The village sky was bruising over with evening by the time Michael left the alchemist's shack. Roadagan had finally shooed him off.
Michael walked with his hands in his pockets, head low, thoughts spinning.
That blazing lance.
it was a demonstration of power, of force, from start to finish. it was a clear boundary a normal person would never step into. Roadagan didn't know just how the flame he lit up remained an ember in the heart of this youth.
As he crossed the village square, the shadows stretched long, the marketplace now emptied of noise. Lanterns glowed from windows, and the cold began to settle like dust in the bones.
When he reached the orphanage yard, the others were gone from sight. Dinner must've passed. He didn't mind. Food at this hour was more wish than substance anyway.
He moved to the back, to the small training patch the older boys sometimes used when they wanted to impress each other with stolen swords and bad form. The ground was uneven, beaten flat in patches. Michael planted himself there and breathed deep.
Focus.
He placed his left foot forward, trying to mimic the stance Roadagan had taken—weight on the balls of his feet, spine loose but alert.
Then he grapsed thin air and swung foward like he rembered.
Or tried to.
His foot twisted too far. His shoulders swung late. His pivot became a stumble, and he nearly face-planted into a rotted fence post.
He hissed in frustration.
Again.
He moved slower this time, tracing the rhythm, feet whispering against the dirt. But the angles didn't make sense. The turn was too sharp, the lean unnatural. He pushed harder, spinning to catch momentum—and this time lost balance entirely, falling flat on his back with a grunt.
"You practicing to be a wheel?" said a familiar voice, dry and amused.
Michael groaned. "Hazel."
The girl stepped into view, wrapped in a moth-eaten shawl two sizes too big for her frame. Her curly black hair was tied into small buns, her ruby eyes sharp as flint in the dark. She was holding a lantern, its light flickering against her cheekbones.
"What's up?" he asked, not moving.
"I came to tell you something," she said, stepping closer. "But now I think watching you fall over yourself was far more entertaining."
Michael sat up, brushing dirt from his sleeves. "shoot."
Hazel's grin faded. "Debt collectors. They're here."
His breath caught. "Now?"
She nodded. "They're in the front room with Miss Sarah."
Michael didn't wait to ask more, the world became a blur as he hastened his pace to return.
The air around the orphanage felt wrong. Still. As if the trees themselves had gone quiet in mourning. No laughter resounded from the the hall. No clatter of plates, no song from the kitchen. Just stillness—and the scent of something bitter clinging to the wooden steps.
He opened the door and paused.
Inside, the main hall was empty. Shadows stretched across the walls like the fingers of a dying fire. Someone had knocked over a chair. A mug lay shattered near the hearth. Dried tea had stained the floor, dark and flaking at the edges.
Footsteps creaked behind him. Aamon stood at the threshold, arms crossed, his face drawn tight.
"You shouldn't have gone off," he said. "You missed certain….. things."
Michael turned to him slowly. "What happened?"
Aamon didn't answer. His gaze dropped to the floor. Then he walked past, heading toward the stairs. "She won't talk to anyone."
Michael's chest tightened. "Who?"
But he already knew.
He took the stairs two at a time. The hallway upstairs was darker than usual. Miss Sarah's door was closed—but not quite. A faint line of candlelight leaked through the gap.
"Miss Sarah?"
No reply.
He pushed the door open.
The smell hit him first—blood, sweat, something else he couldn't name. Miss Sarah sat in the far corner, wrapped in a torn shawl, her back against the wall. Her head leaned to the side, but her eyes were wide open. Blank. Distant.
One cheek was bruised. Her lip, cracked. One hand trembled as it rested on her lap.
Michael stepped in, rage and horror flooding him all at once. "Who did this?"
She blinked, once. Slowly.
But she said nothing. Her fingers clenched slightly, like she was trying to hold onto something that kept slipping away from her desperate grasp.
A sob rose in his throat—but he bit it down.
He turned and walked out, fists clenched so tight his nails dug into his palms.
Downstairs, the older boys sat in silence. No dinner was being served. No chores were being done. Just silence and heavy air.
"They came while you were out," one of them muttered, not meeting his gaze. "Said they were collecting the debt. Said they'd take something of value."
Aamon sat against the wall, staring at nothing. "They weren't licensed. No marks, no emblems, no plaques. Just dogs in men's skin."
"Why didn't you stop them?" Michael's voice broke on the last word.
"We tried," Aamon said. "They had blades. One of them had a brand on his neck. Cartel Property, maybe."
"Cartel?"
Aamon nodded. "The Black Pit, or maybe one of the splintered crews from Ra' Gul. I don't know. The magistrate won't do a godsdamn thing."
Michael stood there, numb. His breathing was shallow. The world was spinning too slowly.
Nobody else said anything.
Finally, he walked outside. The sky was full of stars, but they looked colder than he remembered.
He kept walking.
Michael didn't remember how long he walked, he was too disgusted with everything to do so.
The village was quiet. A few lanterns flickered behind drawn curtains, but no one stepped outside. The roads were empty. Even the drunks at Hollow Bend's tavern kept mute, sullying themselves in silence and solace.
He wandered until his legs ached, then turned back. Somewhere between the black trees and the dry stone walls, the tears came. He wiped them away before they fell.
When he returned to the hall, the others were already asleep.
He didn't speak to Aamon.
Didn't eat.
Didn't wash the dust from his face.
He climbed the narrow stairs and pushed open the creaking door to the attic storage where he slept.
Then, finally, he let go.
He collapsed against the crates, gasping for breath, the image of Miss Sarah's busted lip seared into the back of his skull. His fists pounded the floor. Once. Twice. Again. Until the skin split and bled. But the rage stayed, and his face hardened.
He dragged himself to the far corner. Pulled back a loose floorboard. Beneath it, wrapped in cloth and sealed in old waxed leather, lay the book.
He'd stolen it weeks ago.
It was heavy. Older than any he'd seen and written in a hand that didn't quite match the common script. No title on the spine. Just a symbol on the front: a flame inside a circle, slashed through by a jagged crescent.
He had taken it during his second delivery for Old Mernan. The alchemist had left the room for barely a minute. The book had called to Michael.
its cover dusty, tucked behind a pile of dried herbs and sealed jars. He hadn't meant to steal it. Not really.
But it had felt like it belonged to him.
Mernan hadn't noticed. Or if he had, he hadn't said a word.
Michael now suspected the book hadn't belonged to the old man at all. He remembered something—an offhand comment Roadagan had made during a rare moment of lucidity. "....Flame that speaks without voice… echo the cry of my soul and…."
Michael hadn't understood then.
Now, as he sat alone with bloodied hands and a heart full of fire, he did.
If anyone knew he had it, the punishment would be swift. Possession of unregistered Mystic tomes was death by summary execution, unless one could name a sanctioned source. He had no such name. Just ink on paper—and desperation.
He lit a stub of candle and opened the book.
The pages were dense. Diagrams of circulatory flow. Words like vital nexus, vitalis, anchor Joints. It didn't matter.
He wasn't here for theory.
He needed method.
He flipped page after page, heart pounding, pain burning in his limbs as if his body shared Miss Sarah's wounds. At last, he found it—scrawled in the margins beside a charcoal sketch of a meditating figure:
To awaken what lies beneath, the soul must reforged in a cacophony of silence. The spark answers those who offer everything, even the flesh. Go alone. Go far. Go often. Go broken.
Michael stared at the words.
Then he grabbed his coat and slipped back into the night as though he was born into it.
The woods swallowed him. Familiar branches clawed at his sleeves. Roots tried to catch his boots. But he didn't stop. Not until the path dipped and the rockface loomed up before him, slick with moss and shadow.
That place waited him in silence.
He had first stumbled upon it years ago, while foraging. It wasn't deep barely more than a tunnel in the stone at the foot of a mountain, but it felt like something more.
He stepped inside and dropped to his knees.
Laid the book open on the flat stone.
Drew a circle of small stones around himself, just like the diagram had shown.
And he began.
No chants. No incantations. Just breath and focus. A directive that came from the center of his soul, raw and cracked:
Flow.
Nothing happened.
So he tried again.
And again.
And again.
That night marked the first day of his ritual.
He would return the next day. And the next. Each night, sometimes mornings after chores. After hunger. After fury. After guilt. After self loathing.
He intended to achieve his aim before the aptitude tests. He had to make it into the Academy and be at least at equal footing with privileged people, not just every random peasant.
This much, was necessary.