Morning in Halgrith Citadel never felt like dawn.
The sky above Anatheon Academy remained a perpetual darkened slate, the light filtered through storm clouds that drifted like war banners.
Thunder murmured in the distance, though no lightning fell.
Siege stood in the training fields before the bell even rang, breath visible in the chill air, fists wrapped, shoulders stiff from the day before.
A hundred feet away, Leo was doing handstand pushups on a moving stone pillar.
"You're up early," Siege muttered.
Leo grinned—upside down.
"Gotta chase the high before breakfast. You should try it. Nothing gets the stomach going like a little gravity defiance."
Siege shook his head. "My stomach's already protesting."
Leo dropped down in a fluid motion, landing on his feet.
"Don't worry, brother. Today's the day you definitely don't tragically lose." He paused. "Probably."
The field around them began to fill with students from Class Leviathan.
Grim faces. Stiff movements.
Bruised pride.
After the lesson last week on Forsaken Lands, no one was under the illusion that Anatheon was an academy in any traditional sense.
It was a forge. And they were all just half-cooled blades waiting to be broken or honed.
Combat Instructor Thrakkor emerged from the mist, cloak dragging ash behind him.
He never walked so much as loomed. The ever present bandages around his arm pulsed slightly with each step.
"Formation, worms."
They lined up. Ten Mythicals. Eight Titanics. Three Exalteds. Potential thick in the air like incense—sweet and suffocating.
"Today," Thrakkor said, "we test Aspect resonance."
The word alone sent a ripple through the students.
"Aspects," Thrakkor growled, "are not spells. Not powers. They are reflections of what your soul is becoming. You cannot lie to them. You cannot fake them. And if you try to command them without understanding them, they will eat you alive."
Siege swallowed hard.
Thrakkor snapped his fingers.
The obsidian floor glowed beneath their feet, lines spiraling outward in sigils older than language.
"Channel your Aspect. Let it taste the air."
Siege clenched his fists. Around him, others began to change.
Flames burst from a girl's spine—Titanic Aspect {Crimson Reaper}. Her hair caught like a wick.
Another student's shadow split into three, each moving with independent intent—Mythical Aspect {Triple Soul}, a triple-mind berserker.
Leo flexed, and gleaming yellow light rippled through his eyes. His hair grew longer into a golden mane.
His muscles seemed to bloom larger, and his grin sharpened into something wild.
"Hah! That's it—smell that, Siege? That's the scent of awesomeness!"
Titanic Aspect {Nemean}.
Siege stood there.
Nothing.
He tried.
Tried the way Thrakkor had instructed.
Let the mind fall away. Let instinct take hold.
Think of fire, of wrath, of the one who broke him.
Fafnir.
A flash of the cave. The heat. The suffocating presence. The hissed laughter.
He staggered back. His Aspect buckled, flickered.
A shard of seething copper light shimmered behind his eyes—then died.
Thrakkor's gaze snapped toward him. "Again."
Siege gritted his teeth. He tried to call to it.
To the thing in him. The [Dragon Slayer]. The myth that had chosen him.
Nothing answered.
Leo jogged over, slapping a hand on Siege's shoulder.
"Hey, it's cool. First time's rough. Mine only kicked in after I punched a brick wall and declared myself king of the world. Totally normal stuff."
"Leo, I can't feel it."
"You're thinking too much," Leo said, voice dropping to something uncharacteristically serious.
"Don't think about what you lost. Think about what you want to become."
Siege opened his mouth to respond—but Thrakkor was already on him.
"You." His voice was ice sliding against granite.
"Still no Armament. Still no resonance. You think you're special because your file says Titanic Aspect?"
"No, sir."
"Correct. Because right now, you're not even adequate."
And then Thrakkor turned away, gesturing to the next phase of torture.
"Pair up. Physical drills. No mercy. If your bones don't ache tomorrow, you've failed."
---
What followed was a blur of fists, sweat, and shattered pride.
Siege was partnered with a Mythical Aspect girl named Vashti, bearer of the [Sable Crown], a warrior whose strikes came like a metronome of death.
She didn't hold back, and Siege didn't ask her to.
She clipped his jaw. Again. And again.
Until he started reading her rhythm, ducking low, sweeping her legs, only to be caught by her follow-up elbow.
Every blow reminded him of how far he still had to go.
Nearby, Leo was wrestling two students at once. "Come on! I need more resistance! You're giving me pillow strikes, lads!"
Someone groaned as Leo suplexed them into the ground.
The instructor called out, "Switch!"
Next came weighted sprint drills across the ash field, then an obstacle course rigged with flame-runes and collapsing platforms.
Siege's legs burned. His lungs tore.
But still he ran.
Every step echoed with Fafnir's laughter.
*You're not a slayer. You're a child who survived by luck.*
He stumbled.
Leo caught his arm before he hit the rune trap.
"Hey," he whispered. "No ghosts allowed mid-run. Focus, bro. We're still breathing."
Siege nodded. They sprinted again.
---
Afternoon.
Final sparring matches.
Siege stood across from a boy named Moren, who carried the [Howl of the Deep], a Mythical Aspect that infused his voice with seismic force.
Moren opened with a roar that sent tremors through the ground. Siege rolled aside, barely dodging a shockwave. Dust sprayed into the air.
Moren charged.
Siege parried with his forearm, pain lighting up his shoulder.
He followed it with a jab—missed—and took a punch to the ribs.
He gasped. Vision narrowed.
He couldn't win like this.
But the {Warrior} attribute in him kicked in.
Moren's stance.
Weight shifted right. Left knee weak. Overextends his right hook.
Siege waited. Waited—
Ducked. Slid forward. Uppercut to the jaw.
Crack.
Moren hit the ground.
One breath. Two.
Siege fell to his knees beside him, gasping.
No Aspect. No Armament. Just survival.
---
After training, the students lay on their backs in the field, groaning, laughing, or both.
Leo sprawled beside Siege, arms behind his head.
"You know," he said, "you're more fun when you're not brooding like some tragic anti-hero. That uppercut was a chef's kiss of violence."
Siege exhaled. "Still can't summon Gram. Still can't even touch [Dragon Slayer]."
Leo turned serious. "You will. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But we're not dead yet. And if we're not dead, then that means we can keep going."
"I'm not going to lie to you. All of us faced horrors in our Trials. Although we had the training and support, it did not make them any easier."
"No matter what you went through, you have to get over it--or else."
Siege looked up at the sky—stormy, unchanging.
Maybe Leo was right.
Maybe not.
But he was still breathing.
And the training would begin again tomorrow.