The fountain in the east corridor dripped with the slow, surgical rhythm of a dying heartbeat.
Drip.
A hollow echo followed, bouncing off marble and steel.
Drip.
Theron Amina watched the water gather around the drain, thin ripples spreading and collapsing, as if the floor itself were breathing. He had been standing there too long. He knew that. Still, he didn't move.
Seventeen years old.
Flareless.
Lost.
His fingers tightened around the fountain lever, metal cold and slick beneath his skin.
"Wrong corridor."
The voice was polished. Bored. Almost friendly.
Theron didn't flinch.
He didn't turn around like someone innocent might. Instead, he lowered his gaze, eyes tracing the cracks in the tiles, the mineral stains no one bothered to clean in Glow-tier halls.
They never cleaned what didn't matter.
Behind him, leather shoes whispered against stone.
Damian Korr let the silence stretch.
He always did.
Theron could feel the others before he heard them — heat to his right, sharp stillness to his left. Not blocking the hall. Not yet. Just present, the way a fist becomes a threat long before it closes.
Theron slowly turned his head — not fully, just enough to catch their reflection in the fountain's dark surface.
Damian stood in the center, perfectly framed. Sandy hair untouched by humidity, academy uniform crisp, Bright Sparks insignia gleaming like it had never known dust. His smile looked practiced in mirrors.
The others were contrasts.
The broad-shouldered boy flexed his fingers absently. Tiny flames danced along his knuckles, crackling softly, consuming oxygen for no reason beyond proof.
The girl stood straight-backed, arms at her sides, sharp eyes scanning Theron the way a security scanner might.
Theron faced the fountain again.
"What."
Damian chuckled. A soft sound. Almost kind.
"You talk," he said. "Good. I was starting to think you were part of the decor."
The hum started in Theron's chest.
Low. Instinctive.
He swallowed it down.
"I'm going to class," Theron said.
Flat. Controlled. No emotion wasted.
Also a lie.
He had no idea where his next class was. Gallowmere Academy wasn't built for flareless students — it was built around them, like a maze that only opened for those with the right senses.
"Same," Damian replied easily.
His eyes drifted down Theron's uniform, pausing at the faint dock stains near the hem — oil and salt that never fully washed out.
"Difference is," Damian added, "I know where I'm allowed to walk."
Theron's jaw tightened.
The corridor hummed — distant ventilation, faint electrical whine from the walls, the academy breathing like a living thing.
"Which class?" Damian asked.
Theron opened his mouth.
Closed it.
He shifted to step past them.
The combustion-flare boy moved first. Not fast. Not aggressive. Just enough to block the eastern exit.
The flames on his fingers crackled louder.
"That's what I thought," Damian said pleasantly. "Transfer kids always get lost. No flare to guide you."
"I'm not a transfer," Theron said.
"Not what?" Damian tilted his head. "Not a transfer — or not lost?"
Theron didn't answer.
His fingers brushed his chest unconsciously.
The pendant.
Heavy. Pulling.
The combustion-flare boy snorted. "Look at him. He doesn't know."
Damian raised a hand.
Silence snapped into place.
"Let him breathe."
Theron inhaled sharply.
He reached forward and twisted the fountain lever.
The drip stopped.
The sudden quiet pressed against his ears, louder than the water had ever been.
Damian's gaze flicked to Theron's hand.
A tremor.
"Flareless?" Damian asked mildly.
Everyone already knew.
It showed in the way Theron stood slightly hunched, like he was apologizing for taking up space. In the way his uniform didn't quite sit right, like it belonged to someone else.
Theron stared at the wall.
A massive poster dominated it — Aetherforge Corporation.
PROGRESS THROUGH ALIGNMENT.
The letters gleamed, freshly polished.
"We're Glow-tier," Damian continued. "You know what that means?"
Theron glanced up for half a second.
Grey eyes. Cold. Tired.
"It means you don't belong here," Damian said gently. "But don't worry. People can earn exceptions."
The girl stepped closer.
Now Theron was boxed in.
"Usefulness," Damian said. "That's how systems work."
"I have a pass," Theron replied.
The lie scraped his throat raw.
Damian extended his hand. Palm up. Patient.
"Show me."
Theron didn't move.
Damian stepped closer instead.
His eyes caught the glint of silver at Theron's collar.
Everything changed.
"What's that?"
Theron's hand flew to his throat.
Too fast.
Damian smiled wider.
"Take it out."
"It's nothing."
"Nothing doesn't make you grab it like your heart's about to stop."
Damian hooked a finger beneath the chain.
Not a yank.
A promise.
"Don't," Theron said.
His voice came out wrong — lower than it should have been, threaded with something that made the lights above them flicker once.
Buzz.
Damian froze.
Then he laughed softly.
"Oh," he whispered. "You do have a spine."
Theron pulled the pendant free.
Cheap silver. Tarnished. Etched with faint markings that meant nothing — unless you knew what you were looking at.
He held it out.
Damian waited.
The silence stretched until Theron couldn't stand it anymore.
Damian took the pendant between thumb and forefinger, lifting it to the light.
His breath hitched.
Just once.
Theron saw it.
"Give it back," Theron said quietly.
Damian rolled the disc between his fingers.
"What is it?"
"It's mine."
"Everything on academy property is academy business."
"It's mine."
Damian traced the etching.
"Where'd you get it?"
Theron stayed silent.
Damian leaned in, lowering his voice. "From your brother?"
The name landed like a punch.
"Kaelen Amina," Damian continued. "Blackshore Penitentiary. Unregistered resonance use. Murder that never quite stuck."
Theron's fists clenched.
"Don't talk about him."
"My father sits on the Compatibility Board," Damian said calmly. "I read files for fun."
He slipped the pendant into his pocket.
"If you're smart," Damian added, stepping back, "this goes away."
The others moved aside.
Air rushed back into the corridor.
"Basement tier," Damian said lightly. "You're late."
Theron walked.
He didn't look back.
...
The east corridor of Gallowmere Academy connected to seven different maintenance shafts. Theron took the oldest one, the one nobody used, the one that led down into the stone guts of the building where the water system lived. He sat on the edge of a rusted pipe and let his hands shake.
Kaelen's resonator. His brother had given him the only thing that mattered before they'd taken him away, and now Damian.. Damian fucking Korr had it. Now Damian knew.
His fingers found his empty collar, tracing the space where the chain used to be.
...
In an office three floors above, a terminal hummed softly.
A Bright Sparks disc slid into a slot. A screen lit to life.
REPORT CATEGORY
Damian's fingers moved with the certainty of someone who'd done this before. He selected: Student Conduct / Unregistered Resonance
Then: Student Name: THERON AMINA
Then: Confiscated item: resonator (marked, potentially keyed)
His throat tightened as he typed the last line. He knew what this meant. He knew where it led.
Recommendation: Compatibility screening / Containment review
His friend with the combustion flare stood behind him, watching.
"You sure about this?" the boy asked.
Damian hit SUBMIT.
The terminal chirped once. The report uploaded into the academy's system, then forwarded to somewhere larger. Somewhere colder.
"Yeah," Damian said quietly. He was looking at the resonator now, holding it up to the light. The etching on the back was clear, once you knew what you were looking at. Not random marks. A glyph. A name. Kaelen.
His fingers brushed the mark and something in his chest twisted.
"Yeah, I'm sure."
...
Twenty minutes later, in a building downtown that didn't appear on any academy map, a woman looked at a screen and frowned.
"Another one?" she asked.
The man across the desk scrolled through the file. "Student Conduct flagged it. Seventeen years old. Flareless on paper, but they found a marked resonator. Academy-adjacent location."
"Name?"
"Theron Amina."
The woman's fingers stilled on her keyboard. Something flickered across her face—recognition, or fear, or both.
"That's dockside," the man said. "What's a dockside kid doing at Gallowmere?"
The woman didn't answer. She was reading further, tracing the connections. Theron. Kaelen. The dates. The locations.
"Forward it," she said finally.
"To who?"
"Screening. Priority flag."
The man hesitated. "Priority? It's just a kid with—"
"Do it," she said, and there was something in her voice that made him move without asking again.
A keystroke. A notification pinged somewhere else.
Somewhere else, something woke up.
And in a maintenance shaft three floors below Gallowmere Academy, Theron sat in the dark and felt the world shifting. Felt the machinery of the system grinding to life. Felt, in the slow, surgical rhythm of his own heartbeat, the moment everything changed.
His fingers pressed against the cold stone wall.
He opened his mouth.
And somewhere—in the water pipes, in the electrical conduits, in the air itself—something began to hum.