Eli stood in the mess hall, staring down at the metal tray in his hands. The food looked… strange. The bread was soft, unnaturally so, almost spongy. The meat sat in thick, brown sauce, its scent foreign, heavy with spices he couldn't name. 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 meal into their mouths like they hadn't seen food in years. Maybe they hadn't. Some 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 farmer Eli had met in the recruitment line. He was already halfway through his plate, tearing into the meat like a wolf at a fresh kill. His thick fingers smeared 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 something else. Something 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 meat. 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 named 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 mean 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 same here—men who had lost their homes, their families, their identities. The Bernard Empire had stripped them of their pasts, but in return, it had given them something new. Uniforms. Food. A bed that didn't crawl with lice.
The training ground was a wide, open field behind the barracks, lined with steel poles and strange metal contraptions. The first time Eli saw them, he had no idea what they were for.
"Obstacle course," the drill sergeant had barked. "Your weak, pathetic, medieval bodies are going to run this every day until you either die or become soldiers. Most of you will break. Some of you will piss yourselves. I don't care. What I care about is turning you into men 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 time to adjust. They were thrown into it headfirst, and those who couldn't keep up were dragged out and sent packing—sometimes on their feet, sometimes 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 something else.
The sun was merciless, and the Empire's version of armor wasn't the chainmail he was used to. It was lighter—strange fabric and metal plates that didn't weigh him down but made him sweat like a pig. His muscles screamed, his hands bled from climbing, and his legs felt like they'd shatter with every run.
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 metal and wood, cold in his grip. The first time he fired one, the recoil nearly knocked him on his ass.
The instructors drilled them relentlessly.
"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 time 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 came 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.
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 time in his life, Eli slept in a place that didn't smell like piss and mold.
And yet, he didn't feel at home.
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 something from him. Something he couldn't name.
One night, as he sat outside, staring at the distant lights of the city, Mira's words came 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.