The fighting courtyard looks the same as it does a day ago, except the yard itself now looks like something abandoned after a divine flood. Last night’s rain has churned the soil into a sucking brown slurry that grips at Aster’s boots with malicious enthusiasm. Mud sticks to the surrounding students’ pale uniforms that are technically meant to stay “immaculate,” but no one here believes in miracles.

  Ropes hang limply between the practice rings, marking off the different spar zones where the students are supposed to keep from killing one another.

  Combat training always comes with the same hollow bravado at Galamad — the clash of weapons, the hiss of aether before an opponent tumbles against the dirt, the smug self-assurance that comes from a room full of people convinced they are destined for greatness.

  Aster has learned, in the past month, that greatness is mostly just very loud confidence combined with a trust fund. He has learned to tune it out by this point.

  The Sergeant is still missing. Advanced combat means that he and his chosen few are still elsewhere, in whatever private hell is reserved for students deemed promising enough to survive it. Which means the rest of them have been handed a substitute.

  Instructor Halvyr isn’t the Sergeant in any meaningful way. There are similarities, sure. Gruff, scarred, and built like someone whose body remembers every fight it has ever lost—but the fire is different. Where the Sergeant drives his students with constant pressure, Halvyr prefers to step back, let them collide, and watch the hierarchy sort itself out. The stronger students rise, the weaker falter, and the bullying that naturally follows seems almost encouraged, or at least tolerated, as if it is just another lesson in survival.

  Aster stands near the edge of the sparring floor, rolling the staff between his palms.

  The weapon has become second nature to him, still more symbol than tool, but the comfort it offers is real enough. He has been here for more than a month now, long enough to stop tripping over his own tethers, long enough to fake a decent burst without his ribs locking up.

  He has grown used to its weight, the pull of the tether, and the feeling of someone else’s technique burning through his vessel. He has grown used to the rhythm of training. Of surviving the syllabus, just long enough for everyone to decide they have figured him out.

  “Void-Cursed,” they still whisper, half in awe, half in disgust. He doesn’t bother correcting them. The truth is uglier, and less useful.

  Musa likes to say he is improving “in leaps and existential bounds.”

  Yani, less poetic, says he is finally “less of a liability.”

  Both are technically compliments.

  Instructor Halvyr stands in the center. His armour half-undone, his expression halfway between boredom and sadism — the perfect equilibrium for a combat instructor.

  Halvyr paces between the groups, calling names at random — pairs forming and dissolving like anxious atoms. “Farrin, Luhne. You two, ring one. Try not to break each other’s necks this time. Aster—” His eyes land on him with visible amusement. “You’ve had a month to get comfortable with your Scriptures. Now I want to see how you embarrass yourself with it.”

  He scans the remaining students.

  “Hey, Legacy-boy,” Rohan suddenly calls across the hall. His voice carries, casual but mocking. “Tell me something. Were you born with that stick up your ass, or did they implant it when they gave you your inheritance?”

  Rohan.

  The one person in the room who looks at him like he has personally kicked their dog.

  Every class, every drill, Aster catches the glare.

  Every correction the instructors give him is met with Rohan’s soft scoff or muttered insult.

  Aster tried to ignore it at first. Tried to convince himself that it is just rivalry. But the truth is harder to swallow: Rohan seems to utterly hate him.

  He doesn’t know why. He hasn’t even spoken to the guy properly. Maybe he has accidentally sat in his favourite chair. Or looked like someone’s ex. Or maybe Rohan just has that innate psychic ability to detect people who annoy him on sight.

  Aster glances sideways. Rohan is all sinew and bad attitude, a wiry frame packed into worn gauntlets that look like they have been forged from scrap and prayer. His hair is sweat-dark, his face carved with the permanent sneer of someone who has learned to laugh through hunger. Aster recognizes the type. Not a natural-born bastard, just someone life has made efficient.

  Aster sighs, weighing the energy cost of replying against the satisfaction it might bring. “You’ve been thinking about my ass for a while, huh? Starting to worry me, man.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  A ripple of laughter passes through the hall. Halvyr even chuckles before catching himself. Rohan’s face twitches.

  He steps closer, the faint shimmer of Faith gathering around his gauntlets. “You think this is a joke?”

  “I’m trying to,” Aster says. “You’re just not helping the setup.”

  The tension between them is palpable now, thick and electric. Even the laughter has quieted. Students turn to watch, the scent of conflict as familiar here as incense.

  He could ignore the jab. But then again, he has learned that silence in a place like this only makes people project louder.

  Rohan’s glare tightens, jaw shifting like he is chewing on a retort sharp enough to draw blood.

  Aster gives him a look halfway between apology and boredom. He doesn’t actually dislike the kid. He just hates how predictable these moments are. Every hierarchy needs its ritual humiliation, and every newcomer has to play one side of the script. He has been both roles before, the proud one and the punching bag, and neither has aged particularly well.

  Halvyr’s head turns toward the tension like a predator scenting amusement. “Good,” he says, smirking. “Finally, someone willing to bleed before breakfast. Aster, Rohan — ring two.”

  Aster stretches his fingers, feeling the quiet hum of his tether coiled around the bones of his forearm. The Point Burst Scripture — elegant, simple, and prone to turning one’s kneecaps inside out if you misjudge a pivot. His favorite kind of suicidal art form.

  An assistant in gray robes rushes into the yard, breath fogging. He leans close to Halvyr, whispering something that makes the instructor’s expression curdle.

  Halvyr groans audibly, like bureaucracy itself has just bitten him. “Of course. Paperwork. Don’t start without me.”

  Which, in Galamad, translates roughly to: Do exactly what you’re about to do, but pretend I didn’t see it.

  The yard murmurs as the professor leaves; tension prickles through the morning air like static before a storm.

  The script is so old it might as well be canon law: remove the authority figure, and suddenly the students find moral clarity in cruelty. He can already feel the shift in the air — the predators among them sniffing the new freedom, the audience leaning closer for blood.

  He looks at Rohan again. The kid’s posture has changed, tighter, defensive. Not toward Aster, but toward the others. Because he knows how this goes too. The ring isn’t for fighting anymore; it is for spectacle.

  Aster rubs a thumb across the cold metal of his staff, the faint hum of his tether syncing with his heartbeat. He has learned to read tension like weather, and this feels like the prelude to thunder. Somewhere in the crowd, someone snickers. Boots squelch in the mud.

  He thinks about walking off. About letting them have their little gladiator play without him. But that would be its own kind of surrender, and he has already done enough of that in his life to know it leaves a mark deeper than any bruise.

  Rohan cracks his neck, expression half a sneer, half something heavier — resentment? “What’s wrong, Legacy-boy? Don’t know how to fight without a teacher holding your hand?”

  Aster tilts his head. “No, I just prefer opponents who brush their teeth before shouting in my face.”

  The insult lands harder than intended. For a moment, he sees something flicker across Rohan’s expression — humiliation, or maybe the memory of too many similar jabs from people wearing better robes.

  Before Aster can process it, someone else steps into the ring of spectators.

  Varric.

  Golden hair, polished boots, smirk worth a small fortune in dental care. His uniform is pressed to perfection, sleeves embroidered with the stone glyphs of his Earth-typed lineage. The air around him smells faintly of petrichor — the scent of rain on dry soil, the telltale trace of an Earth cultivator’s influence.

  He leans against a practice dummy with that lazy confidence only money can buy. “Well, well. The mongrel’s barking again.” His eyes land on Rohan like he is dirt that has somehow learned to speak. “Guess the Wanderers need a reminder of their place.”

  Rohan doesn’t flinch, but the tightening of his jaw says enough.

  Varric’s attention shifts to Aster. “You’re supposed to be one of us, aren’t you? Sponsored Legacy from a bloodline that actually means something. Try not to make us look bad.”

  Aster stares. “Thanks for the pep talk, Dad.”

  Varric chuckles, ignoring the jab. He steps closer, drawing something from his belt pouch — a gleaming, brass-and-crystal contraption shaped vaguely like a spider, each joint carved with tiny runic etchings that pulse faintly with stored Faith.

  “Here,” he says, tossing it to Aster. “If you’re going to spar, at least make it entertaining. This thing will give you a little extra bite at the end. Might help even the odds.”

  Aster catches it out of instinct, the metal cool and strangely alive in his palm.

  He turns it over, unimpressed. “You hand these out often,” he asks, “or just when there’s an audience?”

  Varric’s grin widens, eyes glinting with amusement that never touches anything human. “Only when there’s a lesson to teach.”

  The line sits heavy in the air, smug, performative, a promise of something ugly wrapped in courtesy. Rohan’s fists clench. Aster says nothing, though the thought comes unbidden and bitter: lessons here usually end with someone bleeding who isn’t supposed to.

  Halvyr’s absence looms larger by the second. Rain drips from the eaves, soft and steady, adding weight to the mud and to everything unsaid. Around them, students whisper — excitement, pity, anticipation — all feeding on the inevitable.

  “And why, exactly, are you helping me?”

  “Because,” Varric says, smile sharp as a scalpel, “people need to know their boundaries. And it’ll be educational for everyone when that Wanderer finally learns his.”

  He turns to the crowd. “Don’t you think?”

  Murmurs of agreement follow, the kind that pretend to be casual but carry the unmistakable tone of cruelty dressed up as camaraderie.

  Aster looks down at the device again. The artifact’s runes pulse faintly with brownish-red light — Earth-aligned. The kind of thing used for containment or restraint. A humiliation tool, not a weapon.

  He slips it into his Dantean anyway, expression unreadable. “Sure,” he says. “Why not. Education’s important.”

  Rohan’s lip curls. “You really are one of them.”

  Aster doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. The line has already been drawn, clear, sharp, and inevitable.

  When the instructor returns, they will both pretend it is just training. A lesson in control, maybe. But as the first droplets of rain begin to patter on the grass of the sparring hall’s open arena, Aster already knows this is heading somewhere uglier.

  And for once, he isn’t sure whether he wants to stop it.

  His heartbeat steadies; the tether’s hum at his wrist matches it like a metronome. All right, he thinks. Let’s see what kind of lesson they think they’re teaching today.