Chapter 12: Cooling Down
The corridor outside the ring was still thick with heat. A metal bench tattered from use groaned as he sat, elbow on his knee, eyes unfocused. His flask was almost empty, and the water inside was warm, but he kept drinking anyway.
Veyna slumped next to him, stripping her gauntlet off with a hiss. "Okay, I'm saying it. That should've been a straight 2v2. None of that mixed-lane chaos."
"I don't think they planned on us making it work," Kael muttered, voice hoarse.
Soahc flopped down nearby, stretching out like he'd just returned from a midday nap. "And you're meaner than you look, starlight. I figured you'd be the brooding, soft-touch type."
Kael didn't even glance at him. "You brought a hallucination field into a team exercise."
Soahc grinned. "And you started melting the floor."
Veyna snorted into her flask. "Yeah, you didn't expect him to push that hard."
Soahc raised both brows. "Nope. Thought I'd be dealing with another passive protagonist. He's got bite."
Sol sat apart from the rest, crouched near the wall, running his fingers through his braids. He hadn't said much, looking a bit distant.
No one pushed him. Veyna noticed it too, in the way she glanced at him and looked away just as quick.
Kael kept watching.
People gave them space, sure, but something about Sol's silence made it more than that. A couple of sword clan students passed by without stopping — one of them slowed down just long enough to smirk and say:
"If you flickerheads are done, you might want to move. No sense cracking your crowns before the Deathzone trials."
He didn't look at Sol. Didn't even glance in his direction. Just kept walking.
Kael clocked it.
It felt like they were... avoiding something.
It wasn't about him. It was Sol. To Kael, there was something just off about how people treated him like they knew something about him he didn't; maybe it was his eerie crown he had thought, but none of that mattered now.
Sol stood up after a while, wiping his hands on his coat. Didn't say a word.
Soahc broke the quiet. "Well. I guess we passed the test."
"No one said it was a test," Veyna muttered.
He shrugged. "Then I passed my own."
Kael stood last, still holding onto a thought he hadn't shaped yet.
There was a rhythm building between them now, one he hadn't really felt before. But from what he knew about death zones, they weren't as forgiving as a spar against newly made friends.
After they split, Kael walked the halls alone.
The academy was quieter now—just the soft hum of the lights embedded in the ceiling and the subtle ticking of the time nodes stitched into the walls. Somewhere, a bell struck six.
It was strange, really—measuring time in a world where the sun no longer mattered. Outside, where a sky should've stretched wide and endless, there was only the Void. A massive, breathing blackness overhead. A tear in the heavens. Some light still escaped it, but it didn't follow rules anymore.
To most, that would've been unbearable.
But for the Crowned, time wasn't told by sunrises or shadows. It was felt.
The stronger your Crownlight glowed, the later in the day it appeared to be. If your light was dim, the world stayed murky, like early dawn. When your crown flared, the world brightened—just for you.
Kael's Crownlight flickered faintly as he passed empty classrooms. The floor pulsed underfoot with ambient arc. School had technically ended an hour ago, but he wasn't ready to return to the dorm levels. His body still buzzed from the fight, but his mind wanted quiet.
He turned a corner and paused outside a room most students ignored: Theory B-12, sometimes referred to as the dustbin by the louder clans. It was meant for research and lecture overflow—no enchantments, no Crown-augmented equipment, and no combat board.
Just desks.
Kael pushed open the door.
Inside, under the warm hue of half-lit crystal lamps, sat three people.
Professor Ingram stood near a board cluttered with notes, diagrams, and crude sketches of sigils. His long grey coat shimmered faintly at the hem—enchanted for longevity. His voice trailed as he turned.
"Oh, another student didn't expect to see you again."
Kael gave a small nod. "Just curious."
Ingram gestured toward a seat. "Curiosity's rarer than aptitude these days. Sit if you're staying."
Kael stepped in, eyes flicking to the other student seated in the corner.
Her.
The green-and-black-haired girl from last night—the one who'd been cornered by Ashborne students. She sat hunched slightly, arms folded, attention sharp even though she didn't look up.
Kael sat one seat over, not too close. Her presence was like static—subtle tension just under the skin.
Ingram turned back to the board. "We were just covering the three dominant Aevum lines: Fire, Steel—forging, that is—and Sword-style. Nearly 70% of known combat crowns manifest in one of those forms, though hybrids are common among older clans."
He tapped a side panel on the wall, and a small schematic unfurled—metallic threads forming three layered sigils that rotated slowly.
"And recently, as most of you know, we've seen a growing number of 'refined augment' crowns. Less elemental, more... behavioural. Mindset-based. That's where PsySnapse comes in."
Kael straightened slightly. He'd heard the term more than he wanted to.
Ingram continued, tone more cautious now. "PsySnapse is still considered unstable. But several elite academies have started promoting early neural shaping—using it to push children into Crown-aevum faster. Especially among the wealth-backed clans."
Kael frowned. He didn't speak—but the idea sat in his stomach like ice.
Shaping mindsets from birth? Setting expectations through implanted memory triggers, it made him sick.
It sounded to him like a horrid way of conditioning.
He thought of the Crownless kids back in the Ash Channels—how they stared up at the sky hoping for a spark that never came.
And now here, the elite were trying to build soldiers from the womb.
Ingram went on. "The Ashborne, Ironfell, and Halreth clans are at the forefront. Each pushing a different lineage of PsySnapse augmentation."
Kael noticed it.
The girl to his left—the one with streaks of emerald and ink through her hair—stiffened. Just for a second.
Shame?
Ingram didn't notice. He was already chalking out branching diagrams of known Crownline mutations.
Kael looked back toward the front, but his mind stayed on her.
He still didn't know her name.
But now, he knew one thing for sure.
She'd been shaped.