The morning light carried no warmth. It spilled over the academy grounds like cold water, pale and empty. The students gathered around the training arena, the hum of conversation low and uneasy. The final blood trial always drew a crowd. It was the culmination of their strength, their proof of worth. For Kael, it felt like a judgment.
He stood near the center of the ring, his sword hanging at his side. The metal looked dull, heavy, like it belonged to someone else. He could hear his heartbeat again, steady and too loud. The hum underneath it had grown stronger. It followed every breath, a sound that lived just below hearing, like something breathing through him.
Across the arena stood his opponent. Calen Vaust. Taller by a head, his body wrapped in faint traces of magic, veins lit faintly with blue energy. A prodigy, they said. Born with a natural talent for channeling. His rune mark shimmered with the clarity of perfect control.
Kael tried to focus, but his eyes kept flicking toward the edges of the ring. The shadows there looked too deep again. The faces in the crowd blurred. He blinked and saw them twist into different shapes. When he blinked again, they were normal. Sweat rolled down the side of his neck.
Seret stood among the students near the edge, her expression tight. She mouthed something to him. Breathe.
He nodded once, though it did not help.
The instructor raised his hand. The arena grew silent. "Final match. No fatal strikes, but full power permitted. You both understand the conditions?"
Calen gave a confident nod. Kael stayed quiet. His mouth felt dry. His hand trembled slightly on the sword hilt.
"Begin."
Calen moved first, crossing the distance in a flash. His sword gleamed with blue flame, the air around him bending from the force of his channeling. Kael parried the first strike, but the impact sent a tremor through his arm. The next swing came faster, sharper, every strike carrying the rhythm of someone who had trained his whole life to dominate.
Kael countered, his blade ringing against the other's. Sparks flew. The crowd roared. But inside, he could barely hear them. Every impact felt muted, like sound couldn't reach him. His vision pulsed faintly at the edges.
Calen's sword grazed his shoulder, slicing through the cloth. Kael stumbled back, breath ragged. He tightened his grip.
Focus.
The hum grew louder. It wasn't the crowd. It was inside. The marks beneath his bandage burned, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. His chest ached.
Calen pressed forward, relentless. "You're slowing down," he taunted. "Was all that talk about you just smoke?"
Kael barely registered the words. The hum turned into a rhythm now, deep and hollow, matching his steps. His sword began to move faster, not because he willed it, but because something inside did. The moment steel clashed again, the air rippled. Calen's eyes widened as his arm shuddered from the impact.
Kael felt the ground beneath him thrum, his blood running hot. His vision blurred. The voice returned, quiet but clear. "Do not hold back."
He moved before thinking. His next strike cut through Calen's guard, grazing his side. The scent of iron filled the air. Calen grunted, stumbling, his magic flaring in defense.
Kael's breath hitched. He stepped forward again, faster this time. The hum rose. The runes under his skin began to glow faintly through the bandage. The crowd started to murmur. Even the instructor shifted uneasily.
Calen's expression turned serious. "So you were hiding it," he said. His aura flared, blue light surrounding him like fire.
Kael didn't answer. His eyes were unfocused now, his mind slipping. The arena rippled at the edges. The crowd looked like a wall of color, melting into one indistinguishable blur. The only thing clear was the opponent in front of him.
Calen swung again, a wide arc of blue fire. Kael met it with a vertical cut, his own blade glowing faintly red. The two energies collided. The explosion cracked through the air, sending shockwaves across the ring.
The force threw both of them backward. Kael landed hard, gasping, but his hands never released the sword. The runes on his arm were burning now, light seeping through the wrappings. He could smell smoke.
The voice whispered again, its tone almost tender. "You see how fragile they are. How easily they break. Show me what you remember."
Kael staggered to his feet. His pulse was too fast. The hum filled his skull. He raised the sword again.
Calen looked up, his stance shaky, his armor cracked. "That's enough," he said, his voice strained. "You've proved yourself."
Kael's head tilted. The words reached him, but their meaning slipped away. The voice behind them was drowned by the chorus in his own mind.
The crowd blurred. The instructor shouted something, but it was far away. The hum turned into a low chant now, voices rising in languages long dead. The edges of his vision darkened.
The world began to tilt.
Serets Point of View
Seret had always hated the sound of the arena. The way the crowd shouted for blood made her stomach twist. The metallic ring of swords against each other, the roar when one fighter fell, it reminded her too much of the underground pits she had grown up near. Even now, standing among well-dressed students and polished instructors, she could not shake the old memory of the stench of sweat and copper. The people here were cleaner, but the hunger was the same.
She stood with her arms folded, eyes fixed on the center of the ring. Kael stood there, shoulders stiff, every muscle tense. She could see it even from this distance, the way his grip trembled slightly, the way his head tilted now and then as if listening to something no one else could hear. She had seen it before. Not in him, but in others. The old cult acolytes who broke during their final rites.
The crowd was already whispering. Most of them did not understand what they were seeing. They thought he was nervous. Seret knew better.
She could still remember the first time she had seen Kael lose control. Back in the wastelands, when a group of slavers had tried to corner them. The fight had been fast, brutal. Kael's eyes had turned strange, like something ancient had looked through him. It had ended with silence and blood, and afterward he had been sick for hours. He had begged her not to tell anyone. She never had.
Now that same look had returned, sharper, colder.
Calen's movements were clean, measured, elegant. He was a prodigy and he knew it. Every swing of his sword carried discipline. Kael was different. His strikes came in bursts, wild and heavy, like something inside him wanted to get out. Each time their blades met, Seret flinched. She could feel the pressure from where she stood, the heat building between them.
The instructor had warned them all about over-channeling. When a mage forced their body to draw on energy faster than it could handle, it damaged the nerves. In the worst cases, it drove them mad. The cult had built entire rituals around that madness, shaping it into power. Kael had survived those rites, but she could see that they had never really left him.
The hum began then. She could not hear it clearly, but she felt it. A faint vibration under her ribs. The faint shimmer of red light from Kael's arm made her throat tighten. He had promised her he would not use that mark again. He had sworn he would keep it sealed.
She whispered to herself, barely audible. "Kael, stop."
No one heard her. The roar of the crowd drowned her voice.
When the first shockwave tore across the ring, she stumbled back, shielding her face. Dust filled the air. The sound made her ears ring. When it cleared, she saw Kael on his knees, panting, and Calen bleeding from a cut that looked deeper than it should have been. The look in Kael's eyes froze her blood.
It was not anger. It was absence.
He was looking straight ahead, but there was nothing in his expression. Like he was trapped behind his own gaze, watching something else move his body for him.
Seret took a step forward before the guards held her back. "Let me through," she said, her voice sharp. The guard shook his head. "The match isn't over," he said.
Her fists clenched. "It is for him."
The instructor was shouting now, waving his arms, trying to stop the match. Kael did not move. The air around him rippled again, faint at first, then stronger. The ground at his feet began to crack. His shadow twisted against the light.
Seret felt it then, that same old terror she thought she had buried years ago. The feeling of standing before something sacred and monstrous. She wanted to run, but she stayed rooted, forcing herself to watch. If he lost himself here, if the others saw what he really was, they would not let him live through the day.
She could feel her pulse racing, her breath catching in her chest. She wanted to shout his name, but the words would not come. Every time she tried, the crowd's noise swallowed her voice.
He looked up then. For a heartbeat, their eyes met. His irises flickered between red and black. It was enough to make her heart stop.
In that single moment, she understood that this would not end cleanly. The match, the academy, all of it would come crashing down around him if she did not reach him soon.
But she could not move. She was still the same frightened girl from the ruins, the one who had watched gods fall and demons rise, powerless to do anything but witness.
And so she stood there, surrounded by students cheering for blood, while Kael's soul began to unravel before her eyes.