Ravyn didn’t correct my stance anymore.

That was how I knew the training had ended long ago.

Rain slid down the length of my blade, dripping from the tip and soaking into the dirt between us. The clearing was quiet except for the wind moving through the trees and the slow, steady sound of my own breathing. Not ragged. Not strained. Controlled.

Five years ago, I couldn’t breathe like this.

Back then, my hands shook whenever I raised a sword. Not from exhaustion—but from hesitation. From the fear of what would happen if I struck first.

Ravyn stood across from me now, unmoving. His blade rested low, casual, almost careless. It was a stance meant to bait impatience.

“You’re thinking too much,” he said.

I didn’t answer.

He always said that when I hesitated. When I waited for permission. When I searched for a reason beyond instinct.

“Survival comes first,” Ravyn continued, voice calm, steady. “Morality comes after. Revenge comes last—if it comes at all.”

I tightened my grip.

That philosophy had kept me alive. It had taught me restraint. It had taught me discipline.

But it had not taught me how to live with what was taken.

I stepped forward.

Steel met steel in a sharp crack that echoed through the trees. Ravyn deflected the first strike easily, pivoting with minimal effort. His movements were efficient, clean—wasted motion had been beaten out of him decades ago.

Out of me, it had been burned out.

I pressed the attack, not with desperation, but with intent. Every strike was measured. Every angle chosen. I wasn’t swinging to overwhelm him—I was testing him.

Ravyn noticed.

His eyes sharpened, just slightly.

“Good,” he murmured, as if to himself.

He countered hard, driving me back a step. Then another. His blade glanced off my shoulder guard, the impact rattling my bones. Five years ago, that would’ve sent me sprawling.

Now, I absorbed it. Adjusted. Returned the pressure.

Rain plastered my hair to my face as we moved, blades flashing in tight arcs. The world narrowed to distance, timing, breath. I no longer thought about pain. Pain was just information now.

Ravyn moved to disarm me—an opening I had seen a hundred times before.

This time, I didn’t retreat.

I stepped inside his guard.

For a split second, I saw it—the hesitation. Not fear. Recognition.

I used the move he had forbidden.

The one he said crossed the line between survival and execution.

My blade hooked his wrist, twisted, and struck—not to kill, but close enough that the intent was unmistakable. Ravyn’s sword flew from his grasp, spinning end over end before burying itself in the mud.

Silence fell.

Ravyn didn’t move.

Neither did I.

My chest rose and fell, steady but heavy. I waited for something—relief, triumph, release.

It didn’t come.

Instead, there was a hollow stillness. The kind that had followed after Mother's death. The kind that sank into your bones and stayed.

Ravyn studied me for a long moment.

“You chose certainty over restraint,” he said at last.

“I chose an end,” I replied.

“That path leads somewhere dark.”

“I’m already there.”

He exhaled slowly, then nodded once. Not approval. Acceptance.

“You’re no longer my student,” Ravyn said. “Because a student can still turn back.”

I lowered my sword.

As the rain eased and the clouds began to thin, a pale strip of sunlight cut through the trees, illuminating the clearing in soft gold. It should have felt peaceful.

Instead, my thoughts drifted to her letter. To the words burned into my memory.

I will live within your heart, always and forever more.

I pressed a hand against my chest.

Survival had kept me breathing.

Morality had kept me human.

But neither had stopped the wound from festering.

I turned away from Ravyn, already knowing what came next.

I wasn’t training to endure anymore.

I was training to return.

_____AZRAEL SERAPHANE_____

The grand hall was quiet in the way only powerful places ever were—engineered silence, enforced order.

I stood before the central holo-pane, its pale light reflecting off the polished floor, watching formations of Seraphane warriors drill below. Perfect lines. Perfect obedience. Every movement dictated by legacy and fear.

They looked unstoppable.

They were fragile.

A data pad rested in my hand, its surface cool beneath my thumb. One swipe brought up a restricted file—archived, encrypted, buried beneath layers of authority.

MI’KAEL SERAPHANE — POTENTIAL SURVIVAL SITES

The entry shouldn’t have existed.

I stared at it longer than necessary.

Five years ago, I had watched him fall.

I remembered the sound—the snap of wood, the sudden absence where his presence had been. I remembered freezing. Remembered not screaming his name because part of me already believed it was useless.

Cowardice dressed up as acceptance.

My grandfather’s shadow stretched long across the hall, even now. His image flickered across the upper displays—old war footage, victories frozen in time. A reminder of the kind of man this Clan revered.

The kind of man who didn’t hesitate.

I exhaled slowly and tapped the screen.

Lines of data vanished one by one. Coordinates. Probabilities. Surveillance notes quietly rerouted or erased entirely. Systems adjusted to forget what they had almost remembered.

If Mi’kael was alive, this world would not find him through me.

The pad chimed softly as the final entry dissolved into nothing.

I locked the device and slid it into my coat.

Power hummed around me—access codes, command authority, the illusion of control. I had all of it now.

And yet every night, I still saw him falling.

Still felt the weight of a promise I had broken.

My grandfather’s voice echoed faintly from somewhere behind me, speaking to aides, issuing orders that would ripple outward and stain the lives of people who would never know his name.

Soon, I would have to choose.

To remain the heir he had shaped.

Or to become the brother I should have been.

I looked back at the empty screen, at the absence where Mi’kael’s name had been.

“If you’re alive,” I murmured, too quietly for anyone to hear, “then don't come back.”

Because when the reckoning came—

I would not hesitate again.