Chapter 3: Cataloging the Dead (1)

The frozen field outside the Black Cradle stretched white and merciless beneath a sky the color of old iron. One thousand children stood in formation, their breath rising in pale clouds, their thin coats inadequate against the wind that came howling down from the mountain peaks. Instructors moved between the lines distributing empty waterskins and checking coat fastenings with the mechanical efficiency of men preparing livestock for transport.

Lien positioned himself three rows deep and four positions from the center—precisely where a child seeking safety in numbers would stand, precisely where he could observe without being observed. His eyes tracked Elara without moving toward her. She stood near the eastern edge of the formation, her small hands gripping her coat closed at the throat. The left side hung loose where the ties had torn, exposing her ribs to the wind. That gap would kill her in four hours if she entered the forest wearing it like that.

It had killed her in Loop 1.

Lien cataloged the mistake with the same empty notation he'd use for a cracked blade or a missed step. Useful information. Nothing more. The tightness in his chest when he looked at her face meant nothing. He'd watched her die six times. The first time, he'd screamed her name until his throat bled. The sixth time, he'd wrapped her body in his coat and carried it back to the barracks because leaving her in the snow felt wrong in a way he couldn't articulate.

This time, he felt nothing. That was progress.

Fifteen positions to his right, Vrix shoved a smaller boy to the ground and claimed the rations that spilled from his pack. The boy—Lien recalled his name was Petyr, dead by day three in every previous loop—didn't fight back. He curled around his empty stomach and whimpered. Vrix laughed, the sound carrying across the field like breaking glass. Two other children moved to flank him, drawn to strength the way scavengers follow wolves.

Lien studied Vrix's posture, the casual violence in his shoulders. Natural dominance. Born strong, not made. In Loop 3, Vrix had been Lien's closest ally until politics forced a choice between loyalty and survival. In Loop 5, Vrix had personally led the hunting party that cornered Lien in the southern provinces, and their final confrontation had lasted three hours before Lien managed the killing blow.

This loop, Vrix would be useful. That's all he needed to be.

At the formation's far edge, almost invisible against the white landscape, Sia sat in the snow. Her lips had gone blue. Her hands trembled in her lap, not from cold—though she was freezing—but from something deeper. Lien had stepped over her corpse in five different loops without bothering to learn her name. She always died in the first week. Weak children didn't survive the Cradle. It was mathematics.

Except this time, he'd noticed her moving during breakfast. Noticed her positioning herself by the southern wall three seconds before the northern door slammed open and startled half the barracks. Noticed her shifting away from the central beam that groaned under accumulated snow moments before it cracked.

Patterns that suggested she knew things she shouldn't know.

Lien made a note to observe her more carefully. If she died, he'd learn nothing. If she lived, she might be useful.

Everything was useful or it was dead. That was the only distinction that mattered.

Head Instructor Kael walked the lines with two junior instructors flanking him, their boots crunching through ice crust. He stopped occasionally to inspect a child's coat or test the weight of their waterskin. Most children flinched when he approached. The smart ones stood absolutely still.

Lien watched Kael's hands. In six loops, he'd never seen the instructor kill a trainee personally. Kael delegated violence to his subordinates or to the children themselves. But his hands moved with the casual precision of a man who'd done extensive killing and simply didn't need to prove it anymore.

When Kael reached Lien's section, those hands were tucked behind his back, one of them gripping the leather journal Lien had seen him consult during formation. The instructor's eyes swept across the row, pausing on faces, calculating something Lien couldn't parse.

Then Kael stopped directly in front of him.

The instructor studied Lien's face for three seconds. Five. Seven. Long enough that the children on either side shifted nervously. Long enough that Lien's pulse began hammering against his ribs despite his best efforts to control it.