The night after the battle was unusually quiet. The camp slept in a lethargy of exhausted bodies and broken souls. On his rudimentary cot, under a rough blanket that barely covered the chill of his thoughts, Joel couldn't close his eyes. The battle was behind him, but something else lingered, something different.

  He stared at the wooden ceiling, his eyes fixed, as if beyond the shadows lay answers he couldn't formulate. In his chest, a feeling he couldn't describe: a mixture of acute lucidity and an emotional distance that hadn't been there before. Everything seemed clearer: the connections between ideas, battle tactics, the behavioral patterns of others... as if his mind had awakened to a new level. But it wasn't just that; the emotions he had experienced in his dreams, past lives, or fragments of others also intensified. They weren't memories, they were feelings, true ones, as if he had loved, suffered, and died a thousand times, and now all of that was alive inside him.

  “What's happening to me?” he thought, turning his face toward the small portrait of his mother he kept wrapped in a piece of linen inside his jacket. The charcoal with which it had been drawn was already fading, but her eyes still regarded him with a silent sweetness.

  It had been the bottle, Joel knew, the red liquid, thick as blood and as bitter as rusty steel. What he had felt after drinking it wasn't a simple physical improvement: it was a transformation and a kind of ascension.

  In the stories the monks at the orphanage used to whisper between classes, they spoke of ancient, rare, and dangerous potions known as "elixir of purified blood." They said they were used to empower mages, raising their level by forcing the purification of their bloodline. An alchemy forbidden by some religious circles, considered too risky to be administered unchecked, as those with weak minds tend to go mad, and those with weak bodies suffer a horrible death.

  But Joel wasn't a wizard, or at least not that he knew of. His blood, while possessing traces of purity and potential, had shown no signs of specific power during the trials. Yet something within him had changed—not just his strength, but the clarity with which he now understood everything around him. As if his mind had aligned itself with an invisible web of knowledge.

  Where did those bottles come from? Who decided who deserved to drink them? How many more times would they be used as rewards without explaining their origin?

  He sat down slowly, his fingers interlaced on his knees. The stillness of the night weighed like an omen. He thought of Rhaegar, Birm, and the many others who hadn't returned from the battlefield. Those who weren't drinking potions or enjoying a fleeting victory.

  He took out a piece of cloth and placed it in front of him on the dusty ground. It was a simple act, devoid of ceremony, one he had learned in the orphanage, although he had never fully believed in gods. It was a prayer without words, a way of remembering that the fallen had been human before becoming numbers in a report or smoke in a chimney.

  He knelt and closed his eyes, not with faith, but with respect. He thought of their faces, of the voices he would never hear again, of the blood spilled on foreign land, of names no one would ever speak.

  "May someone remember them tonight at least," he murmured to himself.

  And so he remained, without tears or laments, only in silence, like an echo of the past that refused to die.

  …

  The next morning, a harsh trumpet drew everyone from their bunks. The sky was still covered with dark clouds, and the air smelled of dampness and wet firewood. The recruits, still aching, gathered in the center of the camp. The lines were disordered, but no one had the energy to correct it.

  An officer climbed onto a makeshift platform. His voice, amplified by a magical artifact, echoed in the freezing air.

  "The exercise is over. Congratulations to you, the survivors. You have been observed and evaluated."

  Absolute silence. Some didn't understand what "evaluated" really meant.

  "From now on, all of you will be returned to your training centers. There you will continue advanced instruction, based on your performance and the rank assigned by the high command."

  A pause, and then the warning:

  “It is strictly forbidden to discuss what happened during the exercises with anyone outside your current group. This includes future recruits, civilian personnel, or even low-ranking officers. Violation of this order will be considered treason and will be punishable by death.”

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  A chill ran down the spine of many. Joel simply took a deep breath.

  “Now, prepare for the journey. Transport awaits.”

  Lines formed as the soldiers were organized for departure. Joel walked unhurriedly, his gaze searching for Liria among the scattered groups. Finally, he spotted her: sitting with her weight resting on a makeshift cane, forced by her injury to rely on others for mobility. Without a word, he approached and, with a raised eyebrow, indicated the nearest carriage.

  “That one has a good angle of shadow,” he murmured.

  Liria looked at him with a neutral expression and nodded. Joel helped her get in, making sure she was comfortable before settling in beside her. In silence, they both watched as the others boarded the vehicles.

  The clatter of the wheels on the damp earth signaled the start of the return journey. The roads were narrow and muddy, flanked by tall, thick trees that barely allowed the dull morning light to filter through. A soft wind blew from the mountains, carrying with it the smell of wet earth and the distant echo of crows.

  "It was an organized disaster," Joel said, without looking at Liria.

  "Like almost everything in this empire," she replied, her tone flat, but laced with truth.

  There was a moment of silence. Then Joel added, "I didn't know if you were alive. When I saw the bodies... I thought maybe you weren't going to be on the next leg of the journey."

  "And I was. Though not for long, if you hadn't arrived," Liria admitted, looking out the carriage window with a stoic expression.

  "I don't like surprises. Especially not definitive ones," Joel commented.

  "I don't like depending on anyone either," she said quietly, almost as if she hated it.

  "And yet here you are," Joel added.

  "And you are here too," she replied.

  They returned to silence. But it was a dense silence, not an empty one. Something had been said, even if it wasn't entirely clear what.

  Suddenly, a dull noise shook the carriage. The wheels slammed to a halt, and the horses whinnied loudly.

  "What the hell...?" Joel exclaimed, his hand already on the hilt of his weapon.

  From outside, screams began to sound. The rattling of other carriages also stopped. Something wasn't right. Immediately, explosions and the creaking of metal and wood were heard. Deafening booms shook the air. Joel and Liria barely managed to hold on to the edges of the carriage as the world outside seemed to shatter into a thousand pieces, with desperate voices and screams, the unmistakable sound of death.

  When everything seemed to calm down, survivors began to emerge from the vehicles. The scene was bleak, with bodies everywhere. Most of the officers, including the drivers and escorts, lay dead.

  And then they saw them: two solitary figures, advancing through the rubble. They wore dark robes, and their presence dominated the countryside like an impending storm. Their mere appearance was breathtaking; they were clearly very high-level mages. Both stopped in front of the carriages, their eyes slid among the terrified young men until one of them pointed in Joel's direction.

  "There you are," the man said, pointing at Liria.

  The voice was kind, even caring, but no one was fooled. The power they emanated was overwhelming.

  "We've been looking for you," continued the other mage, with long, silver hair. "Ever since your mother died... We've followed every lead, every rumor..."

  Liria watched them with a mixture of suspicion and resignation. She knew something was inevitable at that moment.

  "You won't be talking here anymore," said the other man, glancing sideways at the other recruits.

  "We can take you and get you out of this. We promise to explain everything when we're safe," insisted the silver-haired mage.

  Liria hesitated. Then she turned to face Joel. "He's coming with me."

  The two mages looked at each other, uncomfortably. One of them sighed.

  "That complicates things."

  "Then I'm not going," she said coldly.

  Finally, the silver-haired mage extended a hand, "Very well. But this is going to hurt more than it should."

  And then, wordlessly, he began to invoke. A red glow illuminated the earth, and a rift opened in the air as if the very fabric of the world were being ripped. A portal, pulsing and pulsating, materialized before their astonished eyes.

  Several recruits muttered under their breath, one of them managing to whisper in a trembling voice, "Dimensional walker..."

  Joel watched the scene with a frown. The strength of those mages was evident, but what surprised him most was the way they treated Liria, as if she were someone important, someone they had been searching for for a long time. He didn't understand anything, and perhaps because of that, he decided not to think too much and simply believe in her.

  "Let's go," said the mage.

  And so, with one last glance back at the chaos left behind, Joel and Liria stepped through the portal alongside the two strangers.

  The journey was indescribable. As he crossed the threshold, Joel felt as if his body were being decomposed and dragged through an endless tunnel. A space populated by vibrant lights, like stars dancing in a dark sea. Time seemed to stretch and compress, and the space around him warped at impossible angles. It was like flying through a fragmented universe, beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

  When they reached the other side, their feet touched a damp stone surface. They were in a wide cavern, lit by magical artifacts embedded in the walls. Several people were waiting for them there, and upon seeing Liria, they immediately approached with relieved smiles. Some rushed to help her, noticing her bandaged leg.

  Joel looked toward the mage who had opened the portal. His face was pale, and blood was running from his nose and eyes. His breathing was erratic, and his legs were trembling. He had paid a high price for that feat, a price few would be willing to pay for another human being.