Kael's body woke before his mind.
Pain sang through every limb—dull, insistent, the kind that set into your bones and refused to leave. His back ached from the leaf-thread bedding, his legs from the climb, and his hands from the echo-shield he hadn't known he could cast.
The training hall was nothing like he expected.
It wasn't a pristine arena or a candlelit chamber of ancient scrolls. It was a broken courtyard three levels beneath the main spire, half-collapsed and open to the cold mountain wind. Shattered stone tiles. Rusted weapon racks. Scorch marks in the shape of bodies.
Sarai was already there when he arrived, standing barefoot in a ring of chalk and ash. Her hair was tied up, her cloak discarded. She looked lean, brutal, alive.
Next to her stood an older woman Kael hadn't seen before—wiry, one eye milky white, the other sharp as flint.
"You're late," she growled.
Kael blinked. "I didn't—"
"Don't talk. Breathe."
He obeyed.
"I'm Ysel. I teach Resonant control. You're my headache now. Try not to die."
She tossed a shard of dull crystal at his feet. It pulsed faintly.
"Stand inside that and focus on your Core."
Kael stepped into the ring. The moment his boot touched the shard, his stomach twisted. The air around him shimmered. Sound grew distant. He felt… exposed.
"Feel that?" Ysel said. "The shard suppresses ambient energy. Forces you to draw only from your Core. No bleed. No leeching. Just you and what's inside."
Kael clenched his fists. "And what am I supposed to do?"
"Control it."
The shard flared. Energy whipped through his nerves like liquid fire. Kael gritted his teeth. He tried to contain it—shape it like before—but it slipped. Surged. A shockwave burst out from him, knocking Ysel back half a step and searing a deep gouge into the stone.
He fell to one knee, panting. "Sorry—"
"I said don't talk."
Ysel's face didn't show anger—only calculation. "You're too open. The Core is singing through your bones and you're letting it."
He blinked sweat from his eyes. "I thought that was the point."
"No. Control isn't power. It's refusal. You don't command the Core by feeling more—you command it by choosing less."
Sarai stepped forward now, her voice softer. "Let me show him."
Ysel nodded once. "Break him gently."
They sparred on the second level.
Kael stood opposite Sarai with a practice blade in one hand, a focus glyph scrawled across his forearm in chalk. She didn't draw a weapon.
"You'll lose if you wait," she warned.
Kael attacked anyway.
She moved like smoke, twisting around his strike, planting a knee into his ribs and flipping him onto the stone before he could blink. The air rushed from his lungs.
"Faster," she said.
Again.
Strike. Parry. Slam. Stone met skin, again and again.
Each time he failed, the Core within him stirred more violently—like a trapped animal, desperate to protect him. Energy bubbled to the surface, leaking from his skin in faint pulses.
"Stop holding it back," he snarled.
Sarai paused, then answered flatly, "You think this is holding back?"
She flicked a hand. A sigil ignited in the air—one Kael had never seen. It bent space. Just for a second. His vision twisted and he stumbled back, disoriented.
"That was a Veil Wound," she said. "Tier-Three, near-Forbidden. And that—" she pointed at the glow around his hands "—is what'll get you killed if you rely on instinct instead of discipline."
Kael wiped blood from his mouth. "I'm trying."
She looked down at him, breathing heavy. "So try harder."
By midday, he collapsed beside a dead fountain, shirt soaked through, fingers twitching with stray sparks.
He expected ridicule.
But instead, Ysel handed him a waterskin.
"You're not the worst I've seen," she muttered.
Kael took a sip. It tasted like smoke and herbs. "That supposed to be comforting?"
"No. But you didn't crack."
He blinked. "Felt like I did."
Ysel crouched beside him. "Good. You'll crack a hundred more times before you're any use to anyone. That's how you learn where the edges are."
"Of my Core?"
"Of you."
She stood, dusting off her coat. "Tomorrow, we test shielding. Real threats. Maybe live fire. Bring your pain with you."
That night, Kael sat alone in the high library, tucked into a corner alcove near an old window. The stars were distant pinpricks above the frost-covered glass. His fingers ached. His Core pulsed. His mind burned.
But he didn't feel defeated.
He felt forged.
Piece by piece, the boy who survived the Hollowroot was being reshaped—not by prophecy, or by the Cartel, but by effort. Sweat. Pressure. Choice.
He didn't know what would come next.
But for the first time, he wanted to find out.