The academy still smelled of smoke.
Days after the Fire Gate incident, the air carried the faint sting of ash that no cleansing ward could erase. The stone walls of the dorms still bore scorch marks like quiet reminders of how close everything had come to burning.
Jayden hadn't slept much since that night.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the Gate Guardian again — that colossal creature of flame and bone — and the way Headmaster Varrick had erased it from existence. That kind of power… it didn't just inspire awe. It hollowed you out. Made you realize how small you really were.
He turned the Moonshine Blades over in his hands, feeling the weight of the metal fade as he dismissed them into mist. His body had healed, but the memory of helplessness hadn't. He could still feel the heat crawling up his skin, the sound of students screaming, the smell of burning stone.
Kael called it "luck" that they'd survived. Jayden called it weakness.
The training fields were quiet at dawn. Mist gathered over the ponds and marble paths, catching the early sun like shards of glass. The academy's banners hung limp in the still air.
Jayden had come there without thinking. He just needed silence — somewhere to breathe.
But someone was already there.
Kira stood at the edge of the water courtyard, her coat hanging loose over her shoulders, her palms aglow with low flame. She was barefoot, her reflection flickering in the pool beneath her as she practiced — each motion measured, each burst of fire precise and deliberate.
The sight was... grounding. Her control was beautiful, not wild. The fire obeyed her, curved with her, respected her.
Jayden paused at the archway.
She noticed him. Her hand dropped, the flame dying instantly. "Couldn't sleep either?"
He hesitated. "No."
"Still seeing it?" she asked, meaning the Gate, the Guardian.
He nodded.
"Good," she said softly. "That means you understand what we're up against."
She turned back toward the pond. "Everyone's pretending it's over. That the instructors handled it, that we'll go back to duels and ranks and tournaments." A small flare burst from her hand, curling into the air. "But what happens next time?"
Her tone was calm, but her eyes… they burned like embers under glass.
Jayden's hands clenched. "Next time, I don't plan to watch."
That made her smile — brief, sharp. "Then prove it."
She stepped back and gestured toward the open space.
Jayden sighed. "You want to spar now?"
"Do you want to keep feeling useless?"
That shut him up. He dropped his pack and summoned the Moonshine Blades. The twin arcs of steel shimmered into existence, tracing faint trails of water through the air.
Kira's fire bloomed brighter. "Then show me what you learned from the Gate."
Jayden lunged first, blades flashing toward Kira's right flank. She turned with effortless precision, her flame tracing a circle that intercepted both strikes. Heat washed over him. He stepped back, water condensing around his arms in response.
Kira's strikes were sharp and economical — every motion clean, every dodge planned three moves ahead. Jayden was quicker, less refined, more reactive. Where she burned through the air, he flowed through it.
Their first clash broke the morning silence.
Fire met water in a flash of steam. Jayden's blades moved fast, his strikes clean but uncertain. Kira's flames curled in tight patterns, her movements sharper, faster, confident. She didn't overwhelm him — she out-thought him, guided him where she wanted him to be.
He swung low; she deflected. He slashed upward; she sidestepped. Every counter burned just close enough to sting, never to wound. It wasn't a duel — it was a lesson.
"You're forcing it," she said between motions. "You're fighting water like it's fire. Flow — don't chase."
"I'm trying—"
"Stop trying. Feel."
He moved again, this time slower. Her flames cut around his guard, grazing his sleeve, but he didn't retreat. He adjusted, letting his left blade dip — and the mist from the pond rose with him. His next strike carried more weight, water thickening around the steel like armor.
Steam wrapped around them, swallowing sound. For a moment, all he could hear was their breathing.
Then Kira feinted low — and her palm flared near his chest.
Jayden twisted, the flame passing inches from his ribs. He brought both blades down, their edges wrapped in thin layers of liquid pressure. The strike cut through the mist and splashed against her flame shield, breaking it apart.
She smiled, faint but genuine. "You're getting faster."
"Or you're slowing down."
"Cute."
They circled again. Firelight played across the water between them — two elements that should've erased each other, yet somehow kept finding balance.
The air hissed. For a moment, their elements balanced — neither yielding, neither dominating.
Kira grinned. "Better."
"Still lost, though."
"Obviously."
"Enough."
The voice came from behind them — smooth, cold, and impossible to ignore.
Jayden turned.
A woman stood near the water's edge. She wore the academy's black instructor coat trimmed in white frost, and her eyes were pale blue, so clear they looked almost translucent. Her hair was silver-gray, pulled back in a simple knot. Frost traced faintly along the hem of her coat as if the air itself bent to her will.
"Instructor Inbound," Kira said quickly, straightening.
Inbound studied them both in silence for a long time. Then she walked forward, her boots leaving prints of frost on the marble. "A spar before dawn," she said quietly. "Either foolish… or desperate."
"Desperate," Kira admitted.
Jayden swallowed. "We needed to train."
"And what are you training for?" Inbound asked, her tone unreadable.
Jayden hesitated. "To never be that weak again."
Something flickered in her expression — not approval, but recognition.
"When you fight, you fight yourself. Fire seeks control. Water seeks peace. Neither of you have learned to listen."
She gestured at the mist still hovering above the pond. "Show me again."
They sparred once more, and this time, Inbound watched with her arms folded, saying nothing. The morning grew brighter; the mist burned away. When they finished, panting and sweating, she finally spoke.
"Too heavy," she said. "Your steps drag. You chase momentum instead of listening to it. Water doesn't force its will — it adapts."
Then she turned to Kira. "And you burn too hot. Your strikes waste heat before they find their mark. You rely on power because you can afford to. Someday, you won't."
Kira bowed slightly. "Understood."
"Both of you are wasting potential," she said. "Fire burns without patience. Water flows without purpose. Together, you create chaos instead of balance."
Kira frowned. "Balance doesn't win fights."
"No," Inbound said softly. "But it wins wars."
Her hand lifted slightly, and frost crept across the surface of the pond until it froze solid. "You want strength. Then learn control. Fire must be shaped; water must be guided. You will train until your elements learn to listen to you — not fight you."
She looked at Jayden, her gaze like winter. "And you — stop mistaking reaction for instinct. Water adapts, but it doesn't panic. If you want to survive, stop fighting your fear."
Their blades and flames danced. Sometimes, the water hardened into a whip, other times into a wall. Jayden began to feel the rhythm Inbound spoke of — the pulse that ran beneath every movement, the current that connected one action to the next.
And when his blade met Kira's fire, it didn't hiss — it sang.
Instructor Inbound nodded once. "Better. You're beginning to hear it."
Then she turned away. "Training begins tomorrow at dawn."
They stopped only when the sun reached the towers.
When she left, the ice still lingered, catching the sunlight like crystal glass.
Kira exhaled slowly. "I think we just got drafted."
Jayden looked down at his reflection in the ice — faint, fractured, and trembling in the ripples.
He remembered the Gate, the Guardian, and the power that had made everything around him seem small.
He clenched his fists. "Good."
Jayden dropped to a knee, drenched in sweat and steam. Kira sat beside him, catching her breath.
For a long time, neither spoke.
Then she said, softly, "When you drowned… what did you see?"
He looked down. The memory of that endless, cold realm — the crushing dark, the whisper of the Codex — came flooding back. "Nothing. Everything. I saw what happens when you stop fighting."
She nodded. "Then don't stop."