Two Weeks Later
Cael's hands didn't shake anymore when he held the spear.
The blisters had hardened into calluses. The pain in his shoulders had faded to a dull ache that he'd learned to ignore. He could hold the shield up for hours now without his arm going numb. His body had adapted—the transformation from sailor to soldier nearly complete.
The drills had become second nature. Shields up, spears forward, step and thrust. The rhythm was automatic. He didn't have to think about it anymore—his body just moved.
He wasn't the only one who'd changed.
Petyr had stopped crying. The boy was still terrified—Cael could see it in his eyes every morning—but he'd learned to swallow it down. He kept his spear steady and his shield high. That was all that mattered.
Elara had found her voice. She still didn't talk much, but when she did, people listened. She was small, quiet, and surprisingly vicious with a blade when the sparring started.
Even Roth had stopped complaining. He'd taken to the training with grim determination, probably because it was better than deserting and getting hanged.
Aldric was exactly what Cael expected—competent, steady, and ruthlessly practical. The old hunter had seen death before, and it showed in the way he fought. No wasted movement. No hesitation.
And Mira. Mira was terrifying.
She moved like she'd been born with a blade in hand. Fast, precise, and utterly without mercy. During sparring, she put three men in the infirmary with broken bones. Arvik had pulled her aside after the third one, and whatever he'd said to her had made her dial it back.
But only slightly.
"You're getting better," Aldric said one afternoon after drills. They were sitting in the shade of the barracks, passing a water skin back and forth. "You move like a soldier now."
"I feel like death," Cael replied.
"That means you're alive." Aldric took a long drink. "Dead men don't hurt."
"Comforting."
"Wasn't meant to be."
Cael looked out at the training yard. Hundreds of conscripts moving through drills. Formation after formation, shields and spears rising and falling in unison. Two weeks ago, this place had been chaos. Now it almost looked like an army.
Almost.
"Do you think we're ready?" Petyr asked. The boy sat nearby, picking at his calluses. "For the real thing, I mean."
"No," Aldric said bluntly. "But it doesn't matter. They'll send us anyway."
"That's—"
"Realistic." Aldric handed the water skin to Petyr. "We've had two weeks of training. Most professional soldiers train for years. We're not ready. We'll never be ready. But Karthia's not going to wait for us to feel comfortable with killing people."
Petyr fell silent.
Roth laughed from where he was lying on the ground, arms behind his head. "I love how optimistic you are, old man. Really inspirational."
"I'm not here to inspire you," Aldric said. "I'm here to keep you alive. And the first step to staying alive is accepting reality."
"And what's reality?"
"That most of us are going to die." Aldric said it like he was commenting on the weather. "Best we can hope for is to take a few Karthians with us."
That evening, Sergeant Arvik gathered the entire battalion in the central courtyard.
It was the first time they'd all been assembled since the initial sorting. Cael hadn't realized just how many of them there were—at least two thousand men, probably more. They filled the courtyard from wall to wall, packed shoulder to shoulder.
"What's this about?" Mira asked. She was standing next to Cael, hand resting on the knife at her belt. She always kept it close now.
"Don't know," Cael replied.
A platform had been erected at the far end of the courtyard. Captain Drest stood on it, along with several other officers. And someone else—a man in dark robes, his face hidden beneath a hood.
"Who's that?" Petyr whispered.
"Mage," Aldric said quietly. "See the symbols on his robes? That's the mark of the blood casters."
Cael's throat tightened. He'd heard rumors. Every conscript had. Stories about Valorheim's mages and the dark rituals they performed. Human sacrifice. Blood magic. Power drawn from death itself.
The stories had seemed ridiculous at the time. Propaganda, maybe. Something to scare conscripts into obedience.
Looking at the robed figure now, Cael wasn't so sure.
Captain Drest raised a hand. The courtyard fell silent.
"In two days, we march south," Drest said. His voice carried across the courtyard. "You'll join the main army at the border and face the Karthian invasion force. Many of you will die. That's the reality of war."
He gestured to the robed figure. "But you won't die unarmed. You won't die unprotected. Mage-Captain Sevrin will perform a blessing. Blood magic that will strengthen you. Heal you. Give you an edge against the enemy."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Nervous. Uncertain.
"I know what you've heard," Drest continued. "You've heard that blood magic is evil. That it corrupts. That it's no different from the demon worship Karthia practices."
He paused.
"That's a lie. Blood magic is a tool. A weapon. Yes, it requires sacrifice. But it's controlled. Disciplined. We use it to protect, not to corrupt. And tonight, you'll see the difference."
The robed figure—Mage-Captain Sevrin—stepped forward. He lowered his hood.
Cael expected someone old. Ancient. Withered by dark magic.
Instead, Sevrin looked maybe thirty. Clean-shaven, with sharp features and cold gray eyes. He moved with the confidence of someone who'd done this a thousand times before.
"Bring the offering," Sevrin said. His voice was quiet but carried across the courtyard.
Two soldiers dragged a bull into the courtyard. The animal bellowed, eyes rolling with fear. They tied it to a post in front of the platform.
Cael's mouth went dry.
"What the hell—" Roth started.
"Shut up," Mira hissed. "Just watch."
Sevrin descended from the platform. He pulled out a knife—long, curved, silver. The blade caught the torchlight.
He approached the bull. The animal thrashed against the ropes, trying to break free. It knew what was coming.
Sevrin placed one hand on the bull's head. He spoke in a language Cael didn't recognize—harsh, guttural words that seemed to scrape against his ears.
Then he slit the bull's throat.
Blood poured out. Dark and thick, pooling on the stones. The bull's legs gave out and it collapsed, still thrashing. Its bellows turned to wet, choking sounds.
Sevrin kept chanting. He moved around the dying bull, tracing symbols in the air with the bloody knife. The blood on the stones began to glow—faint at first, then brighter. Crimson light spread across the courtyard, reflecting off armor and shields.
The temperature dropped. Cael's breath misted in the air despite it being summer.
The bull stopped moving. The light grew brighter. Sevrin's chanting reached a crescendo—and then he shouted a single word that seemed to echo from everywhere at once.
The blood ignited.
Crimson flames erupted from the pool, roaring up toward the night sky. Heat washed over the courtyard. Cael threw up an arm to shield his face, squinting against the brightness.
And then the flames washed over them.
It wasn't burning. Not exactly. It was warmth—intense, almost painful, but not destructive. It sank into Cael's skin, into his bones. Something settled in his chest, coiling around his heart.
Power.
It lasted only seconds. Then the flames died. The blood was gone, the stones clean as if nothing had happened. Only the bull's corpse remained, skin gray and withered like it had been dead for weeks instead of minutes.
The courtyard was silent.
Sevrin turned to face them. His eyes reflected the torchlight like a cat's. "The blessing will last until you reach the battlefield," he said. "It will keep you warm in the cold. Help wounds heal faster. Give you strength when you're exhausted."
He wiped the knife clean on his robes. "This is blood magic. This is what protects you. Remember that when Karthia tells you we're monsters."
He walked away. The soldiers dragged the bull's corpse off, leaving Sevrin's words hanging in the air.
Captain Drest addressed them again. "Return to your barracks. Rest. We march at dawn in two days."
The crowd dispersed slowly. No one spoke. No one seemed to know what to say.
Cael's squad walked back to the barracks in silence.
Petyr was pale. Elara wouldn't look at anyone. Even Roth seemed shaken, his usual sardonic expression gone.
"That was..." Petyr started. He couldn't finish the sentence.
"Wrong," Aldric said quietly. "It was wrong."
"But it worked," Mira said. She flexed her hands, testing. "I can feel it. That warmth. It's still there."
"That doesn't make it right."
"No. But it makes us stronger." Mira looked at Aldric. "You heard what Sevrin said. This is controlled. Disciplined. Not like what Karthia does."
"You believe him?"
"I don't know." Mira's jaw tightened. "But I'm not going to refuse an advantage that might keep me alive."
Cael touched his chest. The warmth was still there, a low pulse in his ribs. It felt foreign. Wrong. Like something that didn't belong inside him.
But it pulsed with strength.
"What do you think?" Petyr asked Cael. "Is this... are we the bad guys?"
Cael didn't have an answer.
He thought of Sevrin's words. *Blood magic is a tool.* A weapon to protect, not corrupt.
But the bull haunted him. The way it had thrashed and bled out while Sevrin chanted. The way the blood had burned, unnatural and terrible.
"I don't know," he said finally. "But we're not given a choice. So it doesn't matter what we think."
They reached the barracks. Inside, men were already settling into their bunks. Some were talking in low voices. Others sat in silence, staring at nothing.
Roth climbed into his bunk and laughed—that same broken, bitter sound. "We're all damned now. You know that, right? We've been touched by blood magic. That makes us part of it. Complicit."
"Shut up," Mira said.
"Why? It's true." Roth's eyes were too bright. "Karthia says we're demon worshippers. Maybe they're right. Maybe we're all going to hell."
"Then we'll see you there," Aldric said flatly. He lay down on his bunk and closed his eyes. "Now shut up and let me sleep. We've got two days before the march, and I plan to spend most of it unconscious."
Cael climbed into his own bunk. The warmth in his chest pulsed with each heartbeat. He pressed a hand against his ribs and felt it there—foreign and wrong and undeniably powerful.
He wondered what Jorik would think of this. What his first mate would say about blood magic and sacrifice and soldiers too desperate to care about the cost.
He wondered if Jorik was even still alive.
Cael closed his eyes and tried to sleep. But the image of the bull kept coming back. The way its eyes had rolled. The way it had known what was coming and thrashed anyway, desperate and terrified and helpless.
Just like them.
The next morning, Cael found Sergeant Arvik in the courtyard. The sergeant was inspecting equipment, checking shields and spears for damage.
"Something you need, Morevan?" Arvik asked without looking up.
"A question."
"Make it quick."
"That ritual last night," Cael said. "The blood magic. Is it always like that?"
"Like what?"
"Wrong."
Arvik stopped inspecting equipment. He looked at Cael, eyes hard. "Wrong how?"
"It felt..." Cael struggled for words. "It was like something that shouldn't exist. Like it was breaking rules I didn't know existed."
"It is." Arvik went back to checking equipment. "Blood magic breaks the natural order. It takes life and turns it into power. That's why it works. That's why Valorheim has held the border for three generations while Karthia throws armies at us."
"Then why use it?"
"Because the alternative is losing." Arvik picked up a spear, testing the point. "You want to know if we're the bad guys? If we're any better than Karthia and their demon pacts?"
"Are we?"
"I don't know." Arvik threw the spear aside. "But I know this: Karthia's coming north with an army big enough to burn every village from here to the coast. They'll kill every man, woman, and child they find. They'll claim it's justified. They'll say we're monsters who deserve it."
He met Cael's eyes. "So yeah, we use blood magic. We sacrifice animals—sometimes people who volunteer—to gain an edge. It's ugly. It's wrong. But it's the only thing keeping Karthia's swords out of your family's throats."
"I don't have family," Cael said.
"Then consider yourself lucky." Arvik turned away. "Now get back to your squad. You march in two days, and I want you alive long enough to actually fight."
Cael walked away. The warmth in his chest pulsed.
Lucky.
Damned.
And in two days, they would march to war.
