Life in Greyfall didn't forget the raid, but it buried it under work.
Master Bren had them back in the yard within two days.
"The raiders are not resting," he barked, pacing along the line of boys and girls holding practice spears. "So you don't either. Toren, your grip is limp. Arlen, you're favoring your hurt side—if you can't fight with it, you switch hands or you get off the line. Al—"
Al stiffened.
"Feet," Bren snapped. "You stand like a scribbler about to wet himself. Widen your stance."
Al shuffled his boots farther apart. The dirt in the yard was packed hard, not slick ash like the ridge. Safe ground.
Bren snorted. "Better. Remember: Pneuma starts in your breath, but if your feet are wrong you'll just die slower."
They went through forms. Thrust, brace, twist. Shield up, step forward, stab. Al's arms burned quickly; his back twinged. Arlen's face tightened every time he had to use his injured side.
"Switch!" Bren called. "Spears down! Hand drills!"
They broke into pairs. Of course Toren swaggered over to Al.
"Ready, Greyfall?" he smirked, using Al's last name like an insult. "Going to pull the ground out from under me this time too?"
Al's cheeks heated. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Right." Toren held up his fists. "Maybe I should have my ma pray to you instead of Edran next time."
"Enough chatter," Bren said. "Fists up. Remember your breathing."
They traded blows. Toren hit harder; Al moved better than he used to, but Toren was still stronger. Twice Al's guard slipped and Toren's knuckles smacked his ribs.
"Use your eyes, Al!" Bren shouted. "He drops his right shoulder every time he feints. See it, then use it!"
Al forced himself to stop focusing on the pain and watch Toren's whole body: the way his jaw clenched before he swung, the way his left foot dragged a fraction when he shifted weight.
He's going to step left and throw a right—
When the tell came, Al stepped forward instead of back, jamming his forearm into Toren's elbow. The punch glanced off his shoulder. Toren's eyes widened. Al used the momentum to hook his foot behind Toren's and shove.
Toren went down on his backside, dust puffing.
For a long moment, neither said anything. Then Bren grunted approval.
"See? Even scribblers can learn," he said. "Again. And switch who starts."
By the end of training, Al's muscles shook, but there was a small, fierce satisfaction lodged under the fatigue. He hadn't hit harder. He hadn't grown taller. But he'd seen better.
Later that day, in the Scriptorium, Mistress Selene rapped his knuckles when his quill blotched a character.
"Eyes on the page, Al," she said. "Ink is as deadly as iron if you smear it over the wrong number."
He winced and sucked on his stinging hand. Jana across the table gave him a sympathetic look and slid a scrap of rough paper toward him with a quick note: You did better in drills today.
He blinked, then mouthed, Thanks, and went back to the ledger.
Selene had them copying records of last month's grain deliveries: columns of dates, weights, names.
"Why do we care if Harlan's wagon had two extra sacks?" Toren's cousin muttered from the row ahead.
"Because," Selene said without looking up, "if the Duke's tax man comes and the numbers don't match, he assumes we stole them. Then he fines us more. Or takes our sons. Or both. Numbers are how faraway people hurt you without lifting a sword. Understand?"
The mutterer shut up.
Al's quill scratched steadily. In his head, the numbers weren't just marks. They were soldiers. Wagons. Mouths to feed. If we lose two wagons, Bren can't train with full bellies. If we send too much to Greyreach, there's not enough for winter.
He found an inconsistency, circled it, and raised his hand.
"Mistress?"
Selene came over. He pointed. "Here. Two deliveries from Cald's farm listed the same day, but one has the wrong route sign. It says east road, but Cald only uses the west one. The weight is also off by a barrel."
Selene frowned, checked the original register, and clicked her tongue. "You're right. My mistake."
Toren's cousin glanced back, eyebrows up. Selene rarely admitted errors.
She tapped the correction. "This is what we need from you, Al. Eyes for patterns. The world is made of numbers and lines as much as steel."
After classes, Al sat outside the Scriptorium with Ressa, sharing a bruised apple.
"You looked like you swallowed a coal when Selene said you were right," Ressa observed, legs swinging off the low wall.
"I thought I was wrong," Al said. "It felt…weird. Catching her mistake."
"She's not a god," Ressa said. "Just has better ink than the rest of us."
He snorted. "Don't ever say that where she can hear."
Ressa grinned, then leaned back on her hands, gazing at the sky. "Think the testers will still come?"
"They always do," Al said. "Greyreach wants levies and talent. Hanyue wants disciples. The guilds want cheap bodies."
Ressa pulled a face. "And what do you want?"
"I want them to go away," Al said, surprising himself.
She studied him. "You're scared they'll take Arlen."
"They already almost took him," Al said quietly. "A spear's width away."
Ressa was silent for a moment. Then she nudged his shoulder. "Then you should get strong enough that if they try to take you, you can choose whether to go."
"How?" he asked, looking at his ink-stained fingers. "I'm not Arlen."
"Good," Ressa said. "One Arlen is enough trouble."
He laughed despite himself.
That night, alone in his narrow bed, he lay awake listening to the wind. He imagined the air full of faint, invisible lines: breaths moving in and out of chests, Essence drifting in slow currents above the roofs, little ripples where Edran's prayers had left warmth.
He thought of Bren's words, Selene's, Edran's. Of Daran shouting down at them on the ridge. Of his mother's shaking hands.
He didn't know names like Anchor or Glimmer. But he knew this: sight mattered. Seeing where to stand. Where to push.
If he couldn't swing hardest, he would learn where to stand. If he couldn't burn brightest, he would learn where to place the lamps.
Somewhere outside, a dog barked once, then fell silent. The ash-streaked sky watched Greyfall sleep.