The heavy oak door of Headmaster Thorne's office closed behind me with a soft, definitive click, the sound a period at the end of a sentence I hadn't known how to finish. The silence of the high-ceilinged corridor was absolute, thick as velvet, and I stood within it, unmoored. Thorne's words echoed in the newly hollowed-out spaces of my mind.
He had not been what I expected. There had been no thunderous judgment, no cold dismissal. Instead, he had been like deep, still water, absorbing the shock of my stumbling explanations without a ripple. He'd known everything. He'd listened, his fingers steepled, as I'd tried to give shape to the formless cataclysm of the Dragon's Blessing—the sensation of being not a wielder, but a conduit shattered by the force passing through it.
"A storm does not ask the cliff face for permission to erode it, Mr. Ashblade," he had said, his voice a low, calm murmur that seemed to absorb the light in the room. "It is a force of nature. To blame the cliff for crumbling under an onslaught it did not invite is to misunderstand the fundamental nature of both. Cain's pain is a wildfire. It seeks fuel. Your presence is simply the nearest, driest timber. Your path is not to be consumed by his blaze, but to learn to become the mountain, capable of weathering any storm."
The logic was sound, a cool balm on the hot shame I carried. But logic was a feeble thing against the memory of Cain's voice cracking on that single, devastating word. *You.* It was a splinter buried deep in my soul, and no amount of reason could pry it out.
The walk to my first class was a journey through a suddenly alien landscape. The familiar stone arches and leaded glass windows seemed to lean in, observing me. The pre-class murmur of students was a river I could not enter; as I passed, its current stilled, parting around me. Conversations dipped into abrupt, watchful silences. I was no longer just a student; I was an event. I was the aftermath they were all trying to decipher.
In the History of Applied Alchemy lecture hall, I took my usual seat at the back. The student to my left, a girl with intricate braids, gathered her scrolls with a quiet, swift urgency and moved three rows forward without meeting my eye. The space around me became a quarantine zone. Professor Linval's lecture on the metaphysical properties of F-Rank cores was a distant hum, a bee against a windowpane. My mind was a fractured thing, one piece here, another trapped in the echoing hallway, the largest piece still lost in the shadow-dappled horror of Heartwood, watching a silver streak of motion end in a spray of crimson.
The bell tolled, a sonorous clang that jolted through me. Combat Fundamentals. The dread was a physical weight in my gut, a cold stone. History was passive judgment; the training hall would be an active trial.
The air in the vast training hall was different. It was thick with the smell of honest sweat, aged leather, and the sweet, dusty scent of oiled wood from the practice weapons racks. Today, it was also thick with tension. The whispers here were not subtle. They were the main text, not the footnote.
I selected a practice longsword, its wood smoothed by countless grips, its balance a familiar comfort that today felt foreign. The grip was either too slick or too rough against my palm; I couldn't tell.
"They are carrion crows," a low voice said at my shoulder. Kael stood there, hefting a blade of his own. His grey eyes were not on me, but scanning the room, assessing threats as he always did. "They feast on drama because they have none of their own. Do not give them a feast." His advice was characteristically pragmatic, but the slight tightening around his eyes betrayed his concern.
"They don't need me to," I replied, my voice sounding thin. "The spectacle is already served."
Instructor Garrick's entrance cut off any reply. He did not need to clap for silence. His presence alone—a mountain of scarred muscle and grim authority—drained the room of sound. His flinty gaze swept over us, a general surveying his troops before a battle he knew some would not survive.
"Pair up. Pattern Delta. Precision. Control. Discipline." Each word was a hammer strike. "Your mind directs the blade. A distracted mind is a dead one."
I moved toward Kael, but Garrick's voice, sharp as a whip crack, stopped me. "Ashblade. Heston. Now."
The cold stone in my gut turned to ice. Jax Heston was built like the bull he resembled, all thick neck and solid, immovable strength. He was Darain's friend. He had been there. He had seen Tobin's head vanish in a red mist. As he turned to face me, his eyes were not filled with the hot rage of the hallway; they held a colder, more disconcerting emotion: pure, unadulterated contempt.
We faced each other on the worn practice mats. The drill was simple, a dance we all knew: a high block, a step to the outside, a swift riposte to the torso. Muscle memory. Today, my muscles had amnesia.
Jax lunged, his movement a blunt and powerful thrust. I brought my sword up, my parry a half-heartbeat too slow. The *CRACK* of wood meeting wood was jarringly loud, the vibration stinging up my arms, a painful echo of the impact.
"Wake up, Ashblade," Jax grunted, his breath clouding in the cool air. There was no teasing in it. It was a cold command.
I reset, my feet finding their stance, my knees bending. I focused on the grain of the wood in my hands, the scuff mark on Jax's practice armor. I tried to wall off the memory, to be present. He came again. This time, my block was solid, the impact shivering up my arms but meeting solid resistance. I saw the opening, the brief exposure on his right side. I began the riposte.
And in that fraction of a second, the image flashed: not of Zara, but of Cain. Of the way his shoulders had crumpled, the sound of his knees hitting stone. The utter ruin on his face. My thrust faltered. The wooden point, which should have snapped forward with decisive force, instead wavered, drifting past his side with a pathetic lack of conviction.
Jax didn't even bother to block it. He let my feeble attack miss, his eyes never leaving mine. The dismissal was more brutal than any counter-attack. He didn't speak. He just looked at me, and in that look was the entire academy's verdict: *Weak. Hesitant. Unreliable.*
The rest of the session was a slow, public unraveling. I was a puppet with its strings cut. My form, usually my one point of pride, was clumsy and slow. Each misstep, each flinch, each poorly executed block was a confession to crimes I hadn't committed. I could feel the eyes of the other pairs, their movements slowing as they watched the spectacle of my disintegration. I wasn't fighting Jax; I was drowning in full view of everyone, and my inability to simply *concentrate* was the anchor pulling me down.
Instructor Garrick's shadow fell over us. He had been watching for a while. He said nothing to Jax. His entire focus was on me, his gaze so intense I felt physically pinned by it.
"Your body is a weapon, Ashblade," he said, his voice low, a rumble of distant thunder. "But the spark that ignites it is your will. Yours is guttering. You are so busy listening for echoes in a hallway that you cannot hear the enemy breathing in front of you. This is a luxury you do not have. Again. And this time, find the spark."
He moved on, leaving me scalded by his disappointment. I took a shuddering breath, trying to find that spark, to claw my way back into the present moment.
Jax attacked. I parried. He attacked again. I parried again, the impacts jarring, each one a hammer blow against my failing focus. My world narrowed to the *crack* of wood, the burn in my muscles, and the ghost of a sob echoing in my ears.
After class, the walk to the baths was a trek through a shame-filled fog. My palms were raw, my shoulders ached, but the physical pain was a welcome distraction from the humiliation. And then I saw him.
Cain.
He stood by the archway leading out, clean and changed, his damp hair combed back. The violent tremor was gone, medicined or wrestled into submission. But the healing was only surface deep. He stood with a new, terrifying stillness, a statue of grief. He didn't look at me as I passed. His gaze was fixed on some middle distance, seeing nothing in this world. His jaw was a hard line, a muscle twitching rhythmically in his cheek, the only sign of the tempest raging behind the calm facade.
He didn't need to speak. His silent, stoic presence there, at the exit, was a final, crushing verdict. My failure in the training hall had been a performance for an audience. This was a solitary, life sentence. The Headmaster's words, the Instructor's commands—they were just words. This was truth. The echo of his grief was a weight I had to carry, and it was a weight that was breaking my grip, making every step heavier, every movement slower, every thought a struggle.