The days were long, yet they passed in a blur. The nights went faster, slipping by before they could even feel real. Ashe’s body ached from head to toe, and every movement sent pain lancing through him. He moved with gritted teeth and stiff limbs.

  When the breakfast bell pierced the air, Ashe groaned and rolled out of bed. As the ringing faded, the buzz returned, that vibration in the air he couldn’t quite ignore. It had been growing stronger over the past few days. But he pushed it aside, telling himself it was just the effects of stress and long training days.

  Outside his room, people were already moving. The clatter of footsteps and hushed voices echoed around him.

  By the time he reached the dining room, he slipped onto the familiar hard bench with his porridge in hand. The chatter of the others barely reached him from the far table. It had been made clear he wasn’t welcome. It still stung, but the burn had faded since his initial rejection.

  Even if Annabelle was friendly when it was just the two of them, in this setting it was different.

  Even if the Guild had accepted him as a Herald, the others still hadn’t. Ashe was far weaker, slower, and less experienced than everyone else, and he had the bruises to prove it.

  Ashe still hadn’t been able to contact Rasmus, or anyone outside the facility, which only deepened the isolation of this place. The cold floors. The constant buzz. The heralds.

  He ignored the voices until one broke through, louder than normal. Ashe shook his head and tried to focus.

  “You’re not welcome here.”

  The voice was like gravel, stone against stone. Diaggo. Ashe felt his face begin to flush, but he didn’t respond. He turned back to his porridge and nodded, any words he wanted to say dying on his lips. Any hunger vanished, and he dropped his spoon back into the porridge.

  With one swift movement, he pulled up his legs and swung them over the bench. Excruciating pain shot through his legs and up his spine. But he didn’t show it. He straightened his back and kept moving forward.

  As he left, he could hear the fading voices, the dying laughter. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve thought it was a nice place to be.

  Ashe’s legs carried him down the corridor without much thought, taking him toward the training hall for no deeper reason than the itch to practice. If he wanted even the weakest herald to stop looking through him, he had to close the gap. Even if he knew it was unlikely. They’d been training for over a year. He’d had only a few weeks.

  As he approached he kept his jaw tight and walked like the pain didn’t matter.

  When Ashe entered the room, Danny was already there. The scent of his perfume hit first, then the slow, methodical rhythm of his breathing. Normally, those two things would have told Ashe exactly where he stood in the space. Today, he barely registered it before Danny spoke.

  “What’s wrong? Shouldn’t you be eating? Training doesn’t start yet.”

  Ashe lifted his head toward the sound. “Wasn’t hungry.” The words came out thin, not quite confident. He swallowed and forced the next part out anyway. “I need to practice.”

  Danny’s response came quickly. “Overtraining will only hurt you in the long run. We need you in shape, not crippled.” The last word landed with a light chuckle, a clear attempt to soften it, to tug Ashe’s mood back up.

  Ashe pressed his lips together, flashing a small tight smile, even though the words didn’t lift his mood. “What are we doing today?” The question slipped out before Ashe had properly thought it through.

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  “Cardio training first. For you, treadmill and obstacle course. Then a short rest, lunch, and then sparring,” Danny said.

  “Obstacle course?” That was strange, but he didn’t question it. Instead, Ashe nodded, already feeling the bruises he still carried from the last spar. “Any tips? What I’m trying clearly isn’t working.” For a second, silence pressed in. Ashe opened his mouth to ask again, to push, when Danny finally spoke.

  “You can’t really improve that quickly. You need to be patient, and instead of trying to be as good as everyone else, focus on improving one thing at a time. Be better than yesterday.”

  The words made more sense than Ashe wanted them to. He knew it was the right way forward. He just wished, stupidly, that he could skip the steps and wake up better already.

  Ashe found the wall and slid his back down it, slumping to the floor as he waited. There was no point in returning to his room now. The sound of approaching steps and low chatter jolted him free from his thoughts. He shook his head and stood up.

  Danny’s voice cut through the chatter like a warm knife through butter. “Cardio first.” A soft sigh followed, but no one questioned it. “Please pick where you would like to start. Ashe, please follow me to a treadmill.”

  The group dispersed, sorting themselves out for cardio. Ashe managed to catch that Annabelle would be swimming.

  He pushed through the crowd toward where Danny had been speaking. Ashe flinched when cold fingers wrapped around his arm and a voice spoke in his left ear. “Follow me.” It was Danny, and yet he sounded less jovial than normal. He was in training mode.

  The room with the treadmills was cold, and the rolling hum of the HVAC system never stopped. Danny guided Ashe to a machine. “I want you to run while increasing the speed every minute until you can’t anymore. At that point, we go straight to the obstacle course,” Danny said.

  “But I can’t even do the obstacle course when I’m not tired,” Ashe said, confused.

  “I will guide you. It’s not about the obstacle course. It’s about precision. Your biggest problem is that your movements are sloppy, inaccurate because of your limited training. By doing this, we hope to increase your precision even when you’re tired.”

  It made sense to Ashe, and he still wasn’t looking forward to any of it. But if he was going to get better, he had to listen. “Okay.”

  Danny’s fingers quickly found the controls, and with a soft click the treadmill roared to life. Ashe matched the belt’s pace, almost stumbling as it sped up.

  Danny’s spoke. “I will increase the speed each minute. Let me know when you can’t increase further.” By that point Ashe just nodded, his focus squarely on the task at hand.

  With each increase, with each beep of the timer, the taste of blood grew thicker in his mouth. By the eighth minute, it was heavy on his tongue and his lungs burned like fire. Each breath came ragged and short between steps. But Ashe didn’t stop. He couldn’t. By the ninth, his mouth had turned to a desert and his head grew light. But his determination, despite the pain, grew firmer, more resolute. By the tenth, his surroundings disappeared, and all he could hear was the buzzing that had been constant for weeks. He was starting to fear it wasn’t just paranoia or exhaustion, but something more. It grew louder and louder until Ashe’s stomach lurched, and then it vanished. The treadmill stopped, and cold hands were guiding him once more.

  Ashe could tell Danny was speaking, but his voice was faint, smeared by the pounding in Ashe’s ears.

  Then, like a rubber band snapping, the world rushed back into focus. “All right. In front of you is a small climbing wall.”

  Ashe stepped forward until his hands met cold, rough panels, different handholds bolted into the surface. He ran his fingers up the wall until he found the first hold. His hands were still trembling and his lungs still ached for air, but Ashe pushed through it.

  Behind him, Danny directed him to the next one.

  At the beginning, each new move was hard, laborious. More often than not, Ashe grabbed at air as he searched for the holds. But with every direction, his confidence and accuracy grew. By the time he reached the top and climbed over, he almost wished there was more.

  He could feel himself getting better. It should have made him happy, but somehow it only made him angry. Why hadn’t he started doing this earlier?

  “Find the rope. Steady yourself on the parallel ropes, ” Danny said.

  Ashe kept one hand on the wall while his foot felt for the rope. The moment his weight shifted, it pulled, and he almost slipped as the ropes slid away to the sides. With flailing arms Ashe managed to grab the sides and shimmy his way forwards.

  With each new obstacle, Ashe’s confidence and precision grew. By the time he slid off the last one, his chest heaving so fast it felt like it was rising and falling at the same time, he expected a break. Instead, a toe nudged against his ribs.

  “Get up. You need to go again.”

  Ashe was ready to protest, until he realised this was exactly what he needed.