The door of the training hall shuts behind us with a dull, heavy thud.
The air is different here.
Heavier. Saturated with heat and lingering mana.
Every wall carries the scars of past battles — blackened fractures, glassed-over impact marks, flames fossilized into stone. Burned training dummies line the edges of the hall. Some are half-melted. Others snapped clean in two.
No one speaks.
Students train in silence, focused.
The kind of silence that doesn't calm you.
The kind that presses down on your chest.
I clench my fists.
Brask steps forward, eyes shining despite the tension.
"Damn…" he breathes. "This looks like a battlefield."
I nod.
"Let's head to the back."
He agrees immediately.
We move across the hall toward a more open section, away from prying eyes. I set my bag against the wall and shrug off my jacket. The heat hits my skin instantly. I breathe in slowly.
Mana is already moving.
I can feel it — a familiar pressure behind my sternum. Steady. Controlled.
Brask faces me.
"How do we do this?" he asks. "Full force… or take it easy?"
I study him for a moment.
"Real training."
He grins.
"I like the way you think."
We move without a signal.
He attacks first.
Fast. Direct. His fist cuts toward my face. I step back, block, pivot. The impact travels up my arm. He hits hard. Brutal. Not elegant — but efficient.
I counter with a short strike to his ribs.
He absorbs it, grunts, keeps pushing.
No fire yet.
Our footsteps echo across the stone. Blows chain together. Brask advances relentlessly. Even when he takes hits. Even when he misses.
He rarely retreats.
I shift my weight, hook his balance, and slam him to the ground.
He rolls and springs back up instantly, breathing harder now.
"You're tough," he mutters, wiping blood from his lip.
I say nothing.
The pressure inside me builds.
Mana stirs.
Fire waits.
Brask feels it too.
"You can go ahead," he says. "I'm not holding back."
I close my eyes for a brief second.
When I open them, the fire answers.
Not explosive.
A dark red flame — dense, compact — coils around my hand like an extension of my arm. It barely crackles.
It obeys.
Brask takes a step back, inhales deeply—
Then his own fire erupts. Wider. Wilder. Bright orange. Unstable.
We charge.
Heat bursts between us.
Flames collide and recoil. I feel my mana draining — slowly, steadily. I compress the fire, force it inward. Denser. Stable.
Brask attacks head-on again. Always forward.
I slip to the side. My flame elongates, hardening for an instant into the rough shape of a short blade.
A red fire blade — imperfect, but sharp.
I strike.
His shoulder burns. Not deep enough to cripple. Just enough to mark.
He clenches his teeth and retaliates with a wide, uncontrolled wave of flame that forces me back. The ground fractures beneath the impact.
He's powerful.
But he wastes energy.
I focus.
Every alteration costs something. I can feel it. Shaping fire pulls harder on my reserves. I breathe. Step. Turn. My flame reforms — simpler now. More compact.
I strike again.
This time Brask drops to one knee. His fire flickers. His mana destabilizes. His breathing turns ragged.
"Damn…" he exhales.
I could continue.
I don't.
The fire fades from my hand. The blade dissolves into red sparks. The heat slowly settles.
He looks up at me, surprised.
"Why'd you stop?"
"Because you're not my enemy."
Silence.
Then Brask laughs — raw, breathless. Almost nervous.
"Seriously… you really are something else, Arin."
He pushes himself up and slides against the wall. I sit a short distance away. My heartbeat still pounds. Mana takes time to calm.
The silence returns.
But it's different now.
Lighter.
As if the hall has acknowledged us.
Warmth lingers in my arms — a dull internal burn. My reserves aren't empty, but they're worn thin. I feel them folding inward slowly, like a tired muscle.
Brask lets his head fall back against the wall.
"I've never seen anyone control fire like that," he says quietly. "Not here, at least."
I shrug.
He chuckles faintly.
"Or maybe you're just… not normal."
I don't respond.
He turns toward me.
"Doesn't it get to you? The Academy. The nobles. The way they look at you?"
I stare at the darkened ceiling.
"Yes."
"Then why act like it doesn't affect you?"
It takes me a moment.
"Because if I start reacting… I won't stop."
He nods slowly.
He understands more than I expected.
"Me… if I don't react," he says, "I don't exist."
His words hang between us.
I look at him.
"Why did you really want to train with me?"
He blinks.
"Because you didn't look away this morning."
"A lot of people didn't."
"Yeah. But you… you didn't smile either."
Silence.
"The nobles," he continues, "look like they own the place. The commoners look like they should be grateful just to stand here. You looked like all of it was beneath you."
My jaw tightens.
"It is."
He inhales slowly.
"I grew up in a town where fire was a luxury. We didn't use it to fight. Just to survive. To warm ourselves. To cook. To protect."
He raises his hand, staring at the faint heat lingering there.
"Here… they use it to rule."
Something tightens in my chest.
"Fire isn't the problem," I say. "It's what we choose to do with it."
Brask smiles faintly.
"Ever think about becoming an instructor? Or a philosopher?"
"No."
"Good. You'd be terrible at comforting people."
A short laugh escapes me before I can stop it.
He stares.
"Hey… you smiled."
"You imagined it."
He straightens slightly.
"Aydan… have you ever lost someone?"
My body stiffens before I can hide it.
"Yes."
He doesn't ask who.
He doesn't ask how.
"Sorry."
I nod once.
Students move in the distance, flames igniting and dying. The hall pulses with energy, but it feels far away.
"You know," Brask says, "if I'm still here in a few years… I'd like us to meet again on a real battlefield."
I look at him.
"Why?"
"Because if I have to fight for something… I'd rather stand beside someone who doesn't just control his fire…"
"…but himself."
I hold his gaze.
"If we end up there," I say quietly, "then a lot of things will have gone wrong."
He smiles, almost sadly.
"Or we'll have survived."
I stand. My muscles protest.
"We should stop for today."
"Yeah."
We gather our things. As we leave, I feel eyes on us.
Not hostile.
Not admiring.
Just watching.
Brask feels it too.
Outside, the daylight hits too hard. The air is cooler. Cleaner.
He stretches.
"Hey."
I turn.
"Thanks."
"For what?"
"For not treating me like a commoner… or like a noble."
I study him for a few seconds.
"You're neither. You're just Brask."
He smiles — genuinely this time.
"And you're really weird, Arin."
"You've said that already."
"Yeah. But now I mean it respectfully."
We walk in opposite directions.
After a few steps, I stop.
I look at my hand.
No flame.
But I can still feel it. Dense. Quiet.
For the first time in a long while, something becomes clear.
I won't grow stronger alone.
And that thought…
reassures me almost as much as it unsettles me.