Gray woke to the sound of his own breathing. Slow, steady, but not calm. His eyelids were heavy, and the ache in his bones felt like he'd been dragged through stone. He blinked once. Pale light streamed in through the narrow infirmary window.
He sat up. Pain flared across his ribs, but he welcomed it.
It meant he was still in one piece. The fight returned to him in flashes. His last opponent. The blow. The moment he tried to activate Severing Bloom. Then blackness.
He touched his chest and felt the faint bruise beneath his shirt. It was real.
'I thought i was going to die for real.'
The room was quiet. A bowl of water sat beside the bed, untouched. Someone had changed the bandages on his hands. He looked toward the door. No one waited for him. No curious faces. No words of concern. They had all moved on, as they should have.
Gray stood and dressed slowly, wincing as his muscles resisted. The pain hadn't faded, but something else lingered. A weight behind his sternum, as if something inside had twisted itself around his bones and refused to let go.
Gray stepped out of the infirmary into morning light that felt too bright for how he felt inside. The sky was overcast, but everything still looked washed out and sharp. The courtyard was quiet at this hour, only a few early risers passing by. Each footstep echoed louder than it should have.
As he walked toward the cafeteria, he could feel the stares.
Not everyone looked directly at him, but some did. A pair of younger students whispered to each other near the garden wall. One of them made a motion with his hands, mimicking a collapse. Another student quickly looked away when Gray's eyes met his.
He kept walking.
Inside the cafeteria, the smell of warm bread and spiced broth filled the air, but the comfort felt distant. The line was short, and he picked up a tray with plain stew and half a loaf of softbread. He could tell most people had eaten already since the lesson was going to start.
When he turned to find a seat, his eyes caught something in the far corner.
Someone stood at the doorway
The same boy from the fight.
His presence felt like a cold knot forming in Gray's stomach, but before he could move or speak, the figure turned and walked through the outer door, vanishing into the corridor.
Gray stared for a long moment, unsure whether to follow.
"That guy again?" Renn's voice pulled him back.
Gray turned as his friend walked up beside him with his own tray, already half-finished. Renn looked from Gray's expression to the door, then shrugged.
"You really pissed someone off to get stalked before breakfast," he said around a bite of bread.
Gray said nothing. He sat across from Renn and picked at his food.
"You heading to the lesson after this?" Renn asked.
Gray nodded. "Yeah. I need to figure something out."
Renn looked at him for a second longer, then stood. "Let's not fall behind, then."
Gray followed him out into the hall, the image of the young handsome boy still lingering at the edge of his thoughts.
By the time he reached the courtyard, students had already gathered for the morning session. The mountain wind carried their voices, sharp and distant. He kept his head low as he walked, listening without appearing to.
"He got wrecked," someone muttered. "Didn't even last a minute."
"That guy wasn't normal. Not part of the class, right?"
"Couldn't even activate a skill properly…"
Gray didn't look at any of them. His feet moved on their own toward the center of the gathering area. The others fell silent as the instructor arrived.
She was tall and still, like a blade left in the snow. Her silver hair was tied back in a single loop, and a long scar traced her jaw to her collar. Her eyes scanned them without emotion.
"You're here to learn control," she said. "That means understanding what you are, and what lives beneath your skin."
She motioned toward the doors of the southern hall. "Inside. We begin."
The training chamber was circular and windowless. Its walls were smooth stone, marked with faint spirals and thin lines that spread outward like veins. The floor was soft dirt, flattened from generations of use. At the center stood a raised stone platform, beside which sat a dark metallic orb on a stand.
"Vyre is not a weapon," the instructor said as they circled around her. "It is a medium. A canvas. A blank current waiting to be shaped."
She paced slowly, hands behind her back.
"Your spiritual body consists of three parts. First, your soul. It reflects your physical body, but it is immaterial, weightless. Second, your core. The core absorbs Vyre, filters it, and begins the process of refinement. Third, your Vyre veins. These pathways spread from your core into every part of your body. When you channel Vyre, it flows through those veins."
Her gaze passed over the students.
"But Vyre is not kind. Channeling too much too quickly will burn those veins. And once burned, they may never function properly again. Do not force it."
She gestured to the orb beside her. "You will each test your strain's resonance. Place your hand on the orb and focus. Let Vyre pass through you. Nothing more."
Gray watched silently as the others stepped forward. Each one pressed their hand to the orb. The device glowed briefly, then displayed a number floating above its surface. Thirty-two. Forty-one. Forty-eight. The numbers varied. Korr Vane received sixty-two. Adel, calm as ever, scored sixty-eight. Lira achieved a shocking seventy-one! Renn on the other hand got fifty-two. His gaze gave off an un-explainable feeling. As for the mysteries boy. He had seemingly vanished. Or had simply missed the lesson.
Gray's turn came.
He stepped forward, heart steady, but something inside felt restless. He placed his hand on the orb.
It was cold.
Then warmth spread up his arm, slow and pulsing, like something breathing against his skin. He focused on his core, imagining it behind his heart. Hollow. Waiting.
Vyre answered.
It trickled inward, but instead of dispersing through his imagined veins, it hesitated. It curled. A part of it collapsed inward.
He bit down, forcing himself to stay still.
The orb pulsed.
[Strain Resonance: 59%]
He let go.
The warmth vanished.
"Above average." The instructors voice rang in his ears.
As he stepped away, he felt a lingering tension in his fingertips. Like something had been drawn in and never released. No one said anything, but he noticed Adel watching him again, eyes unreadable.
'Whats with her deal?' He shook his head and moved on.
The instructor gave no reaction. She simply nodded. "Begin the exercise."
They each took a position along the chamber's edge.
"You will not shape Vyre yet," she said. "Only feel it. Breathe it. Let your core do the work."
Gray sat cross-legged near the far wall, where shadow clung a little longer. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
He imagined the flow again. Vyre all around him, unseen, waiting. He let his breath slow. Let his thoughts fall into rhythm. The strain within him stirred, quiet but awake.
He reached for the energy.
This time, it came faster. But again, not as a stream. It rushed toward him like falling dust, drawn instead of guided. It didn't pass through, it gathered. It pressed against his chest. Then it sank deeper.
A pressure formed inside his core. Not painful, but wrong. His skin prickled. His arms felt lighter and colder at once.
He opened his eyes.
A faint mist curled around his fingers. Not red. Not blue. A dull gray-red, the color of rusted blood. It faded the moment he noticed it, but the sensation remained.
He hadn't just channeled Vyre.
No... it felt like he had taken it.
Consumed it.
The realization hit like a second breath. He looked around. No one had noticed. Not even Renn, seated nearby, who was too busy trying to draw a flicker of light into his palm.
Gray looked down at his hands. They had stopped shaking. But his breathing had not returned to normal.
Eventually the lesson ended and without warning.
The instructor dismissed them with a glance, and students rose quietly, filing out of the chamber in ones and twos. Renn stretched and wandered out muttering about how hard it was to find his core. Korr had sweat lining his jaw. Even Lira seemed affected, a faint sheen on her forehead.
Gray stayed behind. His fingers still tingled.
He pretended to fix his sleeve, waiting until the room was nearly empty.
Then a voice behind him. "You didn't shape it."
He turned.
Adel stood near the doorway, one hand at her side. Her expression was calm, but there was something sharpened in her tone.
"You pulled it in," she said. "It didn't flow like it should have."
Gray said nothing.
Adel stepped closer. "That's not channeling. That's consumption."
He met her gaze. "You watched me?"
"I notice things," she said. "So does she." Her chin tilted toward the instructor, who remained at the edge of the platform, eyes closed.
Gray waited for her to say more, but she didn't. She turned and left without another word.
Time passed swiftly.
That night, Gray sat alone beneath the mountain tree behind the dormitories. The wind moved gently through the leaves, though the air felt stale. He closed his eyes again.
He called to Vyre.
It came without hesitation now. Not rushing, but drawn, like iron to magnet. He let it enter. Let it press into his core.
This time, he didn't try to shape it. He watched.
Part of it flowed. But another part twisted, folded in on itself. It blackened, bloomed into something heavier. Something foreign.
His breath slowed.
A circle of grass around him withered, turning from green to ash-gray.
His hand trembled, then remained still.
He looked at his palm, where nothing now lingered.
It didn't feel like energy.
It felt like hunger.
But he ignored it.
He sat against the wall cross-legged and continued to channel his Vyre.
He knew he had to prepare for the inevitable.