Anomalies always had a taste.
Lira had never realized that before.
The air near the yard's boundary didn't just warp—it thickened. Turned metallic, sharp at the back of her tongue, as if she'd bitten down on a knife and forgotten to stop.
The ground beneath her boots felt too soft and too hard at the same time. Distant shouting blurred into a dull hum.
Her fingers were locked around Caelum's.
She knew she should let go.
She couldn't.
The closer they walked toward the shimmering distortion, the more her instincts screamed at her to run. Every part of her remembered the white void, the weight of the entity's gaze. Every part of her wanted to claw backward.
Her legs kept moving because his did.
And the bond refused to break.
"Stop," Caelum said quietly.
They stopped.
The anomaly pulsed just ahead of them, clinging to the academy's outer wall like a bruise—no gaping hole this time, no yawning white or black void, just a patch of reality that… bent wrong.
Up close, Lira could see threads.
Not like Caelum did, clean and sharp. But like cracks in glass—skewed lines, edges fraying, edges glowing faintly.
"What… what is this one?" she whispered.
"A minor tear," Caelum said. "Localized distortion. Stable… for now."
"Stable?" she choked. "That's your word for this?"
"Useful, then," he corrected.
Her voice came out thin. "Useful for what, exactly?"
He turned to her slightly.
"For you."
She was going to be sick.
Behind them, Kael Dravos's roar cut through the air.
"VEY–LOR!"
Caelum didn't bother looking over his shoulder.
"Don't interfere," he called back, calm as if he were asking someone to pass the salt.
Kael's boots thundered closer.
"You walk one more step toward that tear and I'll knock you unconscious myself," Kael snarled. "You want to get yourself killed, fine, but you don't drag a Support student into it—"
"Then watch closely," Caelum said mildly. "You might learn something."
Kael's hand went to his weapon.
The threads under the yard shivered.
For a second, Lira thought Caelum would turn, would escalate, would pull the entire yard down around them.
He didn't.
He just raised his other hand.
White filaments shimmered faintly around his fingers.
Not threads from the anomaly. Not threads from the yard.
His threads.
"Lira," he said softly.
Her heart lurched.
"Eyes on the distortion. Not on me. Not on them. Breathe."
She tore her gaze off Kael and fixed it on the shimmering patch ahead.
Her breaths came fast, too shallow.
"Slow," Caelum said. "You've survived once. You'll survive this."
"How can you be so sure?" she whispered.
"Because this time," he said, "you're not alone inside it."
Her throat tightened.
"What do you want me to do?"
"First," he said, "tell me what you feel."
She swallowed.
"The air is— wrong. Heavy. It hurts— not like pain but— like my thoughts are bending."
"Good," he murmured.
"Not good," she snapped, voice shaking.
"Your perception is stretching around the distortion," he said. "That's why it hurts. New shapes always hurt."
Her fingers clenched harder around his.
"Now," he said, "use the bond."
She blinked rapidly. "H-how?"
"You've been doing it since yesterday," he said. "Every time you leaned on it. Every time you steadied yourself with it. Now do it on purpose."
She closed her eyes for half a heartbeat.
The anomaly breathed.
So did she.
She reached inward—not with her mind, not quite, but with something deeper. The same place that had flared when the entity looked at her, the same place that softened when Caelum said ally.
The bond pulsed in response.
"Good," he said quietly. "Hold onto it. Focus on the connection, not the fear."
"That's easy for you to say," she muttered.
"It's not," he said.
There was no humor in his tone.
Just fact.
The bond responded to that too—stabilizing, thickening, stretching between them like a cable anchoring her to something solid.
"Now listen," he said. "Not with your ears. With your threads."
She would have laughed if she weren't terrified.
Instead, she obeyed.
The world narrowed.
Not to the yard, not to the students watching, not to Kael's presence at their backs—but to three things:
The tear.
The bond.
Caelum.
For a heartbeat—
she heard it.
Not a voice like the entity's.
Smaller. Less aware.
A whine. A static-ridden hiss. The sound of reality protesting being held in the wrong shape.
"It's… it's screaming," she whispered, horrified.
"It's straining," Caelum corrected. "It wasn't meant to form here. The seals are pushing back. It's a fracture waiting for someone to pick a side."
"A side?" she whispered.
"Either it closes," he said, "or it widens."
She wanted to be sick again.
"What do you want me to do with something like that?"
"Convince it to close."
She turned her head, staring at him.
"I'm sorry, what?"
His eyes glinted, threads swirling faintly at their edges.
"You are part of the stability layer now," he said. "The academy is a stitched zone. The bond linked you to those stitches. Pull."
She stared.
"Pull—?"
"On reality," he said.
Her jaw dropped.
"You're insane," she whispered.
"Probably," he said. "We don't have the luxury of caring."
Kael swore behind them.
"Veylor, get her away from that—!"
"Be quiet," Caelum said without turning.
For a moment, it sounded like the order was aimed at Kael.
Then Lira realized—
The anomaly itself stuttered.
The air steadied for half a second.
Her skin crawled.
"Lira," Caelum said, and now his voice slid through the bond like another thread, wrapping around her panic and compressing it.
"You're going to try," he said.
"I can't—"
"You can't yet," he corrected. "That's different."
Her lip trembled.
"What if I make it worse?"
"If you lose control," he said, "I'll cut it."
She swallowed.
"And if you can't?"
"Then we die," he said.
She let out a broken laugh.
"That's supposed to help?"
"No," he said.
"It's supposed to make you commit."
Her heart pounded.
Everything in her screamed no.
But the bond hummed.
Warm. Steady. Present.
Not just his presence.
Hers.
She realized, abruptly, painfully—
She didn't want to be someone the world only watched.
She didn't want to be an object.
A classification.
A clause in someone else's ledger.
"I don't want to just survive," she whispered.
"I know," he said.
"Then don't just stand there," he added.
"Pull."
She reached.
Not with her hand.
With that same strange, half-awake part of herself that had seen the thread-knot in the white space. The part the entity had touched.
Except this time, she reached with the bond.
She imagined it first—
the line between her and Caelum thickening, anchoring, rooting itself in the stone beneath them.
Then she imagined threads like that running through the yard. Through the walls. Through the seal-chains slumbering beneath the academy.
Something answered.
"You see it," Caelum murmured.
She did.
Not clearly—never clearly—but glimpses. Blurred lines. Shapes at the edge of comprehension.
The tear in reality wasn't clean. Threads around it were peeling back like skin pulled away from a wound. The anomaly chewed on them hungrily.
She gagged.
"Don't flinch," Caelum said. "It wants that. Give it something else."
"Like… what?" she rasped.
"Resistance," he said simply.
"How?"
"Pull back."
She had no idea what that meant.
She did it anyway.
She imagined grabbing hold of the shimmering crack and dragging it shut. Her mind buckled. Her soul screamed.
It felt like trying to force fractured glass back into a flawless pane with her bare hands.
Pain shuddered through her.
She gasped.
The tear stretched wider.
A wash of cold air spilled out.
The ground shook faintly.
Students shrieked and stumbled back. Kael cursed, sigils flaring across his arms.
"Veylor!" he bellowed. "Enough!"
The entity's attention brushed the edges of the academy.
Caelum's hand tightened around Lira's.
White threads erupted around his other hand, slicing across the air like knives.
"Again," he said.
"I— I made it worse—"
"Yes."
"That was the wrong way—"
"Yes."
"Then why are you telling me to do it again?"
"Because you learned what not to do."
Her vision blurred from the strain.
"This hurts."
"Correct."
"It feels like my soul's being scraped raw."
"Good."
"That's not—"
"It means you're touching something real," he said.
"Now stop trying to fix it alone."
Her breath tore itself out of her lungs.
"Then how—"
"The bond is not just for comfort," he said sharply. "Use me, Lira."
Her thoughts stuttered.
"What—?"
"Anchor yourself," he said.
"I am anchored—"
"No," he said. "You're clinging. That's different."
His voice dropped to a low, deadly thread.
"You're not the only one whose soul can bleed for this."
Something inside her… snapped.
Not in a breaking way.
In a yielding one.
Fine.
Fine.
If she was going to be dragged into this, if she was going to be born into a role no one warned her about, if the academy, the Dominion, the entity, the world itself expected her to just endure—
Then she would.
On her own terms.
She inhaled.
And stopped clinging.
Instead—
she stepped.
Into the bond.
Not just leaning on it.
Not just drawing from it.
Sharing it.
The world lurched.
Caelum's near-inhuman calm flooded her senses, cool and sharp, aligning her thoughts. At the same time, she felt herself bleed back into him—her fear, her stubbornness, her desperate refusal to be erased.
For one razor-thin moment, they weren't just two people tied by a line.
They were a pattern.
The anomaly felt it.
It twisted, confused.
Its hungry pull faltered.
Lira saw the threads around the tear flicker.
She moved.
This time, when she reached, she didn't try to force the crack shut like a single failing hand against a landslide.
She reached with two souls.
The bond thickened, stretching from them outward, nudging at the warp—not overpowering, not crushing, but redirecting.
Stabilize, she thought wildly.
Not erase.
Not pretend.
Stabilize.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the tear—
hiccuped.
It didn't close.
Not fully.
But it stopped widening.
The air around them steadied.
Kael's curse cut off mid-syllable.
The students' gasps strangled into stunned silence.
The entity's attention, pressing faintly against the academy's underside, went suddenly, sharply still.
"…interesting…"
The whisper slithered just at the edge of Caelum's hearing.
Not Lira's.
This time, it spoke to him.
He met it.
Not with words.
With resistance.
He let it feel the bond's new density. The fact that what it had expected to be one weak anchor had become something else. Something tied not only to the girl's fragile threads but to his own controlled, cutting pattern.
The entity leaned forward—metaphorically, conceptually, cosmically.
Then laughed.
It was not a pleasant sound.
"…grow, little pattern…" it hummed.
"…we will see… how far you fray…"
The presence receded.
The tear shuddered.
And then—
slowly—
it began to fold inward.
Lira felt it.
Not like pushing.
More like guiding.
She held onto Caelum's hand so tightly her knuckles hurt, but her mind didn't splinter this time.
Her soul learned.
For the first time, the fracture obeyed something other than mindless pressure.
It obeyed them.
Not entirely.
Not strongly.
But enough.
It shrank to a hairline shimmer.
Not gone.
Not safe.
But contained.
The ground stopped shaking.
The air lightened.
The world, for the moment, held.
Lira's knees gave out.
Caelum caught her before she hit the dirt, lowering her gently to sit.
Her lungs dragged in ragged breaths.
"Did…" She swallowed. "Did I do that?"
"Partially," he said.
"I'll take it," she whispered, and then laughed.
It came out half-hysterical, half-relieved.
Her whole body shook.
Marenne ran over, eyes wide behind her glasses.
"That was— that was absurd— that was suicidal— that was— incredible."
Jalen staggered behind her, pale and sweaty.
"You're both insane," he whispered. "I want to drop out. I want to drop off the edge of the world. I want to become a farmer. I'll grow… carrots. Normal, non-cursed carrots."
Lira smiled weakly.
"I think I… hate carrots now."
Kael strode toward them, boots heavy, expression carved from stone.
He stopped in front of Caelum, towering over him.
Everyone held their breath.
"You." His voice was low, dangerous. "You brought a first-year Support student into an active tear. You used her as a stabilizing node. You risked her mind, her Sigil, and the integrity of the yard."
"Yes," Caelum said.
No apology.
No excuse.
No hesitation.
Kael's aura flared.
Students shrank back.
Lira tensed.
Her hand twitched, wanting to reach for Caelum's.
He did not move.
Kael stared at him.
At Lira.
At the nearly-vanished shimmer behind them.
At the yard that was not, in fact, collapsing.
Then—
slowly—
he exhaled.
"You stabilized it," Kael said.
"Partially," Caelum corrected. "We prevented escalation. It still needs a proper containment knot from someone in Forbidden Division."
Kael's jaw flexed.
His gaze dropped to Lira.
"You," he said. "Can you stand?"
Her legs trembled.
"I… can probably pretend to," she said.
Kael's mouth did something strange.
Something like the ghost of a smile, twisted with frustration and reluctant respect.
"You're an idiot," he said.
She blinked.
"Th-thank you?"
"That wasn't a compliment."
"It felt like one," she muttered.
He grunted.
Then looked back at Caelum.
"You pull something like this without notifying a Division Head again," Kael said, "and I will personally throw you into the deepest sealed chamber we have."
"You don't have a chamber that can hold me," Caelum said.
"That doesn't mean I won't enjoy the attempt."
Caelum hummed.
"I respect your honesty."
Kael glared.
"Don't play games in my yard, boy. If you're going to teach her, fine. She clearly needs it. She clearly…" He exhaled, reluctantly. "Has aptitude. But you don't get to treat my students like sigil reagents."
Caelum tilted his head.
"I don't," he agreed. "I treat them like allies or obstacles."
Kael's stare sharpened.
"Which is she?"
Caelum met his gaze without flinching.
"Necessary," he said.
The yard went very quiet.
Lira's heart stumbled.
Something in Kael's eyes changed.
Not softened.
Shifted.
Like a man who'd seen too many battlefields recognizing the shape of a unit forming whether the generals liked it or not.
"…Fine," Kael said. "Support training block C is yours from now on."
Marenne blinked. "What?"
Kael jabbed a thumb at Lira, then at Caelum.
"She trains with you," he said. "Under my supervision. You don't move near an anomaly without reporting it after the fact. You document what happens to her."
"I don't document," Caelum said.
Marenne raised her hand. "I do."
Kael sighed.
"Of course you do."
He turned away.
"Everyone back to work!" he barked to the yard. "You just watched a Support runt and a walking glitch do more for that tear than a dozen of you could do in three days. Either get better or get out of my sight!"
Students scrambled back into motion.
Marenne crouched next to Lira.
"Lira," she said softly. "Can you walk?"
"If I say no, will that stop anyone?" Lira asked.
"…Fair," Marenne said.
Caelum extended a hand.
She took it.
Her grip shook, but she pulled herself to her feet with his help.
Jalen hovered at a cautious distance.
"You were amazing," he whispered. "Terrifying. But amazing."
Lira's cheeks flushed.
"I thought I was going to throw up," she muttered.
"That too," he said.
She managed a weak laugh.
The bond thrummed—thinner now, a little frayed from the strain, but stronger than it had been that morning.
Caelum studied her for a moment.
"You adapted faster than I expected," he said.
"Is that your version of a compliment?" she asked.
"Yes."
She squinted at him.
"I see why you don't do this often."
Marenne snorted.
Caelum's lips almost—not quite—twitched.
Later — Quiet After Tremors
By the time the training block ended, the anomaly had faded to a mere whisper on the wall, threads still warped but no longer actively chewing through reality.
Forbidden Division would probably send someone to stitch it fully later.
Caelum walked Lira back to Dorm Nine.
Not because she couldn't find her way—she could—but because he wanted to be present when the bond settled.
"You'll be exhausted tonight," he said.
"Already am," she replied.
"You may see threads when you shouldn't."
"That already happened."
"It will intensify," he said. "Don't reach for them unless you have to."
"What if they reach for me?" she asked quietly.
He looked at her.
"Then I'll cut them," he said.
She swallowed.
"You can't cut everything," she whispered.
"No," he said.
"But I can cut enough."
They stopped outside her door.
For a moment, neither moved.
"Caelum," she said suddenly.
"Yes?"
"When the entity spoke to you," she said, "in the tower… in the void… now…" She exhaled. "What does it want?"
He considered that.
To a normal person, the answer would have been unknowable.
To him…
"It wants to see what happens," he said.
Her heart sank.
"That's it?"
"For now," he said.
He leaned slightly closer.
"One day, it will want more," he added. "Power. Freedom. Recompense. Play. The opportunity to push the Stitching past its limit."
Her head spun.
"And you?"
He paused.
"What about me?"
"What do you want?" she asked.
Silence.
Not the fragile kind.
The heavy, deliberate kind.
His answer, when it came, was very soft.
"I want to win," he said.
It wasn't screams and banners and conquest.
It was quiet.
Terrifying in its certainty.
She swallowed.
"Against what?"
"The same thing it does," he said. "The Stitching. The rules that decided I should die. The people who think survival is a gift and not something you take back with interest."
Her chest ached.
"And me?" she asked before she could stop herself.
He tilted his head.
"You," he said, "want to survive."
It wasn't dismissive.
It was… accurate.
"And I will need people who do," he added.
She didn't know if that made her feel better or worse.
"Rest," he said. "Classes tomorrow will be worse."
"Worse?" she squeaked.
"Adjusted curriculum," he said. "They'll want to test how a Red anomaly behaves in routine pressure."
"That sounds awful," she muttered.
"It will be," he agreed.
He turned to go.
"Caelum?"
He paused.
She swallowed.
"…Thank you," she whispered. "For not letting it… take more."
He looked at her for a heartbeat.
Then nodded once.
"And thank you," he said.
She blinked.
"For what?"
"For refusing to break."
Her throat closed.
He walked away.
She watched him until he vanished around the corner.
Only then did she go inside, close the door, and finally, fully, allow herself to shake.
Far below the academy, the entity shifted in its sealed chamber.
Threads wrapped around it like chains.
It could feel the new pattern forming above.
Not fully.
Not clearly.
But enough.
"…two threads…" it murmured to the dark.
"…one direction…"
It laughed quietly.
"…worthy… of watching…"
The chains creaked.
The Stitching held.
For now.
But pressure—
real pressure—
had finally begun.
And somewhere in Dorm Nine, the boy the Dominion called a contained anomaly lay awake, eyes open in the dark, watching invisible threads until dawn.
Not afraid.
Not excited.
Just waiting.
Because the world was teaching him where it hurt.
And he was learning, patiently, where to press.