Chapter 5 The Rituals (Spikes and Stones)......

Day One----

The morning began with silence, no whistles, no rallying speech, just the still air of a place that had seen too many ghosts.

Cleora stood among the other recruits at the edge of the gravel pit, arms at her sides, expression passive almost delicate.

A breeze shifted strands of her darkened hair across her cheek, she didn't brush them away, she simply observed quietly

She was quiet, but not lost.

"Strip off your boots," the instructor barked. "And step in."

The others groaned, cursed, shoved, but she simply complied, slipping one foot out after the other and stepping barefoot into the sharp bed of stones. The pain registered, but she didn't show it.

In a shadowed tower far above, behind a cracked pane of bulletproof glass, Padrino Archon stood with a glass of something dark in hand, silent and watching.

Cleora didn't stand out, not like the louder ones, she was subtle and fluid in her movements, she looked softer, even vulnerable.

But Archon's trained eye didn't miss the grace beneath it the way her shoulders remained level, her breath paced, her glances never darting.

This one doesn't survive by force, Archon noted.

She survives by reading the room.

The instructor threw down steel batons. "No rules, just pain."

Violence exploded.

Cleora didn't lunge, she sidestepped chaos, gliding between swinging arms and clumsy anger.

She stumbled once but deliberately, letting a fight pass by her, and when she did strike, it wasn't with flair.

It was instinct, a tap to the wrist, a shift of balance, subtle but not showy.

And then she paused, not out of confusion, but curiosity.

One opponent had fallen near her, wheezing, she crouched not to gloat, but to look, just a glance at his bruised temple.

Then she turned away, gently brushing dust off her elbow.

A trap? A test? Or just a woman uninterested in blood?

Padrino watched her smile faintly to herself, as if she were listening to a secret.

There it is, Archon thought.

That stillness, that control, the softness no one here dares to wear.

Not a soldier.

A spy, a seduction weapon.

And maybe something even rarer a mystery.

There were eyes above the world, cold, masked, and endlessly awake.

From the highest chamber of the tower known as Il Bastione, Padrino Archon stood at the glass, the window was tall and angled, shaped like a blade stabbing into the clouds.

It gave a perfect view of the gravel pit far below, where recruits were lining up for the first day of what they called "the Ritual", a seven-day crucible of pain, precision, and exposure where trainees have no clue on what's going on.

He moved like a shadow possessed by grace, fluid but calculated, like every step was a choice already made hours ago.

The mask he wore was bone-white with no mouth, just dark slits over the eyes, yet behind those slits, his gaze was sharper than steel, he saw everything.

"She's an odd one," said Dario, his right hand man, older, reliable, eyes always flickering to test the master's mood.

"That girl, the one with the lazy eyes and the mouth that doesn't obey fear, shall I bring her in for scrutiny?"

Padrino didn't look away from the glass, his hands were clasped behind him, the long coat he wore shifting with the breeze from the cracked tower window.

"Let her struggle for a week," he replied, voice smooth and unhurried.

There was no emotion in his tone, just calculation.

Dario frowned, "You want her broken first?"

"No, I want to see if she bends or coils, there's a difference, I want to see how long she'll last, I have quite a high expectation from her."

Below, Cleora stood still while others stretched, postured, spat on the gravel.

She blinked slowly, her hands loose at her sides, she wasn't trying to impress anyone.

"She's not like the others," Dario said.

"No," Padrino murmured,"She isn't."

He shifted slightly, raising a finger to a different figure in the training circle, a young man moving through the drills like a ghost with a blade, he's not the strongest, but surgical and focused.

"That one," Padrino said, "What's his name?"

"Gavino."

"Good hands, he will be useful."

Then another name emerged in the air like smoke.

"El Milando," Dario said, nodding toward the seasoned brute now pacing between recruits with folded arms and a swagger earned from a hundred kills "Impressive as usual."

************************

The sharp-stone race had no whistle to start, only the crack of a baton against the back of the nearest recruit, then chaos.

Cleora kept her pace even, mind calm, body low, around her, men stumbled, boots slipping on blood-slick stone.

The air filled with grunts, curses, and the thudding weight of bodies hitting ground.

Steel batons didn't strike to warn, they punished.

One man, lean but reckless, tried to sprint ahead, only to catch the rod full to the side of his knee, he crumpled with a cry, dragging two others with him.

Another dropped near Cleora, gasping, his back scored red from two hard lashes, as well as spikes ditched deeper into his skin, a pain almost unbearable.

She weaved past him, sparing just a glance.

The guards watched like vultures, strikes deliberate not random, they knew who to test.

When the final lap came, only ten remained from twenty-two, seven men, two punks, and an odd girl sticking out like a sore thumb.

The feeble yet ahile looking female feline had strived to the end, unharmed, in a field of men.

Cleora crossed the line near the end of the pack, not first but unmarked, her breath shallow, controlled, the dust on her skin didn't mask the quiet strength in her gait.

One of the instructors nodded once. "Enough."

The battered, bloodied group collapsed where they stood, some groaning, some vomiting, others dead-eyed with exhaustion.

No praise, no debrief, just silence.

Then the bell rang again.

Training was not over, day one had just begun.