Control was a lie.
I had spent the last twelve hours relearning this single, agonizing truth.
My entire life, I had believed control was a fortress, a thing I could build of stone and logic.
It was not. It was a leash. And the monster it was holding back, the chaos, the detonation, the addiction, was not Anya Rostova.
It was me.
After the explosion in the training hall, Varrick hadn't yelled. Seraphina hadn't scoffed. They had been... silent. Awed. Horrified.
They had dragged us, two breathing disasters, from the smoking ruin of the hall. We were not taken to the medical. We were not taken to the Rookery.
We were marched, in our soot-stained, bloodied, and shamed uniforms, to my father's office.
I had entered that obsidian-and-marble sanctum a thousand times. I had always entered as the Heir. The Prodigy. The perfect son.
Last night, I had entered as a failure. A child who had lost his temper and broken his toys.
My father, Archon Sorin val-Valerius, had not been angry.
He had been delighted.
And that, that, was the true horror.
He'd been sitting at his desk, and he'd looked at the two of us. Me, shaking with a humiliation so profound it was a physical sickness. And her, the gutter-rat, bleeding, defiant, and vibrating with her own chaotic energy.
He had looked at us, and he had seen the ruin we had created.
"Professor Varrick tells me," my father had said, his voice a cold, quiet, amused thing, "that you destroyed a solid-marble support column."
I'd said nothing. I was a void.
"Impressive," he'd murmured. He'd looked at me, his eyes, my eyes, calculating. "This... Resonance... it is not just a merger. It is a... detonation. A new kind of weapon. A Hound... and its Handler."
I had felt the blood drain from my face.
He thought I was the Handler. He thought she was the Hound.
He thought I was in control.
He did not see my failure. He saw a prototype. He saw the power, and he had no idea that the power was controlling us.
My father had dismissed her, and when she was gone, he had looked at me. His delight had faded, replaced by the cold, hard calculation of the Archon.
"Your progress with the asset is... explosive," he'd said. "But it is crude. You are a Valerius. You are order. You will control this. You will control... her. You will learn to wield that power, Caelen. Or you will be broken by it. The choice is yours. The next trial... will be your test."
I was not in a tournament. I was in a cage. My father had just handed me a live, ticking Anima-bomb, and told me to master it... or die.
Which brought me to now.
Trial 3. The War-Game.
Varrick stood on a high rock in the "Haunted Forest" arena, the same godsforsaken, damp arena where I had first... merged... with her.
"The rules are simple!" Varrick roared, his voice full of a sick, gleeful energy. He knew what my father had commanded. He was in on the test.
"Two teams. Red and Blue. Capture the Flag. Your Aether-weapons are set," he'd said, which was a lie. "They will not kill. They will... incapacitate."
A lie. In Aethelgard, "incapacitated" and "removed" were the same, polite words for "dead."
"Team Leaders! Caelen val-Valerius, you have the Blue team!"
Of course I did. My father was watching from his obsidian booth, high above.
"And Daxos, you have the Red."
I looked at my team.
And I knew... my father did not just want me to succeed. He was testing how I would succeed under pressure.
He had given me... her.
Anya Rostova was standing ten feet away, her arms crossed, her face a mask of pale, bruised hate. She was limping. They had patched her leg, but she was wounded.
He had given me Rhys. The coward. The Scrivener.
He had given me two other rooks, a brute named Korg and a fast, silent girl I didn't know.
And, in his ultimate, cruelest move... he had given me Seraphina.
She was standing right next to me. She was supposed to be my ally. But she was not looking at the enemy. She was looking at Anya.
Seraphina's face was a mask of cold, high-elite fury. She had seen the ruined hall. She had seen us. She was no fool. She had put the pieces together. She didn't know what we were... but she knew we were a we.
And she was not happy.
"Caelen," she'd murmured, her voice a low, poisonous hiss meant only for me, "your... pet... looks half-dead. Do try to keep her on her leash. I hate the smell of Dregs-blood."
The Resonance. It was still there.
It was not the addictive pull from the forest. It was not the agonizing violation from the confrontation.
It was a live wire.
It was a low, sickening hum between us. It was a warning. A HIIISSSSSSS in the back of my mind. DO. NOT. TOUCH. We were two, opposing, unstable chemicals. And Varrick and my father had just put us in the same bottle.
"The trial begins in five minutes!" Varrick roared. "Blue Team... plan your attack."
He left.
My team... my team... looked at me.
Seraphina. Rhys. Korg. The silent girl.
And... her.
Anya was watching me, her eyes narrowed, her jaw tight. She was waiting for me to cut the rope again.
I had to regain control.
I was Caelen Val-Valerius. I was ordered.
I raised my hand. And from my fingertips, I wove.
A construct of pure, white, perfectly controlled Aether, a three-dimensional, glowing map of this entire, stupid forest, sprang to life in the air between us.
It was a statement. It was control. It was me.
Seraphina looked... impressed. Good. Rhys just looked terrified.
"My plan is logical," I said, my voice cold. This was my fortress. Logic. "This is a simple cull. They have Daxos. He is strong, but he is slow. We are fast."
I pointed to the map. "Their flag is here, in the West-cave."
I looked at Seraphina. "Seraphina. You are my long-range. Your Aether-arrows are precise. You and the girl... Kaelen, what's your name?" "Myra, sir," she whispered. "Myra. You are fast. You will take the high ridge here. You will be my eyes. You will be my scalpel. You will call out their positions. You will not engage. You will wound."
Seraphina nodded, a sharp, cold smile. She liked that.
I looked at Rhys. "Rhys. You are a scrivener. You are a coward. Good. I need a coward." Rhys flinched. "You and Korg will go here," I pointed to the opposite side of the map. "You will make noise. You will use your illusions. You will make them think our entire force is attacking the left flank. Korg, you will keep him alive." Korg just grunted.
My plan was perfect. Logical. Clean.
And then... There was the bomb.
Anya.
I had been avoiding looking at her. But I felt her. The thrum was making my teeth ache.
I could not have her with Seraphina. Seraphina would kill her. I could not have her with Rhys. She would detonate. I could not have her with me.
My father's words: You will control this.
This was my test. Control.
And the only way to control an unstable, volatile, nuclear weapon... was containment.
I looked at her. My face was a mask of cold, hard logic. "You," I said.
Her head snapped up, her eyes full of fire.
"You are wounded," I stated. It was a fact. "You are... unstable." Her lips pulled back in a snarl.
"Your new position is here."
I pointed.
To our own flag. A hundred yards behind us.
"You will guard the flag," I said. She stared at me. "You will stay here. You will not move from this position. You will not engage. You will not be seen. You are the last line of defense. You are the one thing they will not expect."
It was logical. She was Dregs. She was good at hiding. She was good at climbing.
It was also... a leash.
I was benching her. I was hiding her. I was putting her in a box where her chaos could not touch my perfect plan.
I was proving to my father that I could win... without the bomb.
I could feel her rage. It was a heat coming off her. She was vibrating.
But before she could explode... before she could touch me*...*
Seraphina laughed.
It was a high, clear, tinkling sound. "A brilliant plan, Caelen," she said, her voice dripping with a sweet, poisonous honey. She glided a step closer, past me, to look at Anya.
She looked Anya up and down. The wounded leg. The filthy uniform. The rage.
"You're putting the rabid dog on a leash," Seraphina murmured, her voice full of a cruel, mocking pity.
She turned her cold, perfect, blue-ice eyes on Anya.
"Try not to blow us all up, Dregs."
The horn sounded. The hunt began. And I had just caged the one monster... that I knew... could not be caged.