Lucas had always trusted his strength.
Not in the blind way the arrogant did—he wasn't stupid enough to believe power made him invincible—but in the way a person trusted their own lungs to breathe and their own hands to grip.
Ever since his awakening, power had been the one thing in his life that didn't lie. It responded when he called it, surged when he demanded it, and quieted when he steadied his thoughts. Even when his training became brutal, even when he lost fights or got pushed into corners, his strength still followed rules. It still made sense.
Lately, nothing did.
The training hall was empty when he arrived. That wasn't unusual—Lucas preferred the hours when the rest of the academy slept, when the air was colder, when there were no eyes to read him and no whispers to build stories around him.
