The stone corridor echoed with a cold, rhythmic drip. A single torch hissed on the wall, casting flickers across the narrow passage. Izen walked slowly, his boots soft on the dust-strewn floor, hands loose at his sides, but eyes locked forward. This wasn't a place meant for students, but the kind of place they built under schools like this—beneath legacy and ceremony, beneath polished marble—somewhere that smelled of blood and old decisions.
He wasn't entirely sure if this test was still sanctioned. After all, no one had escorted him here. No instructor briefed him. Just a black envelope slid under his dorm door the night before. No seal, no ink. Inside, only three words: Enter the Spiral.
Above ground, the academy operated like a machine—orderly, glittering, aristocratic. Below, it groaned with secrets.
He paused as the corridor widened. The narrow passage opened into a circular chamber, its walls curved and layered with dark inscriptions. Five archways branched from the room like the claws of a buried beast. At the center was a large, metal ring embedded into the stone floor—rusted, ancient, motionless.
As he approached it, the air felt heavier. Not in the poetic sense, but as if time slowed around the ring itself. He crouched down and reached out, letting his fingertips graze the iron.
It pulsed.
He stood.
"I wasn't sure you'd come." A voice echoed across the chamber. Feminine. Cold. From one of the archways stepped a figure in gray combat leathers—lean, long hair braided behind her head, and a jagged scar running from her cheekbone to the edge of her lip. Her left arm was gloved to the elbow in black steel.
Izen took a moment before replying. "What gave it away?"
"You're predictable. Curious. And you have something to prove."
She stepped forward, each motion graceful and assured. Her eyes scanned him—not as a person, but like a butcher evaluating a cut of meat.
"I take it this is the part where you attack me without context," Izen muttered.
"No," she said, stopping only a few feet away. "This is the part where I show you what happens when a ghost stares too long at the living."
Then she moved.
A blur of metal, wind, and raw instinct. The gloved fist shot toward his throat, and he barely dipped his shoulder, redirecting the blow with a twist of his forearm. His body skidded across the chamber floor, boots scraping against grit. Her follow-up came without pause—a spinning kick arcing toward his ribs.
He dropped, rolled beneath it, then sprang up to create distance.
She was faster than anyone he'd fought.
Izen's lungs drew in sharply. She wasn't trying to kill him. Not yet. But she was hunting him like prey.
For the first time in months, adrenaline surged.
"You're not a student," he said calmly, eyes narrowed.
"No."
She lunged again, and this time he met her.
Their limbs collided in a brief flurry—his calculated defense against her raw speed. Her mechanical gauntlet hissed with compressed energy. It wasn't enchanted. It was engineered. Every strike drove shockwaves into the stone, and every time he dodged, he could feel the air ripple.
He didn't have the strength to match her.
So he stalled.
Every movement he made had a hidden calculation. Each dodge bought him more observation. How her hips rotated before a left feint. The half-second delay before she committed to the gauntlet. She was trained for brutality, not longevity.
But something else stirred beneath the surface—he could feel it.
The way the room twisted at the edge of his vision. The sensation that her movements weren't just fast—but early. His own reactions lagged by fractions. Or perhaps—she was operating on a different rhythm entirely.
No.It wasn't her. It was him.
The chamber responded to him.
She came again. This time, instead of dodging, Izen stepped forward into her attack.
Her gauntlet swung for his head. At the last moment, he dropped into a crouch, sweeping her legs out from under her. She hit the floor with a grunt, but rolled, boots finding purchase. She snarled.
"You're adjusting," she said.
"You're slowing," he replied.
But that was a lie.
She wasn't slowing. He was seeing more.
A split second before each movement, something inside him stretched. A faint vibration. Like a tick of an invisible hand brushing air. He could feel the wind's intent. The body's inertia. The moment before pain.
No—still not power. Just the edge of it. The rim of a well.
"I was told you'd be clever," she said, wiping blood from her lip. "They said you killed your own mother."
Izen's expression didn't change. But the quiet in his chest suddenly rang louder.
"You shouldn't bring her up," he said.
"Why not?" she smiled, teeth slightly red. "It's a confession, isn't it? Something that eats at you. Something you carry like a leash."
He didn't reply.
Instead, he moved.
Not with strength, but with intention. His limbs glided where hers crashed. A half-second before her fist met his chest, he had already twisted past it, coiled like a serpent, and jammed his palm into the vulnerable nerve between her shoulder and neck.
She staggered.
He followed through. A kick to the back of her knee. She buckled. He reached for the gauntlet.
She slammed her head back into his nose. Sharp pain. Stars behind his eyelids. He stumbled.
She stood, coughing once, lips twisted in satisfaction. "Still human."
He spat blood. "Never claimed otherwise."
They circled each other.
The torchlight flickered lower, and for a moment, everything felt too still. A trickle of sweat slid down Izen's temple.
She lunged again—this time wild, emotional.
He caught her momentum and redirected it into the iron ring. Her body slammed against it. It groaned beneath the impact, ancient gears whining to life. The ring began to spin slowly, grooves lighting up with dull crimson.
"What did you do?" she hissed.
"Not sure," Izen admitted, blinking. "You helped."
The ring's glow deepened.
Then, from the archways, they arrived.
Figures—faceless, clad in draping rags, blades curved like sickles—emerged. Four of them. The Hounds of the Spiral.
She hissed. "They're not part of this."
"Apparently they disagree," Izen muttered.
The first one rushed forward, blade raised. The woman leapt to meet it, clashing metal on metal. Sparks flew. Izen didn't wait.
He dove toward the edge of the ring, grabbed the gauntlet she'd dropped during the impact, and pulled it onto his left arm. It hissed, scanning his vitals, then locked tight.
Clunk. Clack. Hiss.
As if recognizing a master. Or an equal.
Izen stood, flexed the fingers. It was heavier than he thought—but balanced. The second Hound came for him. He didn't think—he acted.
A punch. The gauntlet screamed with energy.
Crack.
The creature's mask split open. It crumpled to the floor.
The woman was already taking down a second with a sweep of her dual knives, bleeding from one thigh. She looked at him—not with contempt now, but something close to reassessment.
"You used me to trigger the ring."
He didn't deny it.
The third Hound fell to their combined strikes. Only one remained—but it was watching them, not attacking.
Its head tilted, and it pointed at Izen.
A whisper filled the chamber.
"The Breath lingers on your soul."
Then it vanished, curling into the shadows like smoke.
Silence returned.
Izen stood motionless. The gauntlet hummed on his arm.
She broke the silence first. "You really did kill your mother, didn't you?"
He didn't look at her. "Yes."
"Why?"
His voice was low. "Because she asked me to."
The weight of those words filled the room more than any echo. But neither of them pressed further.
She turned. "Your real test begins now. This was just an audition. You'll hear from them soon."
"Who?"
But she was already gone, vanishing through one of the archways without another word.
The metal ring at his feet still spun, faint and slow.
Izen looked at it, then at the darkness where the Hounds came from. The gauntlet twitched once, a soft tick echoing inside its chamber—almost like a clock.
Tick.
Tick.