The sword was no longer in my hand. I only realized that when the weight of it stopped dragging against my wrist. Someone must have taken it, or I must have dropped it without noticing. I could not remember which. My breathing rasped in my throat, uneven and raw, as if every inhale scraped against something inside me.
The body still knelt in front of me, held upright only by the chains that bound it. The head hung forward, a thin ribbon of darkened blood trailing from the wound I had struggled to make. The floor beneath us was already stained, but the wet sound of the final breath lingered in my ears. It was slow, almost reluctant, as if the corrupted riftborn refused to let go of the last piece of whatever humanity had clung to its ember.
Around me the other recruits were collapsing into themselves. One sobbed loudly, unable to control the tremor in his shoulders. Another turned away to dry heave, wiping his mouth with a shaking hand as an instructor forced him to stand. A girl sat on the cold stone floor, her knees pulled to her chest, whispering apologies to no one in particular. Some stared at their own blades as if the metal had betrayed them.
The instructors moved between us with controlled steps, their expressions unreadable. They checked stances, corrected grips, and pulled recruits upright when they faltered. Their discipline did not waver, but there was a heavy silence to their movements, as if acknowledging the invisible line we had all crossed. This was not a lesson a person walked away from unchanged.
Garrenya stepped down from the stage slowly. Her boots clicked against the stone in a steady rhythm until she stopped near me. I felt her presence before I dared look up. She said nothing at first. Her eyes traced the wound on the corrupted riftborn's chest, then the way my hands were still slightly curled as if gripping a sword that was no longer there.
She had noticed everything. The struggle. The hesitation. The jaggedness of the strike. The moment my resolve cracked and then reluctantly pieced itself back together to finish what had been demanded of me.
I felt her hand rest lightly on my shoulder. Not comforting, not congratulating, but grounding. There was weight in that touch, the kind that kept me from drifting away from myself.
"You survived your first cost," she said quietly. "Your mind will try to forget this. Do not let it. Forgetting is how corruption begins."
Her words were steady, but there was a faint, brief tension in her jaw. She had seen too many recruits fall apart after a first kill like mine. She was gauging whether she needed to intervene further, whether I was close to breaking or simply shaken.
I forced myself to stand straighter. My legs felt stiff, not from fear but from the controlled restraint I had used during the kill. My body remembered the struggle more vividly than my mind wanted to. The resistance of flesh. The strained wheeze of a dying throat. The feeling of the sword catching on bone before sliding through.
I blinked hard and steadied my breathing.
"I am fine," I lied.
Garrenya studied me for a moment. Then she nodded, not because she believed me, but because she understood that sometimes a lie was the first step toward rebuilding yourself.
"Good. Because the rest of today will be worse."
I stiffened, but I did not look away.
Behind us, another recruit finally forced his blade down. His cry echoed across the hall, sharp and desperate, followed by the wet collapse of another body. The instructors turned to him at once, correcting his stance even as he sobbed. The training continued, relentless.
Garrenya looked toward the scene, then back at me.
"This is what it means to walk against Arkael," she said. "Strength is forged the moment you decide you cannot look away."
I swallowed hard and nodded, even as the metallic scent of blood clung to the air, grounding me in a reality I could not escape.
The kill was done. But the weight of it had only just begun.
I was sent back to the dorms. The instructor's voice sounded distant when he called my name, like it had to travel through water before reaching me. I nodded numbly and stepped away from the training grounds. The other recruits who had finished their first kill drifted behind me in an uneven trail. Some clutched their swords too tightly, others hid their faces with their sleeves. No one spoke. The silence followed us like a shadow.
As I walked, I lowered my gaze to my hands. They were still dirty. Not soaked, not dripping, but streaked in a way that made the skin feel foreign. My fingers trembled when I flexed them. There was grime in the creases of my palms, smudges of dried blood at the edges of my nails. I rubbed my thumb against my index finger, trying to wipe it off, but the feeling clung stubbornly, sinking deeper, as if skin alone was not what had been stained.
The path back to the dorms felt longer than usual. Every step echoed faintly, and I kept my eyes on the ground. The stone floor had dark patches from earlier drills, but now every mark looked like a shadow of what I had done. I swallowed hard and focused on breathing, slow and steady, like Garrenya had told me. The cold air helped a little, but it could not replace the warmth that had left my body the moment I delivered the final blow.
Behind me, someone sniffled quietly. Another recruit wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, pretending it was just sweat. A boy kept stumbling, his steps uneven, as if he wanted to run but his legs refused. Even without looking back, I could feel the same weight pressing on all of us. A shared heaviness that settled into the spaces between our ribs.
The dorm building came into view, but instead of relief, a dull pressure tightened in my chest. Returning meant sitting still. And sitting still meant thinking. I was not ready for that. My hands curled again at my sides, fingers digging into my palms.
I kept walking.
When we reached the entrance, the instructor at the door looked each of us over. His eyes lingered on my hands, then on my expression, but he said nothing. He had seen this before. Maybe too many times. He stepped aside and let us enter.
Inside, the air felt warmer, almost suffocating. Beds lined inside our individual dorm room were neat, but the quiet pressed heavier here. Some recruits immediately collapsed onto their after entering their own bunkers, possibly burying their faces in the pillows. Others may sat on the edges of the balcony window, some would just stare at the floor, their swords still in their grip even though they no longer needed them.
I moved to my room and sat down slowly. My knees ached. My palms rested on my thighs, and I stared at the ceiling.
Dirty. Stained. And not just with what I could see.
A faint tremor passed through me. I exhaled shakily, lowered my head, and let the silence swallow me whole.
Is this what it feels like to kill someone?The thought clung to my mind the moment I stepped inside my room. It did not feel noble. It did not feel righteous. It was not even heroic. It was nothing like the stories where people saved the world with decisive blows.
It was unpleasant in a way that crawled beneath my skin, a heavy sickness that sat in the pit of my stomach. And beneath that sickness was something far worse. The realization that I could end up just like the men we were told to kill. Bound. Corrupted. Stripped of sanity. Waiting for a blade out of mercy.
The idea curled my stomach even tighter.
I stood in front of the small mirror mounted on the wall. My reflection stared back with wide, trembling eyes. There was no blood on my face, but the memory of the weight of the sword made my fingers twitch. My breathing grew uneven. My throat tightened. A pressure swelled behind my ribs, rising like a tide.
Then it hit all at once.
I staggered back from the mirror, turned, and hurried toward the bathroom. My steps were clumsy, driven only by instinct. I barely made it before dropping to my knees, hands gripping the cold edges of the sink tile. My breath broke into ragged gasps.
The moment I leaned forward, my stomach gave out. A harsh wave forced its way up my throat, and I threw up until my eyes blurred with tears. The sound echoed in the small bathroom, sharp and ugly. My shoulders shook as I gagged again, even after there was nothing left to expel.
I curled forward, arms wrapping around myself as if I needed to hold my body together. The cold floor pressed against my knees. My hands trembled uncontrollably.
I killed someone.Even if they said it was mercy. Even if they said he was no longer a riftborn.
A murderer is still a murderer.
The word clung to me, sinking deeper than any stain on my hands. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the weight refused to lift. The world outside the bathroom seemed impossibly far away.
All I could hear was my own shaking breath, the faint hum of the ceiling fan outside, and the quiet truth settling inside me like a stone.
I had taken a life.
And the reality of it was nothing like what I imagined.