Eli stood in the ss hall, staring down at the tal tray in his hands. The food looked… strange. The bread was soft, unnaturally so, almost spongy. The at sat in thick, brown sauce, its scent foreign, heavy with spices he couldn't na. Beside it, pale-yellow mush glistened under the cold light of the hall. He prodded it with his spoon, watching it jiggle. Food wasn't supposed to jiggle.
The other recruits around him were already eating, shoveling the strange al into their mouths like they hadn't seen food in years. Maybe they hadn't. So of them were from the worst parts of Farlstone—street rats, orphans, the kind of people Britannia never cared about even before the war.
"Eat, or they'll think you're too weak to keep up."
The voice belonged to Rolf, the broad-shouldered farr Eli had t in the recruitnt line. He was already halfway through his plate, tearing into the at like a wolf at a fresh kill. His thick fingers sared brown sauce across his chin, but he didn't seem to care.
Eli scoffed. "You eat this slop every day?"
Rolf grinned, showing yellowed teeth. "Better than starving, ain't it?" He stabbed his spoon into the yellow mush and shoved a mouthful in. "Tastes like salted butter and cow tit. Could be worse."
Eli hesitated, then broke off a piece of bread. It felt too soft in his fingers. He chewed, expecting it to be stale, but instead, it was light, airy—unnatural. This wasn't the coarse, hard bread he'd known all his life. This was sothing else. Sothing richer. His tongue curled against the dough, his body screaming at him to devour it, but his pride made him slow down.
He moved on to the at. The sauce clung to his spoon, thick and glossy. When he took a bite, his mouth flooded with flavors he'd never tasted before—spices, heat, a depth that made him blink. It wasn't bad. Just... different. Like everything here.
Across from him, a wiry man nad Garrick let out a low chuckle. "These are so much better than our goddamn food, aren't they?"
Eli shot him a glare. "We had food in Britannia."
Garrick smirked. "Yeah? You an that dried-up horse shit you called bread? And that piss-water stew?"
"Fuck off," Eli muttered, shoving another bite into his mouth.
The others laughed, but there was no real cruelty in it. They were all the sa here—n who had lost their hos, their families, their identities. The Bernard Empire had stripped them of their pasts, but in return, it had given them sothing new. Uniforms. Food. A bed that didn't crawl with lice.
And training.
---
The training ground was a wide, open field behind the barracks, lined with steel poles and strange tal contraptions. The first ti Eli saw them, he had no idea what they were for.
"Obstacle course," the drill sergeant had barked. "Your weak, pathetic, dieval bodies are going to run this every day until you either die or beco soldiers. Most of you will break. So of you will piss yourselves. I don't care. What I care about is turning you into n who can serve the Empire."
And then it had begun.
Ropes, walls, pits of mud. Climbing, running, crawling. The Empire didn't care that they weren't used to this kind of training. They weren't given ti to adjust. They were thrown into it headfirst, and those who couldn't keep up were dragged out and sent packing—sotis on their feet, sotis on stretchers.
Eli had thought himself strong. He'd hunted in the forests of Britannia, fought in back-alley brawls, carried his sick mother on his back when she was too weak to walk. But this? This was sothing else.
The sun was rciless, and the Empire's version of armor wasn't the chainmail he was used to. It was lighter—strange fabric and tal plates that didn't weigh him down but made him sweat like a pig. His muscles scread, his hands bled from climbing, and his legs felt like they'd shatter with every run.
And the weapons.
He had grown up with swords. Steel, heavy in the hand, balanced, familiar. The Empire's rifles were nothing like that. They were long, strange machines of tal and wood, cold in his grip. The first ti he fired one, the recoil nearly knocked him on his ass.
The instructors drilled them relentlessly.
"Again!"
"Again!"
"Hold it steady, you useless shits!"
Eli gritted his teeth. His fingers ached from gripping the rifle too tight, but he forced them to steady. The others were struggling just as much. Rolf swore under his breath every ti he missed his shot. Garrick had nearly broken his nose when he held the rifle wrong.
But they learned. Slowly, painfully, they learned.
And with learning ca realization.
The Bernard Empire was powerful. More powerful than Britannia had ever been. Their food, their weapons, their training—everything was beyond what Eli had known. This was a country that didn't just conquer with steel but with knowledge, with discipline, with a machine-like efficiency that ground its enemies into dust.
Loyal to the Empire.
Or so they claid.
---
The barracks were unlike anything Eli had ever seen. The floors weren't dirt or rough wooden planks but smooth, polished stone. The beds weren't straw mats but thick, firm mattresses. At night, there were no rats scurrying in the dark, no cold wind seeping through broken walls.
For the first ti in his life, Eli slept in a place that didn't sll like piss and mold.
And yet, he didn't feel at ho.
He lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling, listening to the steady breathing of the other recruits. The Bernard Empire had given him everything he had ever wanted—food, shelter, strength. But in return, it had taken sothing from him. Sothing he couldn't na.
One night, as he sat outside, staring at the distant lights of the city, Mira's words ca back to him.
"They're not our country, Eli. They're a foreign power."
He clenched his fists.
No, they weren't his country. But Britannia was gone. It was a corpse, rotting under the boot of the Empire. And he could either cling to that corpse, or he could survive.
And Eli had never been one to die easy.
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