The Academy bell rang at dawn, its deep tone vibrating through the cold stone of Ebonreach. Quinn stood in the courtyard—not the main training grounds where gifted students unleashed displays of power, but at the entrance to a harsher place.
This was the Physique Division, where those without talents—or whose talents had never awakened—trained their bodies alone.
"Four and a half out of twenty,"
Commander Varek had said on their first day. "That's how many awaken a talent in the Safe Haven. The rest? You either build strength… or die wishing you had."
Quinn wrapped his hands in cloth, tightening the knots as the morning chill bit into his skin. Around him, students grunted through brutal drills: scaling rope walls until their hands bled; lifting weighted stones until their arms gave out; striking wooden posts until their knuckles bruised.
Here, no flashes of light marked their progress. No bursts of elemental fury. Only sweat, pain, and stubborn resolve.
But outside the Academy walls, the danger was growing.
The Hollowborn—those soulless, twisted creatures—had changed. Once mindless, they now attacked in coordinated waves. They set traps. Tested the city's defenses. Moved with an intelligence that hadn't been there before.
"The Hollowborn King is stirring," Elder Saro had warned at the last assembly, his voice low and grim. "And with him, their evolution accelerates."
More lives were lost with every breach. Patrols vanished in the outerlands. The city walls trembled beneath each assault.
But as the Hollowborn grew stronger, so did the defenders. The Gifted—those who had awakened talents—trained harder than ever. Quinn watched them sometimes from a distance: Kael igniting the ground beneath his feet with bursts of flame, every step leaving scorched earth in his wake. And Lyra—quiet, focused Lyra—channeling vibrations through her arms and legs, each strike causing ripples that shattered stone and cracked metal.
He admired them. But he didn't envy them.
Because here, in the Physique Division, Quinn was learning something different.
How to strike without talent. How to endure without enhancement. How to fight when no power answered his call.
And as the skies darkened beyond the walls, he vowed: when the Hollowborn came, he would be ready.
Not as a Gifted.
But as Quinn.