The training hall beneath Gale Citadel was not a sacred place. It was a crucible. No windows, no echo, just stone blackened by decades of beatings, failure, and blood wiped off with the same cloth used to bind wounds. The walls bore no banners. The only decoration came in the form of resonance-glyphs carved by those long dead, some half-erased by scorch marks or boot heels. It smelled of sweat and rust and burnt qi, the kind of place that stripped a soldier of pride and left behind only purpose. Altan stood at the center, arms crossed, unmoved. Six figures knelt before him. Chaghan was first, First Stormguard, shoulders squared but never stiff. The five Warden-commanders formed a crescent behind him, each of them veterans of battlefields the world had already forgotten.
Altan gave no speech. He raised his chin once. That was enough.
"Begin."
They moved. No wasted motion. No flourishes. The ground did not shake for spectacle's sake, but the stone groaned all the same. Stoneheart qi, deep and dense, rose through their bodies. It was not loud. It was not beautiful. It was weight. Saru's stance sank low, feet digging into the floor like roots. Vachir's arms shimmered faintly with quartz-thin fractures, evidence of pressure focused inward. Oyuun pulled breath tight into her diaphragm, letting the strain rise until her bones creaked. The two others mirrored, every breath an act of violence against their own limits.
Stoneheart wasn't about flash. It was about resistance. The kind of resistance that didn't end until your hands stopped shaking and your enemies stopped breathing. They moved through the forms again and again until the muscles no longer screamed because pain had become silence.
Altan walked among them, wordless. Not to correct. To watch. Judgment in every glance, but no guidance. They were past that.
He stopped in front of Chaghan.
"Show me."
Chaghan didn't rise. He didn't need to. He let breath fall, posture soften, and allowed the shift. The air thickened, cooler now, the harshness of Stone bleeding away. Waterheart emerged in mist—soft, silent, creeping from his forearms and spine. There was no violence in it. But the room felt like drowning.
Waterheart wasn't a trick. It wasn't even power. It was the learned instinct of those who knew how to fall without breaking. Chaghan had once fought with nothing but Stone, and it had shattered him. Water came later, when strength alone couldn't protect the dying. Now he balanced both, but he knew it was incomplete. Not because of what he lacked, but because something else had begun to rise within him—something heat-born, edged with fury.
He had felt it since the siege. The flames. The screams. The moment when all else failed and his qi began to tremble with something new. He hadn't touched it. Not yet. But it hadn't left. Flame didn't go away. It sat in the gut like a blade kept too long in the sheath, waiting for blood.
Altan watched, his face still.
"You're close. A season more, and the water will accept you."
Chaghan let the mist retract. No flourish. No pride. Just control.
Altan gave no praise. Only motion.
Then he knelt.
No signal. No breath drawn. The shift came like a blade to the throat. Flameheart qi erupted, and the heat in the room turned into weight. Not fire. Pressure. It bent the air, peeled moisture from the stone. The floor cracked beneath him, spiderweb fractures glowing red. The light wasn't beautiful. It was cruel. Vachir shielded his face. Saru held his ground but his boots began to smoke. Oyuun coughed once, her lungs drying with each breath. Chaghan didn't move. But inside, something responded.
Flameheart wasn't a style. It was a death pact. It burned whatever touched it—flesh, thought, restraint. It was meant for those who'd run out of choices.
"You're not ready for this," Altan said flatly. "But you will be. Because the battlefield won't wait for you to finish your martial technique."
He stood, the heat receding like a tide that had taken something with it.
"The Iron Hands are being watched," he said. "Not by me. By you."
The five Wardens straightened.
"Each ten-man cell reports to an Iron Hand. That's how the army works. But structure fails. People fail. And when they do, the Iron Hands have to know who they're shaping. You're going to train them."
No one spoke. They knew what came next.
"Start with Stoneheart. The basics. The body. The stance. Break them if they're soft. Make them rebuild themselves. When the Iron Hands are stable, pass it to the lower ranks. Rotations every three months until every veteran Stormguard has learned the weight of Stone."
He paused.
"Only if they earn it—only if they endure without complaint, and hold ground without ego—then teach them Waterheart. Let performance and merit decide who moves forward. Not favoritism. Not birth."
He looked at each Warden in turn.
"And if any of them hunger to burn—if they hide that flame under charm or discipline—send them to me."
The silence afterward was heavy. No one dared to nod. Orders had already entered the marrow.
Altan turned back to Chaghan.
"You walk both paths. You'll teach Stone and Water. But when the time comes, you'll carry Flame too. That won't be a reward. That'll be a necessity."
No questions. No denial.
Then came the true training. Not for the Iron Hands. For the six.
Altan led them to the glyph chamber at the edge of the Chasm. The door was carved directly into the rock. No lock. No hinges. Just a flat surface inscribed with symbols older than language. Altan placed his palm against the center. The glyphs ignited.
Time bent.
Three years inside. One month outside.
The door sealed behind them.
Then the war began.
The first month was survival. The chamber summoned wraiths—ghosts of fallen cultivators, fragments of old warriors. They didn't test form. They attacked to kill. Saru took a blow to the throat. Vachir's ribs cracked. Oyuun nearly lost an eye. Chaghan shattered a wrist blocking a phantom's blade. They bound the wounds and kept moving.
There was no rest. There was no mercy.
If you failed, food was withheld. Fail again, and the water dried up. Bones broke. Fingers snapped. Faint once, and you trained on dislocated limbs. The chamber responded to their weakness by becoming worse.
By the end of year one, the wraiths spoke. Not with words. With memories. They wore the faces of lost comrades, dead families, fallen masters. Oyuun staggered when one used her brother's voice. Vachir froze when a phantom moved like the boy he once killed by mistake. They were punished for every hesitation.
Year two shattered the idea of rank. No one led. No one followed. They moved as a single body. Breathe, strike, cover. Fall, stand, strike again. Not in sequence. In instinct. Flame began whispering louder to Chaghan in the quiet between battles. He didn't answer it. But it knew his name now.
By year three, they fought in silence. Not because of discipline. Because words didn't matter anymore. The glyphs pulsed with every kill. The ghosts stopped returning. They ran out of old warriors.
So the chamber sent something else. Faceless things. Creatures made of qi and fury. They didn't care for technique. They only wanted blood.
And the six gave it.
At last, when the door opened, they didn't cheer. They walked out like stones dragged from the deep. Their steps were slower. Heavier. Not because they were tired. Because the world beyond no longer felt real.
Flame wasn't a weapon now. It was part of them.
And the next time the storm came, they'd burn a hole straight through it.