But I'd probably try anyway, because I was stubborn and because we needed every advantage.

The system chimed one final time for the day.

[TEAM MORALE: RESTORED]

[ADRIAN ALLIANCE: SOLIDIFIED]

[VICTORIA'S SECRET: REVEALED]

[FATE'S SEVERANCE TECHNIQUE: AVAILABLE]

[WARNING: Attempting this will be addressed in future chapters]

[WARNING: Success not guaranteed]

[RECOVERY STATUS: 10 DAYS REMAINING]

[NEXT MAJOR PLOT POINT: 7 DAYS]

[COUNCIL MAKES FIRST DIRECT MOVE]

[PREPARE ACCORDINGLY]

I set the scroll down. Lay back. Closed my eyes.

Ten days to heal, seven days until the Council acted but not much time, enough for now though. Tomorrow, I'd start preparing for the technique that could kill me.

--------

The private training ground sat three miles outside Silvercrest, tucked between two hills that blocked it from casual observation. Expensive wards shimmered at the boundaries, invisible to normal sight but blazing like beacons to anyone with mana sense. The kind of security that cost more per day than most people earned in a year.

Victoria stood in the center of the empty field, arms crossed and waiting. The morning sun caught the black red veins spreading across her neck and disappearing beneath her collar. Four years. Maybe three if she pushed herself too hard.

I approached with Adrian at my side, our teams hanging back at a respectful distance. Lucille's hand rested near her daggers despite Victoria being an ally. Old habits died hard it seems.

"You're late," Victoria said without preamble.

"We came the long way to make sure we weren't followed." I stopped a few feet from her, close enough to see the exhaustion in her eyes. The battle three days ago had taken more out of her than she'd admitted. "Are you sure you're up for this?"

Her expression didn't change. "Are you sure you want to learn something that has a one in three chance of killing you?"

"That's why we're here."

Victoria studied us both for a long moment. Then she turned and walked toward a small building at the edge of the training ground. An old stone structure that looked like it predated the wards by centuries. "Come inside. What I'm about to explain isn't for general consumption."

Adrian glanced at me. I nodded and we followed her in.

The interior was sparse. Stone walls, wooden floor, a few chairs arranged in a circle. No decorations. No windows. Just a single mana lamp casting steady light across the room. Victoria settled into one of the chairs with the careful movement of someone managing pain. She gestured at the others.

"Sit. This will take a while."

I took a seat across from her. Adrian sat to my right, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. The door closed behind us with a solid thunk that suggested more than just wood and hinges. The air pressure changed. Whatever we said in here would stay in here.

Victoria folded her hands in her lap. "Fate's Severance. You know what it does in theory. I'm going to explain what it actually requires, and then you're going to decide if you still want to proceed."

"We've decided," Adrian said.

"You've decided based on incomplete information." Victoria's voice was flat. "Shut up and listen."

Adrian's jaw tightened, but he nodded.

"The technique has three stages," Victoria continued. "Perception, Contact, and Severance. Each stage is exponentially more difficult than the last. Most people who attempt this die during the second stage. Those who reach the third stage usually don't survive the backlash."

She pulled up her left sleeve. Black veins covered her entire forearm, pulsing faintly with dark energy. But that wasn't what made my breath catch. Pale scars crisscrossed her skin in geometric patterns, like someone had carved ritual marks into her flesh with precision instruments.

"These are from learning Perception," Victoria said. "When you first see fate threads, your mind tries to reject the information. Reality isn't supposed to work that way. The human brain isn't built to process narrative structure as a physical phenomenon. It fights back. Most people go mad during their first successful Perception attempt. I had to... convince my brain to accept what it was seeing."

She traced one of the scars with her right hand. "I carved these myself. Each cut represents a different mental anchor. Something to focus on besides the overwhelming wrongness of seeing reality's script. It took me three weeks to achieve stable Perception. Three weeks of cutting myself and nearly losing my mind every day."

Adrian looked ill. I probably didn't look much better.

Victoria pulled her sleeve back down. "That's the easy part."

"The easy part," I repeated.

"Perception doesn't hurt you permanently unless you go insane. Contact is where most candidates die." She met my eyes. "To touch a fate thread, you have to extend your consciousness beyond your body. Project your will into the narrative layer. That requires channeling your mana through your life force itself."

"Life force." Adrian's voice was tight. "Not just mana right."

"Correct, mana is energy. Life force is existence. When you channel existence as a weapon, you're gambling with how much of yourself you can afford to spend." Victoria leaned back in her chair. "During Contact training, you'll feel your body start to fade. Not metaphorically. Literally. You become less real as you push more of your existence into the narrative layer. Push too far, and you won't have enough left to pull yourself back."

The room was silent except for the faint hum of the mana lamp.

"How many people have you taught this to?" I asked.

"Seventeen, including myself."

"How many succeeded?"

"Four."

The math was simple and brutal. Thirteen dead. Four alive. Roughly a seventy-five percent mortality rate.

"Of those four," Victoria continued, "two went mad within a year and had to be mercy-killed. One disappeared after severing a minor thread and was never seen again. That leaves me."

"And the Demon King," Adrian said. "He knows the technique."

"Ezekiel learned it independently. Took him forty years of trial and error. Nearly killed himself a dozen times." Victoria's expression softened slightly. "He's the only other person I know who's successfully used Fate's Severance in combat. Everyone else either died learning it or died soon after."

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