Frost still rimed the garden walls where they had trained. Three nights of whispered command and resistance had stripped the air itself of softness. The vines that clung to the stone looked like veins, frozen mid-pulse.
Morning arrived gray and thin. The bells called the heirs to lectures, but Team Two moved slower, shoulders heavy, eyes rimmed with sleepless discipline.
Rowan's hands ached. The skin over his knuckles had split again, pale scars reopened by repetition.He stared at them while the instructor droned about the properties of aether currents, words dissolving into static.
He had not realized until now that resisting took more from him than obeying ever had. Obedience was muscle memory; defiance was will.
He flexed his fingers under the desk, remembering Ernest's voice—low, absolute. Kneel.Every syllable had felt like pressure inside his ribs.Every refusal like fire burning upward instead of down.
When the class dismissed, he lingered behind, palms pressed to the cool wood."I won't break," he whispered to himself, and almost believed it.
Mikel found him outside, by the fountain whose water never froze. The courtyard was nearly empty; only the sound of water and the faraway murmur of priests at prayer.
"You're shaking again," Mikel said.
"I'm fine."
"You're not."
Rowan exhaled, steam ghosting from his mouth. "Every time he says it, it feels easier and harder at once."
"That's the point."
Mikel knelt, dipped his hands into the water, then let it drip through his fingers. "He's teaching us to hold our ground in storms. But storms don't care what we learn."
Rowan frowned. "You doubt him?"
"I measure him," Mikel said simply. "That's different."
He rose, steady again. "Tonight, breathe slower before he commands. Don't fight the word with force. Let it pass through you. Anchors don't fight tides; they endure them."
Rowan nodded, though he wasn't sure he understood.
Celina's chamber was lit by one candle and the faint glow of her curse. The green light traced her wrist like an artist's signature.
She had not slept since she resisted his command. The memory looped through her veins—the pull of his will, the surge of fire, the moment she said no and the world didn't end.
She rolled up her sleeve again and whispered to the flame on her palm. "You listened to me," she murmured. "Not to him."
The curse flickered in answer, almost playful.
But she remembered the way Ernest's eyes had met hers—cold approval, yes, but something else beneath it. A recognition that unsettled her more than the fire ever had.
Was she free now? Or simply trained too well to notice another chain?
The question stayed with her until the candle guttered out.
The next training came without words. Ernest stood before them in the same walled garden, the moon veiled by cloud.
"This time," he said, "you command yourselves."
They stared.
He gestured to the space before him. "Each of you. Speak the word as I do. See if it bends anything."
Rowan's throat tightened. He whispered, "Kneel."
The word fell flat, soundless. Nothing stirred.
Mikel tried next, calm and precise. His voice carried weight but no force; the air did not answer.
Celina hesitated. Then she spoke softly, almost gently, "Rise."
A spark of green light rippled through the frost at her feet. It wasn't obedience, but it was reaction.
Ernest's gaze flicked toward her. "Again."
She did, louder this time. The frost cracked faintly, and for a heartbeat the air shimmered, bending like glass under heat.
Rowan swore softly. "What was that?"
"Echo," Ernest said. "Power follows will, not word. You will learn to speak with will."
He turned away, cloak whispering against the ground. "Again tomorrow."
After he left, they stayed. The garden felt emptier without him, yet his presence lingered like pressure behind the ribs.
Rowan struck the frost with his fist. "He makes it sound simple. Like it's just breath and will."
Mikel wiped blood from his knuckles with a handkerchief. "For him, it is."
Celina watched the frost melt where her spark had struck. "For him, everything bends. Even us."
Her voice was not bitter—only tired.
Rowan looked at her, the unspoken fear finally surfacing. "You felt it too, didn't you? When he speaks. It's like he reaches inside you and pushes the world around you."
Celina nodded. "And now he's teaching us to push back."
Mikel's gaze followed the fading frost. "Push back against him… or against everyone else?"
No one answered.
From the second-floor balcony, Halvern watched their shadows moving in the garden below. He had known since the first night—he let them continue because it was safer to see what grew in darkness than to imagine it.
He noted the rhythm of their movements, the way they staggered, recovered, repeated. He saw exhaustion sculpt discipline into something colder.
When the old priest joined him, Halvern did not look away from the window.
"You've turned drills into sacraments," the priest said mildly.
"They prefer this to your prayers," Halvern replied.
The priest's pale lashes lifted. "They will learn soon enough that obedience and rebellion use the same posture when viewed from above."
Halvern said nothing. The frost glimmered like ink spilled across parchment.
On the fourth night, Ernest changed the rule.
"No commands tonight," he said. "You will stand still and listen. Not to me. To the world."
They obeyed. The garden was silent except for breath and wind.
"Every sound," he murmured, "is a command waiting to be heard. The trees say bend. The wind says bow. The earth says kneel. Ignore them. Find the space where nothing speaks, and you will find yourselves."
They stood for an hour. The cold bit through boots, through skin, through thought.
Celina's legs trembled. Rowan's pride screamed for movement. Even Mikel's composure wavered under the ache.
But Ernest's voice never came again, and in its absence they discovered the most difficult thing of all: standing without waiting for permission.
When at last he dismissed them, none spoke. There were no victories to name, only silence that felt heavier than any chain.
Later, as they returned to the dormitory, Celina lingered behind. She watched Ernest's silhouette disappear into the mist, black against gray.
Her wrist pulsed with quiet warmth. She could feel the echo of his command there still—an old bruise of power that refused to fade.
She whispered to the curse, "He teaches us to resist, but I think he's teaching himself to command less."
The flame flickered as if agreeing.
Then, for the first time since her rebirth into this world, Celina smiled without bitterness. A small, secret smile that burned like a promise.
That night, the ink froze halfway through the nib of his quill, but he kept writing.
They learn. Slowly. Painfully. Well.
Rowan's pride turns inward; he no longer shouts to prove worth, he breathes to find it.
Mikel steadies them all; even I lean on his silence to measure time.
Celina's defiance ripens. She is flame learning shape.
The priests think obedience is a circle they tighten. I teach squares—edges that cannot roll back to their origin.
He paused, then added one more line, sharper than the rest.
Rebellion is not roar. It is refusal measured perfectly enough to be mistaken for peace.
He shut the book, the sound loud in the quiet room.
The Academy slept uneasily. The chapel glowed faint gold; the priests whispered their calculations.Beyond their reach, in the east courtyard, the frost began to thaw where footprints had pressed too often.
Four lights burned in the dormitory windows:Rowan's unsteady but alive.Mikel's even, untroubled.Celina's flickering, green-edged.Ernest's—barely visible, the smallest glow, like a coal waiting for air.
He sat by the window, gaze distant. His reflection looked back—calm, merciless, patient.
"The forest bent," he whispered, a ritual now."The nobles bowed. The beast knelt. The chain obeyed. The mirrors cracked. The heirs knelt. The priests hungered. Light bent. Silence held. And now they learn the weight of standing."
He touched the glass, where the frost had begun to melt under his breath.
"They will stand," he murmured. "And when they do, the world will kneel."