Chapter 24

Pyre stood across from Balefor on the expanded platform, the space between them wider than before, the etched stone reinforced by a faint lattice of glowing sigils beneath the surface. Newly erected barriers of translucent force shimmered along the platform’s edges, angled and layered, clearly designed to prevent any stray attacks from spilling outward the way Urosh’s lightning had the day before.

The precautions made the space feel tighter, not safer.

According to Kesh, Balefor had visited one of the factions the previous night, yet the lion-man still hadn’t taken a sponsorship. Whatever had happened there had left no visible mark, but Pyre could tell something had shifted. There was less ease in Balefor’s posture, less humor in the way he rolled his shoulders and flexed his hands.

Who knows what is going through his head, Pyre thought as he glanced over to Sister Halcyon, who stood on a neighboring platform beside Urosh, her bell staff grounded at her side, her attention split but absolute. When she finally spoke, her voice carried cleanly across the training space. “Begin.”

Balefor’s gaze fixed on Pyre, sharp and intent. “I’ve been wondering.”

“About?” Pyre asked.

Balefor summoned his greataxe. The weapon materialized with a low, resonant thrum, its translucent edge catching the ambient light, its weight immediately apparent in the way Balefor adjusted his stance. “What it would be like for us to clash.”

“Probably painful,” Pyre said.

“Probably.”

Balefor surged forward.

Pyre produced his Sigil at the last moment, the broken black blade forming faster than it ever had before. He swung upward in a sharp, flame-filled arc, instinct driving the motion. Fire roared outward, not wild but focused, the sudden heat forcing Balefor to twist aside.

Flame caught in the edges of Balefor’s mane. He hissed and slapped at it, sending his Sigil away as he extinguished the embers with quick, practiced movements.

“You burned me. Damn you, Pyre!”

Balefor charged again.

There was playfulness in it at first, the same rough joy Pyre had felt sparring with Kesh.

Pyre met Balefor with fire and footwork, keeping distance, refusing to give ground. Each time Balefor closed in, Pyre forced him back with heat, timing, and stubborn refusal.

But it soon became clear that this wasn’t just a clash of weapons.

Their Domains were speaking. Pyre’s Defiance manifested in endurance rather than dominance. He never landed a clean hit as he was driven backward again and again, sweat slicking his brow, lungs burning, muscles screaming for rest.

And still, he did not yield.

Balefor, by contrast, advanced relentlessly.

At first with a bit of humor, then with focus, then with something much harder. The levity drained from his expression as his need to control the fight asserted itself, Conquest making itself known.

Each strike carried more weight, each step forward pressed harder. His Sigil responded in kind, swelling with pressure, the greataxe growing heavier, brighter, its edge vibrating with barely contained force.

“You will not yield, will you?” Balefor asked at one point, bent forward slightly, curling a finger at Pyre.

“Never,” Pyre said, the word leaving his lips before thought could catch it. He froze for half a breath afterward, something inside him clicking into place. Not pride, not bravado, but recognition for the very thing that continued to drive him through all of this—defiance.

Balefor straightened. “And I’m not going to stop,” he huffed, conjuring his greataxe again.

“Then bring it,” Pyre told him.

The flames of Pyre’s Sigil flickered, touched now with threads of blue and purple, the fire tighter, denser, coiling around the blade.

Balefor went for him.

The greataxe slammed down, and Pyre caught it on the crossguard of his broken blade, heat flaring violently at the point of contact. Balefor pushed through the fire even as it ignited across his face and shoulders, teeth bared, eyes wild.

For a moment they were locked together.

The lion-man loomed over Pyre, massive frame bent forward, the axe caught fast against Pyre’s weapon. Pyre’s boots skidded against the stone as he poured everything he had into holding the line.

Then Pyre felt it.

Something slipped in Balefor’s Sigil, and a sharp fissure spread across its translucent surface. Balefor pushed harder, fire burning along his mane and down his arms, Pyre’s muscles trembling under the strain.

The attendants reacted instantly, moving toward the platform as the pressure spiked dangerously, as Balefor roared. The sound was raw, feral, powerful enough to stagger Pyre even through the barriers.

Two attendants reached Balefor, and he shoved them aside without thinking, the force of the motion snapping the tension in the air.

Then he stopped.

The rage bled out of him all at once. “My apologies,” Balefor said, shoulders lowering. He hopped off the platform, the crack in his Sigil stabilizing as it vanished.

Balefor helped the attendants he had pushed to their feet, gripping the man’s arm with surprising gentleness. He waved at Sister Halcyon. “I let my temper get the best of me.”

“Do not let it happen again,” she said evenly. “You do not want to end up in the Hollow because you couldn’t keep your ego in check.”

Balefor stood tall, shoulders back to cover his embarrassment as he avoided eye contact with her. “Understood. My apologies again, Sister.”

She inclined her head slightly, then turned her attention. “Pyre,” she said after offering him a short nod, “You can now face Urosh.”

“Understood.” Pyre stepped onto the platform across from Urosh.

Up close, the massive, shirtless man looked different than he had before. His scarred body was still imposing, his muscles coiled and ready, but there was hesitation in his eyes now. A flicker of doubt.

“Hi,” Pyre told him.

“Good morning,” Urosh said, the first words he’d spoken to Pyre all day. His gaze darted briefly to the sides, to the attendants, and to Sister Halcyon, before locking onto Pyre.

They summoned their Sigils at nearly the same time.

Urosh’s hammer crackled with lightning, and Pyre’s broken blade ignited in response.

The first bolt came without warning.

Pyre barely had time to raise his sword. The lightning slammed into him, flooding his arm with searing pain even as the flames absorbed the worst of it. He stumbled backward, his Sigil flickering out as he shook his hand, numbness racing up his shoulder.

Urosh didn’t hesitate.

He closed the distance in two strides and brought the hammer down in a clean, brutal strike. It connected squarely, sending Pyre flying to the edge of the platform. He hit the stone hard, air tearing from his lungs.

Pyre dragged himself up, coughing, then straightened despite the ache tearing through him.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said to Urosh, his voice low and tight.

His Sigil snapped back into his hand, and the flames exploded, answering his fury without restraint. They didn’t just lash outward this time; they spiraled around Pyre in a tight, spherical storm of fire. The heat was intense, overwhelming, the light blinding. He felt nothing but fury and momentum as his Anima burned at a terrifying rate.

Urosh recoiled.

Pyre didn’t understand why until he registered the reactions around him, the attendants stiffening, Kesh half-rising from his seat, Lyra staring in open shock.

The fire wasn’t just around the blade anymore.

It was around Pyre. Spherical. Dense. Hungry.

Pyre was so angry he didn’t realize how much Anima he was consuming.

The pressure built inward instead of outward, compressing, tightening, warping the air itself.

Pyre hit the ground, and everything went dark.

He woke to exhaustion first, a low ache running through him as blurred shapes sharpened overhead. Sister Halcyon stood over him. Balefor waited behind her, arms crossed, face closed. Urosh lingered off to the side, shoulders heavy, hands clasped in hesitation. Lyra watched from farther back, eyes intent.

Somewhere beyond them, faint but unmistakable, came the soft pluck of a lute string signaling Kesh was nearby.

“Good, you’re awake,” Sister Halcyon told Pyre. “Let’s see your Sigil.”

Pyre looked up at her skeptically.

“Well?” she asked.

“Here?”

“Show me.”

Still lying on his back, Pyre summoned the weapon.

The broken black blade appeared in his hand, flame licking up its length, but something was wrong about it. Whereas before the fire roared, it now trembled, the form of the weapon subtly unstable. Not cracked, not damaged, but wavering, as if it couldn’t quite decide where it wanted to exist.

Pyre frowned.

This was the first time he could remember seeing his Sigil like this.

“So you do have a breaking point,” Sister Halcyon said, stepping aside as if to see it from another angle.

Pyre sent the weapon away, and Balefor offered him a hand. Pyre took it and stood, legs unsteady beneath him.

“There is a lesson in all this,” Sister Halcyon told them. “And that is, as I stated earlier, to not push yourself too hard. You’re all new at this; regardless of how long you have prepared or the roles you played in your previous lives. It takes time to adjust to the conditions of the Nether, to better interpret your Anima. Our exercise at the Font will help. We will go there soon, after Urosh and Lyra finish.”

Urosh and Lyra moved to the center platform while Balefor, Pyre, and Kesh gathered near the edge, the Ledger Kin attendants behind.

“Yours cracked again?” Pyre asked Kesh as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I could have sworn I heard music.”

“It didn’t break,” Kesh said, “but I sensed it was close. Call it a musician’s intuition; that, or seeing your sword flare up gave me a reason to stop pushing myself.”

“I don’t know what that was,” Pyre admitted, as Urosh and Lyra began.

“Whatever it was, it was glorious to behold,” Balefor told Pyre. “I don’t know what to make of your Sigil or your Domain, but it is certainly something that the factions should be taking notice of.”

“Thanks,” Pyre said, then hesitated before asking something that he’d been wondering about since earlier that morning. “I’m surprised you haven’t taken a sponsorship.”

“Ah, that,” Balefor said, his eyes flickering from Lyra and Urosh’s fight back to Pyre. “There is an incongruence I can’t quite name. Several have made offers for sponsorship, but when I think about them—the factions, not the offers—and how they describe themselves, it gives me pause.”

“What do you mean?” Kesh asked Balefor.

“The Luminous Concord continues to court me, but their obsession with balance and their timing because of it doesn’t align well with me. Lady Freja is trying to convince me otherwise.”

“What about the others?” Pyre asked.

On the platform, Lyra’s replica delivered a rapid series of kicks, forcing Urosh back just long enough for her to step inside his guard. She struck once—clean, decisive—and Urosh went down hard.

She really is powerful, he thought as Balefor continued.

“The Mercy Apostles intercepted me when I was leaving the Luminous Concord, but they are quite radical, and all the other angelic factions hate them, similar to the Heavenly Host. And color me surprised when the Coven has extended a sponsorship to me, but I’m not one to align with demonic factions, and their obsession with contracts turned me off.”

Urosh summoned a bolt of lightning as he rose, one that cracked his Sigil on impact.

He froze and glared down at the fracture. This time, the disappointment was quieter, contained, but no less real.

Afterward, Sister Halcyon gathered them again.

She reminded the remaining Unclaimed that intention and understanding mattered more than brute force, that they could no longer rely on the pain, adrenaline, and desperation that had carried them in life. “You will shatter your Sigil if you fight to the death in the way you may have battled when you were alive,” she said. “Since there is little that can be done here, we will now go to the Font.”

With that, she dismissed the exercise and led them back toward the center of Aevum. The remaining Unclaimed walk past in quiet order, the group settling again at the familiar edge as the light gathered around them. They took their places as they had the day before, the Font of Eternity’s light washing over them in slow, steady waves.

“You understand now that the Font can help you replenish your Anima,” Sister Halcyon said once they were all settled. “Do that now. For the next hour, work on feeling that. If you need to stand, don’t. If your mind wanders, bring it back to the present. We will deal with the Attunement after. Before we do so, you must feel your power returning.”

Pyre closed his eyes.

At first, there was only fatigue—deep, bone-level exhaustion that resisted being soothed.

Gradually, something shifted.

The pressure returned, not sharp this time, but heavy and encompassing. His thoughts blurred at the edges, and the fire in his chest dulled, settling into something warmer, steadier as Pyre settled on what was becoming his happy place.

Farreach at the start of summer. Cool mornings before the heat set in, grass damp beneath his feet, the low chorus of insects rising as the day eased itself awake.

Time lost its shape and when Sister Halcyon called them back, it felt as if only minutes had passed.

“Now, in this state that you have put yourself, we will begin the process of Domain Attunement,” she said, her gaze moving across the group. “The reason for doing this is to bring your Sigil to its full potential by triggering your Domain Trial. Remember, your Sigil won’t be fully mature until then. This is the ultimate test.”

“So the meditation wasn’t doing any attunement?” Balefor asked.

“Not fully. Anima meditation restores capacity; Domain Attunement clarifies identity,” Sister Halcyon explained. “You will put yourself in a similar meditative state and then focus on your Domain. For you, Balefor, that would be Conquest, but my instruction applies to all: look back at your life through the lens of a calm mind and see where this trait first showed itself. Only you can reflect on your own being. Be wary of any false memories. You’re not trying to lie to yourself here; you’re trying to fully understand who you are and how these Domains came to be.”

She paused, letting the weight of it settle.

“The best way to do so is to ask yourself: What will I always choose even when it costs me? What do I refuse to become? That’s often a good starting point,” Sister Halcyon said. “Begin.”