It had felt like being chewed up and spat out by the mountains themselves. Yet, beneath the deep soreness, the exhaustion that scraped her bones, a tiny, stubborn ember of something fierce and unfamiliar glowed. She had finished. She had not broken. Her body, leaner and harder now after three relentless weeks, was an instrument in pain, yes, but also one of surprising, nascent resilience. It was a strange sensation, this new awareness of her own physicality, a gritty confidence replacing the soft helplessness Polan had cultivated.
She lay on her hard cot for a few moments, cataloging the damage, then pushed herself up with a groan, the familiar routine of another day at the Anvil beginning. She moved with a stiff, careful deliberation, the pervasive curiosity of the WyvernCohort a known quantity now, a dull pressure she mostly tried to ignore. She had survived thus far. She would survive today.
She was heading from her barren room toward the mess hall, her thoughts already steeling themselves for the day’s unknown torments, when a figure stepped out from the shadowed archway of a nearby corridor, blocking her path. Her heart gave a painful lurch, not just of surprise, but of a specific, unwelcome recognition. Instructor Ky. His lone lynx, Night, was a silent, formidable presence at his side, those unnerving blue eyes fixed on her.
The memory of the bathhouse, the steam, his scarred leg, his gaze sweeping over her nakedness, that shocking flicker of heat, seared through her mind, bringing a fresh wave of mortification and an involuntary flush to her skin. Ky himself looked as if he hadn’t slept. The lines of weariness around his striking blue eyes were deeper, his handsome face set in lines of cold, unyielding resolve. He had the air of a man who had wrestled with a difficult decision and had come to a grim, but firm, conclusion.
“Recruit Gessa.” his voice was low, devoid of any inflection, yet it sent a shiver of apprehension down her spine. “A word. In private.”
It wasn’t a request.Why did he want to see her? And why here, alone, away from the structured oversight of the training yard or a formal chamber?The question brought a colder, more familiar dread, a chilling echo of past summons that had always preceded pain or humiliation. She quickly suppressed it, her face schooling into wary neutrality.
He led her not to a public space, but to a small, unused instruction room near the armory, stark, windowless, the floorboards gouged and scarred from years of practice drills. The door clicked shut behind them with a grim finality, Night settling silently by it, guarding their forced conference. Gessa stood stiffly in the center of the room, her fleeting morningsense of accomplishment rapidly evaporating under Ky’s intense scrutiny.
“You completed the Gauntlet yesterday,” he began, his voice still flat. “Master Jaedon noted your persistence.”
Gessa merely nodded, waiting, one hand unconsciously drifting to the solid weight of the hematite in her pocket.
“It changes nothing fundamental,” Ky continued, his gaze unwavering. “This life, Gessa, the path of an Iron Spur… it is relentlessly brutal. You have tasted only the barest whisper of it. You are older than the others, you carry burdens they cannot comprehend, and your body, for all its surprising endurance, is not that of a youth bred for this. Are you truly convinced this is a sustainable path for you, or merely the one you could find?”
His words, though softly spoken, were a direct challenge.Brutal?A bitter, silent laugh rose in Gessa’s throat. This, this physical agony, this exhaustion, it was clean. It wasearned. It was nothing,nothing, compared to the slow, meticulous dismantling of her soul under Polan’s roof, the years of invisible torments, the constant terror of his whims.
But she couldn’t say that. She wouldn’t give this man, this cynical instructor, that piece of her.
“I completed the tasks set before me, Instructor,” she said, her voice quiet but firm. “I am still standing. I have asked for nothing more than the right to try, the right to be trained as my talent dictates. I am aware of the hardships. I will meet them.”
A muscle feathered in Ky’s jaw.
“Meet them? Or be consumed by them?” He took a step closer, and Night, Gessa noticed, lifted his great head, though his gaze remained fixed on her, unblinking, not hostile, but intensely watchful. “Your physical struggles are one thing. Your inherent nature is another entirely.”
His voice dropped further, taking on a dangerous edge. “The power you displayed at your assessment, Gessa. Itwasn’t just talent; it was a maelstrom. A raw, untamed force that endangered everyone in that chamber. Jaedon has noted irregularities during your physical training. Moments when you are unstable.”
Gessa’s hand instinctively went to the pocket holding the hematite. “I am learning, Instructor,” she said, a note of desperation creeping in despite herself. “I can learn control.”
“Can you?” Ky’s voice was laced with a cold, weary skepticism that chilled her to the bone. “Before you inadvertently kill someone? Before you bring disaster upon this Academy? This power you wield, this Wild Blood, it is a menace. To yourself, most of all.”
He paused, and his next words struck her with the force of a physical blow, echoing the darkest moments of her past. “There is a way to ensure your safety, Gessa. To ensure the safety of others. It would be a kindness, truly. It is for your own good, and for the good of everyone here, if this wildness is simply put to rest.”
For your own good.The phrase, Polan’s favorite refrain, Polan’s justification for every torment, slammed into her. The room seemed to tilt. Peppermint flooded her senses, so potent it was almost suffocating. A biting cold, a chaotic pressure, surged within her chest, clawing its way up her throat.
No!The silent scream ripped through her mind.Not again! I will not be made nothing!She felt the surge begin, the familiar prelude to an eruption. Her fingers clamped around the hematite in her pocket, a desperate, convulsive grip. She squeezed, focusing all her terror, her rage, her desperate will to remainherself, into that cold, unyielding stone.
The room shimmered. Ky’s face, his harsh certainty, wavered. She could feel the power trying to break free, a wild, destructive thing. Ky had gone still, his eyes narrowed, watching her intently as she visibly trembled, a low gasp escaping her lips.He saw her hand clutch at her tunic pocket, saw the knuckles go white.
Night was on his feet now, a low, uncertain rumble in his chest, his blue eyes wide, fixed on Gessa. Then, slowly, agonizingly, with a force of will she hadn’t known she possessed, Gessa felt the raging inferno within her recede, falter, then sullenly bank its fires. The scent lessened, the pressure eased, leaving her shaking, drenched in a cold sweat, but upright. Intact.
Ky’s handsome face was pale beneath its tan, his eyes blazing with a new, more potent emotion: stark fear, mixed with something akin to grim validation.“You see?”he whispered, his voice hoarse.
“You see what I mean? That… that was on the verge of catastrophe. Whatever you are doing, whatever you are clutching in that pocket, it won’t always hold. It can’t always hold.”
He ran a hand through his dark hair, his composure momentarily fractured. “By the Lines, woman, what are you?” He regained his control quickly, his expression hardening once more into resolute lines. “This changes nothing, except to prove my point. The Academy cannot harbor this. You cannot live with this. Sealing is the only answer.”
His gaze was unwavering. “If you will not accept that willingly, then you cannot stay. And you must understand, Gessa, leaving the Academy before your training is complete, or being deemed untrainable… Spur Law is absolute on this. Your talent will be bound. Permanently.
‘There is no other path for someone with power like yours left untamed in the world. So, you either submit to a controlled sealing now, and perhaps find some quiet peace, or you fight for a mastery that may well destroy you and others, with the samebinding as your only alternative if you fail or quit. Which will it be?”
Gessa stared back, her own fear still a wild thing in her chest, but his words, the stark finality of the Law, paradoxically firmed her defiance into a cold, hard stone, mirroring the one in her hand.
“I will not be extinguished, Instructor. And I will not quit. I have a right to be here. A right to learn.”
