Ashe stood ready before everyone else, listening as the clatter of feet against mats grew louder with each herald returning from break. Voices bounced off the walls, overlapping, sharp with energy. He stayed still in the middle of it, breathing through the ache in his ribs, letting the noise wash past him instead of pulling him under.

  When Danny began to speak, silence dropped like a curtain. Breathing slowed. Even the small movements stopped, everyone turning their attention toward the sound of his voice.

  Pairings were called. Sparring sessions spread across the mat like they always did, bodies shifting into place, gloves tightening, people shaking out their arms. Ashe already knew his. Diaggo. The only herald he had any real chance against.

  Diaggo wasn’t built like the others. His ability was better for information gathering than combat, and while he moved fast, it was messy. Quick, but often uncoordinated. That was where Ashe had to win. Not by strength. Not by speed. By reading the pattern and stepping into it first.

  Ashe stepped forward, exhaustion still heavy in his limbs from earlier training, like his muscles were packed with sand. But he knew everyone else was tired too. That was the point. That was what Danny had been drilling into him.

  Danny came up beside him, a hand settling on Ashe’s shoulder as he guided him toward the sparring mat. “Diaggo is infront of you.”

  Ashe nodded. He didn’t like sparring, not in a place like this, where every sound had weight and every smell tried to hook his attention and drag it somewhere else. Too many voices. Too much movement. Too many reasons to hesitate. But he was getting better, and he knew it. He could feel it in the way his feet found the mat faster, in the way his breathing didn’t panic the moment he stepped forward.

  Gloves already on, Ashe took his place.

  From across the distance, Diaggo’s voice cut through. “Ready.”

  “Ready,” Ashe answered. Then he nodded, a small signal that he was done waiting.

  Wind brushed against Ashe’s face, and then the whoosh of Diaggo followed. He was already in motion.

  Ashe knew his pattern. Diaggo went for the body first, hoping to cripple his opponent before he took a real hit. He couldn’t handle much pain, not for long.

  As Diaggo closed the distance, Ashe’s pain-sense spiked, sharp and clear on the right. Liver shot. Ashe tucked in, trying to turn himself into a shell, bracing to take it on his guard.

  But the punch didn’t go where it should have.

  It flashed over his lowered arms and cracked into bone. His shoulder went numb. His arm dropped limp at his side, heavy and useless. It felt like it was shaping up to be another one of those days.

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  Ashe didn’t give in. Mental weakness wasn’t accepted here. It wouldn’t be condoned.

  He heard retreating footsteps, a rush of air, and then the onslaught began again. Some strength had crept back into his arm. Not enough for a proper guard, but enough to raise it. Enough to survive.

  Diaggo approached.

  Ashe stepped right, offering his body where Diaggo wanted to target. The dull warning flared from his left this time. Ashe couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his mouth.

  He’d seen it coming.

  He was already moving before the pain even finished forming. Another step right. A swoosh as Diaggo’s fist met nothing but air.

  Ashe stepped in as Diaggo overcommitted, moving with too much energy, his leg stretching out to recover his balance. Ashe’s foot clipped his.

  Contact.

  He heard the breath punch out of Diaggo as he went down, an oof hitting the mat a heartbeat before the rest of him did.

  Ashe let out a gasp he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. Pride washed over him like a warm bath in the morning. But when the feeling settled, something else hit him.

  Silence.

  The sounds of fighting were gone. No scuff of feet, no gloves thudding into flesh, no voices calling out. Just quiet, pressing in from all sides. Their eyes were on him. Ashe felt like a deer in headlights, caught in the open with nowhere to look.

  Then Danny spoke. “New partners.” The words came like a crutch in a snowstorm.

  Movement returned all at once. People shifted. Names were called. Gloves tightened, feet shuffled, bodies rotated into new positions. And before Ashe could fully breathe again, someone else stood in front of him.

  Heavy footsteps. Heavy breathing. The smell of food lingering, like he’d eaten recently and it was still clinging to him. Abus. The large, heavy-set man.

  Ashe had no chance here. Not without a weapon. The size difference was too much. But he set his feet anyway. Raised what guard he could. Prepared, even if it felt pointless.

  Sparring ebbed and flowed for hours as they switched partners, pushed their bodies, bruised each other, all with the same goal: preparing for the assault on the portals. A push that might finally let them claw their way into a competitive position.

  Ashe never repeated the success of that first spar. Most of the time he never stood a chance. But he could feel himself getting closer. Abus missed a few hits before he finally made contact. Kreor took a few seconds longer than the day before. Small changes, but real.

  By the end of the day, Ashe was bruised and shaking, but something like gratitude sat in his chest. The mat beneath him was soft and damp with sweat, and he didn’t care.

  Even dinner was better. He was allowed to join them. A quiet approval rolled over the table, unspoken but there, as they ate in the hush of spoons tapping bowls.

  Then the buzzing blew past everything, dampening the world around him like bulletproof glass. A shield against the world. Ashe looked around, head on a swivel, panic thick in his throat.

  Then something tingled. The smell of a portal. Not far away, but on top of him. A beacon.

  He shifted under his own weight, trying to stand, but his muscles didn’t respond. His stomach lurched and the seat beneath him vanished. He was falling. His heart pounded, panicked. His breathing turned ragged.

  His back hit sand.

  The air was humid, warm. And then it hit him, the buzz was gone, replaced by the roar of cheers, chaos, languages he didn’t understand. Cries of pain and pleasure tore through him, loud enough to rattle his bones.

  If he didn’t know better, it would’ve all felt like a nightmare.