The Old Man did not look at Eryn when he spoke.

  “No one is kind enough,” he said, “to let you live just because you’re a child.”

  They were standing near the edge of the road, where the ground hardened from dirt to stone. Eryn had seen travelers pass here before. Some armed. Some wounded. Some desperate. He had never thought about what they would do if they were hungry enough.

  He wanted to say something. That surely someone would hesitate. That not everyone could raise a blade against a child.

  But the Old Man’s voice did not challenge him.

  It stated something that already existed.

  Eryn stayed silent.

  “You think survival needs skill,” the Old Man continued, still not looking at him. “Techniques. Forms. Names.”

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  He shook his head once.

  “No fancy movements are required to stay alive.”

  Eryn frowned. Every story he had ever heard said the opposite. Masters had styles. Swords had forms. Strength had shape.

  The Old Man stepped forward.

  It happened quickly. Not fast—just without excess. A movement so small Eryn almost missed it. Distance closed, then ended. When Eryn realized something had happened, it was already over.

  No flourish.

  No technique.

  The Old Man returned to where he had been standing, as if nothing had interrupted him.

  Eryn’s chest felt tight.

  That was it?

  That was what survival looked like?

  Later, when Eryn tried to imitate what he thought he had seen, he nearly paid for it with his life. His timing was wrong. His body hesitated. The space he stepped into was not empty.

  Luck saved him. Nothing else.

  When he returned, shaken and embarrassed, the Old Man did not comment on his failure.

  He only said, “If you need more than this to live, then the world has already decided.”

  That night, Eryn lay awake.

  He replayed the movements again and again, but something didn’t fit. Watching hadn’t been enough. Understanding hadn’t come. And for the first time, a thought crept in that made him uncomfortable.

  Maybe the Old Man wasn’t wrong.

  But maybe his truth was shaped by a world that had already taken everything from him.

  Eryn closed his eyes.

  He would keep watching.

  But he would no longer accept everything without question.