Cinderheart looked like a nightmare cavalry mount that had escaped from Hell's stables. A massive warhorse standing seven feet tall at the shoulder, forged from living ember and muscle. Its body was deep crimson — raw and glistening like exposed sinew — while a wild mane of white smoke flowed behind it, igniting into ghostly crimson flames at the tips. A molten core burned visibly in its chest, pulsing orange-gold like a second heart.

Its hooves were wreathed in crimson spirit-fire that left no hoofprints — only scorch marks. Although those immediately disappeared on the ground of my Nave, swallowed by the marble as if the floor refused to acknowledge the damage.

The creature was intimidating through and through. Its eyes were like burning coals pulled fresh from a furnace. This horse looked perpetually furious at me specifically, like I'd personally insulted its mother.

Then it shot smoke from its nostrils, twin jets like the exhaust of an angry engine.

I gulped.

Looking at the towering mount made me want to learn proper horse riding, to be able to ride like Kassie someday.

At the same time, it made me scared shitless.

"I think it's fair, you can return him back now."

Kassie tilted her head slightly.

"Cindy is a girl."

I gave her a rictus grin.

'Of course it is!'

Kassie patted the horse once — an oddly gentle gesture from someone who looked like she'd been birthed by war itself — and then sent Cinderheart back to wherever spirit mounts went when they weren't terrifying mortals. The dismissal came with a whirlwind of sparks that scattered across the Nave floor before fading.

She approached me, her pale eyes studying my face with that unsettling focus of hers. Without warning, she tore a piece of thorn from her armor. The material twisted in her grip like liquid metal, reshaping itself.

"Your hand."

Hesitantly, I extended my hand toward her. The thorn she'd torn from her armor shaped itself into a bracelet — dark and thorned and somehow alive-looking — and she slid it onto my wrist. The metal was warm against my skin.

She did the same with my other hand and both my legs.

Immediately, I felt so heavy that movement became impossible. My knees buckled. My spine compressed. The weight wasn't centered anywhere — it was everywhere, dragging at every muscle simultaneously.

Kassie stepped back, looking at me with unmistakable satisfaction.

"What the hell did you just put on me?"

I tried to lift my arm. It moved exactly three inches before giving up on life. The weight wasn't just heavy — it was oppressive. Like someone had strapped lead bricks to my limbs and then added more lead bricks for good measure.

"Weight bracelets," Kassie said, as if that explained anything. "They'll help you build foundational strength."

'Foundational strength? I can't even stand up straight!'

My spine was already beginning to curve forward like an old man's. The marble floor of the Nave looked very inviting. Very close. Like somewhere I wanted to lie down and die.

"How much does this weigh?"

"Each bracelet is currently set to thirty units."

I did the mental math. Four weight bracelets. A hundred and twenty units total. Whatever the hell a "unit" was.

"And in terms I can actually understand?"

She tilted her head, considering. "Enough that you should not be able to move."

"Great. Wonderful. Fantastic information, Kassie. Very helpful."

She ignored my sarcasm entirely. Which was somehow worse than if she'd acknowledged it.

"Your first task is simple." She began walking — no, gliding — across the Nave floor, putting distance between us. Her armored feet made no sound against the marble. "Come to me."

I stared at her retreating back.

"Come to you."

"Yes."

"With these things on."

"Yes."

"The things you just said should make it impossible for me to move."

She stopped about twenty feet away and turned to face me. That slight curve returned to her lips — the one that made her look like a wolf watching a rabbit try to figure out which direction to run.

"I said you should not be able to move. I did not say you could not."

'There's definitely a difference there, but I'm too busy dying to appreciate it.'

I tried to take a step. My leg lifted maybe half an inch off the ground before the weight slammed it back down. The impact sent a small tremor through the floor.

'Okay. Different approach.'

I shifted my weight forward, leaning into the pull. If I couldn't lift my feet, maybe I could slide them. Drag myself across the marble like a particularly pathetic slug.

It worked… sort of. I managed about two inches of forward progress before my muscles started screaming. Sweat was already beading on my forehead, which felt deeply unfair. It had been maybe thirty seconds.

Kassie watched with that same detached interest she'd shown when watching me nearly die to spirit beasts. Like I was a mildly entertaining experiment.

'She's enjoying this. She's definitely enjoying this.'

"Your form is atrocious," she observed.

"I'm moving. That counts for something."

"It counts for very little."

Another inch. My thighs were burning. My calves felt like they'd been replaced with hot iron rods. And I still had roughly nineteen feet and ten inches to go.

"You know," I managed between labored breaths, "normal teachers start with lighter weights. Work their way up."

"Normal teachers produce normal results."

'Can't argue with that logic. Mostly because I can't breathe well enough to argue.'

Three more inches. The marble beneath my feet was actually warm now from the friction of dragging. Or maybe that was just my body heat radiating downward because I was apparently running a fever from sheer exertion.

"Use your core," Kassie called. "You are trying to move with your limbs alone. Inefficient."

I wanted to ask her how exactly I was supposed to use my core when said core felt like it had been punched repeatedly and my wounds were most likely on the verge of reopening, but I needed all my oxygen for the far more important task of not collapsing.

Five more inches. Then another three.

I'd covered maybe a foot total. Kassie hadn't moved. She stood there like a statue carved from war and patience, watching me crawl toward her one agonizing inch at a time.

'Nineteen feet left. At this rate, I'll reach her sometime next century.'

But I kept moving.

Because that was the whole point, wasn't it? The church wasn't going to wait for me to be ready. My enemies weren't going to give me a convenient training arc with gradually increasing difficulty. The world had been trying to kill me since I arrived, and it wasn't going to stop just because I needed more time.

So I dragged myself forward. One inch. Then another. Then another.

And Kassie watched, her pale eyes tracking every movement, cataloging every failure of form, every wasted motion, every drop of sweat that fell from my chin to splatter against the marble.

She'd said this would be difficult.

She'd said it would take time.

What she hadn't mentioned was that the difficulty would start at completely impossible and presumably work its way up from there.

'Thirty-five years of training,' I reminded myself. 'That's what she said. Thirty-five years to become what she is.'

...Another inch.

'Well. Better start now.'

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