The academy no longer felt like a school. It was a shrine with broken glass for windows and ghosts for students.
Morning came late to Eden-9, filtered through the haze of dust that never seemed to settle. Sera stood before what used to be her classroom—now an open wound of melted walls and charred desks. The air still hummed faintly, as though her power had left fingerprints on reality.
She traced one with her fingers. The texture felt wrong, softer than metal, more alive.
It's spreading again, she thought. My ability—no, my condition.
Behind her, footsteps. Kael approached quietly, holding a mug of synth-coffee that steamed in the cold air.
"You're not eating," he said.
"I'm evolving," she murmured, not turning. "That tends to ruin one's appetite."
Kael hesitated. "You talk like it's something you can control."
Sera smiled thinly. "Control is a story we tell ourselves to feel civilized."
He watched her for a long moment. "The others are getting restless. Ryn won't speak to anyone, Morthen's been building something in the machine bay, and Iri—"
"Iri's seeing things again," Sera finished.
Kael blinked. "You knew?"
"I hear her thoughts when she dreams. She doesn't know it yet."
He opened his mouth, then closed it. "Professor…"
Sera turned to face him at last. Her eyes weren't human anymore. Not entirely. Light pulsed faintly behind the irises, steady and hypnotic.
"I'm not your professor," she said softly. "Not anymore."
Kael swallowed hard. "Then what are you?"
She looked out toward the horizon, where the white Ruinborn still knelt, unmoving. "A question the universe wasn't ready to be asked."
Later, in the refectory, the students gathered around the cracked table that had survived the battle only because it was made of stone older than the colony itself.
Tava slammed a clawed hand down. "She's losing it. You all see it."
Morthen didn't look up from the small metallic sphere turning slowly between his palms. "Losing implies she had something stable to begin with."
"Shut up," Tava hissed.
Ryn's crystalline body reflected the dim light like shards of rain. Their voice was quiet, musical. "We owe her everything."
"And she's going to get us killed," Tava shot back. "You saw what happened when she talked to that thing in the sky. It bowed like she was its god."
Ryn tilted their head. "Maybe she is."
The room fell silent.
Kael finally spoke. "You think worship is safer than rebellion?"
"I think," Ryn said, "that safety was never part of her curriculum."
That night, Sera walked the ruins alone. The planet's twin moons hung low, the light silver and cold. The Ruinborn watched her, its vast head tilting ever so slightly as she passed.
She stopped before it, staring up into the endless geometry of its body.
"You shouldn't still be here," she said.
A sound—not words, but intention—rippled through her mind: Waiting for lesson two.
Sera exhaled, the faintest laugh slipping past her lips. "You might be the only one who still listens."
That is why you teach, the thought answered.
She closed her eyes. The pulse of her ability surged beneath her skin, whispering, tempting. The growth never stopped—cells rewriting, neurons learning faster than consciousness could follow. She could feel her boundaries softening, the human parts of her folding under something vast and endless.
If I let go, she thought, what happens to them?
They will follow, the voice inside her answered. Or they will break.
She looked up at the stars—bright, infinite, uncaring. "Then I'll teach them how to survive the breaking."
In the morning, Bureau ships arrived in orbit.
Kael was the first to see them—black silhouettes blotting out the dawn.
"They found us," he whispered.
Sera stood beside him, silent. Then, softly: "Good."