Kael awoke to frost in his lungs.
The training courtyard was colder today. Not by accident. Ysel had drawn glyphs across the broken stone at dawn—shaping temperature, air pressure, even light. Everything felt heavier. Slower.
It wasn't just to toughen him. It was to simulate war.
"Today," Ysel announced, tossing a burnt-out focus shard into the snow, "you learn how to shape without killing yourself. Or someone else."
She jabbed a finger at his chest. "That Core inside you? It's louder than most. Sloppier. Maybe even unstable. If you don't learn to funnel it, you'll be another crater with a name scratched on the wall."
Kael straightened his spine despite the ache. "Then show me how."
Ysel grinned without warmth. "With pleasure."
Resonance shaping wasn't simple. You didn't just feel energy and unleash it. You had to hear it—find its rhythm, like music.
Sarai explained it between drills. "Each Core hums at a frequency unique to its bearer," she said, sketching sigils into the dust with a burnt stick. "Yours? It's wild. Echo-heavy. Probably linked to your tethered memory state."
Kael blinked. "Meaning?"
"Your resonance keeps flickering into recursive feedback." She tapped his chest. "It's like your Core's remembering every flare, and re-amplifying it."
"That's… bad?"
"Uncontrolled? Yes. But harnessed?" She met his eyes. "It's lethal."
The first test was the Spiral Gate.
A giant arc of blackstone etched with inward-coiling glyphs. Standing inside it twisted the air, made your thoughts double back. Training here was a rite. And a trap.
Kael entered the ring.
"Shape a weapon," Ysel ordered from beyond the veil. "No focus shards. No sigils. Just you and will."
Kael raised his hand.
The Core surged. Heat ran down his arm. He reached—not with his muscles, but with intent. He envisioned a blade—simple, single-edged, nothing ornate.
Light flared. For a breath, something formed.
Then it fractured.
The shard-weapon exploded in his palm. Energy lashed back—slamming Kael against the inside of the gate with bone-rattling force.
He coughed. Blood, this time.
Ysel didn't move.
Sarai didn't flinch.
Kael climbed to his knees.
Again.
He shaped slower. Calmer.
This time, he formed half the blade. It shimmered—unstable, but solid. He held it for a heartbeat before it fizzled out. No backlash.
"That," Ysel called, "was shaping."
The second test was worse.
"Real opponents," Ysel said, gesturing to the twins across the hall. Tanith and Rael—silent, golden-eyed siblings who'd trained in Emberfall since they could crawl.
They didn't speak.
They just attacked.
Kael barely blocked the first strike. Rael moved like lightning—his fists sparking with twin pulses of kinetic shaping. Tanith followed behind, weaving illusion glyphs mid-motion, making shadows bend and double.
Kael tried to fight back.
His blade-shape faltered.
His breath caught.
Tanith's illusion split into three. One landed a hit—clean across his ribs, knocking wind from his lungs.
He dropped.
But his Core didn't.
It flared—reacting not with rage, but reflex. Light burned up his arm. Not a blade this time—a barrier. A curved shell of translucent white. The next blow hit it and rebounded.
Kael stood, gasping. The shield trembled, then hardened.
His Core was learning. Or maybe, he was.
Rael grinned faintly.
Tanith nodded once.
They pressed again.
This time, Kael moved with them—not perfectly, not gracefully, but with purpose. He blocked two strikes. Dodged the third. Redirected energy. Held the shield long enough to buy distance.
Then the twins stopped.
Ysel raised her hand.
"Better," she said. "Still slow. Still dumb. But better."
Later, Sarai sat with him on the wind-swept overlook outside the tower. Snow drifted over the valley below. The sky was violet with coming dusk.
"You didn't overdraw," she said.
Kael rolled his shoulder. "Felt like I did."
"No," she said. "You balanced. That's the first time I've seen you do it. The Core responded to control, not desperation."
He looked at his hand, faintly glowing.
"How much stronger can it get?" he asked.
Sarai tilted her head. "That depends."
"On what?"
"On how much of yourself you're willing to give up to hold it."
He frowned. "That sounds like a warning."
"It is."
She stood. "Tomorrow, we test shielding under live fire. Emberfall doesn't coddle its own."
As she left, Kael remained seated, the Core's warmth pulsing like a slow drumbeat beneath his ribs.
He was learning. Fast.
But he was starting to wonder if every step forward required giving up something he couldn't get back.