I did not return to the academy the next morning.
Not because I was hiding.Because no one told me to.
That alone made it worse.
After what happened beneath the roads, silence felt unnatural. I expected consequences. A summons. A warning delivered with polite words and sharp eyes. Instead, the city carried on as if nothing had happened.
That meant something was happening elsewhere.
I woke early and lay still, staring at the ceiling. Mana drifted past the window, pale blue and thin, moving in slow currents like fog that had forgotten how to rise. I focused on my breathing, watching how it reacted.
It still avoided me.
When I inhaled, the mana hesitated. It brushed against my skin, slid close to my breath, then pulled away, settling elsewhere. The pressure inside my chest remained steady, not restless, not demanding.
Present.
It felt different from before. Less like something caged. More like something that had accepted waiting.
I dressed and stepped outside.
The city greeted me with familiar sounds. Vendors calling prices. Metal striking stone. The hum of mana flowing through everything, controlled and orderly. On the surface, nothing had changed.
But people had.
Eyes followed me. Not openly. Not yet. A guard paused his conversation as I passed. A woman near a stall adjusted her stance, gaze lingering just long enough to be noticeable. Conversations dipped when I drew close.
They were careful.
Careful did not mean gentle.
It meant deliberate.
I felt it in the way people adjusted their pace when I walked past. In the way shopkeepers paused mid-sentence and resumed only after I was gone. Even the mana felt different, thinner in some places, thicker in others, as if the city itself was reacting to a disturbance it did not understand.
I stopped near a public training square and watched from a distance.
Children were practicing mana absorption under the supervision of a local instructor. They sat cross-legged on warm stone, eyes closed, breathing in slow, measured patterns. With each inhale, faint blue wisps of mana slipped into their bodies, drawn toward their cores like iron filings to a magnet.
I watched closely.
Some absorbed faster than others. Some struggled, brows furrowed in concentration. One boy coughed as his intake spiked too fast, the instructor stepping in quickly to steady him.
It all looked so simple.
I stepped closer without realizing it.
The instructor noticed me immediately. His posture shifted, subtle but unmistakable.
"Training session is full," he said before I could speak.
"I am not joining," I replied. "Just watching."
His eyes lingered on me a second longer than necessary. "Observation is permitted."
But his tone said otherwise.
I focused on the children again. On the mana in the air. I tried to inhale naturally, carefully.
The mana approached.
Then recoiled.
It slipped around me as if avoiding a sharp edge.
A dull ache formed beneath my ribs.
I turned away before the instructor could notice my reaction.
That was when it hit me.
This was not just about control.
My presence was interfering.
Mana moved differently near me. People adjusted unconsciously. Even trained systems reacted, not aggressively, but cautiously.
Like animals sensing a predator they could not see.
The thought made my stomach tighten.
I clenched my hands and forced myself to relax. The pressure in my chest responded instantly, settling, smoothing, as if pleased by the restraint.
That scared me more than the surge ever had.
Because it meant something inside me understood control better than I did.
I resumed walking, heart heavy, mind racing. This was what Sil meant when he said alignment. Not forcing the world to bend, but existing in a way that made it adjust on its own.
That was not a human way of power.
That was something older.
And the city knew it, even if no one had words for it yet.
I walked without direction, letting my feet decide. They carried me toward the lower districts, where stone roads grew rough and the air smelled more like labor than law. Where beasts worked under watchful eyes and humans pretended not to see the imbalance.
Toward where I grew up.
My father was near the pens when I found him, bent slightly as he worked. His movements were slower than they used to be, but still precise. Years of repetition had made his hands steady even when the rest of him faltered.
"You should be training," he said without looking up.
"I was," I replied.
"That is not an answer."
I smiled faintly. "Neither is that."
He straightened and turned to face me. His eyes scanned my face, sharp despite his age. "Something happened."
It was not a question.
I hesitated. "Something almost happened."
He studied me for a long moment, then nodded. "That means it will happen again."
I did not deny it.
He returned to his work, but his posture stiffened slightly. "Be careful," he said quietly. "People fear what they cannot place."
The words echoed what Lira had said the day before.
As I walked back toward the upper districts later, the sensation returned.
That feeling of being watched.
Not hunted.Not judged.
Observed.
I slowed near the storage annex without realizing why.
She was there again.
Lira sat on the steps, tablets stacked neatly beside her. Sunlight filtered down through the narrow gap above, catching in her hair. She looked up as I approached, already aware.
"You walk like someone listening for cracks," she said.
I stopped. "Is that a bad thing?"
"It means you expect the ground to give way," she replied.
I sat a short distance from her. "Sometimes it does."
She nodded as if that made sense.
"I am Lira," she said, though she had already told me before.
"Kavien."
"I know."
She tapped one of her tablets lightly. "They are talking about you."
"I assumed."
"They do not know what to call you," she continued. "That worries them more than what you did."
I looked at her. "Why?"
"Because names create limits," she said. "If they cannot name you, they cannot place you inside their systems."
I exhaled slowly. "And you?"
"I catalog," she said simply. "I observe connections. I notice when something does not fit."
Her eyes met mine, steady and unafraid.
"You do not feel unstable," she added. "You feel restrained."
Before I could respond, footsteps echoed nearby.
Two academy administrators approached, their expressions polite and firm. Not instructors. Not fighters. The kind of people who decided futures without ever lifting a weapon.
"Kavien," one said. "You will come with us."
Lira stood smoothly. "He was speaking with me."
"That does not concern you," the other replied.
"It does," she said calmly. "I log movements and conversations. You interrupted one."
The men hesitated.
Just long enough.
"We will speak later," the first said to me.
They turned and left.
I looked at Lira. "You did not have to do that."
"I dislike unfinished conversations," she replied. "And unfinished people."
She gathered her tablets. "You will not stay unnoticed much longer."
"I never wanted to."
"Then choose who notices you," she said, and walked away.
That afternoon, Sil found me near the outer paths.
"They are accelerating," he said without greeting.
"I felt it."
"You are being discussed beyond the academy now," he continued. "That rarely ends well."
"And Rethan?"
Sil hesitated. "He is keeping distance."
I nodded. "Fear spreads quietly."
That night, I trained alone.
Not with mana.
With awareness.
Barefoot on stone, I listened. To breath. To pressure. To the way the world leaned when danger imagined itself. I practiced restraint. I practiced stillness.
For a brief moment, white pressure stirred.
Not overwhelming.
Protective.
Like steady hands holding something fragile.
I understood then.
Whatever I carried was not waiting for power.
It was waiting for me to decide who I would protect when everything finally broke.