When Judgment Learned to Kneel

Waking in that stone chamber felt exactly like opening my eyes beneath a suffocating blanket of fresh snow.

The cold was absolutely vicious. At least the howling wind remained trapped outside, held back by the shuttered window and a heavy door I had foolishly failed to analyze the night before. It wasn’t warped timber or cheap planking. It was solid, unforgiving cast metal, engineered directly into the stone.

A cell. Cleverly masquerading as guest quarters.

Across the room, Tessa trembled violently beneath her thin blankets. Dawn had not yet broken, and we still had time to rest, but watching an innocent mortal suffer physically dragged a dormant instinct to the surface. A faint, almost humiliating flutter of divinity catching beneath my ribs.

I endured the agonizing hesitation for exactly one second.

Then, with a dismissive wave of my hand, I pushed a heavy, ambient warmth into the freezing air.

The temperature climbed steadily until Tessa’s shivering finally ceased. Only then did I realize she was still fully clothed beneath the bedding, bundled in heavy winter layers as if she had expected the room to plunge into a deadly freeze overnight. Perhaps one of her former instructors had warned her of the brutal realities awaiting anyone fortunate enough to survive the trek to this monastery.

Fortunate.

The word tasted rancid in my mouth.

I let my mind drift to the others. The unadulterated terror twisting their features during their final, desperate moments. Their hollow pleas for forgiveness. The sickening reality of how every single one of them had treated kindness like a fatal poison, and cruelty as the ultimate proof of strength.

By then, the quiet misgivings I carried about this place had calcified into a single, brutally uncomplicated conclusion.

The monastery had to go.

I rolled onto my side, burying my face in my hands as I desperately tried to reclaim the dark void of sleep.

Instead, the past found me.

I can still taste the memory with razor-sharp clarity. I was walking along an ancient, dirt-packed road with my friends, reeling in the aftermath of the Sunglade. Seraphine’s voice drifted through the memory, speaking softly about mortals and the terrifying ease with which fear twisted them into foolishness. Ilyon, ever the stoic counterweight, argued that trusting the gods was precisely how many of them survived long enough to cultivate wisdom—and that I could not condemn them simply for their desperate need for faith.

They had begged me to forgive mortal frailty.

Even now, centuries later, I found my mind aggressively returning to that exact conversation.

Could I stomach remaining here long enough to truly understand these acolytes? Could I peer beneath the layers of brutal conditioning, the lethal competition, and the cruelty? Could I resist my own nature and delay passing a bloody sentence before I understood the entirety of the crime?

Understand them first. Choose patience. For once.

By the time I forced myself to commit to that agonizing plan, pale sunlight had started bleeding through the narrow window, and sleep was a lost cause.

Tessa stirred the second the dawn touched her face. Nearly a suffocating hour later, heavy footsteps approached. Someone had finally arrived to release us from the holding cell they so desperately insisted on calling a guest room.

The heavy locking mechanism clacked several times before the metal slab swung inward.

A human male filled the threshold.

He was imposing enough to demand immediate submission and broad enough in the shoulders to suggest he knew battlefields, mercenary contracts, and shattered bones far better than he knew healing, tranquility, or whatever other manufactured bullshit monks liked to peddle as enlightenment. Iron-gray hair framed a severe, weather-beaten face, and he analyzed us with a cold calculation, clearly weighing whether we were even worth the oxygen required to speak to us.

“Both of you, follow me,” he grunted, his voice a gravelly rasp. “The others want to assess you.”

Tessa was on her feet before my hand had even grazed the strap of my pack.

Strangely, she looked practically feral with eagerness. A blindingly bright smile slashed across her face as she hurried after the man, nearly skipping down the stone corridor despite the horrors she had witnessed only the night before.

I pulled my bag slowly over one shoulder, trailing a few deliberate steps behind. My eyes cataloged the halls as we moved. Solid stone walls. Narrow, slit windows. Defensive tactical angles desperately disguised as religious architecture.

When we finally emerged into the biting morning air, the sky was a blue so piercing and clear it violently reminded me of the morning I had awakened over a millennium ago.

I scanned the sprawling terraces, hunting for the tiny, unassuming hut where I had once found sanctuary.

At first, nothing.

Then, as we navigated toward the imposing central structures, I caught the familiar silhouette of two weathered buildings cowering behind the main hall.

Still there. Small. Shrouded. Nearly swallowed whole by the sprawling, aggressive masonry constructed around them over the centuries.

Seraphine and Ilyon’s beautiful beginning, callously reduced to an architectural afterthought.

Footsteps scraped the stone behind us. Two acolytes fell into step at our backs.

I clocked Brenn immediately. His proximity was a calculated intimidation tactic, undoubtedly intended to keep our nerves frayed. The woman stalking beside him, however, was a wild card. Pale blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and a posture so unyieldingly rigid she looked less like a monk seeking enlightenment and more like a hardened soldier awaiting military inspection.

Every step she took mirrored the exact, measured severity of the Master leading our procession.

We scaled several steep terraces before reaching the cavernous entrance to the main building. There, dozens of acolytes stood arranged in immaculate, rigid lines. Every single pair of eyes locked onto us, tracking our approach as if our arrival was some sick, orchestrated spectacle arranged purely for their amusement.

Judging us.

How quaint.

The Master halted just short of the assembled students, throwing a heavy hand up to silently command us to do the same.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Every primal instinct in my blood screamed at me to defy him.

I knew the smart play was to cooperate. Keep my mouth shut. Observe. But a dark, familiar arrogance was already simmering just beneath my skin, and the moment I gave it room to breathe, restraint felt like a suffocating inconvenience.

I took a single, deliberate step forward.

Brenn’s hand darted out to grab my shoulder. I simply turned and locked eyes with him. That was all it took. He recoiled violently, both hands thrown up in the air as if he’d just grazed his fingers against raw, open flame.

The Master’s eyes blew wide. A heartbeat later, a mottled, ugly crimson of pure rage flushed his thick neck.

"So," he sneered, his voice a gravelly rasp. "You’re the one Windwalker warned me about. The confident one."

Just the sound of Windwalker’s name sent a volatile heat rushing straight into my cheeks. I pivoted. Master Arveth was standing directly behind me—close enough that the heavy, suffocating tension between us no longer required words.

I fed him some anyway.

"Tell me, does this little evaluation begin with me beating your ass right here, or do I walk inside first and deal with the rest of your so-called Masters afterward?"

We held that lethal standoff for nearly a full minute. His nostrils flared, the red creeping higher up his neck, while I absolutely refused to yield a single inch of ground.

"You’ll enjoy the fighting pits," he growled, dropping his voice into a vicious whisper. "Sisargh mrith thric yicar."

An insult in the old tongue. Good. I’d struck a raw nerve.

Before I could deliver the verbal killing blow, Windwalker’s deceptively calm voice drifted down from the sweeping staircase beyond the ranks of assembled acolytes.

"That will be quite enough, Arveth. Even I can see that if you lose a brawl to this one, the students may never respect your authority again."

My attention violently snapped toward him. I stalked forward, but the acolytes immediately closed ranks, forming a human barricade. A few looked stubbornly determined. The rest were plainly terrified, caught in the crossfire between the absolute authority of their Masters and whatever dark, primal energy they sensed radiating off me.

The metallic tang of their fear dragged a cold, satisfied breath into my lungs.

"Master Windwalker," I projected, my voice laced with a lethal smirk. "Care to have a round with me yourself? I’m entirely sure you could—"

The taunt died in my throat. One of the acolytes had just caught my eye.

A woman was standing further down the line, glaring daggers at me with unabashed, beautiful irritation. I knew her. Not personally. Not in this lifetime, anyway. But I had seen her through the stolen, fractured lens of Vo’s memories.

Maire.

She looked practically identical to those stolen recollections, yet seeing her breathing right in front of me struck with a visceral, gravitational force. Something deep and dormant within my chest pulled dangerously taut. It wasn't just recognition. It was something significantly stranger, something wilder.

The very air around her felt completely detached from the rigid architecture of fate. It was as though every single temporal possibility bent around her orbit and stubbornly refused to settle. Even my own inevitable future seemed to violently blur the second my eyes locked onto hers.

That kind of absolute uncertainty should have terrified me. Instead? It was intoxicatingly exhilarating. Fascinating. For the first time in longer than my ancient memory cared to recall, I didn't want to pass judgment. I wanted to explore.

I desperately needed to dissect exactly why her mere presence made the entire axis of the world feel dangerously misaligned.

I finished my abandoned sentence, refusing to sever our intense eye contact. "...teach me a lesson."

The electric sensation faded to a hum, leaving a heavy, lingering residue burning just beneath my ribs. Windwalker’s voice ruthlessly dragged me back to reality.

"There are no lessons to be learned at present. You will accompany Master Arveth and myself to the council chamber. We will determine your section and provide the proper study materials." His sharp gaze tracked mine, landing squarely on Maire. "And since you appear so blatantly interested in one of our most formidable students, Acolyte Maire will personally escort you to your quarters. You will then accompany her through her morning training routine."

I flicked my gaze back to her face. Pure, unadulterated annoyance radiated from her expression. It was glaringly obvious she would have preferred scrubbing latrines over any duty that involved babysitting me.

"Fine," I drawled, keeping my tone agonizingly casual. "Let’s get this over with, Windwalker."

He let out a harsh scoff. "That is Master Windwalker to you, Acolyte Caelen."

I answered him with a completely deadpan, blank stare. Zero compliance. Zero apology. Absolutely nothing.

He turned on his heel and continued ascending the sweeping stone stairs. He knew better than anyone that escalating a scene in front of his pupils was a lethal gamble. These acolytes were bred to hunt weakness like bloodhounds. Even a Master couldn't afford to bleed in front of them.

I doubled back to snatch up my heavy pack, offered Tessa a brief, reassuring nod, and threw a wicked smirk at Arveth before pivoting fully toward Maire. Her eyes were impossibly vibrant—blazing with a lethal irritation and a sharp intelligence that instantly reduced the rest of the acolytes to dull background noise.

I stalked over, stopping entirely too close to her side.

"I’ll see you soon."

A dangerous, mocking smirk curved her lips. "Sure. I can’t wait."

The raw defiance dripping from her voice instantly set my blood alight. Nothing and no one had stirred that kind of primal fire in me in a very, very long time.

That intoxicating spark lingered, humming beneath my skin as I followed the Masters up the brutal ascent of the mountain. By the time we finally crested the summit of the thousand-step staircase, Windwalker and Arveth were breathing with measured, deliberate care—both men pouring exhausting amounts of effort into appearing physically unaffected by the climb.

Tessa, however, was significantly less successful at maintaining the illusion. She practically collapsed onto the final stone slab, her chest heaving.

"Why," she gasped, fighting for oxygen, "is the main building at the literal peak?"

An excellent fucking question. The honest, pragmatic answer was painfully obvious: the view was spectacular. Instead, the Masters launched into reciting a rehearsed litany of manufactured nonsense about strategic tactical placement, rigorous spiritual discipline, and the profound symbolism of physically climbing closer to the gods and dragonkind.

That last part wasn't entirely inaccurate. I rolled my eyes anyway.

The sprawling doors to the main hall were carved from heavy, dark timber, meticulously stained to preserve the breathtakingly intricate woodwork spread across the panels. Two colossal dragons wound around one another beneath a canopy of stars and storm clouds, their intertwined bodies forming a magnificent archway over the entrance.

Arveth clamped both hands onto the heavy iron handles. Tessa tilted her head, analyzing the massive carvings.

"Who are they?"

I recognized the interwoven bodies instantly. Seraphine and Ilyon. Or, at the very least, that was who the artisan had originally intended to immortalize.

Arveth answered without a single heartbeat of hesitation. "Lendys and Tamara."

My jaw nearly unhinged.

I forced my expression to remain an unreadable mask, even as a chaotic storm of questions violently multiplied behind my eyes. Why us? What twisted, bastardized doctrine had taken root in these mountains if Tamara and I had been elevated to their patron figures? What the hell did these zealots actually believe we represented?

Arveth shoved the heavy doors open.

Beyond the threshold waited a cavernous, dimly lit chamber utterly dominated by a sprawling wooden table. Serpentine dragons had been meticulously carved along its edges, flowing into a continuous, mythological tapestry that I was far too distracted to properly decode in the moment.

Seven imposing chairs stood waiting. Arveth and Windwalker immediately claimed two of them. A second later, a seamlessly concealed door swung open from behind a wooden partition, and four additional Masters stalked into the chamber.

Four.

Added to the two already seated, that totaled exactly six Masters. But there were seven chairs.

Something about the mathematical arrangement of the room felt deeply, fundamentally wrong. But the universe refused to grant me the time to dwell on the discrepancy. They sat in unison, smoothed their severe robes, and the sorting officially began.