I woke to cold air and the sound of my own uneven breathing, sharp at first, then stretching into a thin, trembling rhythm that didn't feel like it belonged to me.
For a moment everything was brightness, soft at the edges, blinding at the center, a wash of white that swallowed shape and depth until the world felt like nothing more than a memory pressed too close to my eyes. Slowly, so painfully slowly, the blur began to shift, like mist peeling away from a landscape at dawn, revealing outlines that sharpened by degrees.
An arched window surfaced first, stretching high above me like the rib of some ancient creature, its diamond-patterned glass scattering the morning light into fractured shards that glittered across the stone floor in shards of gold and pale blue. Then the pale curtains came into focus, hanging from thin rods, swaying with each draft that came by.
I blinked again, taking in the rows of beds lined with precise care, the way the curtains framed each one like small private worlds, the faint golden residue of Hope magic clinging to the corners of the room like dust that refused to settle. Everything looked designed to be quiet, restrained, controlled... and none of it matched anything in my memory.
My breath hitched.
The infirmary.
Oh, fantastic.
Day one at Velanor and I'd already unlocked the "medical emergency" achievement.
My chest tightened. My Core pulsed hard beneath my ribs, jittery and unsettled, like something small and furious was clawing for a way out. I tried to sit up, grimacing as heat flared under my sternum.
"Easy," a voice said softly.
Lyla appeared at my side, hair tied back messily, as if she'd run her hands through it a hundred times while pacing. Her eyes were red-rimmed but alert, wide with a concern she didn't bother to hide. She pressed a hand to my shoulder and gently guided me back down against the pillows, as though she feared I might shatter if I moved too fast.
"You've been out since yesterday," she said.
Yesterday.
The memory slammed into me. The heat, the roar, the fire curling up my spine like a second limb before it snapped free.
My hand flew to my chest, fingers pressing against the spot where the fire had burst out of me.
"Hey," Lyla murmured, catching my hand before I could dig my nails in. "Don't do that... You're okay."
Her voice trembled at the edges.
I swallowed hard. "Did I... hurt anyone?"
"No," she said quickly. "Everyone's fine. Just shaken. And you..."
Her gaze dropped to my trembling hands.
"You scared the shit out of me."
My breath left in a thin, rattling exhale. I sank back into the pillows, feeling the cool linen cradle the heat still simmering beneath my skin. Outside the tall windows, clouds drifted past in slow, heavy layers, dimming the room into a muted wash of grey.
"What happened?" I breathed, though I wasn't sure if I was ready for an answer yet.
Lyla hesitated, in that careful way that meant she was choosing her words carefully.
"Dale blamed it on power imbalance, said something about the Core being too strong for its vessel... But some of the others... they're twisting it."
She held my gaze, almost pleading.
"They said it looked like you were... doing it on purpose, or something. That you meant to hurt us."
The thought made something cold slip down my spine.
"I wasn't," I whispered. "I don't know what happened."
"I know." She smiled, fragile and exhausted, but certain. The kind of smile that said she's already known the truth, long before I ever spoke.
She stayed until curfew was called, telling stories until the nurse dimmed the lanterns and demanded Lyla should leave for her own bed.
Lyla sighed softly and stood.
"I'll be back in the morning," she smiled, lifting a hand to her mouth, shielding it from the nurse's view. "With breakfast. The food in the infirmary is disgusting."
Despite everything, a faint laugh escaped me, and for a moment I realized how lucky I was — that Lyla had simply decided we were friends now. The kind of friends who ignored visiting hours, smuggled pastries under their jackets, and stayed until the nurses threatened violence.
She squeezed my shoulder once more, then slipped toward the door.
The nurse finished her final round, snuffing out lanterns until the room dimmed into a muted blue-grey glow. When the last door clicked shut, silence settled over the infirmary. A hush that made my heartbeat sound too loud.
I shifted under the thin blanket, looking up at the vaulted ceiling where moonlight draped itself over the arches like something frozen in place. My Core still fluttered, uneven and restless, as if something inside me refused to be soothed.
Minutes passed.
Or hours.
Time blurred in the stillness.
The curtains swayed occasionally, stirred by drafts that slipped through the stone like wandering breaths. Each shift of fabric sent a faint rustle through the room, too delicate to be alarming, too persistent to be comforting.
My breath slowed and my eyes drifted. The moment I began to drift off, a subtle heaviness crept into the air, pricking at the back of my neck. A pressure that moved through the room, soft and slow, but with purpose. Like the faint pull of a tide drawing closer.
I held my breath.
The curtains near the far end of the hall quivered, but not from a draft this time. It sounded like something had brushed past them.
Someone was here.
The thought slithered through my mind before I was fully conscious of it.
For a heartbeat I debated pretending to sleep, but instinct won. I pushed myself up on shaky elbows, the blanket sliding down my arms in a thin whisper. I peered into the dimness, but all I found were the usual shadows, pooling beneath beds and clinging to the curtains like harmless ghosts.
Then a shape detached itself from the darkness.
Tall, still and watching.
My breath snagged halfway up my lungs, caught like a startled animal wedged between instinct and terror.
Moonlight cut across his face, carving him in fragments, sharp jaw, tense mouth, eyes locked onto mine with a focus so piercing it felt physical, like it reached beneath my skin and hooked.
I recognized him instantly.
Aren.
The Trauma Core.
Not softened by the distance of the atrium this time.
Not diluted by sunlight or noise or other people's eyes.
Here, in the half-dark, he looked carved from shadow, colder, angrier and impossibly still.
My Core stuttered violently, reacting before I could think, a painful jolt of heat ripping up my spine.
Aren didn't move.
Didn't speak.
He just stood there, staring at me like he'd been pulled here against his will.
He didn't look away. Not even once.
His eyes stayed locked on mine with a focus so sharp it felt like a threat and a demand at the same time.
The he stepped forward. Slowly. Like one would, when approaching something dangerous.
Each step was soundless, but somehow the room seemed to react anyway, the shadows stretching with him, the moonlight bending across his shoulders like it wasn't sure it wanted to touch him.
At his collarbone, something flickered.
A pulse of colour beneath the skin.
Too fast to catch.
My own Core kicked violently in response, heat flaring up my spine so fast I gasped.
Aren went still when he saw.
Utterly, dangerously still.
My pulse hammered, too fast, filling my ears with nothing but the sound.
Then he moved again, slowly, until he stood at the foot of my bed, close enough that I could see the subtle tremor in his jaw and the rigid line carved down his throat.
Close enough for the heat radiating from him to reach me in slow, deliberate waves, like he was carrying the remnants of an explosion he hadn't figured out how to contain yet.
He didn't blink.
Didn't soften.
Didn't even bother pretending he was here for a reason that made sense.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and hoarse, scraped raw, like the words were being forced through something unwilling.
"Do you have any idea what that looked like?"
A chill rippled down my spine. "I—I... what?"
He flinched at the sound of my voice, irritation flickering across his expression like the noise scraped against something inside him.
Another slow step forward.
Too close now.
Close enough that if my hand lifted even slightly, my fingers would brush his shirt.
"I wasn't—" I tried, but he cut me off with a look so sharp it sliced through the space between us.
"Don't."
He leaned in just enough that the shadows shifted around him, drawn to the heat rolling off his skin. It prickled along my arms, my neck, like my body recognized him before my mind could.
"I don't do this," he said, voice dropping to something rough and dangerous. "I don't come looking for people."
The confession hit harder than the heat, because he sounded furious about it, furious with himself for being here at all.
"But you—"
His breath caught, not gently, but like the force of it stole something from him.
"You fucking dragged me here."
His attention dropped to my Core and everything in him seemed to lurch toward me, a violent, hungry pull that he stopped with sheer force. He looked like someone torn between tearing me apart and dragging me closer, and somehow both possibilities felt terrifyingly real.
He forced out another breath.
"That thing you did on the field."
His voice felt like a blade.
"Don't do that again. People will start thinking, that you're just like me."
His eyes caught the moonlight, burning hotter than the heat coming off his skin.
"And trust me," he murmured, "you don't want them thinking you're anything like me."
My heart thudded painfully. "I didn't mean to—"
"Meaning doesn't matter," he snapped.
He closed the last inch between us, lean body angled over mine, his breath ghosting against my cheek, hot and too close.
"As soon as they start getting scared of you," he said, voice low enough to almost not be human, "they will break you in order to control you."
His voice dropped lower and even rougher than before.
"Don't do it again."
I didn't know what "it" was, and how to stop it from happening again. But I felt the warning in his tone like a hand closing around my throat, not squeezing, just reminding me it could.
Aren tore his eyes from mine with visible effort, his breath sharp through his teeth like he had scorched himself just by standing too close. He stepped back, not far, just enough to keep himself from touching me, and even that small distance looked painful for him to take.
He turned so abruptly it was almost violent, shoulders rigid, spine coiled tight as if fighting something I couldn't see.
At the threshold he paused. My Core fluttered violently, aching and hot. He stood there for three long heartbeats, shoulders rising and falling in a way that looked almost painful. Then, with the stiff finality of someone forcing instinct into silence, he turned and left without another word.
My fingers pressed hard against my heartbeat, trying to quiet the frantic pull beneath my skin.
Something in him had answered something in me.
I felt it still, humming under my ribs, refusing to fade.
And he had felt it too.