Sword Brother

"Damn it… Impossible to sleep!" Gaël grumbled.

He turned over once again, his sheets tangled from his restless movements. His gaze fixed on the vaulted ceiling, his eyes gradually adjusting to the near-total darkness of his room. Only the distant glow of Excalibur occasionally pierced the night when the black moon managed to break through the heavy clouds.

Everything here was different. Completely, utterly different.

The academy of the Golden Tree was a world apart, a sanctuary untouched by time, and he had yet to make sense of its strangeness.

The day had been long, overwhelming, filled with new sights, unfamiliar faces far too sure of themselves, and expectations weighing down on him like a silent pressure he wasn't sure he could meet.

The academy's training lasted three years, and he was arriving midway through the first.

Not a failure in itself, but when he looked at the other boys, the precision of their movements, their bodies sculpted by relentless training, the effortless confidence in their every action, one question kept gnawing at him:

What am I doing here?

Back in Kernéval, his old school, he had never felt inferior.

Sure, he wasn't a prodigy. He had never excelled in martial disciplines, nor in the more demanding subjects, but he had made up for it with his sharp instincts, his natural cunning, and a perfectly assumed disregard for the lessons he much preferred to skip.

Only Loric, a young blacksmith with a build as solid as the steel he hammered every day, could have rivaled some of the boys he now trained alongside.

But here?

Here, it was as if every top student, every natural talent, every exceptional fighter had been gathered in one place, creating an environment where mediocrity simply did not exist.

They were faster, stronger, better prepared. Their confidence, their posture, the way they handled their blades or even just walked, everything about them exuded discipline and experience.

And then, there was the question that refused to leave him, the one that circled endlessly in his mind no matter how hard he tried to rationalize it.

Why?

Why had a school as prestigious as the academy, completely independent from any city-state and answering only to the luminic Order, accepted twenty-something boys from his town?

The Golden Tree only opened its doors to the most gifted, to heirs of noble bloodlines, to martial geniuses, to the chosen of the Lumen, and… to people with egos bigger than their heads.

And him?

He was just a kid from Kernéval.

A soldier's son, a boy branded as a stain until the day before yesterday, a survivor of a city ravaged by a Monarch. A boy with no grand lineage, no remarkable heritage, no extraordinary talent.

So why him?

Why them?

A shiver ran down his spine.

No matter how many times he turned the question over in his mind, no matter how many scenarios he constructed to try and make sense of it, that doubt refused to let go of him.

And he knew it wouldn't anytime soon.

_ _ _

Morning arrived far earlier than Gaël had anticipated.

A pale light was already filtering through the windows, casting long, hazy shadows on the cold stone walls of his room. He forced his eyes open, still sluggish from a restless night, one where his body had never truly found rest.

'Already!? By the Lumen, you sleep horribly in this place!'

The deep toll of a gong echoed through the corridors, signaling that breakfast was about to be served.

Gaël ran a hand over his face, trying to shake off the last remnants of sleep, then let out a long sigh before getting up.

They would have to get used to this new rhythm.

The moment he stepped into the refectory, the solemn architecture of the place struck him.

Towering stone arches, upheld by imposing columns, gave the hall an austere grandeur, and the long polished wooden tables stretched in perfectly aligned rows.

But it was the wall in front of them that truly caught his eye. There, carved in relief, a phrase greeted them, an instruction, a reflection meant to guide them through their days of training and study.

A simple line of engraved words, barely touched by the morning light:

[ Lumen alone is not enough. It must be mastered, sculpted like a blade, and wielded with discernment. ]

Gaël sat at one of the long tables, tray in hand.

'Discernment, sure... but if only I had Lumen to begin with', he thought bitterly.

The air was filled with the mingling scents of warm bread, roasted meat, and spices from who knows where. Quiet conversations echoed against the stone walls, but to him, everything felt distant, as if muffled beneath the weight of his thoughts.

He watched the middle-aged woman serving the meals. Her movements were precise, almost mechanical, but there was a weariness in her eyes, a fatigue built over long years of feeding generations of students. Her tightly wound bun had begun to betray streaks of silver, strands escaping their confines. She gave him a distracted smile as she filled his plate before moving on without a word.

As he settled into his seat, a sharp clack cut through the murmurs of the hall, silencing it momentarily.

A student, clad in the Academy's standard uniform, a gray tunic lined with deep blue, stepped onto the raised platform. His voice rang out, clear and authoritative:

"New arrivals, listen up! You have been assigned an intensive ten-day remedial session. Prepare yourselves, at this Academy, there is no room for idleness."

A murmur of unease rippled through the tables of the new recruits. Gaël exchanged a glance with Kaëlan, who sat across from him. His friend shrugged, a nervous smile tugging at his lips.

"Ten days of suffering, huh? I have a feeling this is going to be… memorable."

Gaël forced a smile, but his stomach twisted into a knot. Despite his hunger, his food suddenly tasted like nothing.

Once breakfast was over, they were led out of the refectory. The Academy's corridors, pristine white and veined with luminescent runes, stretched out like a labyrinth of order and discipline.

Their footsteps echoed against polished stone floors. Through towering windows, the golden morning light bathed the halls in an almost surreal glow. Despite the tension weighing on him, Gaël couldn't help but glance up at the murals lining the walls. They depicted legendary figures, ardentis, warriors, and lutech apprentice engineers whose brilliance had shaped the academy's renown.

"This place is insane… You think one day our faces will be on these walls?" Kaëlan asked, grinning.

"Who knows!" Gaël replied, keeping it brief.

Finally, they stepped into a vast training hall, its ceiling so high it seemed to vanish into darkness. The floor, made of reinforced gray stone slabs, bore the marks of thousands of past battles.

Wooden training weapons, worn-out dummies, and hanging ropes waited for the students. The air was thick with the scent of sweat, polished wood, and leather.

Then, a sharp voice cut through the room, clear and merciless:

"Line up! Quick, quick! No time to waste. If you can't keep up, there's the door! The rest of you… well, you'll understand soon enough why I do this. That is... if you survive."

The voice belonged to Hector Dicon, a veteran student and their training instructor. His imposing stature and piercing gaze were enough to silence the last whispers of protest.

And so, the exercises began.

It was hell.

Sprints, jumps, push-ups, dodges… Every muscle in Gaël's body screamed in agony. Sweat poured down his face, blurring his vision. His lungs burned, and his legs felt like lead.

"Faster, faster!" Hector barked. "What, are you waiting for an invitation? Your enemies won't send you a card before attacking!"

Kaëlan, gasping for breath, managed to wheeze between two sprints:

"They… they're trying to kill us… Is this their idea of an initiation?"

Gaël let out a breathless chuckle.

"If this is the welcome… I don't even want to think about what comes next."

After what felt like an eternity of suffering, they were finally led to the baths. But these were no ordinary baths.

Waiting for them were Lumen-infused pools.

"Alright, strip down! Get in! You'll either be reborn… or you'll burn. Depends on what you've got weighing on your soul. Then again, we can't all be saints, can we?" Hector said with a smirk.

Gaël took the plunge.

It was like being submerged in a sea of liquid light.

At first, the water felt warm, almost soothing, but then, the tingling began, creeping over his skin.

And then, the burning.

Not the scorching heat of fire, no. This was different. A burn that came from within, as if the light was seeking out every impurity, hunting them down, consuming them.

Gaël clenched his teeth, refusing to cry out. Beside him, Kaëlan let out a sharp curse.

"By the Nameless… is this supposed to be a bath or a damn punishment?!"

When they finally emerged, their skin held a faint glow, and a strange lightness filled them, as if their physical exhaustion had been washed away. But their minds... their minds remained marked by the ordeal.

Their reprieve was short-lived.

Hector was already waiting for them on an adjacent training ground, casually spinning a wooden sword in one hand.

"On your feet! Swordplay and boxing. You think you know how to fight? Fine. Let's see if you're anything more than wooden dummies with flailing arms."

The duels began.

Gaël, armed with a training staff, squared off against another student. The blows came hard and fast, sharp, brutal. Wood cracked against wood, the impact echoing like a war drum in the hall.

His aching arms protested at every block, but he forced himself to push through. Somewhere amidst the chaos, instinct took over. The lessons he had watched, the movements he had memorized, they all blended togethe, forming a rhythm, a dance of reflex and survival.

Kaëlan, on the other hand, landed a solid hook that sent his opponent crashing to the floor.

"Told you, I've got a hell of a right hook!" he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

Hector's gaze lingered on them for a moment, silent. But Gaël caught it, a brief, almost imperceptible nod.

Approval?

Maybe. Maybe not. It didn't matter.

The day was finally coming to an end.

Exhausted but still standing, Gaël and Kaëlan exchanged a look, breathless, but with that glimmer in their eyes.

The look of those who, despite the pain, knew they had survived.

For today.

But tomorrow... tomorrow would be another hell.