I blinked.
The light was warm. Dust motes drifted in lazy spirals.
I was kneeling.
My knees pressed against a padded rail. My hands were folded in front of me. Small hands. Thin fingers with bitten nails and a scab across one knuckle.
A child's hands.
I knew this place.
The smell reached me first. Incense, wood polish and a faint mustiness.
The sound came next. A voice somewhere ahead.
A priest stood at the altar. White vestments, gold trim. The crucifix behind him.
Catholic. Like my father's family.
I remember this. I'd lived it.
Beside me, breathing slow and measured, knelt a man.
He was big. Shoulders that could carry a roof beam. Hands that could grip an axe handle and swing for twelve hours without complaint.
His right arm was in a sling. He knelt anyway. Every Sunday.
I tried to see his face.
My eyes moved up looking at him. The heavy jaw. The crooked nose that had been broken twice. The stubble that he never managed to shave properly no matter how many times Mom left the razor on the counter.
The face blurred.
I tried harder.
The blur resisted.
The name sat on my tongue and slipped through.
Panic spiked in my chest. A child's panic, the kind that makes your throat close.
I was crying. Ugly, shaking sobs.
"Hey."
His voice was low.
"Hey, buddy. Look at me."
I looked up.
The face was still blurred. The eyes were clear.
"I'm scared," I whispered.
"I know," he said.
His good hand found the back of my neck. Calloused fingers, warm and steady, resting against my skin.
"Please retire," I said. "Please. You almost died. You're hurt. You can't..."
"I can't," he said.
"If it's about money," I pressed. The child in me was desperate. "We can figure it out. I can work. I'm strong enough. I can carry things. I can..."
"It's not about money."
His hand squeezed the back of my neck gently.
"Then why?" My voice broke on the word.
He was quiet.
The priest's voice continued in the background. Somewhere in the pews behind us, an old woman coughed softly.
"Do you know the story of the Good Samaritan?" he asked.
I nodded. I didn't trust my voice.
"A man was beaten," my father said. "Left on the road. Bleeding. Dying. A priest walked past. A Levite walked past. Both of them saw. Both of them kept walking."
His eyes held mine.
"Then a Samaritan came. A stranger. Someone who had every reason to walk past, too. No obligation. No duty. No reward waiting."
He shifted on the kneeling rail.
"He stopped," my father said. "He knelt. He carried the man to safety on his own back."
The hand on my neck didn't waver.
"The strong protect the weak," he said. "Those who can, rise to help. That's not a suggestion, son. That's not a nice idea. It's a duty."
I stared up at him through blurred eyes.
"And if I don't do it," he continued, softer now, "if I walk past because it's easier, because it hurts less, because I'm tired…"
He leaned closer.
"What kind of father would I be? What kind of man would I be teaching you to become?"
I didn't answer.
The priest's voice rose. The congregation stirred.
My father's hand left my neck.
The warmth lingered.
His face blurred further. The eyes dimmed.
The incense faded.
The church faded.
My eyes opened.
My body swayed. The rhythm was uneven, lurching, the cadence of a vehicle moving over bad road.
I tried to move, but couldn't.
My arms were bound behind my back. Thick rope, wound tight enough that my fingers tingled. My ankles were lashed together. A separate length of cord ran from my wrists to something above me, an iron ring bolted to the frame of whatever I was lying on.
I was on top of a carriage.
Face down.
The ground scrolled beneath me at an alarming pace, visible through the gap between the carriage's roof boards and the edge of the canvas covering.
Dust. Dry grass. Stones. All of it rushing past in a blur.
I blinked hard, trying to figure out what was happening.
The last thing I remembered was...
The wall. The elves. The blade in my stomach. The massive sword that had swept through the air above me.
No notification. I hadn't died.
Which means this was tomorrow.
And I was tied to the roof of a moving carriage.
"Help!" I shouted.
The word came out hoarse. My throat felt like it had been lined with sandpaper.
I tried again. Louder.
"Hey! Someone! I'm awake here!"
A voice drifted up from the driver's seat below.
"The kid's up."
The reins creaked. The carriage began to slow, wheels grinding against packed earth, the horses' hooves transitioning from gallop to a stop.
Ahead, a second carriage pulled to a halt.
Doors opened.
Boots hit the ground. Multiple pairs.
I craned my neck, trying to see.
Five figures emerged from the two carriages and arranged themselves in a loose semicircle beside the vehicle I was strapped to.
The Knights.
I recognized them immediately. The same five I'd watched walk through Grenzheim's square.
They stood in the roadside dust and looked up at me with expressions that ranged from mild curiosity to absolute indifference.
One of them stepped forward.
He was missing an arm.
In its place, beginning at the joint, a prosthetic of dark steel extended. Leaner than Vael's eye. Each finger segmented into knuckle-sized plates.
Scars covered every visible inch of skin. His hair was black and cut short. A bastard sword hung at his hip.
"So you woke up. I was expecting we would be further on the journey," he said. "I'm Brandt. Commander and part of the Iron Cross."
The name carried some unseen weight. I figured from how the others reacted. A subtle squaring of shoulders in respect.
"I've requisitioned you," Brandt continued, looking up at me with the same expression someone uses while inspecting equipment.
I stared down at him from my undignified position on the carriage roof.
"Requisitioned me," I repeated flatly. "For what? And why am I tied up?"
Brandt's jaw worked once, as if chewing on a thought before deciding whether to spit it out.
"The Iron Cross is a special legion of Silberwald," he explained. "We operate under direct royal charter. Our mandate allows us to requisition anyone at any time to our training program."
A second.
"Even if they don't want to come."
"I never resisted," I said. "I didn't fight you. I was unconscious. Why am I tied to the roof?"
Brandt's expression didn't change.
"Standard procedure," he said. "Most recruits resist. Some violently. It's easier to transport everyone the same way and sort out the willing ones later."
"How many recruits actually want to come?"
"Almost none."
I hung there, swaying gently as the horses shifted.
"Will I learn to use a sword?" I asked.
Brandt blinked.
"What?" he said.
"Swords," I repeated. "Will you teach me swordsmanship? Will I become a Knight?"
I could feel the other Knights processing the question with surprise.
"Yes," Brandt said slowly. "That's part of the training."
"It won't be easy," he added. "Or painless."
"Untie me," I said. "I won't resist. I want this."
Brandt studied me. His steel hand flexed once, the articulated fingers clicking softly.
Before he could respond, another figure stepped forward.
This one was different from the others. Lean. Short blond hair. Sharp features.
His pale gray eyes swept over me.
He wore no armor. Thin, dark leather, close-fitting.
"Apologies," he said. "We won't be untying you."
He tilted his head slightly.
"Cael," he offered. "They call me Ghost."
"Why Ghost?" The question slipped out before I could stop it.
Ghost's pale eyes settled on mine. He didn't blink.
"Because I'm good at making people disappear."
I blinked while thinking there were better nicknames than Ghost.
"We never trust a new recruit," Ghost continued. "Trust is earned in the Iron Cross."
His gaze flicked to the ropes binding my wrists and ankles.
"You stay bound until we decide otherwise."
I stared at him, then at the ropes.
The pragmatic part of my mind, the part that had learned to negotiate with mules and quartermasters, engaged.
"Fine," I said.
The word surprised them. I saw it in the micro-shifts of posture, the way two of the unnamed Knights glanced at each other.
"You won't untie me," I continued. "I understand. But could you at least take me off the roof?"
I craned my neck, trying to look at Brandt without the blood rushing further into my skull.
"I've been staring at the ground for however long I was unconscious. My arms are numb. I can barely feel my hands. If you're going to keep me bound, at least let me sit inside where I can see something other than dirt."
Another silence.
Brandt looked at Ghost.
"You're not what I expected," he said.
"Most recruits scream," Ghost added, tone unchanged. "Some cry. A few try to bite."
"I've had worse mornings," I said.
One of the unnamed Knights, a broad-chested man with arms like oak branches, let out a single bark of laughter.
Brandt gave a short nod.
"Get him down," he said. "Put him inside. Hands stay bound."
Two Knights stepped forward. I was dragged sideways, lifted, and deposited through the carriage's rear opening onto a wooden bench inside.
I sat upright for the first time in hours.
Blood rushed back into my extremities with a pins-and-needles that made me grit my teeth. My fingers burned as sensation returned. My shoulders screamed from the prolonged tension of being bound behind my back.
Brandt climbed in after me and settled onto the opposite bench.
The carriage creaked as the others resumed their positions. A whip cracked. The horses lurched forward. The wheels began their uneven rhythm against the road.
Brandt's dark eyes rested on me.
"I want to know something," he said.
I braced for the obvious questions. Who are you? Why do you carry a sword? How did a first-year student end up killing an elf?
"Why did you try to protect the old man and the girl?"
He'd seen.