Stone and Breath

The road to Andora stretched like a scar across the landscape, carved by centuries of hooves and wheels and the weight of purpose. Kyran sat in the wagon's back, knees drawn up, watching the world change around him with eyes that had learned to see differently. The burned grasslands gave way to rolling hills, then to pine forests that climbed toward distant peaks. The air grew thinner, cleaner, carrying scents of snow and stone instead of ash.

Five days they had traveled, and with each mile, something in his chest had loosened. Not healed—that would take longer, if it ever came at all. But settled, like silt in still water after a storm.

He slept without dreams now. Ate when food was offered. Spoke when spoken to, though his words came carefully, measured like coins spent in a market where the price of everything was uncertain.

The child he had carried from Feldrin's ruins rode in the second wagon with Mira and the other survivors. Sometimes their eyes met across the small distance between the carts, and she would offer him a shy smile that he found himself returning. She was healing too, in the way children do—not forgetting, but learning to carry memory without letting it crush her small shoulders.

On the morning of the sixth day, Andora rose before them like a promise carved in stone.

The city climbed the mountainside in terraces, each level connected by broad stairs and winding roads. The walls were not built so much as grown from the living rock, weathered gray and black, marked with the scars of old wars and older weather. Towers pierced the sky at irregular intervals, their peaks lost in low-hanging clouds. Banners snapped in the mountain wind—azure and silver, the colors of house and kingdom, but also smaller pennants in colors Kyran didn't recognize.

"The Academy banners," Calen said, following his gaze. "Each master house has its own mark. You'll learn them in time."

They passed through the Merchant's Gate without ceremony, though the guards nodded to Calen with the respect due a knight of proven service. The streets beyond were narrow and steep, lined with shops and houses that seemed to lean against each other for support. The air smelled of bread and leather, horse sweat and the particular metallic tang of a city where weapons were made and sharpened daily.

People moved with purpose here. Kyran saw soldiers in mail and leather, merchants with calculating eyes, craftsmen whose hands bore the calluses of skilled labor. But also others—young men and women in simple gray robes, walking with a particular way of carrying themselves that spoke of training, of disciplines learned through repetition and pain.

Academy students. Like he would be, if they would have him.

The Academy itself occupied the highest terrace of the city, its buildings carved directly from the mountain's face. The main structure, the Monolith Hall, was ancient beyond measure—older than the kingdom, older perhaps than the first men who had looked up at these peaks and decided to make them home. Its walls were smooth black stone, unmarked by decoration, speaking of power that needed no ornamentation to be understood.

They passed through iron gates into a courtyard where other wagons stood, other arrivals from distant places. Kyran saw children younger than himself, and young adults who moved with the confidence of those who had already begun their training elsewhere. All of them wore the same expression—nervous anticipation mixed with the particular kind of homesickness that comes from standing at the threshold of a new life.

Calen helped him down from the wagon, then collected a small bundle that contained everything Kyran owned in the world: spare clothes, his father's whetstone, his mother's bone needle, and the rune-carved dagger that had not left his side since the night Feldrin burned. Simple things, but weighted with memory.

"Come," Calen said. "Let's see if they'll have you."

The testing chamber was smaller than Kyran had expected—a circular room with walls of polished stone and a floor of white marble marked with subtle patterns that seemed to shift when he wasn't looking directly at them. Weapons hung in racks along the walls, not ornate but clearly well-made. The air hummed with something he couldn't name, like the moment before lightning strikes.

The testing master was a woman of middle years, her hair silver-streaked, her hands marked with old scars. She wore the gray robes of the Academy, but hers were edged with gold thread that caught the light from the crystal lamps overhead.

"Master Koreth," Calen said with a slight bow. "I bring a candidate for admission."

She studied Kyran with eyes that seemed to see through skin and bone to whatever lay beneath. "Late in the season for new students. Most begin their training at the summer solstice."

"Exceptional circumstances," Calen replied. "His village was destroyed. His parents were killed defending it. He has nowhere else to go, and talent that should not be wasted."

Master Koreth's expression softened slightly. "I see. And what makes you think he has this talent?"

"Show her," Calen said quietly to Kyran. "Not the dagger. Take one of theirs."

Kyran moved to the weapon rack, his bare feet silent on the marble. The swords varied in length and weight, but all were practice blades—unsharpened, but balanced as true weapons should be. His hand hovered over them, waiting for something that felt right.

One called to him. Not with words or visions, but with a simple sense of recognition. A straight sword, neither too heavy nor too light, its hilt wrapped in worn leather. He lifted it from its cradle.

The blade felt familiar in his grip, as if his hands remembered holding it though he had never seen it before.

"Stand in the center," Master Koreth instructed. "Show me first position."

Kyran moved to the circle's heart, feet finding their placement without conscious thought. The sword rose, perfectly balanced, its point aligned with an invisible target. His breathing slowed, deepened, falling into the rhythm his father had taught him.

"Now move through the seven cuts. Slowly. Let me see your form."

He began. High cut, angled cut, rising cut—each movement flowing into the next with a precision that surprised him. His body remembered lessons his mind had nearly forgotten, muscle memory preserved like words in amber. The blade sang softly through the air, not with magic but with simple rightness.

But it was more than just technique. As he moved, the patterns on the floor seemed to respond, the subtle designs shifting and flowing like water around his feet. The air itself grew still, as if the room was holding its breath.

When he finished the sequence and returned to guard position, Master Koreth was watching him with new interest.

"Where did you learn that variant?" she asked.

"My father taught me. But he said it came from the old ways."

"Indeed it did." She circled him slowly, like a hawk studying prey. "Your form is rough, but the foundation is sound. More importantly..." She paused, studying the patterns on the floor that were slowly returning to their original state. "You have resonance. Raw, untrained, but unmistakable."

She turned to Calen. "The tuition is substantial. Fifty gold crescents per season, plus materials and board."

Calen reached into his pouch without hesitation, counting out coins that gleamed in the crystal light. "For the full year."

"That's not necessary—"

"It is." Calen handed her the purse. "The boy has lost enough. He shouldn't worry about payment while he's learning."

Master Koreth weighed the coins, then nodded. "Very well. He'll be housed in the Second Dormitory with the other mid-year admissions. Classes begin at dawn bell."

She looked at Kyran again, her expression unreadable. "You carry grief, boy. That's clear enough. But grief can be a teacher, if you let it. Here, you'll learn to forge it into something useful."

That evening, Calen found Kyran in the dormitory—a long room lined with simple beds, each with a chest for personal belongings. The other students were settling in for the night, their conversations a low murmur in the shadowed space.

"I leave at first light," Calen said without preamble. "The border needs watching, and I've been away too long already."

Kyran nodded, though something in his chest tightened. "Thank you. For everything."

"Don't thank me yet. Wait until you see what they put you through." Calen's smile was wry. "But you'll endure it. You're stronger than you know."

He turned to go, then paused. "Your father would be proud of you. Your mother too. Remember that when the training gets hard."

Kyran watched him walk away, straight-backed and purposeful, until he disappeared into the corridor's shadows. For a moment, he felt utterly alone—more alone than he had in the ruins of Feldrin, more alone than during the long journey north.

But then one of the other students—a boy about his own age with serious eyes and calloused hands—looked up from sharpening a knife.

"First night?" the boy asked.

"Yes."

"Gets easier. I'm Tannen." He made a gesture with his hands, quick and precise. Welcome, it seemed to say, though Kyran couldn't be sure.

"Kyran."

Another student, a girl perhaps two years older with auburn hair and expensive clothes, glanced over from where she was arranging her belongings. "Where are you from?" she asked, though her tone suggested she was already forming judgments.

"Feldrin."

Her expression changed, surprise replacing casual curiosity. "The village that was attacked? I heard about that. You were there?"

Kyran nodded, not trusting his voice.

The girl—Irieth, she had introduced herself—studied him with new interest. "How did you survive?"

"I fought."

The simple answer seemed to satisfy her, though her gaze lingered on the dagger at his hip. Around them, other conversations continued, but Kyran felt the weight of attention, of questions unasked.

He lay on his narrow bed that night, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the Academy—distant voices, the scrape of weapons being maintained, the eternal mountain wind that found its way through every crack and crevice. His belongings were arranged in the chest beside him: his father's whetstone, his mother's needle, the spare clothes that still smelled faintly of smoke.

The dagger rested on top of the chest, within easy reach. In the darkness, its runes seemed to pulse with their own faint light, though that might have been his imagination.

Tomorrow, his real training would begin. Tomorrow, he would start the long path toward becoming whatever he was meant to be.

But tonight, for the first time since Feldrin burned, he felt something like peace. Not happiness—that was still beyond him. But a sense of rightness, of being where he needed to be.

The grief remained, would always remain. But Master Koreth had been right—it could become a teacher, if he let it. And perhaps, in time, it could become something more than just pain.

Perhaps it could become strength.

Outside his window, the lights of Andora glittered like earthbound stars, and somewhere in the mountain wind, he thought he heard the faint ring of steel on steel—the eternal song of those who had chosen to walk the path of the sword.

He closed his eyes and let the sound carry him toward sleep, toward dreams that might finally bring something other than ash and memory.