The sound was loud. I had heard loud sounds before. A [Fireball] was loud. [The Ending Sky] had been louder still, loud enough to make even the greatest of Dragons crash back down to the ground. This man’s voice was quieter, but only just.
The door opened into light, and heat. It spilled out, washed over me and the entire hallway where we stood. The inside did not look like any other part of the academy. There was brown as far as the eye could see.
I stepped inside before either Ash or Edda. Each step brought with it a small scrape. This was sand then. And this place was…a desert. Not only that, but the mana here was dense. Far denser than it had been outside. Perhaps slightly more dense than the resonance chamber we had been in that day.
I turned to Edda. “How?”
Edda looked only momentarily confused. “I forgot, you haven’t taken classes. This is,” she made an encompassing gesture, “this is what most of the other resonance chambers are like. They’re more than just rooms. Though, this is the best chamber we Lines get.”
“I wonder how they made such a thing,” Ash murmured under her breath. I shared her curiosity. Back in my time, there had existed [Domain] spells, ones which could change an entire battlefield for one purpose or another. Was some principle like that at play here?
Now that I looked, I did see other students a few dozen feet in the distance. All of them were running in a line. All of them had a large black rectangular box strapped to their chests. All of them looked seconds away from collapsing.
It was then that I noticed an Inker pacing towards us. Or at least, I assumed it was an Inker. He was a tall and balding man, who wore a frown for a face. The man did not wear the threaded robes I had seen on the rest of his ilk. Instead, he wore a grey tunic, with ornate silver threading. The tunic showed off his muscled frame. Though perhaps ‘struggled to contain’ was more accurate. His left arm bore a Crest, one in a pink spiralling shape I could not recognize. He jogged towards us, stopping a few feet away. He eyed Edda first, Ash second, and then me last. His eyes did not drift to my horns, not even for a moment.
“You’re late newbloods!” He shouted. There was no reason for him to shout. We could have heard him perfectly from where we stood. His gaze settled on Edda. “Thirty minutes!” He reached around behind him, and pulled out a sash. I did not know from where.
He threw it at Edda, who only barely caught it before it fell to the sand. She grabbed it, hastily bound it around her waist, clasping it at her back. I felt Essence from her. Something that gave me the impression of waiting? A black box appeared at her front, where the sash met her uniform. It grew in size, until it was as large as what the other students carried. Edda staggered forward. She almost fell, before she righted herself at the right moment.
“Get to it!” The Inker barked. “Or do you wanna run for an hour instead!”
Edda bowed, or perhaps she barely kept herself from falling. She started to run towards the line of students off in the distance. To call it running would be rather generous.
The Inker looked at Ash and I. “You’re the new Consecrated, yes? If either of you expect special treatment, you can turn around and leave right now!”
Why was the man yelling? I had thought Ren’s normal volume too high. This man made her seem as quiet as a Hellrat.
Ash answered before I could. “We do not expect special treatment,” As she said this, she looked to me for confirmation. What, did she expect me to argue? Ash turned back to the man. “We only came here for instruction. Though, neither of us know just what kind of instruction this is.”
The Inker eyed her. Then he reached behind himself. This time, he pulled out two of those black sashes. He did not throw them. He stepped forward. Ash took one from him. He extended the other towards me. I took it. “Fine then. We’ll see if you really mean it! Listen up, cos I’m going to say this once, and only once!” His gaze drifted to our Lines. “Anyone can get a lucky mark or two from the Ink. I’ve seen plenty of spoiled brats get fancy marks before. If getting a fancy mark was all it took, the world would be a different place.”
“This class is called Body Conditioning. I trust you both know that much, at least?!” He yelled again. For seemingly no reason, again. Ash and I both nodded, though I did not want to. “Your body is as important as what you can do with Essence. The body is the vessel.” At this, his voice took on the intonations of a priest. “A Line can advance to a Sigil without a strong body, but that is foolish. It’s best to build the habit while you still can. Because the Conditioning required later on only ever gets harder.”
He turned from us, towards the students. “You are both going to run laps with them. It’s only your first day. So let’s say you both manage for…twenty minutes. If you make it even that far, I’ll be damned surprised.”
It was a rather arbitrary and simple training method. Some [Monks] in the old world had done something similar. It had been foolish then. Things like strength and stamina were governed by stats. If this was still that world, I would have turned around and left, and dragged Ash with me. In this world, one without a [System], there might yet be some merit to this after all. I would not dismiss this out of hand.
“Twenty minutes? You should double it, at the very least. You would still be surprised.” I said, arms folded.
He stared at me, then gestured at the sash. “Wrap it around yourself and channel Essence.” He waited.
Ash staggered forward next to me. I looked to her, and saw the same strange square pressed below her chest. I hadn’t seen her put the strange sash on. Very well then. It took only a moment to get the sash secured against myself. I channeled Essence into it, the barest fraction from the Ember Core. I would not so much as fli-
I staggered forward. My spine bowed before I could stop it, and for one second the sand rushed up at me. Instinct caught what dignity could not. I righted myself. The weight sat below my ribs like a second body had been bolted to my chest. My legs were shaking.
I reached for Essence. The Ember Core hummed beneath my ribs, as it always did, as it always would. Nothing came. The power sat inside me and would not move, as though the weight had locked every door between the core and my limbs. I had not felt this helpless since- No, I had never felt this helpless.
"What manner of contraption is this?" The words came out thinner than I permitted.
“That is an Essence Weight.” Inker Martial said, arms folded. “You will run with these for as long as you can. While wearing them, you cannot use Essence.”
"This is an infantile training method." I meant the words to cut. They came out between my teeth instead, each one costing breath I did not have to spare.
"Does that make you an infant, then?" The man did not smile. I think he simply did not care.
I glared at him. A thousand years ago, that glare would have ended not just the conversation, but also the man. I looked toward Ash. She stood steady. The weight sat on her far better than it did me. Hers was a body built for carrying weight. I had often made others carry mine.
The Inker tilted his head, reached behind himself again. He produced another sash, this time tying it around his own waist. The front of the sash warped, and now he had his own strange box. He had not so much as twitched. “Infantile. Was that the word you used?” The man frowned, and jumped.
I called it a jump. In truth, it was closer to a leap. He sailed straight up, two dozen feet in the air. For a moment, I almost thought he’d used [Flight]. His ascent stopped. He came back down again, landing limbly on the sand. “Any Crest can manage this much easily. I barely even feel this weight.” He turned, and gestured back towards the running students.
I noticed now that they’d been running in a circle, their footprints carving a track across the sand. “Like I said, twenty minutes. Try to manage at least half that.”
My left eye twitched. I had not bid it to.
I turned toward the track. Twenty paces, perhaps twenty-five between us and the students already running, their feet carving a wide oval into the sand. Twenty-five paces was nothing. I had once crossed the breadth of the Dwarven capital in a single bound. I had once flown above clouds that would never see the ground.
The first step sank into sand up to the ankle. The second was steadier, but slower. By the fifth, my calves burned. The weight pulled at my center with every stride, tipping me forward, and I had to fight it with muscles I had never been asked to use. I had commanded unquestioning legions, and now I was negotiating with my own knees. The sand gave beneath me with every step,
Ash walked beside me. She moved with a steady and unhurried stride. She did not offer me a place to lean on. That was to her credit. "Are you alright?" The worry in her voice was not.
"I am perfectly well." I took two more steps. Three more steps. My feet found a rhythm that was not quite walking and not quite anything else. The track was close now. “I- I am not built for something this meager.." That thought had been meant to stay inside my head.
I thought I heard Ash laugh. It seemed she had breath to spare even for that.
From up close, I could see the track more clearly now. It was a more level section of this place, arranged not in a circle, but in a very large oval. We were supposed to run this length?
I stepped onto the track. I forced my back straight. I forced my knees higher, and made my stride longer. The result was not running, exactly. It was not walking either. I did not wish to think too long on what exactly it was.
Ash kept pace beside me. Her breathing was even. Her stride was short in a way that did not match the length of her legs. I knew what she was doing. I had known from the first step.
I opened my mouth. The words were already there. You are holding yourself back. I turned to look at her.
Ash was already looking at me. Her blue eyes held mine and her jaw set. The words died on my tongue. It seemed my words were not needed at all. That was new.
Ash let out a breath. "You can do this," she said. It was neither question nor encouragement.
Then she moved. Her stride lengthened in a single step. She took one step for every three of mine. In moments, I was looking at her back, at the broad line of her shoulders, at the gold of her hair catching the strange light of this place. She did not look back. That was also to her credit.
I watched her pull ahead. I watched her join the nearest group of students and pass through them without slowing, and I did not call after her, and I did not resent her for leaving, and I was not sure what the feeling was, but it was warm. Perhaps that was enough.
"Fool," I whispered. The word cost me half a breath. I could not afford the full version of what I thought.
This was simple. I had to put the first foot in front of the second, then the first in front of the second again. Over and over again. It was the simplest thing in the world. Even the most pathetic imp in my horde could manage this. Even a creature with no legs could manage this, if it had sufficient motivation and a reasonable slope.
The sand dragged at my feet, just enough to steal the last fraction of each stride. The weight at my chest pulled me down and forward, and my spine fought it, and my spine was losing. Sweat gathered at my temples and ran into my eyes. It stung. I could not wipe it away without stopping, and I would not stop.
The Ember Core hummed louder with each step, or perhaps it was the same volume and I was simply running out of other sounds to hear. My breathing had narrowed to a thin, harsh thing that came through my teeth. I had once ended a siege by standing at the gates of a city and simply existing there, and now I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears and it was the loudest thing in this desert.
One foot. Then the other. The weight grew heavier. I was certain now that this was not my imagination.
Footsteps found me from behind. Two pairs of them, falling into rhythm with each other. "Looks like the half-demon really was all bark and no bite." The first voice was nasal and loud enough to carry well past me.
"What'd you expect from someone walking around calling herself Lysanthia? They even registered her under that name. Ridiculous." The second voice said. No less pleasant than the first.
I said nothing. I did not have the breath for it, and they were not worth the breath I did not have. The two girls drew level with me in three strides. The one on my right was all freckles and a nose that dominated her face. Perhaps she was the last [Sighmaw]. Or perhaps she was her own kind of Demonblood. The one on my left was broader and thicker than she was tall. Perhaps a boar that had [Shapeshifted] into a human.
"Well? Got nothing to say for yourself, little half-demon?" The freckled one said.
The broad one glanced at her companion before she spoke. It was a small glance. I knew a request for permission when I saw one, even when it was this small.
"She's just figuring out she's not all that, Minny. Well? Got nothing to say? After the way you acted-"
"I do not know you," I said. The words came out between breaths, which robbed them of the ice I had intended. Both girls faltered in their stride. I gained two steps before they recovered.
"You don't know-" The broad one's face reddened. "You're gonna act like you don't know who we are?!"
I knew exactly who they were. I knew their kind. Every court in every realm in every age had them. The ones who believed proximity to power was the same as possessing it. I had seen it in demons who orbited my generals the way moons orbit larger bodies.
"We're talking to you!" The freckled one said. "What, too scared to even look at us?"
I raised my head. I looked at them. Slowly. "It is a sad fate," I said, "to be a minion." I returned my gaze to the broader one. "A sadder fate to be a minion's minion."
The silence that followed lasted four steps. I counted them. The freckled girl's mouth had opened and had not closed. The broad one had almost fallen over before she’d recovered herself.
"Whatever, Shir," the freckled girl muttered. Her voice had thinned. "Remember what Lena told us."
They picked up their pace and passed me. I raised my head, only to see the big-nosed girl stare back at me. Ah. I did remember these two now. They were the ones who'd been there on that day, with the girl named Lena. Why did the minions always bark louder than their masters? However much the world changed, it seemed some things always stayed the same.
I had known many who glanced at another before speaking. Most of them had learned the habit in my court. The thought sat poorly in me now, in a way it would not have, once.
I was alone again. The rhythm I had found was gone, broken by those two. My legs moved. The sand dragged. The weight pulled. The Ember Core hummed its endless hum, and I let it fill the silence because there was nothing else.
If I could use Essence, this would be nothing. A Queen should not be reduced to this. The thought was sharp, and I held it close because it was easier than the other thought. That I would not have minded the company. Would not have minded if Ash had held herself back, this once.
I crushed the thought as soon as it came. A Queen endured. A Queen-
Something caught my foot. My ankle turned and the weight on my chest did the rest. It pitched me forward and sideways, and the sand came up to meet me. I hit the ground on my side. Sand filled my mouth. For a brief and indignant moment, I was pinned down under my own weight.
I spat sand and pushed myself upright. My arms trembled with the effort.
“At least watch where you’re going! I think that’s just basic etiquette.” In front of me, was a blonde girl, her hair done in careful locks. She wore a uniform somehow finer than any I had seen on a student. She was one of the few students I did recognize.
The girl who had thought herself impressive in front of the Arbiter, before Ash had cut her down to size. Alisa Wulfram.