The wind through the broken window came first. A thin, steady sound, almost nothing, but real. It cut through the heavy silence loneliness leaves behind. It smelled of mountain air and wet ground, of pine and cold. A cold that crawled under Lyra's velvet dress and raised her skin against itself.
She didn't move.
Still on the floor. Knees pulled in. Arms locked tight, as if her body might come apart if she loosened them. She trembled. Not just from the cold. From exhaustion. From shame. From the aftershock of what she had done.
Glass lay everywhere, scattered like a fallen sky, each shard holding a pale, warped piece of the clouds outside.
Sion did not help her up.
He stayed where he was, several steps away. Through the blur of tears, Lyra watched him lift a hand to his face and drag it down slowly, from forehead to chin. It wasn't pain. It wasn't grief. It looked like wiping something away. Residue.
His eyes closed for a single breath. His chest rose once. When his eyes opened again, the rawness was gone. Pressed inward. Sealed. What remained was focus. Sharp. Uncomfortable to look at.
His eyes moved.
The dead oil lamps. The faint thread of smoke still curling from the wicks. The broken arch of the window, the jagged glass biting into its iron frame. Then her.
No concern. No anger.
Interest.
The kind of interest that doesn't care how something feels, only how it works.
He stepped forward, careful with his footing, boots finding wood between the larger shards. Each step sounded placed. Measured. He stopped close enough for her to feel him again, that familiar pressure, like the room shrinking.
"Fascinating."
The word wasn't meant for her. It slipped out like a note to himself.
"No kinetic force. No air displacement that would justify the glass. The flames died from lack of oxygen, not impact."
His head tilted. His eyes stayed on her, steady, intent.
"This is projection. Psycho-emotional. You're not pushing the world. You're seeding it."
A pause.
"You infect it. With what you feel."
Something crossed his face. Brief. Not soft, but not cold either.
"You pushed your pain outward. Your loneliness. And it manifested. Enough to fracture what was around you."
Lyra folded in on herself. His voice was calm, almost mild, and it stripped the moment bare. Turned it into a process. A diagram. She didn't want to be understood. She didn't want to be interesting. She wanted to vanish.
"It's a power built on exposure," he continued, a little faster now, as if momentum had taken him. "A weapon that requires you to injure yourself first. You open something inside and offer it up."
His arms crossed. His gaze tracked the way she shook.
"That has applications. Disruption. Confusion. Most enemies expect force. They don't expect to be handed their own despair."
Then his voice leveled.
"But it's inefficient."
A small, careless gesture in her direction.
"It leaves you depleted. Open. You spend yourself to use it. Afterward, you're empty. Anyone with a knife and enough strength could finish the job."
He moved closer.
Not like he did in the dojo. No predatory ease. This was deliberate, cautious. He crouched in front of her, careful not to kneel in the glass.
Up close, she noticed things she hadn't before. The fine silver lines at the edges of his eyes. The uneven skin of an old burn near his hairline. The hard discipline in his mouth, like it had forgotten how to rest.
He held out his hand.
Not kindness. Function.
"You need control," he said. "Not release. Control is choosing when you bleed. And for whom."
His hand waited. The space between them felt colder than the room. When she finally placed her hand in his, it was quick, awkward.
His skin was warm. His grip firm. He pulled her up without ceremony, without pause. The moment her feet steadied, even barely, he let go.
Shame settled heavier than before. She wasn't a person to him. She was a problem to be managed.
"We'll eat," he said, already turning away. "Food will be brought to your rooms. Finish it. You'll need the energy."
At the door, he stopped. Looked back. The command had already returned to his face.
"Fourteen hundred hours. Clan History. Professor Hargrave. Don't be late."
His tone suggested this was already decided.
"My guards will arrive at thirteen forty-five. They'll escort you to the classroom and wait outside. Afterward, they'll bring you directly back here for training."
The words stacked up. One on top of the other.
They will take you.
They will return you.
No gaps. No breathing room. No space for an abandoned observatory at two.
A colder fear slid into Lyra's chest. Did he know? Had he always known? Kael had been careful. But Sion was everywhere inside these walls. Or maybe this was just the routine, the quiet machinery of control, and the timing was nothing more than a coincidence with teeth.
She searched his face. Found nothing hidden there. Just expectation.
Obedience.
"And if I don't go?" she asked.
Her voice cracked. She hated that.
He looked at her the way one looks at a minor inconvenience.
"Then the guards will remove you from the classroom. You'll lose shared instruction."
A brief pause.
"Your education will become private. With me."
The threat didn't need dressing. Seven hours a day. Every day. Alone with him. The thought made her stomach tighten.
"The choice is yours," he said. "The structure is mine. You are my True Companion, Lyra. Your life now happens inside what I provide. For your safety. And for my interest."
He opened the door. Torchlight spilled in, warm and distant.
"Rest. Until thirteen forty-five."
He left. The door closed. No immediate lock. Maybe because the window was open. Maybe because there was nowhere to go.
Lyra stood among the glass. The wind curled around her legs. She felt hollow and alert at the same time.
Fourteen hundred hours. Clan History. Guards on either side.
Kael would be waiting at the observatory. He would wait, and she wouldn't come. Or she would arrive with escorts, turning secrecy into a liability.
Sion's words stayed with her. A weapon that consumes you.
She felt consumed now. Exposed. Because he wasn't just dangerous in a fight. He was methodical. He didn't need chains. He used time. Schedules. Presence.
She collapsed onto the bed, dress and all. Stared at the broken window, at a sky that offered freedom without access. The Fang of Loneliness inside her felt useless against this.
How do you weaponize despair against a timetable? How do you fracture routine?
The predator wouldn't chase her. Wouldn't strike.
He would wait. Constrict. Close the space one minute at a time, until escape felt like a childish idea.
And the worst part was that he wasn't wrong. She was unready. Open. Fragile in ways that mattered.
The lesson wasn't about power.
It was about endurance.
And at fourteen hundred hours, while Kael waited for someone who wouldn't arrive, Lyra would begin learning it the hard way.