Castrum
Astralis Academy – Early Morning Hours - 3rd Quarter,
2390
Predawn
bruises the sky a sickly blue when Varian Korvin steps into the
courtyard, a tin cup of scalding black coffee burning warmth into his
frozen hands. Frost clings to the ancient stone like a shroud, and
the air carries that sterile cleanliness unique to graveyards and
places built for sanctioned violence, silent, waiting, hungry.
This
is the last quiet hour the Academy grants before it grinds another
day from its students' bones.
No
true sunlight yet, only a sullen ember glowing low on the horizon, as
though the heavens themselves are being hammered awake on some
distant anvil. Varian drinks the coffee black; sweetness is a lie no
one here bothers to tell anymore. Bitter fuel for a bitter calling.
Around
him, the eldest trainees, twenty, twenty-one, eyes already hollowed
into the flat stare of soldiers, drift through their morning rites
like ghosts. A few jog laps in silence, breath pluming white. Others
mutter doctrine under their breath, voices deadened by repetition.
Two spar with wooden blades, the clicks sharp and mechanical, a
funeral rhythm in the cold.
These
near-graduates need no barked orders, no threats. Discipline has been
carved so deep it has become their skeleton.
But
the new ones? The children dragged in raw and still clinging to hope?
They are the ones who shatter first.
Varian
allows himself the faintest twist of a smile against the rim of his
cup.
Today
the remaking begins.
He
follows the worn stone path that rings the central grounds, his
private ritual, a slow inspection of the beast's teeth before it
feeds. Lanterns flicker to life along the walls. Instructors emerge
from barracks, faces already set in the resigned masks they'll wear
until nightfall. A few nod to him; he answers with a low murmur and
keeps moving.
Halfway
along the path, a voice slices the frost.
“Korvin.
Up with the ghosts again, are you?”
Instructor
Malco Renn lumbers into step beside him, broad as a siege engine,
balancing a stack of dog-eared manuals like an afterthought. His grin
is thin, worn at the edges, one of the last scraps of warmth still
eroding in this place.
“Morning,
Renn,” Varian says. “You plannin’ on breakin’ the new year in
proper?”
“I
don’t break them,” Renn replies mildly. “I establish
expectations.”
Varian
snorts. “Your expectations do just fine on their own.”
Renn’s
mouth twitches. “I’ll grant you that.”
They
walk on, passing a cluster of final-years hunched over ration rolls
hard as tack, dissecting tactical theory with the flat pragmatism of
youths who already taste real war on the wind.
“You
get a look at the aptitude scans for this batch?” Renn asks,
lowering his voice. “Strongest cohort we’ve seen in years.
Genuine standouts. Not the sort we have to dress up with kind words.”
Varian
arches a brow. “You say that every cycle.”
“This
time I’m standin’ by it.”
Varian
exhales into the cold, watching his breath die against the spires
overhead as the first weak light bleeds across them. “Fresh
meat always smells like promise.”
“Right
up until it starts screamin’,” Renn mutters.
Varian’s
faint smirk lingers. Renn is midway through griping about the new
standardized cruelty metrics when Varian stops dead.
A
sound cuts clean through the courtyard. Not steel on steel. Not wood
on wood.
Flesh
on bone. Hard. Repeated. Merciless.
Crack.
Crack. Crack.
Renn
breaks off mid-sentence. “What in the Gods’ name is that?”
Varian
tilts his head, listening as another barrage echoes off the
frost-slick stones. He turns toward the source, boots scraping on
gravel, coffee forgotten in his grip.
At the shadowed far
end of the grounds, where the last rags of night cling stubborn to
the stone, stands one of the older hand-to-hand platforms, usually
deserted this early. Students shun it before dawn: too cold, too
isolated, too much like a forgotten grave.
But
tonight it has company.
A
small figure. A girl.
She
faces a modernized combat dummy, a hulking thing of composite
plating, whirring joints, and sensor nodes that measure every flaw
and punish every hesitation. It hisses faintly as it shifts, a caged
beast on a leash.
She
strikes again.
Crack.
Even
from across the courtyard, Varian spots the dark gleam of blood on
her knuckles.
She
does not slow.
Renn
exhales beside him, a soft cloud in the frost. “Ah.
That one.”
Varian
glances sideways. “You know her?”
They
draw closer, boots crunching on frozen gravel, breath fogging like
ghosts fleeing the light. The cold seems sharper near the platform,
as though the girl drags a private winter with her. She never glances
up. Never registers their approach. She simply fights on.
Up
close, the ruin is plain: knuckles split and swelling, skin torn raw,
thin crimson smears streaking the dummy’s impact plates. Her form
carries no grace, no academy polish, only savage necessity, the kind
hammered into those who learned young that mercy is a myth.
Varian’s
brow furrows. “She’s gonna grind her hands
down to bone,” Varian says flatly.
“She
will,” Renn agrees. “Came in before first light. Hasn’t paused
once.”
He
slips a creased file from his stack and flips it open, paper that
smells of dust and old ink.
“Lucille
Domitian,” Renn reads. “Fifteen.”
The
name lands heavy, wrong.
“…Domitian,”
Varian repeats, the name sharpening in his mouth.
“Orphan,”
Renn says, softer now.
Of
course. No lineage. No patron House. No shield against the contempt
that awaits. In the Praevectus hierarchy, orphans are the dregs,
expendable meat fed to the machine. They climb only by splintering
themselves until the Academy is forced to notice. Most simply vanish.
Renn
scans lower. “Combat aptitude’s
exceptional,” Renn continues. “Reflexes test high across the
board. Evaluators expect bladed specialization.” A pause.
“Academics are… poor. Notes say she compensates with excessive
effort.”
Varian
studies her now, unflinching. Small. Slight. Unremarkable in every
visible way, except the relentless, grinding violence of her will.
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Varian
watches her strike again. “She ain’t trainin’.”
Renn
looks at him.
“She’s
survivin’,” Varian finishes.
Lucille
drives another blow. The dummy whirs, an arm lashing out. She blocks
with her forearm, absorbing the full shock. She staggers, rights
herself, steps back in, eyes flat, face a blank mask. No triumph. No
fury. Only the dull, mechanical need of a child who knows rescue
never comes.
Renn
snaps the file shut. “She’ll cripple herself
before evaluations,” Renn says.
“No,”
Varian replies, voice low, certain. “She’ll cripple a hell of a
lot more than that.”
He
watches her bleed for a future that will likely spit on her grave.
Renn
shifts his weight. “We should move. Classes’ll start soon. New
blood’s on the way. Don’t need to be late.”
Varian
says nothing, coffee cooling untouched in his grip. He stands rigid,
gaze locked on the girl as she batters the construct in her solitary
war. Another crack. Another spinning counter. Another blow taken just
to deliver her own. Blood paints the plates like desperate script.
“She’s
ruinin’ herself,” Varian says low. “Any instructor worth the
title would shut this down.”
“True
enough,” Renn allows. “But she ain’t assigned yet. Not till the
bell rings. And…” He pauses. “Orphans like her—if you stop
’em too early, some just fold. Let ’em grind themselves raw… at
least they make it through the mornin’.”
Varian’s
jaw tightens.
Renn
lowers his voice further. “Varian. You step in now, we don’t help
her. We brand her. Turn her into somethin’ the others stare at
before she’s even stood her first line.”
That
lands. Varian knows the currency of weakness here: it buys only
contempt.
Lucille
hammers another strike, breath ragged, frame trembling, yet she
presses on, battling phantoms only she sees.
Varian’s
eyes narrow. Then, slowly, he nods. “You’re right.”
Renn
huffs, faintly amused. “Best enjoy it. Don’t come often.”
Varian
exhales, something too bitter for laughter. He steals one last,
lingering look. She remains locked in her rhythm, bleeding, solitary.
Never once lifts her head. The world could end at her back and she
would not notice.
“Let’s
go.”
Renn
turns down the path. Varian hesitates the length of a single
heartbeat, heavy, inevitable, before following. Their footsteps fade
into the stone.
Neither
speaks.
As
they round the corner, the first true blade of sunlight slices across
the grounds, gilding the spires in pale gold. But Lucille lingers in
shadow, dwarfed by the machine’s bulk, still striking, still
bleeding, still unseen.
She
never knows they watched. Never senses the moment two instructors
almost intervened.
And
something cold and sharp coils beneath Varian’s ribs, an instinct,
faint but insistent, warning that walking away from this orphan girl
at dawn will echo through years to come, louder and bloodier than he
can yet imagine.
Period
1: Advanced Hand-to-Hand Combat Training – 07:10
The
training hall buzzes with murmured voices as the eleventh-year cohort
assembles beneath harsh overhead lights that bleach everything to
bone-white. Yet Lucille slips through the glare as if the
illumination itself recoils from her, shadows clinging stubborn to
her narrow shoulders.
She
enters quiet, footsteps muffled, frame small and unassuming. Not
early enough to draw notice, not late enough to invite punishment.
Forgettable, save for the faint crimson seeping through the crude
bandages wrapped tight around her fists.
Twenty-five
students fill the space. Lucille drifts to the middle row and folds
into her seat like something collapsing under its own weight, knees
pulled high, one foot tucked beneath her, the other toe barely
grazing the floor, as though bracing against the pull of the earth
itself.
Cain
Aurellius waits beside her, chair shoved close enough to touch, a
silent bulwark against the room.
He
reaches for her hands at once, worry carving sharp lines across his
young face. “Lucy… gods above.”
He lifts her left carefully, as though it might shatter. “What
in the hell did you do to yourself?”
The
right is already bound, but blood ghosts through the gauze in pale
pink blooms.
He
frowns deeper as he sees the blood. “I told you, told you plain, to
wake me if you went out early.” A quieter edge slips in. “I
could’ve watched you. Or at least stopped you ‘fore you tore
yourself open again.”
Lucille
shrugs, a motion so slight it barely disturbs the air. “Fine,”
she rasps, voice scraped raw from silence. “Just stings.”
“Stings,”
Cain repeats, disbelief sharp. “You’re bleedin’ through two
wraps.”
She
offers nothing more. Pain is old company, reliable, private, hers.
Behind
them, chairs scrape like claws on stone.
Seraphine
Veyra leans forward, tall and razor-sharp, platinum hair catching the
light like polished steel. Flanking her: Dacien Voltur, perpetual
smirk carved deep, and Caius Verran, broad and brooding, arms folded
in slow contempt.
They
loom like carrion birds over something small and half-dead.
“Well
now,” Seraphine drawls, smooth as oil. “Looks like the stray’s
already spillin’ red. Didn’t even last till breakfast.”
Dacien
chuckles. “Cain, why waste your time? Train with folks who actually
matter.”
Caius’
voice is slower, heavier. “She’ll drag you down, Aurellius.
Nobles keep noble company. Orphans…”
A pause, deliberate.
“…crawl back where they belong.”
Lucille
stiffens, curling tighter into herself. She says nothing while Cain
binds her hand, jaw clenched hard enough to crack.
“Shut
it,” Cain growls without turning.
Seraphine
arches a perfect brow. “Touchy.”
“Playin’
hero for a Domitian,” Dacien says. “That’s just sad.”
A
shuddering breath escapes Lucille, not fear, something colder, older.
A snarl coils behind her teeth, but she keeps her eyes fixed on her
lap.
Domitian.
Orphan. Nothing.
Cain
squeezes her newly wrapped hand, gentle. “Don’t
listen to ‘em. Just noise.”
She
doesn’t reply. Kindness is brittle; it snaps under weight.
She
watches fresh blood bloom slow and patient through the gauze,
inevitable as dawn.
The
air shifts, thickens, when Instructor Manius Veyron strides in.
He
moves like contained thunder: broad, scarred knuckles, dark hair
bound severe. The room hushes at his presence. Even the vultures
straighten.
He
drops a stack of datapads with a thud. The holographic board flares
cold blue behind him.
“Morning.”
Manius’ voice settles the room like a dropped weight. “I’m
Instructor Manius Veyron. You’ll learn advanced close-quarters.
Hand-to-hand. Grappling. Controlled neutralization.”
His
gaze sweeps them, lingering a fraction on Lucille’s bandages. No
remark.
“Expect
effort. Discipline. Obedience.” A beat. “Fail any of those, and
you fail yourselves.”
Throats
tighten. Spines snap straighter.
Lucille
sits stone-still, shoulders drawn in. Cain’s chair brushes hers,
ready.
Manius
taps the board. Text etches itself in clinical white.
“This
course is practical. If you came to hide, leave.”
A
few clutch datapads tighter. Seraphine lifts her chin, eager.
Lucille
keeps her bandaged hands folded, stark against gray uniform.
“Warm-up.
Stand.”
Chairs
scrape. Bodies rise.
Lucille
follows slower, masking the flare of pain in her fingers. Cain edges
closer, quiet shield.
Manius
raises his arms. “Form One. Ready?”
“Ready,”
the class answers.
Lucille
moves. Fists cut air with grim precision despite the burn. Cain
mirrors flawless. Seraphine flows like sculpted ice. Dacien stomps.
Caius watches Lucille, waiting for fracture.
Manius
sees all.
“Again.”
“Faster.”
“Control
your stance.”
Lucille
obeys. Forces her body through agony, through the hollow ache in her
gut. For one breath, the motion steadies her. Here, at least, she
belongs.
Manius
claps, sharp as gunfire. “Enough. Pair up. Light contact.”
He
scans. “Cain. Dacien. Front.”
Cain
strides forward, easy grace. Dacien follows, bravado thinning.
They
circle. Begin.
Cain
dismantles him in moments, clean, merciless efficiency. Dacien hits
the mat hard.
Manius
nods. “Return.”
Barely
a pause.
“Lucille.
Seraphine.”
Lucille
steps forward, jaw locked. Seraphine approaches with lethal poise.
“Begin.”
Seraphine
strikes first, shoulder, ribs, textbook cruelty.
Pain
flares white-hot.
Lucille
absorbs it.
Something
inside her snaps taut, then unleashes.
She
surges, feral shadow, faster than training should allow. Seraphine
blocks once, misses the second. Lucille breaches guard, drives her
back, sends her crashing to the mat.
Hard.
Lucille
looms above, chest heaving, eyes wild, but she halts. Trembles with
the effort of restraint.
Manius
intervenes. “Good. Both of you.” He hauls Seraphine up, checks
balance, then faces Lucille. “Control is strength. Remember that.”
Lucille
nods once.
She
retreats.
Seraphine
follows moments later, jaw clenched, pride bleeding.
Dacien
snorts. “Laid out cold, Veyra.”
Caius
smirks. “Need a medic for that ego?”
Seraphine
sinks into her seat, fury simmering beneath regal mask.
Manius
clears his throat. Silence falls like a blade.
Lucille
reaches her chair. Catches Cain’s expression, soft pride, warmth
rare as mercy.
“Well
done,” he whispers. “Never doubted you.”
Praise
lands strange, heavier than blows. She manages a tiny nod.
His
smile lingers.
The
class watches her now, not with scorn. With wary respect.
Manius
cycles through pairs. Bodies thud against mats. Sweat thickens the
air.
Finally:
“Sit.”
The
room settles.
“This
is advanced training. Fundamentals are insufficient.” A pause.
“Mastery is not.”
He
gestures. “Up.”
They
rise.
“Real
combat is leverage. Displacement. Neutralization.”
He
calls, “Caius. Hold.”
Caius
grips solid. Manius shifts, weight, angle, momentum. Caius crashes
down.
“Strength
fails,” Manius says calmly. “Technique endures.”
He
demonstrates again on the girls, Seraphine first, then Lucille at the
edge, turning size against attacker.
“Pair
up.”
Lucille
faces a taller noble. The girl charges. Lucille redirects, nearly
forces a kneel, steadies her instead.
Manius
steps close. “Good. Efficiency over force.”
She
nods.
He
circles, corrects others, “Lower stance.” “Time it.” “Don’t
muscle through.” But returns to her.
“Domitian.”
She
freezes.
“Favor
the left ‘til it scabs,” Manius instructs, adjusting her elbow.
“Let your feet do the work.”
“Yes,
sir.”
He
moves on.
Lucille
exhales. Continues.
Cain
catches her eye across the mats, offers a small conspiratorial grin.
She
steadies.
The
hall fills with grunts, thuds, labored breath. Manius’ voice cuts
clean, forging them into weapons the Praevectus will wield without
remorse.
And
Lucille, quiet, bleeding, alone, pushes through every motion.
She
has no choice.
She
has nothing else.
