Morning came slow to the academy.
The sun rose behind the spires, gilding the ruins of the courtyard in pale gold. Workers and lower-ranked unlockeds moved like ants, rebuilding shattered wards, re-etching barrier lines into the stone. The air still smelled faintly of ash, though the banners had been replaced and the pools refilled.
To anyone walking past, the academy looked alive again.
Every time the wind blew across the fields, it carried a hum beneath it. The faint residue of elemental discharge — fire, lightning, earth, and something deeper. The world had shifted that night. No one said it out loud, but everyone felt it.
Breakfast was louder than usual.
The main hall buzzed with conversation: theories, rumors, exaggerated stories of who had fought, who had fled, who had *looked* the Gate Guardian in the eye and lived. The academy fed on tales like that — on danger and survival. Everyone wanted to believe they'd been a hero.
Kael was doing his part to make sure of it.
"I swear on my element," Kael said, slamming a mug onto the table, "I fried one of those flaming wolves straight through the skull. Ask Theo. He saw it."
Theo didn't look up from his tray. "You hit the instructor's barrier, not the wolf."
Kael frowned. "Details."
Ren laughed, shaking his head. "The only thing you fried was your eyebrows."
Kira smirked across the table. "He's lucky he still has hair."
Jayden half-smiled, letting the noise wash over him. Their banter felt normal. Safe. And yet, behind every laugh, every deflection, he could see the same flicker of unease. They all remembered the fire raining from the sky. They all remembered how small they had felt when the Guardian roared.
The academy had returned to routine — but no one really believed it was over.
He spent the next few days observing more than talking.
In class, instructors lectured about *containment protocols* and *dimensional resonance*. In corridors, students whispered about which Sovereign might respond if another Gate opened. Even the seniors looked restless — glancing at the skies a bit too often.
But beneath all that, Jayden began to see something else.
The divide.
The academy wasn't just a place to train — it was a hierarchy in motion. Legacies sat together, wearing emblems of their clans like crowns. Noble-born aspirants with inherited relics or ancient affinities. They didn't need to speak loudly; their names carried weight.
Everyone else orbited them — hopefuls, gifted or not, trying to climb.
Kael fit in easily, his charm and lightning drawing attention wherever he went. Kira drew respect — calm, skilled, disciplined. Jayden… stayed invisible. He preferred it that way.
But invisibility didn't mean ignorance.
He watched, listened, *learned*.
He noticed how each legacy family trained differently. The Frostborne line used meditation to manipulate temperature, their students chilling the air around them without casting. The Ignis Order drilled in formation, turning their fire into choreography — group tactics over raw power. The Tempest Clan practiced through dueling circles, lightning dancing between their blades in arcs of precision.
Jayden absorbed it all. Every stance, every motion.
Even if no one saw him watching, he was always learning.
---
Three nights later, the academy held a memorial.
For the fallen students, the instructors gathered in the amphitheater, torches burning in a wide circle. Varrick stood in the center, his voice calm, resonant.
"Each Gate tests not our strength," he said, "but our arrogance. To command an element is not to own it. Remember that."
The torches flickered. A faint wind swept across the gathering, carrying sparks into the sky. Jayden stared upward, where the embers vanished into the stars.
For a moment, he could swear he heard the echo of the Guardian's last roar — not in his ears, but somewhere deep inside.
He didn't look away.
---
After the ceremony, he found himself wandering the outer courtyard — the one closest to the old western wall, where the aberrants had breached. The marble was cracked, but new sigils glowed faintly across the repairs.
Someone else was there.
"Instructor Inbound," Jayden said quietly.
She stood at the wall, her coat unbuttoned, her hair loose in the wind. She didn't turn. "Still awake?"
"Couldn't sleep," he said.
A faint smile touched her lips. "That seems to be a theme."
Jayden hesitated, then asked, "That night — the Guardian. You didn't even flinch. How?"
Inbound tilted her head. "Because fear isn't something you banish. It's something you carry until it stops shaking your hand."
Her tone was soft, but it cut through him.
She looked back at him then, her eyes glacial. "You want to grow stronger, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Then stop trying to be fearless. Learn to fight afraid."
She turned, her boots crunching against the stone. "Tomorrow at dawn. Bring your blades. And your resolve."
---
That night, Jayden sat on his bunk long after everyone else had drifted to sleep. The moonlight pooled across the floor, bright enough to catch the faint shimmer of his sigil — the one he kept hidden beneath the cloth wrapped around his wrist.
It pulsed once, faintly — like a heartbeat.
The memory of Varrick's power, Kira's control, the Guardian's roar — they all burned through him at once.
He didn't need to be fearless.
He just needed to stop standing still.
He exhaled slowly and whispered to himself.
"Tomorrow."