"Tell me that's normal training."
"It isn't." Vane's voice had gone very quiet, his eyes moving across the yard like he was counting exits. "Fenris built its whole empire on force. Every soldier strong, every soldier vicious. I always wondered how you make men like that." A pause. "Now I know."
I followed his line of sight to the edge of the yard. A cluster of figures in black robes stood apart from the bleeding. Watching. One of them writing something down. Another leaned in, murmured, and the first nodded and made another note. They weren't coaches. They were sorting. Cataloguing. Picking.
In the middle of it, one kid caught my eye and wouldn't let go.
Young. Eighteen, maybe nineteen, smaller than the monsters around him, which should've made him paste on the floor. It didn't. Everyo
