Shame, bitter and sickening, churned within her. She had unleashed athing. A dangerous, hostile thing born of her own untamed soul. Polan had called her wild, uncontrolled. Ky had called her a menace. Were they right? The brief, heady rush of power she’d felt as the Ley Line had blazed under her touch was now a source of deep self-loathing. That exhilaration had birthed a monster.
The hematite lay cold in her pocket. She’d clutched it during Ky’s earlier confrontation, and it had helped then, a small dam against the flood. But in the practice yard, against the raw call of an open Ley Line and the intense pressure of Ky’s command, her control had shattered. What did that mean for her future?
If even the iron couldn’t always hold it back, what hope was there? The thought of having her talent sealed, as Ky had so coldly proposed, rose again. It was a chilling prospect, an echo of Polan’s desire to correct and put to rest the parts of her he couldn’t control. It felt like an amputation of her very self, a surrender to being something less, a ghost in a world of magic.
Yet, after today, after seeing what she was capable of unleashing, a small, terrified part of her wondered if sealingwasn’t indeed the only sane path. Could she live with herself if her power hurt someone, one of those young recruits perhaps?
But then another, fiercer thought rose. This power, this Wild Blood, terrifying as it was, washers. It was the Wayfinding talent Polan had known she possessed, the one he had intended to exploit through her children. It was the birthright that had been stolen fromher, suppressed for years. To have it extinguished now, just as she’d found a place thatshouldteach her about it, felt like a final, unbearable violation.
No. The Iron Spurs, for all their harshness, represented the only path to understanding and potentially mastering this elemental part of herself. Sealing was an admission of permanent failure, a life as a diminished being, forever incomplete in a way that felt far worse than even Polan’s cage.
Training, however brutal, however terrifying the prospect of being alone with Instructor Ky, was a gamble, a perilous one. But sealing was a certainty of spiritual death. Even if she was terrified of what dwelled within her, a deeper instinct, the core of her wild soul that had fought its way free, railed against its annihilation.
Late that afternoon, Lolly summoned her. The Elder Spurs’ office was quiet, her magnificent owls watching Gessa with unnervingly intelligent, amber eyes from their perch in the corner, their heads tilting in unison. Lolly’s face was grave, but her gaze, Gessa thought, held a sliver less harshness than it had during their first formal meeting.
“Gessa,” she began, her voice calm, “Master Thorne and I have conferred with Instructor Ky. What occurred on the practice grounds today was a most serious event.”
Gessa flinched, bracing herself. Expulsion. Or the forced binding Ky had threatened.
“You will not be expelled,” Lolly continued, and Gessa’s knees almost buckled with relief. “Your talent, however raw anddangerous, is undeniable, and Spur Law guarantees your right to attempt training.”
The relief was quickly followed by a new wave of apprehension.
“However, the safety of your cohort and the Academy is paramount. Effective immediately, your practical Ley Line training will be conducted separately, under the sole and direct supervision of Instructor Ky.”
Gessa’s blood ran cold. Alone. With him. The man who had looked at her with such contempt, who clearly believed her a menace.
“He… he believes I should be sealed,” Gessa whispered, the words tasting of ash.
“Instructor Ky is concerned with control and containment, often to an extreme degree, for reasons rooted in his own harsh experiences,” Lolly said, her gaze softening slightly as she seemed to choose her words with care. “Master Thorne has made it clear to him, and I make it clear to you, that you are to be given a genuine opportunity to learn. He is tasked with finding a way to teach you, not merely to condemn you. But,” Lolly’s voice firmed, her eyes meeting Gessa’s with an unyielding intensity, “you must understand, Gessa. The methods required for a talent as volatile and potent as yours will likely be direct, and perhaps severe. There will be no room for error, no patience for anything less than your total commitment to control. This is your one chance. If, after every reasonable effort, you cannot be safely trained, then other measures, including binding, will be revisited as a matter of necessity, as per the Law for any Wayfinder whose talent becomes an unmanageable threat.”
Lolly leaned forward. “This will be an ordeal, child. Perhaps the hardest you have yet faced. Instructor Ky will push you to your limits and beyond. Are you prepared for that?”
Gessa thought of Polan’s cold, calculating cruelty, of the years spent as a ghost in her own life. She thought of the exhilarating power that had ripped through her, birthing a nightmare but also screaming of a life force she hadn’t known she possessed. And she thought of the alternative, a life of constant fear of her own shadow, or a life as a diminished, sealed husk, forever incomplete.
“I am,” she said, her voice low but steady, a core of desperate resolve hardening within her, fueled by the terror of what she was and the even greater terror of ceasing to be. “I will learn, Master Ashworth. Or I will break in the trying.”
Lolly nodded slowly, a flicker of something unreadable—respect? pity?—in her eyes. “Then may the Lines be kinder to you than they have been thus far. Your first private session with Instructor Ky will be tomorrow, at dawn, in the old North Range training circle. He will expect you.”
Gessa was dismissed, walking back to her barren room on legs that felt like water. The Academy, her supposed sanctuary, now felt like a different kind of cage, its bars forged of fear, her own, and that of those around her. Her path forward was solitary, shadowed by the man who most doubted her, yet was now her only guide.
The price of mercy, it seemed, was indeed unsparing.
12
THE INSTRUCTOR'S STONE
Dawn was a raw, bloody gash across the peaks of The Dragon’s Spine, but Gessa had been awake for hours, staring into the oppressive darkness of her room. Sleep had offered no escape. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it: the shadowy, writhing form of the beast she had unleashed, the abject terror on the faces of her cohort, and the glacial fury in Instructor Ky’s eyes.
Lolly’s grave pronouncements about this being her one chance echoed alongside the memory, the combination a fresh, tormenting wound. Today was her first private training session with him, and the thought of it was a cold knot of dread in her stomach, far worse than any physical soreness the Gauntlet had left behind.
How did one approach a lesson with a man who clearly believed you a menace, who had advocated for the obliteration of your very essence? She had to survive. She had to learn. But how, when the very thought of his focused, critical gaze made her Wild Blood simmer with a volatile mix of fear and defiance?She had to find a way to make this work, to show him, to show them all, that she wasn’t just a catastrophe waiting to happen.
She dressed in her recruit uniform, the roughspun fabric now familiar. The hematite, tucked into its inner pocket, was a small, cold reassurance against her side. There was no summons from Attendant Meara this time. Lolly had been explicit:“North Range training circle. At dawn. He will expect you.”
The walk to the North Range was solitary, the air biting. This part of the Academy grounds was unfamiliar to her, more rugged and less frequented than the main drill yards. The training circle itself, when she finally reached it, was a desolate, windswept plateau, ringed by ancient, weathered wardstones that hummed with a faint energy.
Lichen clung to their grey flanks, and the ground within the circle was bare, packed earth, scuffed and scarred from countless training sessions. It felt exposed, isolated, a place stripped down to harsh essentials. A fitting stage, she thought with a shiver, for whatever ordeal awaited her. She laid her worn recruit cloak carefully on a rough stone outcrop, the wind immediately plucking at her tunic.
