumped against the trunk like I had been dropped there. My chest rose and fell in ugly, uneven breaths. I felt embarrassed before I even heard their voices.
Auri studied me, then glanced at whatever transparent glowing clipboard she had produced out of nowhere. She tapped it a few times with a pen and then looked at me with an expression that was almost approving.
"Eighty percent progress," she said. "One mile distance. One hour, thirteen minutes, and twenty-eight seconds."
She paused, then nodded once. "Not bad."
I blinked at her, still trying to drag air into my lungs.
Rina folded her arms and looked down at me with a sharp, appraising stare. "I thought at the rate he was going," she muttered, "he would have completed the entire thing."
Auri glanced up from the glowing clipboard and wrote something down. She pressed the pen to her chin for a moment, looking upward as if she were thinking through a calculation only she could see. "Indeed," she said slowly. "He might have completed it if it weren't for that final obstacle."
She looked back at me. "Still, he scored higher than all of you guys."
That earned a couple of surprised looks from the others.
Auri finished writing, then snapped the board closed. "Take him."
One of the angels stepped forward and helped lift me, and I was too exhausted to protest. My legs felt weak and useless, and by the time they carried me out of the obstacle course, I was already half convinced I might collapse again before we even reached the next area.
When we arrived, I was still breathing hard, still dripping sweat and swamp water, still trying to figure out whether I should be proud of myself or offended by the entire experience.
Then Rina stepped up beside me and squirted me in the face with a bottle of cold water.
I jerked upright. "What was that for?"
She looked completely unbothered. "Because you look like you're about to pass out."
Auri nodded as if that explained everything. "We don't have much time to shape you."
I wiped water off my face and glared at both of them, still panting. My heart was still hammering from the course, from the surprise, from the humiliation of failing right when I had thought I might actually make it.
I didn't say it out loud, but the truth sat heavy in my chest anyway.
Whatever happened next, they were not going to make this easy.
And somehow, that made me think they might actually be serious.