But it lingered, an unsettling aftertaste, resurfacing when their eyes had briefly locked across the training yard days later, a jolt of shared, unspoken, and entirely inappropriate knowledge passing between them. It only solidified his conviction: her beauty, even disheveled and half-feral, was just one more volatile variable in an already dangerous equation. One more complication the Academy could ill afford, especially amidst a cohort of barely-blooded young men. They should have insisted on sealing her talent the moment it was confirmed. A bad accident wasn’t just possible; it felt inevitable.
Aris had named him Primary on the new recruits, but he had let Jaedon break them first. That morning, needing an honest assessment before taking charge, Ky sought him out after a curt inspection of a senior cohort’s tunnel integrity simulations.
His friend was in the armory, which was thankfully spacious enough to accommodate Night, who settled with a sigh by the doorway while Ky spoke. Jaedon, surrounded by his usual organized chaos of weaponry and equipment, was sighting down the shaft of a newly fletched arrow. His own paired Soul-Beasts, the magnificent Mustangs, Sky and Cloud, were visible through the open doors, moving with restless grace in the adjacent paddock.
“Enjoying the new crop of lambs for the slaughter, Jaedon?” Ky asked, his voice dry.
Jaedon turned, a grin flashing across his handsome, sun-kissed face. “Ky! Just the man. Come to offer your sage, if invariably gloomy, predictions for Wyvern Cohort’s survival rate?”
“Something like that,” Ky admitted. “I take custody of their files on Monday. Before I start the sensory evaluations, I need to know what I’m inheriting. Who’s shaping up? Who’s already crumbling?”
“Well, young Roric is every bit the prodigy they said. He’s a star, no doubt. Thinks he’s a constellation all by himself, which will be a problem we’ll need to correct. Then there’s Finn. He’s got the heart of a lion and the coordination of a stunned calf. If we can get the two to speak the same language, he might actually survive. Wex… well, Wex still believes polishing my boots is a combat skill, but he’s enthusiastic.” Jaedon paused, his expression shifting slightly… “Gaeb washed out, as you probably heard. Dropped his sandbag and wept like a babe. Not entirely unexpected. The Anvil found its first piece of clay. Lem, Aneon, and Vrox followed soon after.”
Ky nodded. Attrition was standard. “And the woman? Gessa?”
Jaedon’s green eyes became more thoughtful. “Ah, our grand anomaly.” He pushed a stray lock of blond hair from his forehead. “Her body has a simply fascinating refusal to accept the basic principles of physics. I watched Roric, in his infinite grace, slam her to the ground with a takedown that should have sent a man twice her size to the Healer. She just got up, spat out some blood, and squared off again. No tears, no complaints.”
Jaedon gave a low whistle, a spark of genuine analytical curiosity in his eyes. “She has an infuriating amount of heart, Ky. The kind that gets people killed if it isn’t matched with an equal amount of sense. But the look in her eyes when she got up… pure, hard iron. Whether that’s enough…” He shrugged.
“And let’s be honest, the lads have certainly noticed there is a woman in their ranks, and not just because she’s older. Even looking like a half-drowned badger most of the time, she’s…noticeable. Adds a certain… distraction… stirring up the young bulls. Another thing to manage.”
Ky felt a muscle tighten in his jaw at Jaedon’s casual, almost appreciative tone regarding Gessa’s appearance. It was precisely the kind of complication he feared, the kind of talk that undermined the seriousness of the situation. “Distraction is the last thing those raw recruits need, Jaedon. Or this Academy.”
Grit. Heart. Noticeable. None of it changed the fundamental problem.
“Persistence doesn’t contain a rogue Ley Line surge,” Ky said, his voice flat. “And ‘heart’ won’t mend the bodies if her… storm… breaks loose in a crowded training room.”
His own words were an echo of the advice he’d given himself a thousand times. Jaedon met his gaze, the humor fading from his own. “So, you still think she’s that much of a risk? Even after Aris and Lolly accepted her?”
“Aris and Lolly are balancing law and compassion,” Ky retorted. “I’m tasked with preventing recruits from killing themselves or each other. Her talent assessment was a hair’s breadth from a containment breach. It was wild, untethered. They should have mandated a Sealing then and there.” He pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning on, the familiar ache in his leg a dull throb. “Leaving her like this is irresponsible. It’s courting disaster.”
He spent the rest of the day wrestling with it. Jaedon’s words about her persistence, her ability to take punishment, only hardened his resolve. If she wouldn’t break, if she wouldn’t quit under Jaedon’s relentless anvil, then the danger she posed would only grow as her untamed power possibly strengthened with her physique.
He remembered the feeling of such power, the sheer, intoxicating rush of it before… before. The memory, sharp and unwelcome as always, clawed its way through his defenses. Theunnatural, breath-stealing stillness of the air in that Ley Tunnel, an ambush waiting to spring. The first, terrible shriek, the inhuman sounds piercing his ears.
Then the blur of shadow-slicked forms, monstrously fast, eyes like chips of obsidian in the failing light. And then… Dawn. The soundless, tearing agony as her presence, her warmth, her vibrant life within his soul, was ripped away, extinguished in a flash of teeth and darkness. Half of his spirit died with her, leaving an icy, screaming void where her constant, sun-bright courage had always resonated.
The world had gone grey, flat, silent in his mind. Then the burning, blinding pain as claws found his leg, shredding muscle and sinew, the desperate, animalistic fight alongside a roaring Night, no longer for the mission, not for glory, but for the next ragged breath, fueled by a rage and a grief so all-encompassing, it was a living entity clawing at his insides.
And afterwards, the endless, torturous journey overland, Night in his massive war-form carrying him, the vital medicines clutched tight, every jolt a fresh wave of agony, the crushing weight of his failure to protect her a greater burden than any physical wound. He’d completed the delivery. He had survived. But he was a ruin, a Wayfinder with a fractured soul.
Gessa, with her volatile, unharnessed power, was a similar ruin waiting to happen. She was a spark near a powder keg. He had a duty to the Academy, to the other recruits, even, in his own twisted way, to her. To prevent another such catastrophe. To impose order where there was only chaos.
He rubbed the ache in his leg. He was a blade with a hairline fracture, looking solid but hiding the fault that would one day shatter him. He couldn’t fix the hollowness inside him, but he could impose order here. Gessa was a strike against the flat of the blade. Sealing her talent was the cleanest, safest solution. Ifshe was too stubborn, too blind to see that, then she couldn’t remain. She was a danger that had to be neutralized.
By evening, as the last light bled from the sky, leaving the peaks of the Spine like jagged black teeth against the deepening indigo, Ky’s resolve had hardened into cold, unyielding certainty. He stood at his window, Night a silent, solid pressure against his good leg, the sheer bulk of the lynx a constant reminder of their altered state.
Their shared gaze fixed on the scattered, defiant lights of the Academy winking in the vast darkness. He felt the phantom ache where Dawn’s warmth should have been, the constant thrum of his own brokenness. He couldn’t fix what was lost in him. But he could, and would, prevent another from inviting such devastation. He knew what he had to do. He would find Gessa tomorrow. He would lay out the unpalatable truth as he saw it. He would make her understand the precipice upon which she stood. And he would compel her to choose the only sane path. For everyone’s good.
His jaw set. The decision was made.
10
THE INSTRUCTOR'S EDICT
Abruised, aching dawn was painting the peaks of The Dragon’s Spine in hues of reluctant rose and grey when Gessa finally forced her eyes open. Every muscle, every joint, every fiber of her being screamed a protest, a vicious protest of the previous day’s monstrous obstacle course.
The Gauntlet.
