Training sharpened in the second half of the year.

  The instructors had an uncanny sense for each recruit's limits. They'd push just past the breaking point, hold them there until something inside started to crack, then ease off before the damage became permanent. It was precise. Surgical. And it never stopped.

  Extra rucks. Live-fire drills that turned the range into controlled chaos. Leadership blocks where Ralaen found herself commanding mixed squads, every decision picked apart before the dust settled.

  Eirik endured the same. Side by side, they weathered it—bodies and minds ground down and built back up under the instructors' unblinking attention.

  "Again," Hammond said after an urban sim that would have passed muster in most militaries. "Ralaen, Andreassen, switch roles. Run it back. You fail, everyone repeats."

  They ran it again. It hurt more. It worked better.

  Rumors moved through the barracks like damp through old stone.

  Some recruits whispered about "tagged candidates." Extra medical scans. Longer psych interviews. Quiet conversations with officers instead of NCOs. The word Einherjar surfaced in low tones after lights out.

  "Some Jaegers get pulled for pre-selection," a Felari said one night. "The ones who keep getting the extra weight."

  "Or the ones they want to break first," a Ssarathi replied.

  "They wouldn't pick non-humans," an Azelari added. "Their myths are about them, not us."

  Ralaen listened and said nothing.

  She'd noticed the patterns. She and Eirik were paired more than anyone else. Killgore's slate had their names near the top too often for coincidence. Sigrun watched them both with the same pointed attention she gave burned-out veterans. And on days when most recruits were released after a brutal block, someone always appeared with the same words: "Ralaen, Andreassen, extra session."

  The extras were sprints until their legs gave out. Hand-to-hand against instructors instead of peers. Sim scenarios with impossible parameters where the only metric was how long they could hold before everything collapsed.

  One night, after a close-quarters session with Hammond and Lee that left them both wrecked, Ralaen sat on the mat and dragged air into bruised lungs. Her ribs ached. Her knuckles throbbed. Eirik dropped down beside her, breathing hard, a dark bruise blooming around one eye.

  "You think the rumors are true?" she asked.

  "Which ones?"

  "The ones about certain recruits being watched for something beyond Jaegers."

  He was quiet for a moment. "Does it change how you train if they are?"

  She thought of Hell Month. The forest. Extra rations split in the dark. The Two-two-seven and the weight of it in her hands. Chapel conversations with Sigrun. That night in the tavern when Eirik had talked about Valhalla like it was real.

  "No," she said.

  "Then it's noise." He wiped sweat from his face. "We do the work in front of us. Earn the Jaeger patch first. Anything after that is for people with more braids on their shoulders."

  He gave her a lopsided grin. "Besides, Einherjar washout rates make this place look gentle. Let's survive the part everyone agrees is survivable."

  She snorted. "If this is survivable, your people have a strange definition."

  Across the mat, Killgore stood near the door with his slate. Sigrun was beside him. They spoke briefly—too quiet to hear. Sigrun's eyes moved to Ralaen and Eirik for a moment. Killgore nodded once.

  Ralaen didn't catch the words. She felt the ache in her muscles, the steady burn in her chest, and underneath it all, a hard line of certainty settling into place: whatever this road was becoming—Jaeger, something more, something she couldn't name yet—she was on it for reasons that still made sense.

  And she wasn't on it alone.

  The announcement came three months before graduation.

  They filed into the amphitheater—the same stone steps where Killgore had welcomed them to Hell month, then to the Forge. The air was warmer now. Their uniforms fit differently: tighter across shoulders and thighs, looser at the waist. Old bruises had become new muscle.

  Ralaen sat with the Federation recruits, black fur soaking up the sun, sky-blue eyes on the man at the bottom of the steps. Her body ached in the way it always did now—constant, familiar. It also felt solid. Heavy in a way she trusted.

  Killgore stood below, slate in hand, instructors arrayed behind him like a wall of disapproval.

  "All right, maggots," he said. "You've survived nine months of my hospitality without dying, quitting, or setting yourselves on fire in ways that couldn't be fixed."

  Tired amusement rippled through the formation.

  "Which means it's time to talk about the Trials."

  The amusement died. Killgore let the silence stretch.

  "Two that matter for you," he said. "First: the Black Trials. Your capstone. Every Jaeger goes through them. Pass, and you earn the right to wear the black. Fail, and you go home with scars and a story about how close you came."

  Ralaen's ears tilted forward despite herself.

  "The Black Trials aren't a test of how fast you run or how pretty you look on a range," Killgore continued. "They're a test of whether you can think, move, and hold together when everything goes wrong. Sleep deprivation. Live fire. Unclear orders. Bad intel. People screaming at you in three languages. You'll be hungry. Cold. Tired. Alone and not-alone at the same time. And at the end, we'll know if you're Jaegers."

  He let that settle.

  "Second," he said, almost casually, "are the Crown Trials."

  He didn't elaborate. The word crown moved through the formation like current through water. Ralaen felt the shift more than saw it—humans straightening, Federation recruits trading quick glances.

  A hand went up. Killgore stopped. Turned slowly toward it. One of the human recruits—big, dark-haired, with the kind of stubborn jaw that meant he was about to do something painful but honest—kept his arm raised even as instructors fixed him with dead stares.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Killgore smiled. Not kind. Not entirely unfriendly either.

  "Yes, recruit?"

  "Sir. What are the Crown Trials, exactly?"

  Someone sucked in breath. Someone else muttered idiot under their tongue. Killgore folded his arms.

  "The Crown Trials are not for Jaegers," he said. "They're for something beyond. The Einherjar selection gauntlet. You want to become one of the Allfather's chosen, you go through the Crown."

  The humor left his voice.

  "Only the best of the best ever get invited. Out of those, only a fraction pass. Most who attempt it come out broken in ways that never fully heal. The ones who don't break often die later, doing things that become unit legends and worst-practice warnings."

  His eyes swept the group.

  "The Crown Trials are not a promotion path. They're a sacrifice. You don't chase them because they sound glorious. You get dragged toward them because everyone who knows you decides you're too dangerous to leave as you are."

  The recruit who'd asked swallowed. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

  Killgore nodded once. "Worry about the Black Trials. Any of you who live long enough that the Crown becomes your problem can curse me then."

  As he said it, his gaze passed over the Federation recruits. Weighing. Measuring. Ralaen had the unnerving sense his eyes lingered on her half a heartbeat too long.

  "Back to work. The Forge doesn't pause because you got spooked by a word."

  The Trials talk stayed with her.

  It sat beside what Sigrun had told her in the chapel—about Valhalla, about worth, about the difference between chasing glory and accepting burden.

  The Crown isn't a prize, the Valkyrja had said when Ralaen circled the subject one evening. It's a door. Most people aren't meant to walk through it. The ones who are usually wish they had a choice.

  Now, as training ramped up again, Ralaen watched the instructors more carefully. Not just how they watched her—how they watched her and Eirik.

  They were a pair now in everything but name. Everyone saw it. They hadn't crossed any lines. No shared bunks. No vanishing acts. There was no time, no privacy, and neither of them was stupid enough to invite Killgore's attention that way.

  But the gravity between them was obvious. The way they drifted to the same tables at chow. The way they ended up next to each other in formation without planning it. The way, in the ten-second spaces between drills, their eyes found each other like habit. Subtle as artillery.

  The betting pool started in the Felari section.

  "How long until they finally jump each other?" Sari whispered one night as they stripped rifles on the barracks floor.

  "Two weeks," a human said without looking up from his pulser. "They're already halfway there."

  "Three months," a Ssarathi countered. "They're disciplined. Or repressed."

  "Fifty credits on 'they wait until after the Black Trials,'" an Azelari added, dry as dust.

  Ralaen kept her head down, claws working through muscle memory, pretending she couldn't hear. Her ears betrayed her anyway—heat crawling under black fur.

  Eirik heard too. He walked past, ears reddening, and muttered just loud enough for her to catch: "They should be betting on who fails pushups first."

  She risked a glance up. He was already looking back at her, a crooked grin on his face like they were sharing a joke they weren't allowed to laugh at.

  It did alarming things to her insides.

  The last months sharpened everything.

  Killgore and the instructors stopped pretending they weren't shaping recruits for specific outcomes.

  "The Black Trials will not be fair," Lee said during one briefing. "We're not testing fairness. We're testing response. You will be lied to. You will be given impossible orders. We will see whether you freeze, improvise, or fold."

  Leadership rotations became relentless. One day Ralaen led a mixed squad through an urban assault, Eirik on overwatch. The next they swapped—he took point while she anchored a support position with the Two-two-seven and two Drakari hauling ammunition. The instructors rode them without mercy.

  "RALAEN, YOUR LEFT FLANK IS DRIFTING—ARE YOU COMMANDING OR SIGHTSEEING?"

  "ANDREASSEN, IF YOU HESITATE AGAIN I WILL GIVE YOU A CROWN TRIAL PREVIEW WITH A SHOVEL."

  Only Wu used a different tone.

  "Good adaptation," she'd say, when they earned it. "Remember what you just did. You'll need it tired."

  The Forge never got easier. But it became familiar—something they fit inside instead of something that crushed them. Gear that had once felt impossible now moved with them. Drills that had been a blur ran almost on autopilot, leaving just enough brain for angles and fields of fire. In mixed squads, they began anticipating each other without words.

  One morning, after an obstacle course that would have wrecked them in month one, they ended up sitting in the dirt together—lungs burning, mud drying on fur and scales and skin.

  "Remember day one?" a Felari panted, tail twitching.

  "Don't," Hissthar groaned. "I almost died tying my boots."

  Vorrek thumped his chestplate. "I could defeat my three-months-ago self with one hand and a spoon."

  "Cocky," an Azelari replied. "But not inaccurate."

  Ralaen looked at her own hands. Black fur. Thickened wrists. Callused pads. A scattering of small scars. She thought of the version of herself that had stepped off the shuttle—lean, sure of her Confederacy rank, certain she was here to observe humans, not fight to keep up with them.

  "I think I could take her too," she said quietly.

  Eirik, sitting beside her, nudged her shoulder with his. "You already did."

  She bumped him back, trying and failing not to grin.

  The Black Trials became a constant shadow.

  In the mess hall, someone would mutter "at least it's not as bad as what's coming," and the noise would drop on its own. On the range, during a rare light moment, the same human who'd asked about the Crown announced:

  "When I'm done with the Black Trials, I'm putting in for the Crown."

  Groans. Laughter. A bread roll bounced off his shoulder.

  "Enjoy your early funeral," Sari said.

  "You won't make it through the first gate," another human said. "They'll take one look at your file and hand you a mop."

  "Are non-humans even allowed to attempt it?" a Ssarathi asked, less joking now.

  "Don't know. I heard there was a Drakari in one of the old cohorts. Or maybe that was a training rumor. Or a bar story."

  An Azelari frowned. "Most of what we know about the Crown Trials is rumor. Multiple phases. Psychological stressors. Some sort of spiritual component."

  "Valkyrja involved," another human added. "That part's real. They say you don't just get tested by officers. You get weighed by eyes that see more than numbers."

  "That's wonderfully vague."

  "That's the point. People aren't supposed to aim for it like a career track. It's more like... if the Crown wants you, it finds you."

  Ralaen listened, half-engaged, half somewhere else.

  Then something tugged at her attention. She glanced at Eirik. He wasn't joining in. He sat back from the table, expression neutral, eyes unfocused in a way she recognized now—the way he looked before a fight, or before making a choice he knew would cost him.

  He'd already decided.

  Something in her chest went cold, then hot—pride and fear tangled together, and underneath it, coiling warm and dangerous, something that felt a lot like a promise.

  Later, walking back toward the barracks under a cold evening sky, she drifted closer to him.

  "You're thinking about the Crown," she said quietly.

  He huffed something that might have been a laugh. "That obvious?"

  "Your face goes empty when you decide something. Like you set a shield down facing the wrong way."

  "Unfair. You're not supposed to read me better than the instructors."

  "Too late."

  They walked in silence, boots crunching gravel. He was a head taller; his shadow overlapped hers.

  "Are you going to try for it?" she asked.

  He stared ahead at the barracks lights. "If they ever think I'm ready. If the Allfather and whatever's left of my common sense don't stop me." A pause. "Yeah. I think I have to."

  She swallowed. The feeling that rose in her was clean and sharp and not simple at all. It wasn't just the way he made her stomach twist when he smiled. It wasn't just respect for someone who kept getting back up. It wasn't just Sigrun's words about worth and standing where it mattered.

  She wanted to be where he was when it counted. Same line. Same monsters. If he walked toward something that might kill him, she didn't want to have stayed safely behind.

  "I don't know if they'd ever let someone like me attempt it," she said. "Non-human. Not born under your sky. Wrong myths."

  Eirik looked at her then—really looked. Black fur. Blue eyes. Shoulders built by a year of J?tunheim, not Confederacy training.

  "If the Crown is what they say it is," he said, "it won't care what your passport says. Only what you do."

  Her heart did something unhelpful.

  There was still a month of training left. The Black Trials loomed. The Crown was a rumor beyond the horizon. Ralaen didn't have answers—not about faith, not about the future, not about why following him into something that might destroy them both felt less like madness and more like a promise she'd already half-made.

  But as they walked back into the floodlights and shouted orders and the endless grind of the Forge, one thing settled quietly into place: wherever the path led after this—Jaeger black, Crown, or some other road—she didn't want to walk toward any gate without Eirik somewhere near her shoulder.

  She wasn't ready to say it. Not yet.

  For now, there was training to finish. A Black Trial to survive. One last month to prove—to Killgore, to the Allfather, to herself—that the Asuari who had stepped off the shuttle was truly gone.

  And what stood in her place was ready.