The separation was immediate and absolute. Kira woke up alone in a cold, unfamiliar stone room. There were only a few beds, and all of them were empty.
Her shoulder was tightly re-bandaged, but her heart hammered against her ribs the moment she realized she was isolated. Where was Nirro? Was he even alive?
Before she could demand answers, the heavy wooden door was thrown open.
_________
When the children were finally aligned in the training yard, the atmosphere was fractured. The boys and girls were strictly separated for the first time, their eyes darting across the gravel to check on one another.
Kira watched the boys approach from a separate path, keeping the lines strictly divided.
Sapphire looked pale, his gaze locked onto Kira with intense relief, while Kealor still trembled from the lingering trauma of the pit but put on a smile upon noticing her.
Kira scanned past them. Again. And again.
No Nirro.
Kira's hands went cold. She looked again, thinking he had been placed far away from the others.
but still no signs of Nirro.
Sapphire saw her searching and immediately knew who she was looking for. His smile fell before he gave one tiny shake of his head.
Kira's chest tightened.
was he alive? Dead? Or just not here? Kira didn't have an answer and that plagued her.
Ryven stood at the front of the line, his jaw set, ready to introduce the weapons being set on the racks by the other warriors behind him.
He wanted to ground them in steel before Eoman could warp their minds again.
But Eoman had no intention of letting Ryven play a safe game, materializing In front of the children.
The children were guarded upon his appearance. Then they noticed an anomaly.
A woman stood beside Eoman—tall, her long black hair pulled back into a sharp ponytail, her arms folded tightly across her chest as she stared them down.
The children couldn't gauge her mood if the one they were seeing was her normal mood or if it was caused by the one who she was currently eyeing like it would kill.
"I wasn't notified of this arrangement" Ryven stated, one of his eyebrows arched.
His statement voiced out the same thoughts of the children but who were they to talk.
"It was a surprise," Eoman said enthusiastically. But Ryven didn't buy it. He looked towards the woman.
"He had something against you, or did you have enough free time to spare?"
"As much as I would like to say the latter, the first one is the most reasonable at this point." The woman said as her forest green eyes stared down on the children.
"Now, now you make it seem like I didn't offer you a choice and free will" Eoman commented,
"Surprises are fun. A little bit of spice can be a kickstart and an energy boost" he continued, "Gather round young mortals. Come and meet your new instructor" ushering them to come closer.
"Step back, Raging bull. You're taking up the centre of attention" Eoman's voice purred as he glided onto the platform. He didn't look at Ryven's murderous glare.
Instead, he raised his long, spindly hands, his fingers curving in the air as if grasping invisible threads.
With a sudden, violent snap of Eoman's wrists, a collective gasp echoed down the line.
Kira felt a rush of warmth that vanished as quickly as it came. Then to look around her. Nearly all had doubled down.
Across the yard, Sapphire staggered backward, clutching his chest, while Kealor dropped to one knee, his breath hitching as his aura visibly flared, wild and unchecked. Lucian felt a wave of chilling cold douse him. His hand wrapped his arms, rubbing it to bring back the warmth he just lost.
"Was it bottled up for too long?" Eoman genuinely asked, "Don't worry you will live. You barely hold an inkling to the one you slaughtered" his voice turned venomous at the last sentence even though his smile never faltered.
The aura around them plummeted. Kira sensed the mood and knew it all too well but couldn't place it accurately.
"Still speaking vaguely poetic. Eoman" The woman said.
"Authenticity was never a bargain. Ears open faster for things incomprehensible. Xencah" Eoman beamed.
"Your philosophies are a bore" Xencah stated
"No one remembers the lock until the key is missing," Eoman replied charmingly. "A lot has been spilled. The river cannot know its channel yet."
"Back to the introduction. Alongside your training with any weapons of your choice, you will learn the intricate nature of a peculiar existence known to many but had once existed in few by the birth of one" Eoman described.
Multiple eyes of children blinked, not understanding a word but still listened.
"Hmm, maybe I spoke too much. Xencah, you can carry on" Eoman said, vanishing before Ryven and Xencah could say anything.
'It's nice to see you full of vitality my lady' Eoman's voice echoed in Kira's head.
_______
The silence left in Eoman's wake was heavy, suffocating the training yard.
Ryven flexed his wrist, arranging the gear around it, though his glare remained fixed on the empty space where the man had just been standing. He turned his eyes to Xencah, silent, yielding the floor with a tense, rigid nod.
Xencah sighed. Her forest-green eyes swept over the line of children, stopping briefly on Kira before locking onto the group as a whole.
"The name has already been known. And as Eoman has riddled I will give you insights on what exists beyond the physical" Xencah's voice cut through the cold air. It wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable weight. "They are three rules govern the arts; Soul form, spirit power and your flesh"
She walked down the steps of the platform, her boots clicking sharply against the stone.
"And there are only three areas that can open it. Innate, Bloodline, and Practice."
She stopped right in front of Sapphire, who instinctively tensed under her piercing gaze.
"Innate arts," Xencah said, circling him slowly like a predator tracking prey. "It is a freak mutation of birth. A spark dropped into your soul by chance before you cried your first breath. It belongs to you, and you alone. It cannot be passed down, and it cannot be stolen without killing you."
She moved down the line, stopping near Kira.
"Bloodline arts," Xencah continued, her voice dipping lower. "It is a curse or a blessing carried in the marrow of your bones. An inheritance from an ancestor who changed their very nature. It binds you to a lineage. If your blood is pure enough, the power wakes up. If it is weak, you are nothing but a shadow of a dead name."
She stepped into the centre of the yard, facing all of them. She held out her hand, palm up. For a second, nothing happened. Then, the air around her hand rippled, distorting the light until a tiny, perfectly controlled spark of pure friction snapped between her fingers.
"And then, there is Practice," she said, extinguishing the spark by closing her fist. "The hardest path. It does not care who your father was, or what spark you were born with. It demands everything. But it is entirely dependent on three things: the nature of your body, the capacity of your soul, and your compatibility with the elements around you. If your soul is a glass cup, you cannot pour an ocean of the arts into it without shattering yourself."
She stepped closer to the line of children, her eyes narrowing.