Atrius turned to her. "He's not done."

She sat upright. "What? Why—"

Atrius looked at Soren again.

"Now we train your aura."

Soren's pulse tightened.

Valenna's whisper slid like ice and fire through his bones. At last.

Atrius gestured sharply. "Drop the practice blade."

Soren obeyed.

"Good," Atrius said. "Again. Center your stance. Breathe in. Pull from your spine, not your lungs."

Soren inhaled.

Something flickered beneath his skin.

Atrius circled him, voice low. "What you showed in the duel—the ice, the backlash against Rivan's aura—wasn't technique. That was instinct and spirit."

Valenna whispered: And now we teach you to call it on purpose.

Atrius stopped in front of him.

"Let it rise," he said. "Not your magic. Not the shard's. Yours."

Soren closed his eyes.

Reached inward.

And—

The floor shifted.

Not physically—through perception. Through awareness. Through something like pressure and breath and cold clarity blooming from deep in his ribs.

A faint shimmer crawled across his arms.

Mira gasped. "Oh—oh gods, he's doing it."

Atrius stepped back, eyes sharp with something close to astonishment.

A soft, pale aura flickered around Soren's shoulders—icy-white, thin as first frost.

Valenna whispered, thrilled: Good. Let it breathe. Let it speak.

Atrius nodded slowly. "There. That's the foundation. Hold it."

Soren tried.

The aura flared—

Then snapped out with a sharp, painful jolt, like a candle crushed between fingers.

He staggered.

Atrius caught his shoulder before he fell.

"Not bad," Atrius said quietly. "Not stable—but not bad."

Mira hurried over. "Not bad? He nearly froze the floor!"

And she was right—thin webs of frost spidered across the stone around Soren's boots.

Atrius released him, expression unreadable.

"This," Atrius said, "changes everything. The Houses will feel that before sunset."

Valenna hummed, a cold coil of satisfaction. Let them come. He grows faster than their machinations.

Atrius set a steadying hand on Soren's back.

"Rest," he said. "Then we begin again."

Soren nodded once.

He was exhausted.

He was shaking.

And he felt—

For the first time since he arrived—

Dangerous.

He didn't get long to rest.

Atrius barely stepped back before the courtyard bells tolled—once, twice, three times in quick succession. Not alarm. Not emergency.

Announcement.

Mira froze. "No. No, no, no—tell me they're not this fast."

Atrius's mouth tightened. "They felt it."

Soren straightened, breath steadying. "The aura?"

Atrius didn't answer. He didn't need to.

They walked out of the training hall into a slow, building hush. Students had stopped mid-route. Instructors whispered sharply in corners. A courier sprinted across the courtyard, clutching a sealed scroll with the speed of someone carrying fuel toward a fire.

And at the center of it—

A crowd forming.

Soren and Mira pushed through until the front came into view.

Another parchment.

Fresh ink. Fresh wax.

Not Estrix red this time.

Deep emerald.

House Veylon.

Mira groaned into her hands. "Why do I even wake up in the mornings."

Students murmured, stepping back to make space. The Veylon envoy stood stiffly, holding herself like she wanted to be anywhere else but still trying to look superior.

Atrius took the parchment from her hand with a look that could have peeled bark off a tree.

"What now," Mira muttered.

He broke the seal.

Read it once.

Read it again.

Then he exhaled through his nose. Quiet. Controlled.

And furious.

He handed it to Soren.

It wasn't a challenge.

It was worse.

A claim notice.

A formal declaration that House Veylon was now "seeking the right of sponsorship" over Coren Vale, citing his "demonstrated combat potential, unique magical aptitude, and compatibility with the Veylon doctrine of disciplined ascendancy."

Mira nearly choked. "Compatibility? They don't even know what discipline is—they start knife fights over breakfast!"

Atrius turned to the envoy. "This is reckless. Even for you."

The envoy lifted her chin. "It is House Veylon's prerogative."

Mira snapped, "He's not an object."

The envoy didn't look at her. "He's an asset."

Soren's fingers tightened on the parchment until it creaked. Valenna's voice slid through him, colder than ice.

They do not see you. They see a weapon.

Break that illusion carefully. Not loudly.

Atrius's voice dropped. "Soren. You do not have to answer this. Right of sponsorship is not binding unless you sign. You can refuse publicly."

Soren looked at him.

"I know."

"And?" Atrius pressed.

Soren folded the parchment once and handed it back to the envoy.

"No."

She blinked. "N–no?"

"No," Soren repeated. "Not interested."

"That's not— you don't simply—" she sputtered.

"I just did."

A ripple went through the crowd.

Some laughed.

Some whispered.

A few looked horrified.

The envoy's face flushed with humiliation and fury. "Declining a House overture—publicly—is a hostile act."

Soren didn't blink. "So is trying to own people."

Mira snorted. Atrius covered a smile with his hand.

The envoy opened her mouth again—

—and a new voice cut through the courtyard.

"That's enough."

It carried authority. Precision. And an undercurrent of something older.

Students parted instinctively.

High Archivist Renly walked forward, robes drifting like smoke, expression carved from calm stone.

He looked at the envoy.

"You may leave now," he said.

The envoy went pale. "Archivist, I—House Veylon—"

"Will not," Renly said softly, "attempt to claim students like livestock. Leave."

She left.

Quickly.

Renly turned to Soren.

And smiled.

Not kindly.

"You're causing ripples, young man."

Soren met his gaze. "Not trying to."

"Exactly," Renly said. "That's why they're frightened."

Mira elbowed Soren. "New rule: no training aura before breakfast. Everyone loses their minds."

Renly ignored her. His eyes stayed on Soren.

"You should prepare yourself. Estrix will react first. Veylon will react worst. And Feldren… well. They'll panic." His gaze sharpened. "You've become a pivot point."

Soren didn't move. "I didn't ask for that."

"And yet here you are." Renly's smile thinned. "You have three choices. Bend, break, or become too sharp to grasp."

Valenna's presence thrummed—cold approval, colder warning.

Be the last of those.

Renly stepped closer, lowering his voice to something only Soren and Mira could hear.

"And in case you doubt the scale—your aura spike was felt from the North Wall to the Deep Library."

Mira swallowed. "That's—impossible."

"No," Renly said. "Merely inconvenient."

He inclined his head.

"Welcome," he said softly, "to the real Academy."

Then he walked away.

Soren watched him go, the cold inside his wrist steady and sure.

Mira exhaled slowly. "We're doomed."

"You're dramatic," Soren said.

"I'm realistic," she countered. "Doomed."

Valenna's whisper coiled around his pulse.

Brace yourself, Soren.

They will come faster now.

They will test harder.

And you will rise.

Soren tightened his grip on his training blade.

"I know."

And from the watching balconies above, he could feel eyes following him.

Houses shifting.

Plans forming.

The duel had sparked it.

The aura had confirmed it.

And now—

Now they all wanted a piece of the boy who called himself Coren Vale.

The boy no one realized was Soren Thorne.

Yet.

The courtyard didn't disperse for several minutes. Everyone wanted to whisper about what they'd seen, what they'd felt, what they thought they understood. Word raced up stairwells and down corridors like a fever — Estrix humiliated, Veylon denied, the Archivist intervening, and the one name carried through every retelling:

Coren Vale.

Not Soren.

Not who he truly was.

Just the mask.

And that was exactly what kept him invisible where it mattered.

Mira groaned as they pushed through the thinning crowd. "I swear to every star and spirit, if one more person looks at you like you're a walking political earthquake, I'm shoving them into the fountain."

"You'd get in trouble," Soren said.

"Worth it."

Atrius walked a few steps ahead of them, shoulders tense, expression unreadable. He didn't speak until they reached the outer terrace overlooking the training fields.

"Sit," Atrius said.

Mira blinked. "Me?"

"No," Atrius snapped. "Him."

Soren sat on the stone ledge.

Atrius folded his arms. "Explain the aura spike."

"I didn't mean to."

"That's not an explanation."

Soren hesitated a fraction of a second too long.

Atrius noticed.

His eyes narrowed. "You're hiding something."

Valenna's warning slid up Soren's spine like a cool blade. Careful. Say nothing that gives her existence weight.

"I'm just… learning fast," Soren said.

Atrius stared at him like he was trying to peel back his skin. "Learning fast does not produce a spike that registers across the Academy. And it doesn't eat another student's battle-magic mid-duel."

Mira looked between them. "Eat? I—wait, he did what?"

Atrius didn't look away from Soren. "You absorbed it."

Soren didn't answer.

Atrius exhaled. "You can't keep walking around pretending you're average. You're not. And the Houses know it now."

Mira scrubbed a hand over her face. "Fantastic. Just what we needed. Maybe Feldren will challenge him next. Or Hallowmere. Or the King himself."

"That won't happen," Atrius muttered.

"Why?" Mira demanded.

"Because he's not ready," Atrius said quietly. "And because too many eyes are now waiting to see what he becomes."

Soren finally looked up. "What do I do?"

Atrius took a long breath, the kind someone only takes when delivering bad news.

"You train," he said. "Twice as hard as before. Three times, if you can stand it. After today, there will be probes. Tests. Invitations disguised as threats, threats disguised as invitations. Some students will try to fight you. Some Houses will try to recruit or bribe or force you. Some instructors will push to see if you break."

"And you?" Soren asked.

Atrius paused.

"I'll try to keep you alive. That's the best I can promise."

Mira sat beside Soren. "And I'll keep you from doing anything catastrophically stupid."

Soren glanced at her. "I don't do stupid things."

"You duel golden heirs and accidentally ignite aura spikes that make archivists take brisk walks."

A beat.

"…Okay," he admitted. "Sometimes."

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