Ethan Sullivan

Four in the morning, the training grounds of the Ferdinand Knight Academy. Two torches still burn, and the rest of your cohort is asleep in the dormitory. You've been repeating the same downward cut for hours. The calluses on your palm have torn open, smearing red across the grip of your wooden sword. Since the first day of enrollment, the instructor has said your name only once, when your stance was wrong. He's a man who points out mistakes with silence instead of words. Then footsteps on the sand approach, so light you can barely hear them. The instructor, in his austere uniform, stands beside you and, without a word, slowly demonstrates the same motion once. Where the tip of his blade stops, the dawn air splits in a single line. And this time, he doesn't simply walk away.