For seven consecutive mornings, long before the pale sun broke over the jagged spine of the eastern ridge, Ronan ran.
The routine was brutal and unyielding. Up the steep, frozen slopes, through choking briars and packed snow that bit through his boots, Ronan pushed his lanky frame to its absolute limits. With every lungful of thin, icy air, he forced his focus downward, trying to master the rhythm Fergus had demanded. He inhaled deep into his lower abdomen, attempting to drive a continuous, unbroken flow through his hips and thighs.
At first, it was nothing more than a desperate exercise in misery. His muscles screamed, his healing ribs ached with every sharp breath, and his clumsy footfalls crunched loudly against the frosted ground. But day after day, driven by a cold, hollow hunger to survive, Ronan adjusted. He stopped fighting his own momentum. He learned to shorten his stride on the incline, letting the tension drop from his shoulders into his core, seeking that subtle reduction of resistance that defined the Faelun discipline.
By the end of the week, the change was unmistakable. Though he could not summon a magical gale, there were fleeting moments of split-second acceleration where his legs felt unnaturally light, carrying him across the rocky terrain with a silent, darting speed that defied his gangling frame.
On the eighth morning, old Fergus led him back to the clearing near the cabin, where two straw-stuffed targets had been lashed to the pine trunks. old Fergus handed Ronan a slightly stiffer, better-balanced practice bow, its yew wood darkened from days of curing near the hearth.
"You think the flow of Faelun is only for running away from ghouls?" Fergus grunted, leaning against a tree trunk and crossing his arms as Ronan notched an arrow. "A true archer’s accuracy does not live in his fingers. It lives in his feet. The same technique you have been stumbling through on the ridge anchors your base, steadies your breathing against the string's tension, and locks your balance when you loose."
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Ronan nodded, planting his boots firmly into the frost-crusted soil. He closed his eyes for a single breath, recalling the rhythmic circulation he had practiced all week on the mountain trails. He drew the bow back to his cheek.
Instead of the rigid, trembling top-heaviness that had marked his first attempts days ago, his lower body locked into a sudden, fluid alignment. When he released the hemp string, the arrow did not drift or wobble; it hissed through the freezing air and struck dead center of the straw ring with a sharp, hollow thwack.
Fergus stared at the target, then slowly turned his gaze back to the boy. For a long moment, old Fergus said nothing. His pale eyes narrowed with a sharp, calculating intensity. Without a word of warning, Fergus stepped forward, caught Ronan by the wrist, and pressed two calloused fingers hard against the pulse point of the boy's inner arm, searching for the telltale hum of internal mana circulation.
Fergus waited. He felt the rapid, heavy thrum of a thirteen-year-old heart pumping blood from physical exertion, but beneath the skin: absolute silence. There was no awakened spark. No resonant hum of a Rank I Kindled Core.
Fergus slowly released his grip, a rare, stunned disbelief flashing across his weather-beaten face.
"You didn't awaken," Fergus muttered, half to himself. "You haven't kindled a single drop of mana."
"Is it wrong?" Ronan asked, lowering the bow with a sudden spike of anxiety.
Fergus shook his head slowly, a grim, complicated smile touching the corners of his mouth.
"No, boy," old Fergus rasped, looking out toward the dark, whispering trees of the frontier. "It isn't wrong. Most men spend years trying to force a core to yield that kind of mechanical precision. You just copied the form with your bare muscle and raw instinct."
Fergus picked up another arrow from the snow and tossed it into Ronan’s chest.
"Which means," the old man continued, turning back toward the cabin, "either you are an idiot who doesn't know when to quit, or you are the most dangerous stray I've ever pulled out of the ash. Pick up the bow. Let's see you do it again."