Chapter 25: Blood Lesson
Orin signed Kael's papers at dawn, becoming official institutional property with three hours of bureaucracy and a headache that felt permanent thudding on the inside of his skull.
"First supervised session is tonight," Kael said, sliding the final form across her desk. "Training yard seven at six PM. Fifteen students, mixed classifications. Instructor Varen observes."
"Nothing says effective teaching like having someone document your every breath."
"Instructor Varen thinks everyone's fascinating. It's what makes him effective." She gathered the documents. "Teach circulation optimization, basic enhancement. Nothing restricted. Clear?"
"Crystal."
"Don't make me regret this."
He left feeling like there was a weight around his neck. Maya ambushed him at the cafeteria entrance.
"Signed it?"
"Now a proud institutional tool, teaching watered-down techniques while pretending they matter." He found a corner table. She followed. "First session is tonight. Varen's watching me perform the educational theater."
"And the real teaching?"
"Tomorrow midnight, same location. Use the official sessions as cover." He lowered his voice. "Lyra's helping craft sanitized curriculum."
"Lyra." Maya stabbed her breakfast. "The one you were kissing on rooftops."
"Strategic conversation that included minimal kissing."
"Right. Strategic." She leaned forward. "Look, I get it. You're both lonely. But green-stone nobility dating blackstone tutor creates leverage. Garrett's watching for weakness. Don't hand him ammunition."
"Let him try."
"Everything's ammunition when you're building a resistance." But her expression softened. "Just be careful."
Selphie materialized beside him after Maya left, appearing from nowhere like poison cultivators did.
"Heard you made it official." She bit into an apple with surgical precision. "Forty-three people are wondering if you sold them out."
"I bought us time to keep teaching."
"Good. Because Garrett's organizing something. Been talking to green-stones with grudges, those that don't like that your upsetting the status quo." She finished the apple, core and all. "Whatever he's planning seems to target you specifically."
"Add it to the list."
Classes ground through their usual curriculum. Between sessions, Lyra pulled him into an alcove.
"Nervous about tonight?"
"I'd say I'm unsettled."
She handed him a folder. "Reviewed your curriculum. Made adjustments for political palatability. Focus on efficiency, optimization."
"You spent time on this."
"I'm invested in your survival." She stepped closer. "Also turns out attachment motivates effort in ways self-interest doesn't. It's inconvenient."
"Almost romantic."
"Don't mock my progress." She kissed him briefly. "Now go prepare. Try not to commit accidental treason."
Evening arrived. Orin reached the training yard at quarter to six, found fifteen students already assembled in birthstone-sorted clusters. Five skeptical green-stones, seven hopeful blue-stones, three blackstones who looked like they'd won a lottery with terrible terms.
Varen stood at the edge, arms crossed.
"Your class. Teach them something that justifies the use of Crown resources."
Orin stepped forward. Fifteen sets of eyes calculated his worth.
"I'm Orin Fox. Blackstone who will teach you circulation techniques that work across classifications. I'm not here to teach you to be me. I'm here to teach you to be better versions of whatever your birthstone allows."
"Blackstones can't teach green-stones." Male voice, dripping inherited certainty. "You operate at levels you'll never reach."
"I operate at levels I built through refusal to accept a genetic lottery as destiny." Orin met his eyes. "Keep believing power is birthright. Makes you easy to beat when someone who worked for their strength shows up."
Varen made a sound that might have been a laugh.
He spent the next hour teaching circulation fundamentals pulled from Master Grey's textbook, cleaned for Crown approval. How to channel essence efficiently, reduce waste, extend enhancement through conservation. Nothing revolutionary, just solid basics that academy curriculum somehow never bothered with.
The students engaged despite themselves. Even skeptical green-stones couldn't deny the techniques worked. Blue-stones thrived, discovering their limited capacity could stretch further. Blackstones were revelatory, learning their pathetic reserves could accomplish things beyond menial labor.
"This is just efficiency training," one green-stone said during break. "Nothing here threatens the hierarchy.. why all the fuss?."
"I'm teaching you that stations are constructed, not biological. That capacity matters less than technique." Orin demonstrated a pattern. "You think birthstone color determines power. I'm proving technique determines capability. That's more threatening than you realize."
Varen approached as students filtered out.
"That was good. Solid fundamentals, politically acceptable." He paused. "Also subtle sedition. Nicely done."
"I thought I was supposed to avoid the sedition part."
"Officially. Unofficially, watching you undermine comfortable hierarchies through education is satisfying." His smile was brief. "Keep teaching efficiency. Let students draw their own conclusions."
He left. Orin stood alone in the darkening yard, exhausted and oddly satisfied.
"That was impressive."
Garrett Vance materialized from the darkness, bringing six green-stones with him. All of them looked angry, determined, coordinated.
"Garrett. Lovely evening for lurking menacingly."
"You made me watch you teach. Now I've got an opportunity." His smile was broken glass. "I've been patient. Waiting."
The six spread out, boxing formation. Seven against one, all essence-enhanced, carrying practice weapons that could break bones enthusiastically.
"I thought we were past this, are you completely stupid? Attack me here, it's expulsion minimum."
"Attack you? We're just sparring. Enthusiastic sparring. Accidents can happen." Garrett's birthstone glowed dull green but his muscles were enhanced. "You took everything I'd built. Now I'm taking something from you."
They attacked simultaneously. Orin moved on instinct, Richard's tactical assessment calculating angles, Vera's knife work guiding evasion. He slipped between two attackers, drove his elbow into one's solar plexus with seventy-one strength behind it.
The green-stone folded. His friends didn't stop, weapons cutting arcs through the darkness.
Orin's void stone pulsed, hungry. He could drain them all, show them a real monster. But Crown oversight was watching. Draining was execution offense and he didn't want to become what people already suspected.
*Fight without draining. Prove you don't need consumption. With my attributes I can let violence do the talking*
He caught a practice sword, wrenched it free, used it to block two attacks. Seventy-one strength made him faster than most of them. But seven-on-one was still brutal.
Something cracked his ribs. Pain exploded. He rolled with impact, struck at the nearest knee. Connection, crunch, screaming. Six left.
They pressed harder, sensing injury. Weapons rained from multiple angles. His durability was holding, fifty-eight points absorbing impacts that would cripple normal blackstones. But holding wasn't winning.
A blade opened his cheek from eye to jaw. Blood sheeted down. Another hit his shoulder, nearly dislocating it. The void stone screamed at him to feed.
*No. Fight clean.*
He changed tactics, stopped defending and started attacking. Threw himself at Garrett specifically, sixty dexterity and seventy-one strength combining into assault that was more brawling than technique. Got inside his guard, delivered three rapid strikes. Garrett dropped, choking.
Five left.
They hesitated, realizing the blackstone wasn't collapsing like he should. Orin pressed the advantage, attacking with eaw aggression.
Dropped another. Four left, coordination fracturing.
"He should be fucking down!"
Footsteps running. Varen appeared with two instructors, all channeling essence. The scene froze.
"Explain. Now."
"We were sparring and.." Garrett wheezed.
"Seven against one is not sparring! It's a coordinated assault." Varen's gaze found Orin. "Your version?"
"They objected to me teaching I guess. They expressed their concerns physically. I defended myself in kind."
Varen's mouth twitched. "All of you, infirmary. Except Fox, you stay."
The green-stones limped away. Orin stood bleeding, ribs screaming.
"That was stupid," Varen said. "Fighting seven without draining them."
"Draining would've been an execution offense."
"Nobody's watching training the yards at night." He pulled out a medical kit, started cleaning Orin's face. "But you chose not to anyway. Why?"
"Because I'm trying to prove I'm not a fucking monster, just because I can doesn't mean I'm going to."
"Noble. Also stupid." He finished cleaning and wrapped Orin's ribs. "But effective. You beat seven coordinated green-stones without draining anyone. Crown oversight will certainly find this intriguing."
"Oh yay, more attention. Exactly what I needed."
"You chose visibility when you started teaching." Varen stepped back. "Get to the infirmary and get your shoulder checked. Then get some sleep. You've got somewhere to be tomorrow night I believe."
"wha... How?"
"I know everything that happens here. That's what keeps students alive despite their determination to die stupidly." He turned to leave. "Fox. What you're building matters. Keep building it. Try not to get killed before it's finished, keep getting stronger."
The infirmary healer patched Orin with clinical efficiency and sent him back with painkillers.
Lyra's crystal pulsed. He channeled essence. Thirty seconds later she appeared at his door, having sprinted from north wing.
"You're bleeding. Again."
"Garrett and six others tried to teach me a lesson of their own."
"Seven against one. You didn't drain them?"
"No, I didn't need to, like I said to Varen I'm not a monster."
"So you fought straight, took unnecessary damage, just to prove some philosophical point." She examined his bandaged face. "Almost noble, but also stupid."
"Everyone keeps saying that."
"Because it's true. But I guess effective." Her hand found his. "You proved you can win without consumption."
"I'm trying to be a slightly more than lucky mutant."
"Then keep trying. Meanwhile, let me help." She pulled out a vial. "its pure ice essence, it will accelerate the healing, but it hurts."
"Define hurts."
"Remember absorbing ironback essence? Like that but colder."
He drank. The liquid burned cold, hit his stomach and exploded. Ice spread through his body in crystalline patterns. Pain arrived, brutal and clarifying. A cold fire in his veins, injuries freezing and healing simultaneously.
Lyra held him through it, a comfort against the pain. Five minutes that felt like hours. Then it faded, leaving him gasping and mostly healed.
"That was... Unpleasant."
"But effective." She examined his face. "This will fade with time."
"I have enough mystery without decorative scarring."
"That's fair." She leaned against him. "You're doing well. Teaching, fighting, building resistance. Most people would've given up and died by now."
"Most people are smarter."
"Most people are too smart to try. You're just stupid enough to succeed." She kissed him. "Sleep. Tomorrow you reassure everyone their faith wasn't misplaced."
She left and he lay on his cot, body healed but exhausted.