Chapter 3: Two Days

Marci sat on the edge of the high overlook platform, legs dangling over nothing.

The canopy had turned the color of ripe fruit deep orange bleeding into purple. Wind tugged at his hair, carrying the faint laughter of kids on lower bridges. 

He hugged his knees, heart doing that stupid flutter it always did when he thought about tomorrow.

"Tomorrow," he said out loud, voice soft against the rustle of leaves. "I'll confess. No backing out this time."

He pictured Fyumi's smile, the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed at Kael's dumb jokes. The words were already forming in his head simple, honest, terrifying. He smiled despite himself.

He was about to confess tomorrow. But in the evening of today, something unfortunate happens.

The first alarm shattered the quiet like breaking glass three sharp horn blasts from the lower guard posts, then silence, then screams.

Marci was on his feet before he realized it. Smoke rose in thin black threads from platforms far below. Figures in dark cloaks swarmed up rope ladders and vine swings, faster than any trader caravan. 

Arrows whistled fire-tipped, punching through wooden railings. Guards shouted orders, then choked on blood as blades found throats.

The invaders were too many.

Marci ran.

He leaped gaps he normally wouldn't dare, boots slipping on blood-slick planks. Bodies lay everywhere friends he knew by name, teachers who'd scolded him for tardiness, 

strangers who'd waved hello that morning. A girl no older than twelve clutched a broken spear, eyes wide and empty.

He didn't stop to help. He couldn't. One thought burned through the panic: Master.

The training platform hung higher than most, isolated, sacred. Marci climbed the spiral stair carved into the trunk, lungs burning, ignoring the ache in his legs from yesterday's drills.

Smoke stung his eyes. The air tasted of iron and charred pine.

He burst through the leaf curtain.

Dead guards littered the planks some with arrows in their backs, others hacked apart. In the center circle, chalk still visible under the spreading red, stood his master.

Four swords jutted from his body like cruel branches two in the chest, one through the shoulder, one low in the gut. Blood pooled beneath him, dark and thick. His silver-streaked hair hung forward, hiding his face.

He wasn't breathing.

Marci's knees buckled. The world narrowed to that single, impossible image: the man who'd taught him will, emotion, control reduced to a broken statue pierced by steel.

No last words. No final lesson.

Just silence, and the distant roar of more invaders climbing higher.