Chapter 6 - The First Time He Was Too Slow
Zio learned early that speed mattered.
Not the kind measured by how fast legs moved or how quickly a blade cut through air, but the kind that decided whether a moment could still be saved or whether it had already slipped beyond reach. It was the difference between reacting and arriving too late. On that morning, he did not yet know he was about to learn how thin that difference truly was.
The training ground lay just beyond the refugee village, where packed earth gave way to uneven stone. Morning mist still clung low to the ground. Zio moved through his drills in silence, breath steady, posture exact. Each step landed where it should. Each motion ended cleanly.
Trod watched from a distance.
He always did.
There were no shouted commands. No mid movement corrections. The dwarf believed that a body trained correctly would fix its own mistakes. Anything else was interference.
Zio completed the sequence and reset his stance. Sweat clung lightly to his skin. He waited.
Trod's silence was not approval. It was expectation.
Zio began again. Movement. Breath. Impact. Stillness.
The rhythm settled. The world narrowed to balance and alignment. To the quiet certainty of doing something right.
Then a scream tore through the air.
It was sharp. High. Wrong.
Zio froze for half a heartbeat.
The sound came from the edge of the village, near the treeline where claimed land met the wild. He turned instinctively. Another scream followed. Closer. This one carried panic rather than pain.
His body moved before his thoughts finished forming.
Zio ran.
He moved fast. Faster than most children his age ever could. His stride stayed efficient. His breathing remained controlled. The ground blurred beneath his feet.
Yet something was wrong.
The village burst into view, and with it, chaos. A hunting group had returned early, hauling a cart heavy with supplies. One wheel had snapped near the slope leading down into the lower paths. The cart tilted. Wood groaned under shifting weight. Cargo spilled as voices rose in alarm.
In front of it stood a boy.
Younger than Zio. Smaller. Frozen in place. His feet tangled in loose rope.
Zio saw everything at once. The incline. The broken wheel. The shifting mass. If the cart tipped fully, the boy would be crushed.
He pushed harder, feet digging into the earth.
Distance. Timing. Angle.
Then, for the first time in his life, doubt surfaced.
Not fear. Not panic.
A single thought, sharp and unwanted.
Am I fast enough?
It lasted less than a second.
The world answered in that second.
Zio reached the cart as it tipped past balance. He slammed into the boy, twisting as he dragged them both clear. The cart crashed down behind them. Wood splintered. Supplies burst free. The sound ripped through the village.
Zio hit the ground hard, rolling instinctively to shield the boy as debris scattered around them.
Silence followed.
Then the boy began to cry.
Zio sucked in a breath and pushed himself up. No crushed bodies. No trapped limbs. The boy was alive.
Relief surged through him.
Then he saw the leg.
A jagged shard of wood had caught the boy's calf. Not deep. Not fatal. But bleeding. Enough to leave a scar.
Enough that it should not have happened.
Hands pulled the boy away. Voices flooded the space. Someone gripped Zio's shoulder, asking if he was hurt. Zio nodded without really hearing. His gaze stayed fixed on the blood staining the dirt.
Something inside him felt wrong.
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The village did what it always did after danger passed.
It talked.
People gathered in uneven clusters. Some inspected the ruined cart, arguing about repair and blame. Others hovered near the injured child, voices low, hands moving with nervous care. The sound of worry softened into relief.
Zio stood apart.
He heard his name spoken more than once.
"He was fast."
"That could have been much worse."
"Good thing the boy was there."
Each word landed strangely. Praise slid off him without settling. The words felt misplaced, like they belonged to someone else who had arrived sooner.
A woman pressed a cloth into his hands without looking at him. "For the blood," she said, already turning away.
Zio stared at the cloth. It was barely stained. Not his.
Someone laughed nervously nearby. Someone else cursed the broken wheel. Life pushed forward, eager to smooth over the fracture.
Zio could not.
His chest felt tight. Not with pain. With something unfinished.
He replayed the moment again and again. The scream. The run. The thought. That single instant where he checked himself instead of committing fully.
If he had moved without thinking.
If he had trusted his body.
If he had not measured the distance.
The boy would not have been hurt.
That truth sat heavier than the cart ever could have.
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Trod arrived moments later.
One look was enough.
The wreckage. The injured child. Zio standing too still amid the noise.
Trod's gaze settled on him. It did not soften. It did not harden.
It evaluated.
The villagers praised Zio's speed. His bravery. They spoke of how much worse it could have been. Trod let them talk. When they finished, he stepped closer.
"Walk," he said.
They moved away from the noise. Away from the cart. Away from the crying.
Neither spoke for a long time.
"I was fast," Zio said eventually.
"Yes."
"I moved the moment I heard the scream."
"Yes."
"I did what I was trained to do."
"Yes."
Zio stopped walking. "But he still got hurt."
Trod stopped as well.
"You chose," the dwarf said evenly. "The world answered."
"Was I wrong?"
"No."
"Then why?"
"You were slow."
The word struck harder than any blow.
"I ran as fast as I could."
"That is not what I said," Trod replied. He stepped closer. "You hesitated."
Zio looked away. "I thought."
"Thinking costs time," Trod said. "Sometimes you have it. Sometimes you do not."
He turned back toward the village.
"There will be no punishment. No correction."
Zio stared at him. "What?"
"The consequence already happened," Trod said, and then he left.
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That night, sleep refused to come.
Zio lay still, eyes open, listening to the village settle. Footsteps faded. Fires dimmed. The quiet crept back in, cautious and incomplete.
Every time he closed his eyes, the image returned.
The cart tipping.
Not the impact. Not the crash.
The hesitation.
His body had been ready. He felt that clearly now. The delay had not come from weakness. It had come from restraint arriving too late.
His breathing slowed. Then stalled.
Mana stirred faintly beneath his chest, not pressing, not flowing, simply present. Waiting.
Zio focused on it the way he had been taught. He did not reach. He did not correct. He listened.
The delay surfaced again.
Not dangerous. Not painful.
Unsettling.
It was there even now, without threat, without urgency. Proof that it was not the moment that had failed him.
It was him.
The air shifted.
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Zyon stood at the edge of the clearing, closer than usual.
"You did not fail," Zyon said.
"Then why does it feel like I did?"
"What did you feel just before you moved?" Zyon asked.
"I knew what to do."
"And?"
"I wondered if I could reach him in time."
"That is doubt," Zyon said.
"I was not afraid."
"I know," Zyon replied. "But the world does not care why you were late."
Silence settled between them.
"You are trained to move," Zyon continued. "Soon, you will be trained to decide."
"And if I decide wrong?"
Zyon met his gaze. "Then you will carry it."
Zyon faded.
Zio lay staring at the sky. Speed could save a life, but only if the moment had not already passed.
For the first time, he understood that survival was not about being fast.
It was about choosing before the world forced the answer.
End of Chapter 6
End of ARC 1 Before Power, There Was Survival