Oath of the Broken Sword Chapter 9

The main training ground had been transformed into a circle of nightmares. The packed earth was scarred with fresh grooves, and the air hummed with a low-grade psychic pressure that made my teeth ache. It was the Imperial Proving Grounds, a place where legends were forged and bones were crushed. Today, it felt more like the latter.

We stood in a nervous clutch of twenty cadets—all that remained from the initial hundred. Across the field, Marshal Marcus watched from a raised platform, flanked by Lieutenant Renn and a sour-looking man in the robes of a Chancellor’s aide. But my eyes were drawn to the center of the grounds, where three monolithic structures stood.

The first was a climbing wall, but not of simple wood and rope. It was a shifting puzzle of stone slabs, etched with faintly glowing runes that I recognized from the world-setting files—unstable elemental rune. The second was a circular arena, its floor a mosaic of pressure plates. And the third… the third was a cage of iron bars, large enough to hold something very, very big. Empty, for now.

“The Final Selection comprises three trials,” Marcus’s voice boomed, cutting through the anxious murmurs. “The Ascent of Shattered Stone. The Dance of the Shifting Sands. And the Gauntlet of the Unbroken Will. You will be judged on speed, adaptability, and raw fortitude. Fail in any, and your journey ends here.” His iron gaze swept over us, lingering on me for a fraction of a second too long. “Begin.”

The first trial was a brutal equalizer. The runes on the wall reacted to touch, some heating stone to scalding temperatures, others causing handholds to crumble into dust. I saw a cadet ahead of me scream as a glyph of fire flared under his palm, sending him tumbling to the ground below. A medic team rushed forward, but he didn’t get up.

My was clumsy. I relied on muscle memory from hauling crates in the border village, not elite training. But then, the heat in my blood stirred, a faint pulse. It didn’t give me strength, but a strange sense of anticipation. As my fingers brushed a rune that looked like a stylized gust of wind, the heat spiked in warning. I jerked my hand back just as the stone slab swung outward violently, right where my head would have been.

*The bloodline… it’s reacting to the magic itself,* I realized, my heart hammering. It was a treacherous advantage, unpredictable and draining, but it was all I had.

I wasn’t the first over the wall, but I wasn’t the last. Kaela moved with a dancer’s grace, her sword strapped to her back, her every move calculated. She finished first, not even breathing heavily. She caught my eye as I stumbled over the top, her expression unreadable.

The second trial was worse. The circular arena was a trap-laden puzzle. Pressure plates triggered everything from nets of weighted chains to jets of paralyzing gas. We had to cross it to a central podium and retrieve a token.

Kaela went immediately after a burly cadet named Gregor. She watched his every misstep, mapping a safe path in her mind before moving with breathtaking speed. It was a masterclass in observation and execution.

My turn. I stepped onto the first plate. Nothing. The second. A sigh of relief caught in my throat as a scything blade shot from the wall, missing me by inches. The heat in my veins was a dull throb now, useless against mechanical traps. I had to rely on instinct alone. I leaped, rolled, and ducked, my movements fueled by pure survival terror. When my fingers finally closed around the cold metal token, my hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped it.

Only ten of us remained for the third trial. The air grew thick with dread. Lieutenant Renn stepped his face grim.

“The Gauntlet of the Unbroken Will,” he announced, gesturing to the massive iron cage. A low, guttural roar echoed from within its depths, a sound that vibrated in my bones. “You will face a juvenile rock drake. Your task is not to slay it, but to survive within the cage for a count of one hundred. Any who yield, or are rendered unable to continue, fail.”

The cage door groaned open. The creature that stalked out was all scales, muscle, and primal fury. It was smaller than Silvershine, but its eyes held none of her intelligence, only a bottomless hunger.

The first cadet, a boy named Tomas who’d always shared his bread with me, lasted ten seconds. The drake’s tail swept his legs out from under him, and its jaws closed around his arm with a sickening crunch. He screamed the safe word, “Yield!” and the trial-masters dragged him out, his arm hanging at a grotesque angle.

One by one, they fell. Some were brave, some were cunning, but the drake was relentless.

Then it was Kaela’s turn. She didn’t try to fight. She became a ghost, using the drake’s bulk against it, dodging and weaving, her sword still in its scabbard. She was a tempest of controlled motion, and when the count reached one hundred, she was untouched, her chest heaving only slightly. The drake snarled in frustration.

And then it was my turn.

The gate clanged shut behind me. The smell of blood and musk was overwhelming. The drake turned its head, its slitted eyes locking onto me. The heat in my blood ignited into a firestorm. It wasn’t fear;

it was a challenge.

*Shattered blood…* The thought wasn’t mine. It was an echo of Silvershine’s madness, or perhaps something deeper. The drake charged.

I didn’t have Kaela’s grace. I dove aside, the impact of my shoulder against the iron bars sending a jolt of pain through my entire body. The drake skidded, turning with surprising agility. I could feel its mind—a simple, roaring thing of anger and instinct. I reached for it, the way I had with Silvershine, pouring my will into a single, desperate command.

*STOP!

*

The mental shout was a physical blow, even to me. The drake faltered, shaking its head as if stung by a fly. Its charge broke. It stared at me, confused. A collective gasp rippled from the watching cadets.

But the reprieve lasted only a second. The drake’s confusion turned to rage. I had insulted it. It lunged again, faster this time. I tried to dodge, but its claw caught my side, ripping through leather and flesh. White-hot pain blinded me. I stumbled back, feeling warm blood soak my tunic.

“Fifty!” Renn’s voice called out, sounding impossibly distant.

The drake pressed its advantage. I was on the defensive, barely avoiding its snapping jaws. Each movement sent fresh agony through my side. The heat in my blood was a fever now, a chaotic energy I couldn’t control. I was going to die in this cage.

Then, I saw Kaela at the bars, her knuckles white as she gripped them. Her voice cut through the roaring in my ears. “Elia! Its left leg! It favors the right from an old injury! Use the environment!”

Her words were a lifeline. I focused. She was right. The drake had a slight, almost imperceptible limp. On its next lunge, I didn’t try to dodge fully. I dropped low, scooping up a handful of the sand and grit that covered the floor, and threw it straight into its eyes.

The drake roared in pain and surprise, recoiling and stumbling on its weak leg. In that moment of blindness, I scrambled away, putting the central podium between us.

“Eighty!”

The drake was berserk now, thrashing and clawing at its face. It smashed into the podium, and the entire cage shuddered. I was cornered.

“Ninety!”

Its head cleared, its eyes burning with hate. It saw me. This was it.

“One hundred!”

The blare of a horn split the air. The trial-masters rushed in, prodding the enraged drake with electrified lances, driving it back toward its cage. I slid down the bars, clutching my bleeding side, my breath coming in ragged, sobbing gasps. I had survived.

Through a haze of pain, I saw Marshal Marcus descend from his platform. He walked past the other successful cadets—Kaela, and two others—and stopped in front of me. He looked down at me, his expression not of praise, but of intense calculation.

“Psionics to confuse the beast. A brute’s trick with sand to blind it. And a noble’s advice to find its weakness.” He crouched, his voice low enough for only me to hear. “A mongrel’s strategy, Cadet Elia. Unrefined. Unreliable. But effective.” He stood. “You have passed the Selection. Report to the infirmary. Then, you will be assigned your dragon.”

As I was helped to my feet, my legs threatening to buckle, I caught Kaela’s eye. There was no congratulation in her gaze. Only a fierce, burning resolve, and a silent question that hung between us like a promise and a threat. The trials were over. The real test was about to begin.