Kalen was standing... or was he hanging? He could no longer feel the floor beneath his feet. His hands were not his own. His eyelids were leaden. It was as if everything inside him had been scooped out, leaving only ashes.
There are screams all around.
But not his.
Not now.
He saw a hall with smooth walls of blackened metal, and in the center were people. Young men, young women, even children. They weren't being beaten... they were being broken. Not by pain. By order. By technique.
The figures in black masks walked around each person like sculptors. One of them said:
"You are not a human. You are the master's will."
And the boy in chains nodded.
Another whispered to the girl:
"If you don't scream, we'll start over."
She screamed until her throat was raw.
It wasn't sex. It was a display of power.
BDSM without "play". Without consent. These were rituals of personality destruction, disguised as "training".
Kalen tried to turn away, but someone grabbed his head from the inside.
"Look," hissed something in the blackness, "if you can't see the evil, it's hiding inside you."
"I... I don't want to see this," Kalen forced out, his throat feeling like it was filled with ashes.
"But you've already seen it.
The shadows in the room swirled. One of the executioners turned, and on his face was his own mask.
"Welcome, Lionheart. Today, you're teaching."
Kalen woke up in a cold sweat, with his hands covered in blood up to the elbows, and the sound of someone screaming behind him.
He was gasping for breath. His heart was racing.
Behind the wall — silence.
Reina didn't move. She was probably asleep.
He looked down at his hands.
Clean ones. But…
The tattoo on his back was pulsating, as if it liked what it saw. What he had experienced.
He whispered into the darkness:
"It's not real, is it?"
Kalen woke up abruptly, as if he had been pushed out of the water. He sat up, not breathing, staring into the darkness of the room. His heart was pounding so loudly that it seemed like it would wake the entire floor.
"Bitch," he breathed.
Cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
There's a metallic taste in my throat.
The tattoo on his back throbbed softly, as if it had a life of its own. It didn't hurt, it didn't feel hot, but it was deep. Inside his bones. Inside his thoughts.
"So... where am I now?" he muttered, looking up at the ceiling.
The room was the same. Reina was lying a little further away, facing the wall, covered almost to her ears. She seemed to be asleep. Although it was hard to tell with her. Was she even sleeping?
He stood up. His legs were trembling. It was like those damn sledgehammers in his nightmare.
He splashed ice-cold water from the sink and gripped the edge of the basin.
"That's it. Enough. I need to... move," he told himself. "Or I'll die in another dream."
He didn't go to breakfast. He didn't feel like it. His stomach felt like it was being squeezed into a fist. He just got dressed and went outside.
***
Academy courtyard.
The air was fresh. Sunny. Too contrasting after that darkness.
"Fifteen kilometers," he muttered. "Let's run, Lionheart. Let's run from everything."
He took off running. At first, just jogging. Then, faster. He could feel his heart beating in time with the pounding of his feet on the ground. His body ached, but it was a familiar ache. He wanted the pain. He wanted to exhaust himself so much that he couldn't think.
An hour passed. Then another.
Then push-ups. One hundred and fifty. Not in a row. With breaks. With shouting.
— One… bitch… two… motherfucker… three…
My muscles were burning, and my lungs were wheezing. My fingers were trembling.
Then the sword. Training on the mannequins that came out of the wall in the basement of the training building.
Kallen struck without thinking. The blade slid, bit, and rang.
Ward stood nearby, as usual, in silence. Not fully summoned. A shadow, like a reflection waiting for a signal.
When his strength finally failed him, Kalen collapsed on a bench against the wall. Sweat, blood, and breath.
"I'm stronger. I'll become even stronger. You won't break me," he hissed, clenching his fist.
***
Day. Academy. Lessons.
"Today, we continue our first-level magic theory class," said Archmage Lohrai, his voice as dry and brittle as old parchment.
Kallen sat with one eye closed, his head tilted to one side. His hand was on his cheek. He looked sleepy, but his attention was acute. He heard everything.
"First-nature specters do not interact directly with the cast if the mage's core is unstable," Lohrai continued, "but there are rare cases..."
Kallen bowed his head lower. He rubbed his eyelids.
Everything was blurry, but clear. He began to understand things that others had been memorizing for weeks.
In the next row, Raina looked up. Just for a moment. Her lips moved as if she wanted to say something. But she didn't.
Next came the lesson of Ficción, the creation of thought-forms and the consolidation of symbolic spells. Then came Efeota, the practical training of mana channels and mental defenses.
Kalen did everything on autopilot. Inside, he was somewhere else. In a nightmare. In a pulse. In the draconid shadow that lived somewhere on his back.
In the evening, he left again. To the underground hall.