Then she lunged.

No warning, no instruction—just pure speed.

Soren barely managed to deflect the first strike, but the second hit his ribs, the third knocked his arm aside, the fourth slammed his wooden blade back into his own chest.

He staggered.

Valenna's voice flickered at the edge of consciousness—"Weight on the back foot. Brace—"

Too late.

Lysandra swept him to the ground again.

"Get up."

He did.

"Again."

And again.

And again.

Twenty exchanges. Thirty. Forty. Frost melted under their feet. Sweat stung his eyes. His breathing roughened. The wooden blade vibrated with every strike.

Lysandra didn't slow down.

Didn't soften.

Didn't praise.

She was dismantling him piece by piece.

And Soren forced himself to stay calm.

Every time she moved, Valenna whispered a single correction—not flowery, not philosophical. Just clean, mechanical adjustments:

"Shoulder down."

"Left foot half-step."

"No—don't chase her blade, intercept it."

Slowly—painfully—Soren's defense stopped collapsing.

By the fiftieth exchange, he managed to block two consecutive strikes.

Lysandra's brow lifted by a millimeter.

"Better," she allowed. "Barely."

Then she accelerated.

Soren didn't have time to think. Didn't have time to breathe. He let instinct carry him, let Valenna's corrections slip straight into muscle without thought.

Strike.

Shift.

Guard.

Twist.

Recover.

On the eighty-third exchange, he caught her strike cleanly.

The crack of wood meeting wood echoed across the courtyard.

Lysandra froze.

Just for a heartbeat.

Then—

A small, terrifying smile.

"There you are."

She pivoted and hit him in the stomach with the butt of her practice sword. He folded to one knee, coughing.

"Stand."

He forced himself upright.

"Again."

This time—it wasn't dismantling.

It was shaping.

She taught through pressure, not words. Through force, not metaphor. Through relentless speed that demanded clarity or collapse.

And Soren adapted.

He survived.

He sharpened.

By the time the sun cleared the eastern tower, both swords were splintered at the edges, and Soren's arms felt like they were carved from stone and fire.

Lysandra finally lowered her weapon.

"Enough."

Soren's chest heaved. His vision pulsed.

But he stayed standing.

Lysandra stepped close, inspecting him like a blade fresh from the forge.

"You are not what you pretend to be, Coren Vale."

Soren forced his breathing calm. "Instructor?"

"You hide strength behind stillness," she said. "You hide skill behind obedience. You hide fear behind silence."

She leaned in slightly—measuring him.

"Good. Keep hiding it. But not from me."

Soren met her eyes. Steady.

She straightened, satisfied.

"Tomorrow, we switch to steel."

Valenna's whisper slid through his pulse.

"You did well, Soren."

He didn't answer her.

Didn't trust himself to.

Lysandra stepped away, already walking.

"Rest," she said. "You'll need it."

Soren stood in the empty yard long after she was gone, the morning cold searing his lungs, the wooden sword split nearly to the hilt.

His body trembled.

His mind did not.

Tomorrow, steel.

He would be ready.

Rumors moved faster than reports, faster than couriers, faster than truth.

By the time Soren—Coren Vale—left the training yard, the Academy was already murmuring.

By midday, it was buzzing.

And by sunset, the Council had noticed.

Not because of the drills—Lysandra Vale broke students and rebuilt them every season. That wasn't news.

But because she didn't break him.

Word spread through the Tower-wing first:

Vale took one of Lysandra's full-pressure sessions and walked out upright.

He parried her. More than once.

She smiled at him.

The last detail was the one that twisted the conversations into knots.

—

Blue fire lanterns flickered against polished stone as the senior faculty gathered around the obsidian table.

The High Master, Aeron Kestrel, steepled his fingers. His voice was a calm blade.

"Lysandra Vale has taken a personal interest."

That alone made three instructors shift uncomfortably.

Personal interest from Lysandra was rare. Usually accidental. Never chosen.

"And?" said Master Halewin, head of Martial Discipline. "She's allowed to train whoever she likes."

Aeron didn't look away from the report in his hands.

"She filed a notice."

That froze the room.

Lysandra never filed anything unless forced.

"What kind of notice?" someone asked.

Aeron lifted the parchment.

"Evaluation of latent potential. Category Black."

Halewin's jaw tightened. "Black classification is reserved for—"

"Yes," Aeron said, cutting him off. "I know."

The room went quiet.

Black classification:

Potential combat assets considered hazardous, untested, or politically volatile.

In other words—

People who could become a threat.

Or a weapon.

The kind that, mishandled, could alter the balance between Meridian's noble houses.

The kind the Council watched very, very carefully.

"And who is this boy?" Halewin asked. "What's his lineage?"

Aeron flipped the page.

"Coren Vale," he read. "Nominally from the northern border province. No listed patron. No scholarship sponsor. No noble recommendation."

"No House affiliation?" someone else said. "None at all?"

Aeron closed the parchment.

"None."

That detail hit harder than anything else.

A talent with no House behind him meant one thing:

Anyone could claim him.

Which meant the Academy had a problem.

A big one.

—

In the upper balconies, students leaned against stone railings, trading half-truths like currency.

"He didn't flinch when Lysandra hit him."

"She hit him? I heard she tested him with steel already."

"No—wood, but he broke her stance at one point."

"That's impossible."

"So is her filing a Black notice."

The older students grew quiet at that part.

A freshman arcanist asked, "What does Black mean?"

A fourth-year answered, voice low with something like respect:

"It means he's either dangerous… or useful."

"Which one is he?"

"We'll find out. They always push Black classifications until they crack."

They didn't know Soren.

They didn't know he'd cracked years ago and survived it.

—

Across the city, in the silver towers overlooking the Tribunal square, the head of House Meridian received the same report.

He smiled.

Not warmly.

"This… Coren Vale," he mused, pacing the mosaic floor. "And he is unclaimed?"

"Yes, my lord," the attendant said. "Completely unattached."

"Good," Meridian breathed. "Then we may attach him."

He stopped by the window, looking down at the vast marble plaza where the Tribunal banners snapped in the evening wind.

"Find out who he speaks to," he said. "Who he eats with. Who trains with him. And who he avoids."

A pause.

"And find out whether he's clever… or merely talented."

"Yes, my lord."

"Good." The smile sharpened. "Because a boy like that can be valuable. And if he refuses to be?"

The attendant didn't need the rest spoken aloud.

House Meridian did not tolerate wasted assets.

—

Lysandra's office door slammed open.

She didn't look up.

"You read it," she said.

Master Halewin scowled. "You filed a Black evaluation for the boy? For a first-year? For a false-name first-year?"

"He's not a first-year," she said. "And you know it."

Halewin froze. "…Explain."

Lysandra leaned back in her chair. Her eyes were colder than winter stone.

"He fights like he survived something the rest of them only theorize about."

"And what do you intend to do with him?"

She smirked faintly.

"Train him."

"And after that?"

She stood, picking up the splintered wooden sword from the morning session.

"After that?" she repeated.

"Depends who tries to recruit him."

—

Soren didn't know any of this.

He sat alone in the training yard's shadowed corner, unwrapping the cloth around his wrists, rolling out the ache in his shoulders.

Valenna hovered at the edge of his mind, voice quiet and satisfied.

"You shifted something today."

He exhaled. "Not intentionally."

"The world rarely cares about your intentions."

He didn't answer.

He didn't need to.

Because Soren could feel it—

A pressure rising.

Eyes turning toward him.

Doors opening and closing in rooms he'd never step foot in.

A shift beneath the marble.

And in Aetherion, shifts like that never meant safety.

They meant the opposite.

The academy didn't quiet down after the drills; if anything, it sharpened. Every hallway seemed to have one more pair of eyes on him than the day before. Students didn't move out of Soren's way—they recalculated around him, like someone had redrawn the map overnight and he was now an unexpected landmark.

Lysandra didn't wait for him to come back. She found him.

He'd barely stepped into the sand ring again, arms still stiff from the morning session, when her shadow cut across the ground.

"You're late," she said.

He wasn't. She just wanted to see if he'd say it.

He didn't.

She tossed him a weighted wooden sword—real oak, not academy laminate. His palm stung when it hit.

"Drills again?" he asked.

"No. Today we see if yesterday was luck."

She didn't give him more than that. She stepped in, pivoted, and swung at his ribs so fast the dust barely scattered in time. He blocked—barely—wood slamming against wood hard enough to numb his entire arm.

"Slower breath," she said. "Your stance is good. Your instinct isn't."

He adjusted. She attacked again.

And again.

And again.

He never had time to think; she didn't give him the space. She pressed him from every angle, cutting the ring into fractions of seconds and forcing him to choose the least catastrophic mistake each time.

The old Soren—before the academy, before the shard, before the nights spent listening to Valenna coax control out of him—would have broken under it.

This one didn't.

He slipped. Recovered. Misjudged distance, fixed it. Took hits, absorbed them. Every time she shifted weight, he read it a little cleaner.

But she was Lysandra Vale. She didn't slow for progress.

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