Sleep didn't come easily that night.
Not because of the pain—though that still echoed in his ribs like bruised thunder—but because of the silence.
Too still. Too hollow.
Like something was waiting.
Ren sat in the infirmary bed with the lights dimmed to a soft violet hue, casting ghostly shadows against the pale curtains around him. His fingers twisted the edge of the blanket in his lap, over and over.
He kept replaying the moment in his head. The beast. The blood. The—
Lucien.
The way his shadows moved. The way his voice shifted when he said Ren had pulsed.
The way his hand had felt, strong but not cold. Real.
"So this is the one."
He hadn't imagined it.
Something inside him was waking up.
And it terrified him.
The door slid open with a pneumatic hiss.
Ren instinctively tensed—he hadn't heard footsteps.
But it wasn't Lucien this time.
It was Instructor Wrenna Sol.
"Good," she said, clipboard in hand, sharp eyes glancing up from under silver-blonde hair. "You're conscious. And you haven't spontaneously combusted. That's promising."
Ren blinked. "Uh. Thanks?"
Wrenna strode in with her usual mix of surgeon precision and battlefield readiness. She wore a lab coat over her combat frame suit, and her boots made no sound against the tiled floor.
"Vitals look good," she murmured, scanning the data on her tablet. "No Rift-mutation. No corruption markers. No instability."
She looked up, locking eyes with him. "That makes you a statistical anomaly, Elric."
Ren sat straighter. "Is that bad?"
"It's… inconvenient," she admitted, tapping her screen. "For the system."
She walked to the foot of the bed.
"I reviewed the security footage," she said bluntly. "What attacked you wasn't a stray Riftling. That was a Class-C Hunter-class. Those don't breach without purpose."
Ren's blood ran cold. "So it was looking for me?"
"We're not sure." Wrenna narrowed her eyes. "But it found you. And it should've infected you. You should've been corrupted."
Ren was quiet for a long moment. Then he said what had been echoing in his mind since Lucien left:
"What if something inside me stopped it?"
Wrenna's face didn't change, but her eyes sharpened.
"Elaborate."
Ren hesitated. Then, slowly, he reached out and opened his palm. Nothing happened, of course.
But it felt like… something was watching. From inside. Not menacing. Just... waiting.
"Lucien said I pulsed," Ren said. "That his… symbiote noticed it."
Wrenna's lips pressed into a thin line.
"He told you about Eidros?"
Ren nodded.
Wrenna didn't seem surprised—just thoughtful.
"That thing has never shown interest in anyone but its host," she said quietly. "If it sensed you… then we may be dealing with a soul-level response."
Ren blinked. "A what?"
Wrenna set her tablet down.
"Most Manifestations happen in the body—biological adaptations to Riftlight. But some… very rare cases… manifest through the soul. Emotion. Intention. Connection."
"Like a bond?"
"Exactly."
She studied him. "And those are the most dangerous. Or the most powerful. Depending on how stable the person is."
Ren looked down at his hands again.
"So what does that make me?"
Wrenna's voice softened—just a little.
"Unknown. For now."
She handed him a wristband—a Manifest compatibility reader. It was dull gray, no glow.
"For now, you'll continue in your normal classes. But I'll be logging private evaluations. If something triggers again… we'll run deeper scans."
Ren nodded slowly.
"And Elric?" Wrenna paused at the door.
"Don't try to force it. These things surface when they're ready. Or when they're needed."
She stepped out.
The door hissed shut.
Ren looked down at the reader around his wrist.
Gray. Inactive.
Still… he could feel it. Not the reader. The thing beneath his skin. Or around it.
Like something was curled up under his ribs, watching with one silver eye, waiting for the right moment to speak again.
Two Days Later
Ren returned to class like nothing had happened.
Or tried to, anyway.
The gossip was already spreading—about the beast, the night attack, Lucien's involvement. Students whispered in the hallways and stared just a little too long.
He'd never been invisible exactly—but now, for the first time, he wasn't background noise.
He was something else. Something watched. Something talked about.
It didn't help that Lucien hadn't spoken to him since the infirmary.
Or that he now caught Lucien watching him from across the training yard during combat drills. Always at a distance. Never saying a word.
It made Ren's skin crawl.
But it also made his chest tight in a way he couldn't explain.
"You okay?" a voice asked from beside him.
Ren blinked. It was Ilya Moret—his best (and only real) friend. Half-coded nails. Tactical visor. Messy hair.
"Yeah," Ren muttered. "Just tired."
"Mmhm." Ilya handed him a protein bar. "Well, you look like a haunted gremlin, so."
"Thanks."
"Anytime."
They sat in the bleachers as students sparred below in the outdoor arena, watched over by Combat Instructor Varis. A kinetic flinger launched his partner into a wall. Another girl shot lightning from her wrists. Standard stuff.
"You hear the rumor?" Ilya said, unwrapping their own protein bar. "That you absorbed the Riftbeast's soul?"
Ren rolled his eyes. "People will believe anything."
"Still. You look different."
Ren turned. "Different how?"
Ilya chewed thoughtfully. "I dunno. Like… your aura's thicker now. Denser. Like you're being seen by something that isn't in the room."
Ren froze.
Ilya tilted their head. "You okay?"
Ren stood. "I need some air."
He left the arena, walking briskly through the courtyard and around the back of the East Tower, where the walls were old and overgrown and silent.
That's when he felt it again.
The presence.
Not outside. Inside.
Like a pulse from beneath the skin of the world.
"Why do you fear what you've always carried?"
Ren stopped.
The voice was not Eidros. It wasn't even fully formed—more like an instinct, a pressure, a whisper inside his bones.
"You are not awakening. You are remembering."
His breath hitched.
"What are you?" he whispered.
"I am the part that cannot be unmade. You just… forgot."
Footsteps broke the silence.
Ren turned—and saw Lucien standing at the end of the path, half in shadow.
Their eyes met.
For a moment, neither moved.
Then Lucien slowly stepped forward.
"You heard it again," he said.
Ren didn't ask how he knew.
Lucien's gaze softened. "It's starting."
"What is?"
Lucien paused just a few feet away. His voice dropped.
"The bond."