CHAPTER 12

Beneath the Surface

A Grievar shall make any worthy decision within the space of seven breaths. Indecision is the loose soil that stirs beneath the mountainous soul. It is better to take control of one’s path decisively, without a mind fraught with the weakness of indecision.

Twentieth Precept of the Combat Codes

Cego floated in the inky darkness. There was nothing to see or grasp, no form or feeling to the empty space.

Perhaps he was dead. He could still remember the last Trial, though, the booming crowd, the man in black moving impossibly fast before Cego had ripped his mask off. What Cego had seen under that mask was burned into his mind: a void where a face should have been. Utter emptiness had stared back at him before that man, that creature, had struck out and sent the ground rushing up to meet him.

And then nothing. Cego had no idea how long he’d been in this darkness. Seconds or days—it didn’t matter. Maybe this was death. Being left alone with your thoughts, forever drifting aimlessly.

But suddenly a familiar voice broke through the void, bringing Cego back. “I’m right here, can’t you see me?”

Cego opened his eyes.

Clouds drifted lazily across cerulean skies. White flecks passed overhead. Birds.

Cego was lying on his back in the soft dirt. He held a hand to his forehead and winced as he touched a swelling hematoma, a reminder of the damage he’d taken in that noisy arena. It must have been just moments ago.

Another flock of birds passed above and Cego turned his head to track them, squinting into the bright sun. He breathed fresh, temperate air.

Cego didn’t want to move. He wanted to stay flat on his back wherever he was, watching clouds and birds flying overhead. If he moved, he was afraid of what he would find in this new place, in this new Trial. He’d already been dragged from icy tundra to thundering arena and faced that terrifying man twice. Each time, the creature with blazing eyes had fought with a completely different style to dismantle Cego.

But Cego needed to move. They were watching. Murray was watching and Cego wouldn’t let him down.

He slowly sat up, his entire body groaning with the effort. Green and brown surrounded him. Cego rubbed his eyes. He was in the center of a grove of trees, each planted only an inch or two apart, like bars on a cell.

These weren’t just any trees, though. These were trees Cego was intimately familiar with: ironwoods. The Circle he’d trained in on the island had been made of ironwood. Every year, Farmer had instructed Cego and his brothers to cut several trees down from the forest, before smoothing, sanding, bending, and binding them together to form a new Circle.

And now, Cego seemed to be imprisoned within a tightly cropped thicket of ironwoods.

“Can’t you see me?” A shadow abruptly flitted behind the trees. The same voice that had woken him to this place.

“Who’s there?” Cego spun around in the dirt. It must have been the creature he’d fought in the previous two Trials. Except this time, his opponent wasn’t out in the open, he was hidden.

Cego stood and walked in silence toward one side of the grove of ironwoods. He placed a hand against a tree, rubbing it up and down the smooth grain. He could smell the sour sap, amber streaks of it running down the trunk. He thought of the countless hours he’d spent kicking ironwoods with Sam and Silas on the island.

Your shins need to become as hard as these trees, Farmer had always said. Iron sharpens iron.

Though Sam would easily tire of the drills and drift off to watch the family of ferrcats that had made a nest in one of the canopies, Cego and Silas would compete to fell their ironwoods, repeatedly slamming kicks against them until one snapped.

Perhaps that was the goal of this Trial. Kick his way out of an ironwood prison.

He walked back to the center of the grove, standing on the mound of soft dirt and turning in a circle. These ironwoods were young, too smooth and flexible to climb. And they were planted too closely together to squeeze through. Knocking them down seemed the only option.

Cego certainly couldn’t sit here and wait. This was his Trial and he was expected to take action.

Back on the island, Cego had the space to get the full force of a round kick. He’d swivel his hips and send his foot out in a wide arc, finding the same spot over and over to slowly weaken a tree, just as he’d been taught to break down an opponent’s leg. But in this Trial, the trees were only inches apart, barely enough room to wedge his foot between.

Cego breathed out slowly before ripping a kick into one of the trees. His foot found the target but slid across the trunk and scraped against two others, shearing a bit of bark off along with a swath of his skin. Cego winced, looking down at his bleeding foot. During training on the island, his feet and shins would often end up bloody messes. That hadn’t stopped him then. He’d kept kicking until Silas won the contest.

Cego tried again with another round kick, this time successfully planting his foot between two of the trunks. But his aim was too good; his foot lodged in the gap and he felt his knee strain. Cego instinctively rolled forward with the momentum to remove his foot and prevent his knee from getting torqued. He landed on his back in the dirt.

He exhaled slowly, looking up at the sky again. Round kicks wouldn’t work. Not enough room.

Cego stood and changed his strategy, this time aiming a front kick at the same ironwood with a scrape on its trunk. He hit the tree with the heel of his foot and felt the shock wave run up his leg. He tried again in the same spot. And again, this time kicking even harder and bouncing backward.

Though front kicks were powerful, the technique did little to snap the sinews of the sapling. The trees were so close together, and with their canopies entwined above, they seemed to absorb the impact jointly.

He stood back, breathing hard.

Cego felt frustration simmer in him. Though he knew he’d only attempted several tries so far, it already felt as if he’d been fighting these trees the entire day.

He craned his head toward the sun in the sky. It hadn’t moved.

Cego needed to generate more force. He eyed the scraped spot on the tree before spinning on his heels and hurling a side kick into the trunk. He found his mark but bounced off again and landed in the dirt in a heap.

The tree hadn’t taken the slightest damage. Cego knew what it felt like to make progress in breaking down an ironwood, and this wasn’t it.

Exasperation began to well up in him. The creature he’d fought in the two other Trials was absent. And though Cego had been defeated so soundly, he now wished the thing were here with him. At least then, he’d have a physical opponent to take on instead of an empty grove of ironwoods.

“I’m right here.” A voice came from the treetops, seeming to respond to his thoughts.

Cego wheeled around. He saw a shadow flicker behind the small gaps between the trees again.

“Who’s there?” Cego yelled. “Show yourself!”

There was no response but the faraway squawk of another bird passing overhead.

Cego sat in the dirt, trying to calm himself. Whatever the point of this Trial was, he knew getting upset would do him no favors. And he knew this place was not normal. Cego had witnessed the void behind the creature’s mask. He’d woken up in one strange environment after another without understanding how he got there. Cego didn’t understand what the Trials were, but he knew they were watching him. The Lyceum administration would see his panic, his anger, his heart beating rapidly in his chest.

Cego assumed the cross-legged lotus position the old master had shown him to practice ki-breath. He would not show them his frustration, though he felt it festering. He would wait for his opponent to come to him in this Trial.

You will feel pain after sitting so long, Farmer had always said. It will not be the pain of a well-placed strike to the chin, or a thudding knee to the ribs. No, the pain of sitting and waiting will be far worse. It will be the pain from not knowing what comes next.

Cego sat with his eyes open, letting his gaze become unfocused, the ironwoods in front of him blurring as he heard Farmer’s words echo in his mind.

But there is nothing to wait for. There is no future, no next moment. Those are creations within your mind. Here and now are your only reality.

Cego breathed deeply. He felt his diaphragm swell in and out, just as he’d practiced on the black sand beach for so many years. He followed his breath, tracing it up and down his spine. He felt every tingling sensation across his body, the pain searing his back from the throws to the ice and the sting of the punches he’d taken in the arena. But that pain was in Cego’s mind, just like the next moment.

He could endure each single moment, stay afloat on each wave that passed beneath him. Cego knew it was the thought of the next moment and the suffering that was to come that would drown him. He would only be here and now.

As he breathed, he saw the sun rise high above him before it sank behind the ironwoods in a crimson swell. A glowing moon climbed into a darkened sky dotted with stars; then dawn broke and sent the sun streaking above Cego’s head again.

Murray stared at Cego’s lightboard in disbelief. Everyone else in the room was also watching his board, their eyes glued to Cego as he sat in the grove of ironwoods.

Murray had no idea how the kid was doing this. In this final Trial, time was the taker’s enemy. Time, which won over everything in the end, was distorted in this simulation; it would seem to stop altogether or move incredibly fast. Days could pass in what seemed like moments, or single seconds could last for weeks. Most takers lost their minds almost immediately upon entering the Time Trial.

Callen Albright was looking over at Murray, his face contorted in anger. Murray knew what the Scout commander was thinking—that somehow, Murray and Cego had cheated.

That was impossible, though. Murray had no idea how Cego was doing this either. The kid was sitting calmly as hours and days flowed over him like a boulder lodged in a stream. As Murray looked at the boards across the room, he saw that most of the kids had already been carried away by that rushing stream of time.

The purelight from the Underground, Shiar, had found a rock in the dirt and hammered it into one of the ironwood trees for several seconds before falling to his knees and weeping uncontrollably. Dozer had charged the trees repeatedly until he dropped onto his back, laughing like a madman, unable to even stop and breathe. Knees had screamed in terror while trying to cover his face from some invisible attacker. Even Gryfin Thurgood, a purelight from the Twelve, had succumbed to the Time Trial in mere moments, curling into a ball in the dirt. It was only Cego and the bald boy, Shimo, who were sitting calmly, unaffected by the hallucinations that came with time distortion.

Murray shook his head again. It didn’t make sense that Cego would know how to handle the blacklight. His mind raced. Luck was out of the question—there was no way Cego could chance upon such resistance techniques.

Even if the kid had somehow known about the Sim beforehand and studied intensely, he wouldn’t have had this result. Some purelight families with the resources tried to prepare their kids with stories and details from the memories of those who had already gone through the Time Trial, but even then, the kids were equally as incompetent when faced with the real thing.

Murray continued to watch with wide eyes as Cego’s chest rose and fell.

Callen Albright suddenly stood. High Commander Memnon was moving for the doorway, nodding for him to follow. Albright gave Murray another derisive look before following Memnon out of the viewing room.

They knew something.

Murray wanted to go after them, but he couldn’t leave Cego alone. He stared back at the screen. No matter how the kid had managed to stay sane so far in this Trial, Murray knew it wouldn’t last. In the end, time caught everyone.

Over and over, the sun rose and fell in the sky. Darkness dropped and dissipated again with each new day. The heavens swirled above Cego, and yet he sat, breathing, only living in each single moment. He didn’t pay heed to the hunger pangs striking at his stomach or the amplified ache vibrating through his body. He sat for days, perhaps weeks, just breathing.

But finally, a small voice infiltrated Cego’s mind despite his focus, like a thief breaking into an empty house.

“I’m right here, can’t you hear me?”

Cego broke from his reverie with the moon directly overhead and the sky full of sparkling stars. The ironwoods stood steadfast in front of him.

“Why aren’t you listening to me?” The voice came from behind the trees again. “I’m right here. Can’t you come with me to catch the blue crabs by the water?”

Cego knew the voice now. It was unmistakable. His little brother, Sam.

He stood, his body creaking like an unused mech as he moved toward the ironwoods. Even in the darkness, he could see a deep shadow lingering behind the trees.

“Come with me just for a little bit,” Sam’s voice pleaded. “Farmer won’t even know we’re missing practice.”

“Sam,” Cego shouted. He grasped the trees and pressed his face against them. “Where are you?”

“I’m right here,” Sam responded. Cego watched as a shadow slid up the tree trunk in front of him and wavered there, waiting. Cego reached out and touched it. The shadow felt warm, like a hand. Sam’s hand.

“Why aren’t you coming?” Sam asked as the shadow withdrew from Cego’s grasp and fled back beyond the trees.

“I don’t know where you are, Sam,” Cego responded desperately. “I don’t know how to get to you.”

“I’m right in front of you…” Sam said, though his voice seemed more distant now. “I need your help, please.”

“Sam!” Cego screamed. He needed to get through these trees.

Cego slammed his fist against the hard bark in front of him over and over, trying to break through the ironwood prison. Even when his skin had been sheared from his knuckles, Cego kept ripping punches into the tree trunk. Though he saw the white gleam of bone protruding from his hand, Cego didn’t stop. When his arms finally gave way, Cego used his head, slamming the crown of his skull into the tree repeatedly until he staggered backward.

“Sam!” Cego wept, his tears melding with his blood in the dirt. He knew his brother was gone; the shadow behind the trees had disappeared along with the voice. Cego’s body shuddered as he lay on his back beneath the stars. His breathing was no longer steady—each pull of air was a ragged effort. The weariness of sitting and fighting and being imprisoned in this place sank into Cego all at once.

He was nearly ready to give in when he felt something beneath his outstretched hand. A strange indentation beneath the dirt. Cego sat back up and began to dig on his hands and knees until he grasped on to a cold, metallic object. He brushed the dirt aside to reveal a sliver of black. Even in the darkness, the black thing he’d unearthed somehow shimmered.

Cego frantically dug at the object. He slowly uncovered a form, like excavating the bones of some ancient beast.

Finally, Cego stood and looked at what he’d found, surrounding him. A black Circle, glimmering like wet coal. Shadows seemed to rise and fall from the strange material and the starlight from above vanished into its inky surface.

Onyx. Cego knew the alloy, though he’d never seen it before, never fought in it, only heard it talked about in whispers. This entire Trial, he’d been within the bounds of an onyx Circle.

Cego glanced back at the ironwoods and saw the trees were changing. They were sickly now, withering and turning the color of rot in front of Cego’s eyes. The shadows from the onyx were spreading like a mist through the ironwoods and pooling above Cego. The bright moon had disappeared, replaced by an impenetrable black blanket descending on him.

The darkness pulled at Cego and he screamed, but no sound emerged. Shadows slithered into his open mouth, filled his nostrils and ears, blotted out his eyes. And then, once again, there was nothing.

Murray stepped up to the door of High Commander Memnon’s private office, unannounced. Not many in the Citadel would consider such a breach of protocol, but Murray didn’t care. He needed to get some answers. He set his eye in front of the lightdeck planted in the door and let it scan him. The shouting inside the office quieted immediately.

After a few moments, the door swished open. Callen Albright was sitting in Memnon’s office, as Murray had expected. The two looked like they’d been having a heated discussion—Memnon was standing over Callen, his eyes fiery. Albright flashed that smug grin that made Murray want to put his head through the adjacent shield window.

“Scout Pearson, I don’t believe you had an appointment with the high commander,” Callen said.

“Did you have an appointment, Commander Callen?” Murray retorted.

“No… but I am—”

Memnon cut Callen off. “Dark this appointment talk. Scout Pearson, your arrival is actually timely. We have some questions for you.”

“Questions for me?” Murray asked incredulously. “I’m here because I have questions for you. What happened in the Sim?”

“What did happen in the Sim, Pearson? Something your commanders should be aware of perhaps?” Callen fished.

“I’m not here to play mind games with you, Commander Albright,” Murray said. He turned away from the wiry Grievar and addressed Memnon directly. “Be straight with me, High Commander. I’ve only ever done such with you. I know something is going on—whatever happened with Cego in that Sim was not normal. The way he was able to endure the Time Trial, the way he took the blacklight from the onyx. It doesn’t make sense.”

Memnon met Murray’s eyes. Murray could see the wear on the high commander’s face. He looked tired, as if he’d aged a decade since Murray had last spoken with him.

Memnon and Coach had come up in the Citadel together. They’d been practically brothers, fighting on the same team throughout their Knight service. Coach had been offered the commander position first but turned it down, saying he wasn’t a politik, he was a Grievar. Memnon had been second choice and found himself as high commander within five years. Coach stayed on as head trainer of the Knights.

At first, the two had worked well together, Coach coordinating his program to complement Memnon’s vision: training a team of Knights that was well rounded, made of Grievar who could fight and win in any climate or Circle.

Soon, though, Murray could remember Coach muttering about Memnon getting in the way of him doing his job, saying the Citadel was heading down a path he didn’t like. Part of the rift between the two had developed because of the neurostimulants circulating in the team—Coach couldn’t get behind that. But there was more to it, something that drove the two friends even further apart.

Eventually, Coach wouldn’t even mention Memnon’s name, as if saying it out loud would sully the Codes. It wasn’t too long afterward that Coach had disappeared.

“Scout Pearson. I understand your concern for your talent. But you dishonor us by implying that we know more about this situation than you do,” Memnon said pointedly.

Dishonor? Murray had the mind to say a thing or two about darkin’ honor right here in the high commander’s office, but he held his tongue.

“We need you to answer some questions for us so that we can appropriately deal with this situation,” Memnon said.

“What do you mean, deal with? Cego didn’t do anything; he doesn’t deserve any—”

“Don’t worry. Your talent will remain safe at study in the Lyceum. As I said, though, to deal with this situation, we need you to answer a few questions.” Memnon waved toward a chair in front of him.

Murray slowly slid into the seat. Callen stood next to Memnon. Somehow, this had turned into an interrogation.

“Go ahead, Callen, ask your questions.” Memnon sighed.

Callen paced in front of Murray with his hands clasped behind his back. “Where did you first discover your talent, this boy… Cego?” he asked.

“Don’t you already know the answer to that? It’s all reported in my Scout’s log.”

“Perhaps you decided to leave out some integral details. After all, we all know you’ve never been the most fastidious Scout. You aren’t known for your attention to detail,” Callen said.

Murray let the insult slide by as if he were slipping a punch. “I saw him fighting in Thaloo Jakabar’s Circle off Markspar Row, Underground,” he answered.

“And what about this lacklight boy piqued your interest?”

“I may not be the most detail-oriented Scout, but I know fighting. I saw that Cego had potential. The way he moved, the way he handled the light. He also took to the Codes, something we don’t see much of anymore in these halls,” Murray said, looking directly into Memnon’s eyes, searching for a reaction.

Was that a flash of anger? Or perhaps resentment? The high commander looked out the window.

“And perhaps you could refresh the high commander on how Cego came into your possession?” Callen asked as he continued to pace in front of Murray’s seat.

“Thaloo would not grant me patron rights for the bit-purse I was allotted by the Scouts, so I decided I’d strike a deal to fight for him at Lampai. I won, and here we are,” Murray said flatly.

“Ah. It all sounds so simple, doesn’t it?” Callen cooed sarcastically. “What a miraculous story. You came upon this undervalued lacklight urchin fighting in the Deep, and you simply knew all of a sudden that you had a gem in your hands. So much so that you said, ‘I’m going to come out of a decade-long retirement just to fight for him.’”

“You’ve got it,” Murray said.

“You’ve got some nerve, coming into the high commander’s office and lying—”

Murray stood up abruptly, his eyes flashing at the wiry Scout commander. Memnon stepped between the two.

“Now that I’ve answered your questions, answer mine. What the dark is going on here?” Murray growled.

Memnon looked Murray in the eye. “As with everything we do here, we’re working for the good of the nation. We’re trying to improve our Grievar program here at the Citadel, Scout Pearson,” Memnon said.

“Trying to improve your Grievar again, Memnon?” Murray asked. “First it was neuros, then the Scouts, then the Sim. How could you possibly stray further from the Codes?”

“Scout Pearson, stand down,” Memnon said.

Murray stayed on his feet, face-to-face with Memnon. His muscles were still tense. What was he going to do? Take a shot at the high commander of the Citadel? Coach certainly wanted to all those years ago. Perhaps he’d be doing his mentor a favor.

“What do you have to hide?” Murray asked, his face inches from Memnon’s. “What new ways have you found to give in to the demands of the Daimyo, to further erode our honor? I want to hear it from you—not your yapping bayhound here.”

Memnon didn’t budge, eyes level with Murray’s. The two men were roughly equal-sized. “Stand down, Scout Pearson,” he said again.

“I’ve hit a nerve here, haven’t I? Is this why Coach was so darkin’ pissed all those years ago? Somethin’ you politiks are cooking up here?”

“Stand down, Scout Pearson,” Memnon growled.

“If I can’t get answers from you, I’ll get them my own way,” Murray said. He turned and walked back through the sliding doors.

Murray strode briskly into the Lyceum’s ample medward, the largest in the Citadel, which served the entire Grievar population.

Murray watched the clerics moving around the room with a mixture of fascination and disgust. Usually, they kept to the cover of their thick red cloaks outside, but here in the medward, they stood boldly, wearing sleeveless tunics and silken pants.

He could best describe the clerics as sickly. At least in his approximation—a healthy, robust Grievar was heavily muscled, thick-boned, with skin rough from wear like a suit of armor.

These Daimyo were quite the opposite. Their skin was paper-thin, the veins beneath clearly visible, streaking their faces, necks, and arms like spiderwebs. They looked like brittle sticks; Murray had no doubt he could snap one of them in half with little effort.

But they certainly got the job done. Murray had experienced the clerics’ work at the Lyceum firsthand—he’d been badly injured numerous times along his lightpath. There were times when Murray was sure he was done, his path ended due to a shattered collarbone, a smashed kneecap, even a spinal injury that left him paralyzed for several weeks. The clerics had brought him back from that.

Though they were technically Daimyo by blood, the clerics were different from the gaudy nobles that Murray was used to seeing, parading like kings on the Underground’s thoroughfares. The clerics oversaw their patients without emotion, their probing faces bathed in the light of nearby hovering spectrals. There was no cooing or soothing bedside manner with them. They determined the root of the problem and fixed it. If there was an injury or malady they could not fix, they moved on to the next patient with cool indifference.

Murray passed Lyceum students and Knights in various states of injury, ranging from torn ankle ligaments to Grievar near death. Murray shivered as he glanced over at a battered Knight floating in a vat of inky red liquid, his neck twisted at a strange angle. Murray had been there before; it wasn’t pretty.

Murray examined the faces of each of the injured Grievar as he passed. He was here for Cego.

He recognized Scout Cydek’s purelight talent—Shiar—sitting in a small cot with his arms crossed behind his head. “More water, and where is that omelet I asked for?” The little shit was shouting at the clerics who were attending him, as if the medward were some sort of luxury inn. Cego would be nearby.

Murray found Cego several cots down. The kid was sitting up against the wall, focused on the window across from him, where the rain was pattering against the glass.

“Seems like we’ve been here before, huh, kid?” Murray sat awkwardly in a small chair next to the cot.

Cego didn’t respond; he continued to stare blankly out at the rain. Deep rings hung beneath his golden eyes.

Murray knew how it was. Having reality distorted. Thinking certain rules applied to the world around you and then having those rules broken—the world permanently altered. Cego’s mind would need time to heal properly.

“I wanted to tell you about the Sim beforehand. But it wouldn’t have done you any good in there,” Murray said.

Cego didn’t respond. Murray hadn’t even seen the kid blink yet.

“I know things seem darked up right now. What’s real and what’s not. But I can tell you something that’s real. You passed.”

Cego’s eyes focused, his pupils dilating. He looked toward Murray.

“I passed?”

“I’d bet Violet on it that you did,” Murray said. “Kid, your performance in there was… extraordinary.”

Cego looked back out the window. The two sat for several minutes, the rain filling the silence.

Murray broke the silence. “I know you probably want to forget the entire darkin’ thing, but I have to ask. How did you do it?”

Cego looked over at him, his eyes flashing back and forth. The kid knew something. He was deciding whether he could trust Murray.

“I understand. You can’t trust everyone. Can’t trust most modernday, even here in the Citadel. I’m on your side, though,” Murray whispered.

Cego nodded slowly as he began to speak, his voice raspy. “It’s hard to explain… I’m afraid I might sound crazy.”

“I’ve seen and done some crazy things in my years, kid—don’t worry,” Murray said.

Cego breathed out, then whispered, “I heard him, Murray-Ku. My little brother, Sam. I heard him in there. He needed my help.”

“You’re not the first,” Murray said. “That Trial does things to your mind. Makes you lose track of past and present, mushes it all together. I’m not surprised you heard your brother’s voice.”

“But…” Cego trailed off. “Sam was there. I felt him, he was so real.”

“I know,” Murray said. “Your brother was real to you. Just like the Guardian was real when you were facing him in each of the other Trials.”

“The Guardian?” Cego asked. “You mean… that creature I fought?”

“Yes,” Murray said. “You weren’t supposed to see what was behind that mask. But they use the Guardian to test each taker’s weaknesses. To see how someone stacks up against impossible odds. And you did things in there that I’ve never seen before, even after having watched over a decade of Trials.”

“I just used what I learned,” Cego said. “What you taught me.”

Murray chuckled. “You’re too darkin’ nice, kid. Yeah, we had some good lessons in my barracks, but what you did in the Trials, you certainly didn’t learn from me. In that last Trial, we haven’t seen anyone able to take the blacklight like that… ever.”

“The blacklight,” Cego said softly. “You mean those shadows… coming off the onyx Circle.”

“Right, those shadows were blacklight spectrals,” Murray said. “And most of the other Trial-takers lasted about a full breath in there with them. You sat for nearly an hour.”

“It seemed longer than an hour,” Cego said. The kid looked tired, and he had a right to be.

“That’s what the blacklight will do,” Murray said. “But how did you learn how to handle it?”

Cego took a deep breath as he stared back out the window, watching the rain. Minutes passed and Murray worried he’d lost the kid again, but Cego suddenly started to speak. “Where I’m from, my home, I lived on an island with my two brothers. We were raised by an old man… He was our master. He taught us to fight, but he also taught us to sit and breathe. Sometimes for an entire day, we’d sit on the black sand beach, breathing with the waves as they rolled in and went back out to the sea.”

It was the most Murray had heard Cego speak of his home.

“Sam was always terrible at ki-breath.” A tired smile creased Cego’s face. “He wouldn’t be able to sit more than two minutes before he was running down the beach.”

“I think I’d likely be doing the same,” Murray muttered, having never had the patience for any sort of meditative practice.

“Silas, though, he could sit for the entire day.” Cego’s smile had disappeared. “Silas would even sit through the night when storms came to shore and battered him. He wouldn’t move an inch.”

“And you?” Murray asked.

“Silas was always better at everything. Fighting, hunting, swimming, ki-breath, it didn’t matter. He’d always win,” Cego said. “I could never find a path to beat him.”

“Based on what I just saw during your Trial, I think you found your path just darkin’ fine,” Murray said. “Seems like you got some good training on this island.”

Cego nodded, his eyelids fluttering with fatigue.

Murray’s mind swirled. There were thousands of little isles floating in the Emerald Sea; the kid could have been raised and trained on any one of them. It wasn’t unusual for ex-Knights or mercs to train Grievar brood with the hopes of selling them to the highest bidder. But that didn’t answer the question of how he’d just handled the Trials so well.

“Cego,” Murray said. “I haven’t prodded, because I know our pasts can be shit. I certainly have much of my own I’d rather not speak of. And it’s really none of my darkin’ business where you come from. But I need to know one thing. How did you end up in the Underground? Who took you from your home?”

Cego slumped back into his cot. The kid was exhausted.

“I don’t remember,” Cego said.

“You don’t remember who brought you there?” Murray asked.

“No…” Cego said. “I don’t remember anything. There was my home on the island. And then there were the streets of the Underground. Everything between those two places… I can’t remember. When I try to, it’s like I’m grasping at a dream just after waking up, and it slips away.”

Murray met Cego’s eyes. He was straining to remember. He was telling the truth.

The rain fell harder outside the window.

“I’m sorry,” Cego said. His breathing had grown deep, as if he were sleeping with his eyes open.

“Why should you be sorry?” Murray shook his head. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for. You did great in the Trials. I was proud.”

The kid had much ahead of him. Though the Trials were complete, Cego was at the start of a long journey. He needed to focus on moving forward. He couldn’t be bogged down by his past, whatever its nature.

“Don’t worry about this stuff, kid,” Murray said reassuringly. “I’ll look into it. I’ll figure this out for you, I promise. You just need to focus on where you’re at. I’d bet my life you passed the Trials. You’re to be one of a select few in Ezo to enter the Lyceum. You’ll train to become a Knight. You need to focus on your studies. And you need to get some rest,” Murray said.

Cego eyes fluttered closed. “Thank you, Murray-Ku.”