Date: April 15, 541, from the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored
The first ray of sun, pale and cold, pierced the high arched window of their shared bedroom, touching Dur's face before he heard the familiar, hated scrape of the bolt on the door. He hadn't slept for over an hour, listening to the pre-dawn rustle of the waking estate and trying to massage the stiffness from his muscles after yesterday's "lesson" with water. Every movement echoed with a dull pain, a reminder of the icy grip of fear and physical exhaustion. But this very pain was proof—he had endured. He was still alive.
The door swung open, and in the doorway, as always, appeared the motionless, stocky figure of Master Koch. His scarred face was impassive, and his eyes, like two slits in granite, swept the room, searching for weakness. "To the yard. Three laps around the perimeter. Full gear," his voice was hollow and curt, like a hammer blow on an anvil. "Anyone late will be on laundry duty until the next full moon. Or try push-ups with the disks in the pouring rain. Your choice."
Maël, lying on the next bed, let out a groan like a death rattle and pulled the blanket over his head. "He's not joking," he mumbled through the fabric. "Last time Joran was half a step behind and spent three hours washing the whole garrison's trousers. Stank for a week after."
Dur silently got up. His body screamed in protest, but his mind had already taken over. Methodically, as Torm had taught him, he began to prepare: put on simple pants and a shirt of rough fabric, tightly cinched his belt, to which the weight would later be attached. Every movement was economical, calculated, aimed at conserving precious energy. He caught Koch's gaze—appraising, without approval, but also without censure. Just a statement of fact. This "little savage" didn't whine. That was already something.
Ten minutes later, he and Maël stood on the dew-wet yard, bathed in the first yellow light of morning. The air was fresh and sharp, smelling of wet stone and distant smoke from the forge. Koch silently pointed to two leather bags lying at their feet, apparently filled with sand. Beside Maël's bag lay his own, noticeably lighter. "Run. Until the first sun on the central spire. Go."
Maël sighed, slung his bag over his shoulder, and shot off, trying to take a fast pace immediately. His movements were honed, almost graceful, even with the load. Dur, however, didn't hurry. He lifted his bag, feeling its murderous weight. "You don't run with this. You survive with it," flashed through his head, his old hunter's instinct. He took a deep breath, remembered the breathing exercises learned in the forest, needed for hours of sitting in ambush, and began walking with a heavy, steady stride, pushing off the ground with his whole foot.
The first lap was hell. Every muscle burned, lungs tore apart trying to inhale enough air. Maël had already overtaken him halfway, throwing a condescending glance. But Dur didn't increase his pace. He had found his rhythm—slow, inexorable, like the flow of a deep river. He focused not on the pain, but on sensations: the resilient give of the earth under his feet, the rhythm of his own heart, the coolness of the morning air entering his lungs.
His thoughts began to drift. He saw Kaedan's face again—stubborn, hardened, full of faith in their shared dream. Ulvia with her quiet smile and eyes that saw beauty in every blade of grass. Gil, thoughtful and purposeful, drawing their old, naive map on a piece of leather. "Better World." These words, spoken once by childish voices under the Old Pine, now echoed in him not as a dream, but as a duty. A vow. To build such a world, he needed to survive now. Here. Under the gaze of this stone man and with a murderous weight on his back.
Koch, presumably, found him interesting. The master stood in the center of the yard, watching. He saw Maël relying on innate agility and his spirit's already awakening ability to adapt the body to the load. But Dur… Dur was different. He didn't adapt. He simply endured. His will was like a cliff against which waves of fatigue and pain broke.
On the second lap, Dur began to overtake the other recruits, those who had burst from the start and now, exhausted, trudged along with faces puffy from strain. He even drew level with Maël, who was slowing down, looking at him in surprise. "Where do you get… the wind?" Maël breathed, struggling with his burden.
Dur only shook his head, unable and unwilling to waste strength on words. His world had narrowed to the next step. And the next. Pain became background noise, like the wind in the treetops. He no longer felt the weight of the bag—it had become part of him, an extension of his own body, hostile but obedient.
When the first ray of sun finally blazed brightly on the gilded finial of the main tower's spire, Dur was completing his third lap. He wasn't running. He was almost walking. But he was the only one in the entire group who hadn't lost his rhythm, hadn't stopped, hadn't begun gasping for air. He simply stopped, dropped the bag to the ground with a dull thud, and leaned on his knees, feeling sweat streaming down his back like a river, and his heart pounding somewhere in his throat, but steadily and powerfully.
Koch approached him closely. His smell—a mix of sweat, steel, and some bitter herb—hit Dur's nostrils. "You're not the fastest. Not the strongest," Koch said, his voice softer, only for Dur. "But you are the most stubborn. In battle, often what saves you isn't the speed of your blade, but the ability to stand on your feet a second longer than your opponent. Your fortress is in your foundation. Don't forget that."
With these words, he turned and roughly shouted to the others: "Second lap for the stragglers! The rest—breakfast!"
Maël, barely standing, approached Dur. In his eyes was not just surprise, but genuine, new respect. "I thought you'd fall apart after yesterday," he admitted. "But you… you're like a rock. An annoying, damn rock."
Dur straightened up, looking at the sun rising over Ligra's walls. The pain receded, replaced by a strange, bittersweet satisfaction. He hadn't become stronger in the usual sense. His strikes weren't sharper, his spirit hadn't awakened. But this morning, he had wrested another span of earth from this world, from his own weakness, for his dream. And that was the most important victory.