The air within the sanctum was thick with tension, charged like the calm before a storm. Alatar stood at the center of the chamber, his breath steady but heavy, ash swirling about him in practiced formations: shields, blades, wide circles that pulsed like faint halos. Weeks of training had hardened him, sharpened him, yet today felt different.
Barachas did not wear his usual air of patient instruction. Instead, the primordial's gaze bore down with a weight that made Alatar's chest tighten.
"You've proven you can command the ash under fire," Barachas rumbled, his voice echoing from every surface. "Now you will learn to command it while moving, while adapting—not rooted like stone, but fluid, like the storm."
Alatar tilted his head. "You mean—fighting while walking?"
Barachas' lips curved into something resembling mockery. "Walking?" His hand extended, and the ground split like glass beneath his will. From the ruptures, spears rose, dozens upon dozens, their edges gleaming sharper than before. They hovered in the air, vibrating with suppressed violence. "No, boy. Not walking. Surviving."
The first volley came before Alatar could brace.
A storm of twenty spears screamed through the air, faster than any before. Alatar threw his ash forward, his shields straining, his blades shattering on impact. He ducked and twisted, moving across the chamber floor for the first time since training began. Two spears grazed his arm and thigh; another cracked his shield and sent him staggering.
He snarled through the pain. Already his body was knitting itself together, blood sealing over torn flesh, but the ache remained. His ash re-formed around him as he shifted, no longer static, but moving—circling him like wolves around their master.
The next volley came—thirty spears.
Alatar's ash whirled faster, intercepting some, but more pierced through. A spear caught his shoulder, another sliced his back, driving him to his knees. His teeth clenched, his eyes blazing.
I will not fall. Not here.
He surged forward, his ash spears thrusting to meet Barachas' stone. Several shattered mid-air, but a few held, deflecting enough to keep him standing. His lungs burned, his legs shook, but he forced himself to move, to adapt, to dodge and command all at once.
---
The training grew harsher with every passing day.
Barachas doubled the numbers, then tripled them. The spears no longer came in predictable lines, but in storms from every direction, ricocheting from the walls, angling low to slice legs, high to pierce skull. The density of the stone grew, harder than before, as though Barachas willed them to mimic iron itself.
Alatar failed, again and again.
Spears slammed into his body, shattering bones, piercing lungs, breaking him upon the floor. Yet each time his blood rebuilt him. Each time he rose again. And each time, he fought harder, faster, more desperately.
His ash became quicker, sharper. He learned to weave smaller forms for speed, larger shields for force. He learned to move while commanding, leaping aside, rolling, twisting, never letting his defenses collapse. His mind split into fragments—one half commanding, the other half moving, the third half anticipating.
Still, the storm was relentless.
---
One evening, near the end of the second week of this new phase, Barachas unleashed a barrage unlike any before.
Fifty spears, hurled at once.
The sanctum roared with their flight, the air screaming as stone split the air. Alatar's ash rose in a storm, twenty shapes flying outward, clashing against stone mid-air. Explosions of dust and sparks filled the chamber. Some spears deflected, but most broke through.
Alatar twisted, dodging, his body slashed and pierced again and again. His shoulder split open, his thigh torn, his ribs cracked. He fell to one knee, ash faltering around him.
The second volley came immediately—seventy spears this time, faster, denser, unstoppable.
Alatar gasped, trying to raise his ash, but his arms shook, his focus faltered. The spears tore through his defenses like parchment.
He saw them coming, countless edges rushing toward him like the judgment of gods.
And then—
A voice. Soft, almost tender, curling through the marrow of his mind.
"You devoured the world of ice, Polaris Prime. Why do you not use its element?"
Alatar's eyes widened. It was Auryaire—distant, whispering, but clear as if she stood beside him. His blood stirred violently, the memory of frozen winds and endless tundra flooding his veins.
The spears closed in. His breath caught. His lips moved without thought.
"...Freeze."
The word was instinct, not command.
The world answered.
In an instant, the sanctum plunged into silence as a wave of frost exploded outward from Alatar. Spears halted mid-air, encased in jagged ice, their momentum frozen in place. Frost raced across the floor and walls, swallowing torchlight, casting the chamber into a pale blue glow.
The air itself crystallized, snowflakes spiraling from nothing, dancing in the breathless air.
Alatar stood at the center, trembling, his ash still swirling, now rimmed with frost. His body ached, but his eyes glowed with cold fire.
Across the chamber, Barachas had not moved. Ice crawled toward him but shattered against an invisible barrier. He stepped forward, brushing frost from his arm with casual ease, his expression unreadable but his eyes sharp.
For the first time in weeks, the spears fell still.
The silence after the frost settled did not last long. The broken spears of stone lay half-frozen in jagged fragments across the sanctum floor, a brittle testament to Alatar's desperate instinct. His breath came in ragged draws, the air thick with frost and ash. For a moment, he felt almost triumphant—until he lifted his head.
Barachas's eyes bore into him. No celebration. No pride. Only scrutiny.
"When," Barachas said slowly, his voice low and cutting, "did you gain command over ice?"
Alatar hesitated. His heart thudded, not from exertion this time but from the weight of the question. He had no answer that could satisfy. He didn't even know himself—until Auryaire's whisper replayed in the back of his mind: You devoured the world of ice Polaris Prime…
He swallowed, his throat dry. "I didn't know I could. It… came to me."
Barachas stepped closer, his heavy presence pressing against Alatar's spirit. "Then it is not mastery. It is instinct. And instinct," he said, his tone sharp as flint striking steel, "is fragile. Under pressure, it falters. Under weight, it breaks. If you truly wield two forces, you will bind them. Here. Now."
Alatar blinked, stunned. "Now?"
"Now."
The floor beneath them groaned as Barachas extended his arm. Stone cracked and rose, reshaping itself into dozens of spears, longer, sharper, and more numerous than before. The sanctum seemed to tremble with his will, and Alatar's chest tightened at the sight.
"This is your harsher trial," Barachas declared. "Ash alone will not save you. Ice alone will not save you. If you cannot make them one, you will fall."
The first spear shot forward before Alatar had even steadied his breath.
He flung his ash outward by instinct, a shield flaring into being before him. The spear shattered, but the force rattled him backward. Before he could recover, another volley tore through the air. He tried to conjure a wall of ice—the frost surged, but it came clumsy, jagged, too slow. Three spears pierced through, grazing his arm and shoulder, drawing lines of blood that froze almost immediately against his skin.
Pain seared, but Alatar's blood knitted the wounds as fast as they formed. He staggered, teeth clenched.
Two forces, he thought desperately. Two voices. Two wills. They cannot remain separate.
He forced the ash into a ring around his body, swirling furiously, while his left hand clawed toward the ground, dragging up sheets of frost to thicken the shield. The combination was crude, uneven—the ash trembled against the frost, almost repelling it, as if the elements themselves resisted union.
More spears came, raining like a storm. He tried to intercept with the ash, only for the frost to lag behind. His timing was off. A spear slammed into his ribs, cracking bone. He coughed blood but roared through it, refusing to collapse.
Barachas watched, stone-faced. He did not relent.
Alatar staggered under the endless assault. Each failure sharpened his fury. Each wound reminded him of his weakness. But through the haze of pain, another thought surfaced—faint, but persistent.
They are both mine. Ash I command. Ice I devoured. They will not resist me, because I am their master.
A spear aimed at his throat. He snapped his will outward—not in two halves, but as one force. The ash flared and froze at once, binding into a darkened shield of frost and soot. The spear struck it and shattered, shards scattering harmlessly.
For the first time, Alatar felt the two elements yield together. His eyes widened. His chest surged with pride.
But Barachas was already upon him, a dozen spears hurtling from every angle.
Alatar screamed, flinging his will wide. Ash surged outward, swirling with frost, forming not just shields but blades—icy edges wrapped in black haze, slicing through the oncoming stone. Some shattered, others deflected, but not all. A spear clipped his leg, driving him to a knee. Another grazed his face, blood freezing along his jaw.
Still he rose, panting, trembling, his arms spread as if to embrace the onslaught. The ash spun with ice now, not separate, but woven—imperfect threads in a fabric not yet complete. He could feel the power, raw and untamed, but his focus strained, splitting his mind to its breaking point.
Barachas's final volley came, heavier, faster, merciless. Alatar's shield cracked, his blades broke. The combined force of ash and ice buckled under the sheer pressure.
He fell.
The last spear stopped a hair's breadth from his throat, frozen in place by Barachas's hand. The old warrior loomed over him, his shadow vast.
Alatar's chest heaved. Sweat and frost clung to his skin, his blood steaming in the cold air. Yet his eyes—those eyes—burned with something brighter than defeat.
Barachas studied him in silence, then withdrew the spear, letting it crumble back into stone dust. "Barely survived," he said, his tone flat. But a trace of pride flickered beneath the iron. "But survived."
Alatar staggered upright, pain screaming through his body, but his mouth curled in a faint, defiant smile. "They yield," he whispered, half to himself. "They will yield."
Barachas's lips twitched—something between a smirk and a grim acknowledgment. "Perhaps. If your will is as unrelenting as your words. Tomorrow, we test again. And again. Until instinct becomes mastery."
The ash swirled faintly around Alatar still, now tinged with frost. The sight filled him with both dread and exhilaration. He had not yet bound them as one—but he had seen the possibility.
And that was enough.