The first change came quietly.
No announcement. No flare of heat. No moment that demanded attention.
Lux only noticed because his breathing stopped feeling empty.
It happened on the first morning of the week, during a familiar sequence—feet planted shoulder-width apart, spine straight, hands relaxed at his sides. The cold air bit at his lungs as he inhaled, but his body had long since learned how to manage that. The ache came later now, delayed, something he anticipated rather than feared.
He exhaled slowly.
And felt something answer.
It wasn't heat in the way exertion brought heat. It was deeper than that, closer to the center of him. A muted warmth that didn't spread outward so much as press gently, as if reminding him of its presence. Lux's brow furrowed, breath stalling just enough to throw the rhythm off.
He adjusted without thinking, grounding himself the way he'd been taught. The warmth remained.
When he finished the sequence, he stood still, chest rising and falling more slowly than usual. He didn't look at Caelis immediately. He focused inward instead, tracking the sensation as it ebbed—not vanishing, but settling somewhere behind his ribs.
Caelis didn't correct him.
That alone told Lux something had changed.
They repeated the exercise. Then again. With each cycle, the sensation grew clearer—not stronger, exactly, but more defined. Lux learned where it gathered when he inhaled too sharply, how it resisted when his posture slipped, how it responded best when his breathing was steady and deliberate.
By the time Caelis raised a hand to halt the session, Lux's shirt clung damply to his back, his muscles trembling faintly from restraint rather than exhaustion.
"You felt it," Caelis said.
It wasn't a question.
Lux nodded once. "Yeah."
Caelis studied him for a moment, expression unreadable. Then he gave a short nod of his own.
"Good," he said. "Then we can stop pretending."
From that day on, training changed its shape.
Breathing remained the foundation, but it was no longer the goal. Now it was a tool—one Lux had to wield carefully. Caelis explained circulation plainly, without reverence or flourish. Hlyr, he said, moved naturally through the body along paths shaped by discipline and conditioning. Forcing it was not only ineffective but dangerous.
"Your body is not ready to use it," Caelis told him on the second day, correcting Lux's stance with a light tap to the shoulder. "So we teach it to endure first."
That endurance came at a cost.
Lux ran until his legs burned, then stopped abruptly to stand perfectly still and circulate what little Hlyr he could feel without letting it surge. He held low positions that made his thighs scream, breathing through the discomfort while focusing inward, tracking the warmth as it threatened to scatter.
More than once, he failed.
The first time he lost control, it came as a sharp spike in his chest, knocking the breath from him and forcing him to stagger back. Caelis stopped the session immediately, not out of alarm but precision, and reset him without comment.
"You rushed," he said simply.
Lux didn't argue. He adjusted and tried again.
By midweek, the strain became constant.
Lux woke sore and went to sleep sore, his body carrying fatigue like a second skin. During training, the warmth inside him no longer felt novel—it felt heavy. Every breath demanded attention. Every movement required correction. His thoughts wandered less, not because he was calm, but because there was no space for them.
Still, he persisted.
There was no part of him that expected this to be easy. He had survived worse with less. This, at least, had purpose.
On the fourth day, Caelis introduced movement into circulation.
Simple steps at first. Shifts of weight. Slow transitions from stance to stance while maintaining control over breath and posture. Lux found this far harder than standing still. The warmth lagged behind his intent, pooling awkwardly when he moved too quickly, resisting when he hesitated.
He fell once.
Caught himself before he hit the ground, but the lapse was enough.
"Again," Caelis said, unbothered.
Lux pushed himself upright, jaw tight, and resumed.
By the fifth day, frustration crept in—not explosive, but sharp and persistent. His progress felt uneven. Some sessions ended with control he could almost trust. Others collapsed into clumsy missteps that left his chest tight and his vision swimming.
During one sequence, he inhaled too deeply, too quickly.
The warmth surged upward, uncontained.
Pain flared—brief but intense—and Lux gasped, dropping to one knee before he could stop himself. Caelis was there immediately, not touching him, just close enough to block his line of movement.
"Stop," he said.
Lux clenched his fists, forcing his breathing to slow. The warmth receded reluctantly.
"I'm fine," Lux said, steady despite the ache.
Caelis regarded him for a moment, then nodded. "Good. Then you'll remember what that felt like."
They ended the session early that day—not as punishment, but necessity.
By the end of the week, Lux could circulate Hlyr through his core and into his limbs without losing balance.
Barely.
It took everything he had—focus, restraint, endurance. His control wavered constantly, threatening to spill if he lost concentration for even a moment. His body felt stretched thin, as if pushed to accommodate something it wasn't yet built to hold.
But it held.
On the final day of the week, as Lux stood panting lightly in the cold air, Caelis watched him with a measured expression.
"You're progressing faster than expected," he said.
Lux wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve. "That good or bad?"
"That depends on whether you mistake speed for mastery," Caelis replied.
Lux didn't respond immediately. He straightened instead, adjusting his posture out of habit.
"I won't," he said simply.
Caelis studied him for a moment longer, then inclined his head. "See that you don't."
As Lux left the training yard, muscles aching, breath steady, he felt the warmth settle quietly within him—no longer unfamiliar, but not yet trusted.
It wasn't power.
Not yet.
It was something waiting.
And Lux knew, with a certainty that didn't require words, that whether it destroyed him or strengthened him would depend entirely on what he did next.