Vaeliyan walked with the rest of them but he no longer thought of them as his class. They would graduate High Imperators, and the word itself felt hollow and terrible in his mouth. Around him he could feel them, the small tremors of breath and guilt that hung in the air like static. Support sat alongside a sharper thing, fear. Fear because they knew, deep down, that they would have done what he did if their souls had been stronger or weaker in the same way. Fear of what they would do next when orders came again. They could all see that his guilt was not the kind that should come from slaughter; it was the guilt of a man who could do it and not feel the particular kind of sorrow he felt he ought to. That understanding frightened them more than the carnage itself.

The more he let the thought curl in on itself the clearer it became: the innocent who sided with his enemy were, in his heart, already enemies too. Until they proved themselves otherwise, they were a threat. He would not hunt them down for sport. He would not torch villages on impulse. He would climb. He would take the ladder, the rooms behind closed doors, the access to a High Commander, and with it he would build a shape of protection for the people he loved. If that meant burning Nespói to the ground, he would do it. The thought sat in him like a blade he had learned to wear without flinching. It wasn't new; it was the same necessity he had lived in the Yellow, stripped of every illusion and dressed only in survival. There was no morality in it, no kindness to shed, only the cold arithmetic of living when the world demanded cost.

He had always known he did not feel sympathy for strangers. He knew it was wrong. He accepted the wrong the way other people accepted the weather: with a practical shrug. This, he told himself, was how wars were waged. This was what they trained cadets to be. The names of the classes were promises of the work ahead; they were not nursery rhymes. It would have been childish, or beautiful, to keep pretending otherwise. Somewhere, in the folds of his memory, he remembered the first week at the Citadel, when they had still spoken of courage like it was something clean. Courage now was endurance, the ability to keep walking through what should have broken them.

They followed him because he could make them follow. He did not mean to press at their minds. He did not mean to shape their resolve. But the bond they shared was not just ritual. It was influence, silent and terrible in its reach. When Vaeliyan hardened his face and held his shoulders like bedrock, they matched him. Their grief bowed under the weight of his steadiness until it looked like acceptance. It wasn't instant; he felt them resist, pushing back against the pressure that rolled out from him. Their fear fought his calm. Their sorrow shoved against his control. For a few long seconds the air between them felt heavy enough to crack, but then they yielded. They understood he wasn't trying to force it on them, only standing firm, and his resolve was simply heavier than theirs. It was the first time he had ever felt the weight of command press outward from him, shaping their emotions like clay. He hadn't known he could do that. The realization left a sour taste in his mouth, power and guilt in equal measure. He did regret it, but he wasn't foolish enough to promise himself or them he wouldn't do it again. Sometimes a leader had to make them move when every part of them wanted to stay still. Sometimes command meant pushing others forward when you should have broken beside them. He tried not to think about what it meant that he was good at it.

He asked for their forgiveness the way men ask for favors they are not owed: simple, direct, and with no flourish. They came slowly. Acceptance crept in like tidewater. He felt it more than saw it, the slackening of shoulders, the lessening of the trembling hands. They would not speak now. Not about Graveholt. Not about what lay behind the clean report they had been ordered to believe. Their silence was a wound stitched shut but still bleeding underneath. He could feel the pulse of it in their bond, a muted, rhythmic ache that tied them together in something darker than loyalty.

Helen led them through the facility with the practiced politeness of someone who had to sell comfort to soldiers. The rooms were absurdly clean; the lights warm as if they had been designed to erase memory. The walls glowed with subtle colors that reminded him of home, or of something that pretended to be home. She showed them a pool that looked like liquid gold, though it was only water with tricks and pigments and machines under the floor. The crew called it a reflecting spring. For a moment the idea of a surface that reflected you kinder than you felt was almost funny. He heard someone behind him laugh once, the sound brittle as glass, and then stop. No one spoke again.

Vaeliyan chose the pool because he wanted a place to put his misery. He slid into the warm water until it closed over his chest and the sound of the world dulled into a soft, wet hush. The golden light shimmered around him, heavy and bright. No words eased him. The reflection in the water did not promise absolution. It only returned a man who had done what had to be done and would carry the rest like a stone. He wondered if all soldiers learned to live with that reflection, if this was what becoming one of them truly meant. The idea of promotion felt like decay.

The golden light rippled across his skin, and he watched it, empty and quiet. The others came and went; none disturbed him. Helen didn't ask. The pool's false gold shimmered around him, and Mondenkind's presence hovered, neither comfort nor rebuke, just existence. He thought she might leave him alone this time, but her presence grew warmer, like breath through glass. She spoke softly, as she always did, not to guide but to remind. Her words weren't commands, only truths that tasted of exhaustion and understanding. The water hummed with her voice as if it knew her too.

"Even guilt has weight," she said. "You can drown in it or you can use it to keep yourself still."

Vaeliyan listened until he couldn't tell if the sound came from her, the spring, or himself. He tried to answer her, but no words came out, only breath that trembled in the quiet. He thought of Mara, of his family, of the names that tethered him to what was still good. He thought of the Legion, of what they had done, of what they would do again. He thought about the faces of his squad, about the faint flicker of trust still connecting them through the bond. The guilt stayed, dense and cold, but so did purpose. He would not abandon either.

Still, he stayed. The warmth held him, a steady heartbeat around the hollowness inside. His mind drifted to the faint light above him. Every ripple turned the world into a thousand small suns. He counted them until numbers meant nothing. The pool smelled of bergamot and gold leaf, a strange blend of perfume and metal that made the air taste expensive and unreal. It clung to his skin and seeped into his lungs with every shallow breath. After a while, he wasn't alone. One by one, the others joined him, each slipping into the water without a sound. They sat around him in the quiet glow, their reflections broken by small ripples that never reached one another. None spoke. Vaeliyan felt the pull of their presence through the bond but chose not to touch it. He shut them out gently, letting them sit in their own reflections as he sat in his, each of them facing what they had done in silence. The pool held them all, golden and still, a shared penance that needed no words.

He didn't rise. He didn't leave. Not when the lights dimmed, not when night folded in over the facility, not when sleep crept into the others' rooms and the halls grew silent. The world could move without him for a while. Vaeliyan remained in the pool, silent and unmoving, the water reflecting a face that no longer knew where the line between monster and duty ended. The golden surface held his shape long after his thoughts went quiet.

Wesley was the first one to break the silence. "You all look like a sad sack of shit," he said, his voice cutting through the heavy stillness like a knife through fog. "We just completed our Shatterlight Trial. We're done. We did it. We are going to be fucking legends." His voice carried that manic brightness that only soldiers could fake when their hearts were still bleeding.

He stood waist-deep in the golden pool, the water gleaming around him like molten light that refused to cool. "We just became one of the very few full High Imperator squads in existence. Sure, it's not official yet, but we all know what's coming. When we go back to the Citadel, they're going to tell us there. We're going to graduate. We're going to be High Imperators, and we're going to be…" He paused, looking around for someone to fill the silence. "Elian, how many High Imperator squads are there?"

Elian looked up from where he was sunk nearly to the chin, arms folded over his chest. His eyes were red, his expression hollowed by exhaustion. "Three," he said finally. Then, after a pause, "Including us? Four."

Wesley nodded, and his grin flickered. "Four squads. Out of more than a thousand. What does that make it? A group of fifty-two?"

"Fifty-two," Elian confirmed, his voice flat but edged with disbelief. "Out of every damn cadet ever trained."

"Then we're in the history books," Wesley muttered. "Whether they ever print it or not." His smile faltered, but he kept it in place for them. He had to. Someone had to pretend this was triumph.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Vaeliyan floated near the center, eyes half-lidded, the gold light tracing his face. The bond hummed faintly when Wesley spoke. Beneath the laughter, beneath the forced pride, he could feel the truth of it, Wesley was the most broken of them all, and this was how he kept them from collapsing. Humor as armor. Irony as glue. It worked. It always worked.

He glanced around the pool. The air smelled faintly of bergamot and gold leaf, that strange artificial perfume that clung to the facility like a lie. Styll swam in slow, lazy circles across the far end of the pool, her silver fur rippling through the gold light. She was calm, detached, neither joyful nor sorrowful, just present. Bastard sat at the pool's edge; his massive form reflected in the water like a shadow of muscle and patience. Momo lay beside him on the heating stones just outside the pool, her body curled in the warmth, head resting near his flank. He didn't move, but his eyes followed the others, steady and quiet. They were both at peace in their own ways. For a while, it even felt like peace had found them too.

He was so deep in his own head that the rest of the world blurred into distant noise. He didn't feel the movement in the water, didn't register the shift in the bond, not until it was already too late.

The twins exploded from the water beside him in perfect synchrony, their Soul Skills igniting like detonation flares. Vaeliyan shouted, half-laughing, fully-blinded, as the world turned white and gold. "Wait, what's happening?" he yelled, but his voice broke in the water. He was already submerged, the glare seared behind his eyes. He hadn't noticed the others slipping beneath the surface because he'd been too lost in thought. He had forgotten they had every reason to come for him.

The first blow struck his ribs, a dull thunder that emptied his lungs. Another cracked against his shoulder, spinning him through the light. Someone's foot, Jurpat's, he guessed, caught him square in the back, driving him under. The pool erupted into violence. Fists and feet blurred through the golden haze, bubbles and light tearing across his vision. Above it all, Styll kept swimming, slow and steady, refusing to watch. She wasn't ignoring them, just choosing not to witness it. She'd known this would happen and had made her peace with it. Bastard didn't move either. He didn't even glance their way. This wasn't cruelty, it was understanding. Warren had brought this on himself, and he would take it without protest.

Vaeliyan's lungs screamed, but he didn't fight back, not really. Only enough to stay conscious, to let it count. Every strike felt like confession, every shout muffled by the water like a prayer. The pool became a battlefield, turned gold and white by flaring Soul Skills. He caught glimpses of faces twisted by fury, grief, laughter, raw humanity laid bare. It wasn't hate. It was release. This was what family looked like in the Legion, bloody, furious, and unflinchingly honest.

He had earned it. They had earned it. This was their language: violence shaped into understanding. When it was over, he would be bruised and bloodied, but that was part of the deal. Pain for penance. Bruises for balance.

The fight lasted longer than it should have. Time in the water didn't behave right; minutes became hours, or maybe it was just the way pain stretched perception. When it ended, they were all still submerged, drifting in the shimmering dark. Vaeliyan's ribs ached; blood coiled from his nose like red silk into the water. His body screamed, but inside, something lighter moved. The guilt was still there, but now it had company.

He floated on his back, breathing shallowly, staring up at the distorted ceiling lights that rippled through the surface. Around him, the others floated too, motionless, exhausted, but together. The water glowed like a molten mirror, reflecting faces that were bruised but no longer haunted.

He wasn't a masochist. Pain wasn't the point. The point was that they had taken something back from him, some small piece of control, a balance restored. He had made choices none of them could bear, and now they had made him bear something too. That was what command meant. Not power, but consequence.

The pool smelled stronger now, bergamot and iron and warmth. The color of the water shifted as blood and gold merged into one shimmering hue. No one spoke. They had said everything worth saying with their fists.

Vaeliyan closed his eyes and let the warmth fold around him. The facility hummed faintly beneath them, machinery keeping the temperature stable, healing pads built into the pool floor releasing slow waves of energy. He could feel it working on his battered muscles, easing the ache. Bastard remained nearby, watchful but still. Styll kept swimming in gentle loops, content, untroubled. This was the kind of quiet they could live with.

Vaeliyan stayed where he was, letting the water and pain settle over him like a blanket. He didn't need words or apologies. They'd all done what needed to be done, in the field and here. The world would demand worse from them soon enough. Tonight, this was enough.

Then, unexpectedly, Vaeliyan started laughing. It bubbled up through the bruises, through the ache, until it filled the air like something wild and broken. The others froze, startled, and for a heartbeat the sound felt wrong. Then Sylen snorted, and that was all it took. One by one they joined in, their laughter cracking into sobs and back again, a messy, trembling sound that filled the room. It wasn't joy, not exactly. It was survival.

There was nothing they could do about what they'd done, nothing to undo Graveholt, nothing to erase the dead. So why dwell? They had struck a real blow against the Princedom, had probably saved hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of civilians who would never even know they were the ones responsible. It was a horror and a victory both, and they would carry it forever. But at least there was one bright truth in the wreckage: they would be the ones doing it, not the ones it was done to.

As the laughter finally died, the sound shattered like glass under a voice that sliced through the haze. "Congratulations," it rang out, cold and clear over the echoing room. "I see you all have… well, what the fuck happened to you?"

The cadets turned in the gold-lit water, ripples lapping against bruised limbs. High Commander Ruka stood at the edge of the pool, immaculate and terrifying in full finery. Ribbons and steel gleamed across her coat, her posture sharp enough to draw blood. She looked at them in open disbelief, an entire squad of soaked, battered cadets, and one of them clearly beaten within an inch of his life.

"Ah'm fffine," Vaeliyan slurred through cracked lips and broken teeth, blood pooling in the corner of his mouth. "Jusht, ah deserved thish. It'sh… 'cause ah'm an idiot." His voice was a mangled mess of sound, every syllable dragging through pain. Even speaking hurt.

"Yes, he is. He's an idiot," Sylen said from the pool, her tone half amusement, half scolding. "But don't worry. We didn't kill him. He can be an idiot tomorrow too." She flicked a strand of wet hair from her face, trying not to grin.

"Well." Ruka's eyes narrowed slightly, but her voice stayed measured. "You all will be reporting to me starting in two days, after you return to the Citadel and are officially given your graduation documents. Diplomas. Whatever term the bureaucracy prefers. You will be working directly for me."

The squad straightened instinctively despite their exhaustion. The water rippled as Bastard's reflection shifted from where he sat near the edge, unflinching.

"You should all be honored," Ruka continued, voice rich with command.

"Of coursh we r, mamb," Vaeliyan mumbled, forcing his jaw to move through the swelling. The rest of the cadets tried not to laugh at the garbled sound, quickly echoing the proper line in unison: "Of course we are, ma'am." Their voices rebounded against the tiled walls, uneven but sincere.

"I see you're enjoying the amenities," Ruka went on, glancing over the steaming gold pool and the bruised faces floating within it. "I have a few gifts for all of you as well. I reward my people who do well for me. And you are now all my people. Congratulations." Her words lingered, half promise, half threat.

She paced a few steps, the sound of her boots echoing off the walls. "What should I call you? I'm not calling you cadets anymore. Your class name means nothing to me. Your year means nothing to me. I need a squad name. That is your first reward. Most of the time, names are assigned, but High Imperators such as yourselves get to choose. And remember this: that name will be written in every holo, every paper, every broadcast across the southern reaches. The Red Citadel has produced a second full squad of High Imperators. And you are the first to graduate in a single year. No one in Legion history has done what you've done."

A low murmur ran through the group. Even in their exhaustion, the magnitude of it landed. A single year. A full squad. High Imperators. The title burned like pride in their chests, even through pain.

"You will be lauded as geniuses among geniuses," Ruka said, her presence swelling until it filled the room. "Congratulations. And when you're all done fooling around and beating on your comrades," her eyes cut to Vaeliyan again, "we can see that you needed this. Everyone who survives the Shatterlight Trial needs a moment to exhale, to break, to remember they're still human. I knew you wouldn't want to see me right away. But this, this was always part of the protocol."

The silence that followed was heavy but calm. Steam curled from the golden surface, catching the reflected lights as Ruka's voice dropped lower.

"As you're going to be under my direct command for the foreseeable future, you need to understand something. I will not lie to you. You may not like what I tell you, but the words that come out of my mouth will never be a lie. I will not tell you everything, but I will not lie." Her gaze swept over each of them. "Is that understood?"

"We undershtand, ma'am," Vaeliyan managed, his words thick with blood and defiance. His jaw barely moved. The others echoed after him, louder, steadier: "We understand."

"Good." She turned to Helen without breaking stride. "When you're done, get him to a med vat, there should be one three or four doors down from here."

Helen nodded crisply. "It's the fifth door on the left. There's a med vat chamber. Just dump him in. He'll be fine in about thirty minutes. Those bruises don't look too extensive."

"Thank you, Helen," Ruka said. Her tone softened, just slightly. Then, to the squad: "As soon as you're finished, go get dressed. We'll provide proper attire and gear. You did a good job. You'll get your reward. Congratulations again."

With that, she turned away, her perfume and the faint tang of cold steel trailing behind her. The squad sat in silence for a long moment, dripping gold and blood into the water. The weight of her words hung heavier than the beating, heavier than the laughter that had come before. They had earned victory, yes, but it felt less like triumph and more like the first toll of a bell that would never stop ringing.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.