"You can let go now."
The instructor's voice was supposed to be a wake-up call. Yet, Elara didn't move.
The sphere hadn't gone still—it was waiting.
She could feel it, a faint tug deep beneath the frost. Something layered underneath the cold, something the test hadn't quite decided to release. It was the quiet before a crack forms on ice—the tension of stillness that wasn't meant to last.
The instructor reached out, hand hovering just above hers. "Miss Caerlin," he started carefully, "you can—"
The words stopped there.
The sphere pulsed again.
Hard.
Light flared across the glass like a heartbeat too strong to contain itself. The frost veins fractured, splintering into sharper, thinner filigrees that glowed white-blue and then—
flickered.
