eon's first sword was too heavy for him.
It wasn't symbolic. It wasn't destiny testing him. It was iron. Thick iron. And his wrists were not prepared for it.
At twelve years old, newly inducted into the outer training ring of the valley militia, Leon Valeris learned two things very quickly.
First: swords were not designed with optimism in mind.
Second: the other trainees were absolutely designed to notice weakness.
"Hold it straight," Instructor Darius barked, pacing in front of the recruits like an irritated bear forced into teaching. "You're not stirring stew. You're holding a weapon."
Leon adjusted his grip.
The blade wobbled.
Someone behind him snorted.
Leon resisted the urge to calculate the exact statistical survival rate of boys who laughed during formation drills.
Instead, he tightened his grip again.
The sword dipped.
His forearm trembled.
He tried to correct.
The tip smacked into the dirt.
Silence.
Darius slowly turned.
"Is the ground attacking you, Valeris?"
Leon cleared his throat. "Preemptive strike, sir."
A few recruits coughed to hide laughter.
Darius stared at him for a long moment.
Then, unexpectedly, the corner of his mouth twitched.
"Pick it up."
Leon did.
Barely.
He was not strong.
He was not fast.
He was not blessed by some hidden combat genius waiting to awaken.
If anything, he was painfully average.
But he paid attention.
That was the difference.
While others trained with brute force, Leon watched patterns. He noticed how often trainees lost balance when overcommitting to a strike. He saw how many stumbled on the uneven patches of earth near the western edge of the training yard. He observed how Darius always punished reckless lunges but rewarded controlled movement.
This valley loved boldness.
But Darius valued survival.
That was interesting.
Weeks passed.
Leon improved—but not dramatically. He didn't transform into a prodigy. He didn't unlock hidden talent. He simply stopped dropping the sword.
Progress.
One afternoon, they practiced formation defense. Five-man shield wall. Basic monster containment protocol.
Leon was placed in the rear support line.
Not because he was strategic.
Because he wasn't trusted in front.
The War Leader himself observed that day. A tall, broad-shouldered man named Bram who embodied everything this valley admired—strength, decisiveness, unshakable faith.
"Today," Bram announced, "we simulate a forest incursion."
That meant chaos.
The senior trainees played monsters. They charged unpredictably, striking from angles.
"Hold formation!" Darius shouted.
The front line braced.
The "monster" hit hard.
Too hard.
One of the younger boys panicked and stepped back.
The shield wall cracked.
Leon saw it before it fully happened.
Not because he was brilliant.
Because he had seen this exact thing before.
Overcommitment.
Poor spacing.
Panic.
He didn't shout a grand command.
He didn't make a heroic leap.
He stepped sideways and shoved the boy forward again.
Hard.
"Left foot!" Leon hissed.
The boy instinctively corrected his stance.
The gap closed.
The line stabilized.
The second charge hit—but held.
The drill ended moments later.
Bram approached.
"Who corrected the break?"
The boy Leon shoved looked terrified. "I—I don't know, sir—"
Leon raised his hand slowly.
Bram studied him.
"You saw it early?"
Leon hesitated.
He couldn't exactly say, I watched this valley make the same mistake for ten years.
"I trip a lot," Leon said honestly. "You learn where the ground fails."
There was a pause.
Then Bram laughed once.
A short, approving sound.
"Good. Learn where the ground fails."
It wasn't praise.
But it wasn't dismissal either.
That was the first shift.
Not admiration.
Recognition.
Small.
Subtle.
Important.
—
His first real patrol was a disaster.
Not because of monsters.
Because of mud.
The western slope had flooded early that spring. The river swelled unpredictably—something Leon had predicted would happen when shrine expansion pulled labor away from reinforcing the banks.
But he was a low-rank trainee.
No one asked him.
The patrol consisted of six young soldiers and one veteran.
They were to inspect boundary markers.
Routine.
Simple.
Until Rhen—tall, confident, beloved Rhen—decided to take a shortcut down the slope.
"Faster this way," Rhen said.
Leon stared at the incline.
It looked stable.
It was not stable.
"Maybe we circle—" Leon began.
Too late.
Rhen stepped.
The ground collapsed.
Not dramatically.
Not heroically.
Just wet earth giving up.
Rhen slid.
Hit a rock.
Tumbled.
The rest panicked.
Leon did not think.
He dropped his sword and lunged—not toward Rhen—but sideways, grabbing the exposed root of a tree before the soil shifted further.
"Grab me!" he shouted.
Rhen caught his wrist.
The mud pulled.
Leon nearly lost his grip.
He was not strong.
He was not heroic.
He was terrified.
But he had anchored first.
That was the difference.
The others scrambled to assist.
They hauled Rhen back up.
Everyone was covered in filth.
The veteran stared at Leon.
"You didn't chase him."
Leon was panting. "Chasing people downhill usually ends with two people downhill."
Silence.
Then the veteran barked a laugh.
Rhen, bruised and humiliated, clapped Leon's shoulder. "You think too much."
Leon did not disagree.
By evening, the story had spread.
Not as "Leon saved Rhen."
But as—
"Leon predicted the mud."
Which was not accurate.
He simply assumed terrain would betray them.
Because it always did.
Reputation, he learned, was rarely about truth.
It was about narrative.
And the valley loved narratives.
—
Years passed.
Leon grew taller.
Stronger.
Still not exceptional.
But steady.
He was assigned low-rank knight status at sixteen.
Not elite.
Not inner circle.
Outer defense rotation.
Still, it was rank.
He stood before the shrine during his oath ceremony.
The flame flickered.
The Elders chanted.
"Serve the will of Tharion Veyris."
Leon repeated the vow.
Serve the will of the god.
The words tasted strange.
He had spent years analyzing that will.
Now he was sworn to enforce it.
A flicker of gold shimmered above the shrine mid-ceremony.
Collective gasp.
A sign.
Leon resisted the urge to sigh.
The head Elder inhaled deeply.
"The god blesses this generation of knights! Strength shall define them!"
Bram stepped forward immediately. "Double training intensity."
Leon closed his eyes briefly.
Of course.
That week, exhaustion injuries tripled.
Leon spent more time helping others wrap wrists and reset shoulders than celebrating divine strength.
One night, after drills pushed too far, a younger recruit collapsed from dehydration.
Leon dragged him to shade and forced water between his teeth.
"You're going to get punished," the boy muttered weakly.
"For what?"
"For stopping before command."
Leon stared at him.
Stopping before command.
That was the valley's flaw distilled into a sentence.
"Next time," Leon said quietly, "collapse closer to water."
The boy laughed faintly.
That laugh spread.
It became a small thing soldiers repeated.
"Collapse closer to water."
It sounded like a joke.
It was actually advice.
Manage risk before crisis.
Leon didn't preach.
He didn't challenge authority.
He adjusted around it.
When assigned night watch rotations, he subtly staggered them to avoid complete exhaustion clusters.
When rations ran tight, he recommended rotating hunting paths instead of pushing deeper blindly.
He framed every suggestion carefully.
Never "this is wrong."
Always "this might work better."
And because he never attacked faith directly, he wasn't seen as rebellious.
He was seen as practical.
Accidentally wise.
It annoyed him slightly.
He wasn't wise.
He was cautious.
There was a difference.
—
The real turning point came during a minor monster breach.
Nothing legendary.
Three forest beasts slipping past outer markers at dusk.
The alarm bell rang.
Leon was second rotation response.
By the time they reached the northern huts, chaos had already begun.
One beast cornered near storage.
Two circling.
Bram commanded the main engagement.
Leon assessed quickly.
Direct confrontation would work—but risk collateral damage.
The beasts were agitated.
Firelight behind them.
Villagers screaming.
Too much noise.
Too much motion.
Leon grabbed a dropped bucket and hurled it—not at a beast—but at a stack of loose grain sacks near the opposite side.
The crash drew one creature's attention.
It pivoted.
Bram's front line capitalized instantly.
One down.
Leon kicked over a torch deliberately, igniting a controlled patch of brush that blocked another beast's escape path but didn't spread.
Darius stared at him mid-fight.
"You trying to burn the valley down?"
"Only partially!"
The second beast, disoriented, charged toward the opening Leon had intentionally left between two shield bearers.
A funnel.
It ran directly into spears.
The third fled.
Retreat was acceptable.
No civilian deaths.
Minimal injuries.
Afterward, Bram approached Leon in front of the others.
"You planned that?"
Leon wiped soot from his cheek. "I tripped into most of it."
Darius snorted.
Bram did not laugh.
He studied Leon carefully.
"You saw movement patterns."
Leon hesitated.
"Yes."
That was the first time he answered plainly.
No joke.
No deflection.
Bram nodded slowly.
"Good."
The word carried weight.
From then on, Leon's presence in a squad changed tone.
Not because he was strongest.
But because he watched.
Because he calculated before stepping.
Because when panic started, he didn't charge—he adjusted.
Soldiers began glancing at him during uncertainty.
Small looks.
Quick confirmations.
He never commanded.
He suggested.
Quietly.
And often, he was right.
It wasn't genius.
It was accumulated consequence.
He had lived through divine miscalculations.
He refused to replicate them on the ground.
One evening, standing guard near the shrine, Leon watched the golden flame flicker against the dark.
He thought about Tharion.
About the bold signs.
About ambition without cost awareness.
Leon didn't resent him.
Not fully.
The valley was stronger than when Leon was a child.
Expansion had stabilized.
Training had improved.
But the same flaw remained.
Grand command.
Delayed consequence.
Human cost.
Leon flexed his hands against the hilt of his sword.
He was still low-rank.
Still minor.
Still one piece in a chain.
But soldiers listened to him now.
Not because he was chosen.
Because he paid attention.
That was the beginning of something dangerous.
Not rebellion.
Not yet.
But influence.
And influence, in a valley built on hierarchy, was the first real form of power Leon had ever held.
He stared at the shrine flame a moment longer.
One day, he would stand closer to it.
Not to worship blindly.
Not to defy recklessly.
But to ensure that when the next golden sign fell from the sky—
Someone below understood exactly what it would cost.