Molten gold eyes stared at the ceiling.
Riel had been awake for a while. He knew that because the cracks above his bed—thin lines where stone met stone—had become familiar again. He counted them when he couldn't sleep. There were eleven he could see from this angle. One of them split halfway through, like something had tried and failed to grow.
Two weeks.
Two weeks since awakening.
He hadn't told anyone the truth of it. He hadn't needed to.
"It happened in the Inner Veil."
That was all he said when they asked.
Kaelith accepted it immediately. No narrowing of the eyes, no pressing questions. Just a nod, like it fit neatly into how the world already worked.
"Figures," Kaelith had said, grinning a little. "Stuff like that always waits until you're alone."
The instructors accepted it too. Carefully, but without suspicion. Inner Veil awakenings were rare, but not unheard of. Dangerous, but survivable. The explanation slid into place cleanly enough that no one felt the need to pry.
Riel preferred it that way.
He pushed himself up and sat on the edge of the bed, running a hand through his hair. His body felt… fine. Too fine. Muscles responsive, breath steady, no lingering soreness. If he ignored everything beneath the surface, he could almost believe nothing had changed.
Almost.
He didn't summon his soul image. He never did unless he meant to.
Classes filled the days.
Normal ones. Invocation theory. Rituals. Combat. He wasn't in Kaelith's class, and hadn't been for a while now. Their schedules only lined up during open practice periods and shared facilities.
Which was where he found Seris and Varen most afternoons.
The three of them had claimed a section of the outer tracing hall, the stone floor already scarred with old diagrams and half-scrubbed chalk marks. Sunlight filtered in through high windows, catching dust in the air.
Seris came at him without warning.
"Too slow!"
Riel barely got his guard up before her sabre cracked against his forearm, the impact rattling up to his shoulder. He slid back across the sand, boots digging shallow trenches.
"Warn me next time," he muttered.
"I did," she said cheerfully, already circling. "I said 'too slow.'"
She lunged again.
Riel ducked, rolled, came up with shadow already threading around his hand. He shaped it instinctively, forming a short blade just as Seris twisted mid-step and kicked sand straight at his face.
"Hey—"
The kick followed immediately after.
He blocked it this time, bracing, shadow flaring as the impact drove him back another step.
Seris grinned, eyes bright. "There! That one was good."
"You're enjoying this way too much," Riel said.
"Obviously."
Off to the side, Varen sat on the low stone wall, notebook resting on his knee. He hadn't written anything in the last five minutes. He was just watching.
"You're leaning when you invoke," he said calmly.
Riel glanced sideways. "I am?"
"Yes," Varen replied. "Every time you anticipate a strike. It's subtle. It's also going to get you stabbed."
Seris laughed. "Told you."
Riel scowled and refocused.
She came in again, faster this time. He met her properly now — shadow answering cleanly, his footing steadier, movements sharper. Their weapons clashed twice, three times, quick and loud.
Seris vaulted back, landed lightly, then pointed her staff at him.
"You're better than last week," she said. "Annoyingly so."
"That sounded like a compliment," Riel said.
"Don't get used to it."
She surged forward again.
This time, Riel slipped inside her reach, shadow wrapping around his arm as he redirected her strike and tapped her shoulder with the flat of his blade.
Seris froze.
Then she burst out laughing. "Oh, I'm counting that as a win anyway."
"How?" Riel asked.
"Because I made you actually try."
Varen closed his notebook. "She's not wrong."
Riel exhaled, letting the shadow dissolve.
Rituals came easily now. Easier than before. Shadow invocations especially—threads of darkness responding faster, cleaner, like they'd been waiting for him to catch up. He didn't force them. Didn't strain. They just… answered.
The instructors noticed.
They didn't make a fuss, but the looks lingered a second longer when he finished first. When his diagrams held without correction. When his invocations stabilised before the others'.
Kaelith noticed too.
"You're going to make the rest of us look bad," Kaelith said one evening as they crossed paths near the dining hall. He bumped Riel lightly with his shoulder, smiling, eyes bright. "At least pretend to struggle a bit."
Riel snorted. "You're fine."
"I know," Kaelith said easily. "Still rude."
There was no distance in his voice. Just the same warmth as always.
Riel appreciated that more than he could say.
At night, though—
At night, the swamp waited.
It always started the same way.
No transition. No warning.
One moment he was breathing in the dark of his room, the next his lungs seized with wet, choking air.
Cold water soaked his boots. Mud dragged at his ankles.
Fog pressed in from every direction, thick and heavy, clinging to his skin. The swamp stretched endlessly—rotting trees, stagnant pools, pale growths pulsing faintly beneath the surface like infected wounds.
The smell hit next. Decay. Rot. Something sweet underneath it all, wrong in a way that made his stomach tighten.
Riel moved immediately.
His dagger formed in his hand as instinctively as breathing. Ivory, smooth and pale, its surface unmarred no matter how much blood it drank. It was solid. Real.
The monster was already there.
It no longer rose slowly from the swamp like it had in the beginning. It didn't need to.
Its second-stage form loomed through the mist, bulk distorted, body partially dissolved into a semi-liquid mass that sloughed and reformed with every movement. Veins glowed faintly green beneath translucent flesh. Bone showed in places it shouldn't, warped and protruding.
It had lost parts over the nights. An arm reduced to a stump. One side of its torso gouged open where Riel had carved too deep last time.
But it was still here.
And it was still stronger than him.
The thing moved first.
A surge of corrupted matter lashed out, faster than before. Riel twisted aside, mud spraying as the tendril slammed into the ground where his leg had been. He slashed in one smooth motion, ivory blade biting deep.
The creature shrieked—a wet, gurgling sound that vibrated through the swamp.
Green fluid sprayed across the water. The limb recoiled, partially severed.
Riel didn't pause. He never did anymore.
He pressed forward, boots slipping, body low. He aimed for the damaged section of its torso, driving the dagger in and ripping sideways.
The resistance was wrong. Like cutting through half-set flesh.
The monster convulsed, its mass collapsing inward—then surging back out.
A shockwave of corrupted vapor blasted from its core.
Riel threw up his arm too late.
The mist slammed into his chest, burning through cloth and skin alike. He screamed despite himself, pain ripping the sound from his throat. His feet left the ground. He hit the swamp hard, water filling his mouth.
He rolled, coughing, forcing himself upright.
His left arm was numb. The skin bubbled where the mist had touched it.
"Still—" He swallowed. "Still not enough."
He ran.
The monster followed, not with speed but with inevitability. The swamp itself betrayed him—ground giving way, water pulling at his legs, fog hiding the angles of attack.
A blow caught his side. Something solid inside the mass, bone or reinforced cartilage. He felt ribs crack. Air fled his lungs.
He stabbed blindly, blade sinking deep. The ivory edge flared faintly as shadow threaded along it.
The monster reeled.
For a moment—just a moment—Riel thought he had it.
Then the ground beneath him erupted.
A column of corrupted matter surged up, impaling him through the thigh and lifting him off his feet. He screamed again, hands shaking as he tried to cut himself free.
The creature closed in.
Its remaining eye fixed on him, filled with something like recognition.
It didn't rush.
It opened itself.
The core of its body split wide, releasing a flood of luminous green vapor that engulfed him completely.
Riel choked.
The mist forced its way into his lungs, his mouth, his eyes. It burned as it spread, crawling through his veins, lighting them up from the inside.
His vision blurred. His grip weakened.
He thought, distantly, of the soul image within him.
Not the final form he'd seen in the Reaches—winged, crowned, something vast and terrible and bright—but the current one. The one that was still just him.
Same shape. Same face.
Black hair instead of silver-white. No wings. No radiance pouring off its skin. Just molten gold eyes staring back at him from within, unblinking.
Incomplete.
Not enough.
The pressure increased.