By the time the sun rose, Ezra had already been waiting for hours.
He'd dragged Theodore from bed before dawn, gripping the man's shoulder hard enough to bruise. "The courtyard. Sunrise." No explanation. No room for refusal.
Theodore hadn't even blinked.
Now, as the sky bled from gray to gold, the training grounds remained empty. The stones beneath Ezra's knees held onto the night's chill, leaching the warmth from his bones. Wind slithered between the pillars, carrying the scent of damp earth and iron. No footsteps. No voice. Only the slow, creeping realization that he'd been a fool.
The sun climbed higher, a white-hot brand pressed against his neck. Sweat carved paths down his temples. His vision wavered—blurred at the edges like old parchment burning. Still, he didn't move. This was the test. It had to be.
But when dusk came, painting the courtyard in shades of bruise and blood, the only thing that met Ezra was the wind's mocking whisper.
His legs gave out first. Then his arms. He collapsed face-down onto the stones, cheek pressed against their unforgiving surface. Shame burned hotter than the sun ever had.
Had he really believed that drunken rambling? That some celestial force would deign to speak to him? Maybe the gods were just another lie sold to desperate fools—another way to make the wretched masses kneel.
A dry sob wrenched itself from his throat.
He'd never left Arkanis before this. Never stepped beyond District Five's corpse-strewn alleys, where the air clung thick with the stench of rotting fish and rusted pipes. And now? The thought of returning—of choking on those familiar, suffocating shadows—made his stomach clench like a fist.
He wouldn't go back.
Couldn't.
He'd carve out his own lungs before he'd let them drag him back to that graveyard of a district.
The world beyond the walls haunted him. Stories flickered in his mind like candlelight:the ocean, a monstrous, living thing that stretched farther than the eye could see. Water so vast it could drown cities. So salt-bitter it would crust your skin white. He'd heard traders laugh about it—"You've never seen the sea, boy? It's like staring into the gods' own nightmares."
He wanted that.
Not the gods. Not their hollow promises.
But the terror of something endless.
The Isle of Noctis, where the moon never set and the streets ran silver with starlight. A land of scholars and assassins, they said, where every shadow hid a secret and every smile was a knife.
Sylvanna, where the elves wove magic into their very bones. Their forests grew upside-down, roots clawing at the sky, and their wine was said to taste like stolen memories.
Drakonia, a kingdom carved from volcanic rock, where dragon-blooded nobles wore their scales like jewelry and spat fire with every word.
Lycanthos, the wolf-realms—a place of blizzards and blood-moons, where children learned to shift their skin before they learned to write their names.
The Xian Empire, sprawling and ancient, where jade palaces floated above the clouds and the emperor's word could unmake mountains.
The Moreavean Wasteland, where the sand sang at dusk and the bones of dead gods poked through the dunes like broken teeth.
He wanted it all.
Ezra surged to his feet, tears evaporating before they could fall. The humiliation burned worse than the midday sun ever had - not merely the sting of being abandoned, but the crushing realization of being utterly forgettable. A gutter rat so insignificant even the gods couldn't be bothered to ignore him. His worth measured and found infinitesimal.
His hands trembled violently. Not from exhaustion or fear, but from something primal and ravenous clawing its way up from the pit of his stomach, scraping against his ribs like a starved beast testing the bars of its cage. The heat spread through his chest like spilled mercury, molten and heavy.
He was nothing.
He wanted everything.
The air around him began to shimmer and warp, distorting like molten glass under a glassblower's torch. Light - not the gentle glow of lanterns or even the harsh glare of sunlight - but something far more visceral erupted from his fingertips. It didn't shine or radiate - it unspooled in jagged tendrils, as though his very veins had ruptured and were now hemorrhaging liquid daylight. The ancient courtyard stones beneath his feet blackened instantly, their surfaces fracturing into intricate, starburst patterns that spread outward like some terrible crystalline plague.
"No—"
The denial shattered in his raw throat, barely audible over the roaring in his ears. This wasn't release or catharsis. This was violation - something ancient and insatiable forcing its way through the cracks in his soul, wearing his skin like ill-fitting armor. The power didn't feel like his own, but rather like he was merely the conduit for something far older and hungrier.
The light lunged.
It consumed the shadows first - not banishing them, but devouring them with terrifying sentience, leaving behind perfect, lightless voids where darkness had once been. The stone pillars supporting the courtyard colonnades cracked with reports like snapping bones, their inner structures exposed in searing white filaments that pulsed like exposed nerves. The very air screamed as it was torn asunder, molecules ripped apart by the ravenous energy. Somewhere beyond the static filling his skull, Ezra thought he heard distant shouts - whether they came from his own throat or some bystander drawn by the chaos, he couldn't tell. Perhaps they belonged to the voice.
Then—
Burn.
The command slithered between his thoughts with terrifying intimacy, its tone sweet as poisoned honey yet carrying the weight of divine decree.
Burn everything.
Ezra clawed at his temples, fingers tangling in sweat-drenched hair. "No" The word was barely a whimper. His skull felt seconds from sundering, his thoughts reduced to scattered embers swirling in the maelstrom. Sweat boiled on his skin only to instantly crystallize into fine salt deposits that scraped against his flesh with every shuddering breath. His body had become a battleground - muscles locked in agonized rictus, tendons standing taut like overtuned harp strings. The dichotomy was unbearable: freezing even as he burned, drowning in light even as darkness encroached at the edges of his vision.
The power swelled within him, a cresting wave of annihilation that threatened to sweep away everything in its path - the courtyard, the academy, perhaps even the city beyond. Ezra could feel it pressing against the fragile dam of his self-control, cracks spreading with every pounding heartbeat. Some distant part of him wondered if this was how stars died - not with a whimper, but with a scream that could shatter worlds.
He was freezing. Burning. Drowning in the light and the voice and the—
A hand.
Cool as moonlit steel.
Pressed against his forehead.
The world stopped.
Suddenly, he was floating. Drifting in a lake of liquid shadow, its waters silken against his fevered skin. A summer breeze—real or imagined—brushed over him, carrying the scent of night-blooming jasmine and damp earth. The voice's whispers dissolved like sugar in tea. The light... the light didn't vanish, but it stillened, folding back into his flesh like a chastened hound.
His lungs unlocked. His heartbeat slowed.
For the first time in hours—days?—Ezra breathed.
Ezra's vision swam, the world tilting like a ship in a storm. When his eyes finally focused, Theodore loomed above him—no, not looming—crouched, his arms bracing Ezra's trembling body. The professor's face was inches from his own, closer than they'd ever been.
And somehow… younger.
The lines around Theodore's eyes had softened. His gaze, usually sharp as a scalpel, now held something like wonder. The fading sunlight caught in his irises, turning them liquid gold.
Ezra's throat burned. "Professor…" His voice was a cracked whisper. "I-I didn't mean to—"
Theodore's lips quirked. Not a smile. Something more dangerous. "My, my." His thumb brushed Ezra's cheekbone, wiping away salt or blood or tears. "You really are quite extraordinary."
The words settled between them, heavy as a vow.
Ezra's breath hitched.
Extraordinary.
Not monstrous. Not reckless.
Extraordinary.
The weight of it pressed against his ribs. He wasn't sure if it was praise or a warning.
The chains bit deep as Ezra dragged himself back to awareness. Every muscle burned - not just from strain, but from the hollowed-out aftermath of whatever had possessed him. The cell reeked of piss and cold iron, the lone window's light slicing across his spread-eagled form like a butcher's assessment.
The door shrieked open.
Master Vaun entered first, his military boots cracking against stone. When his gaze finally settled on Ezra, it wasn't just disgust - it was the look reserved for maggots squirming in week-old meat. "You're telling me," he spat, knuckles whitening around his ever-present baton, "this sniveling gutter rat leveled the east courtyard?"
Professor Vinlius flowed in behind him, her cane's rhythmic taps belying unnatural speed. Up close, Ezra saw her eyes weren't just sharp - they were hungry. Calculating. Her shadow stretched long across the floor, fingers twitching toward his throat.
Damn it all-
"Ahh." The new voice dripped honey over venom. "So this is the infamous Ezra Valentine."
The tribunal assembled: Grimm blocked the door, his throat markings glowing faintly in response to Ezra's lingering magic; Krill's skeletal fingers steepled like a vulture settling onto carrion.
Theodore's absence ached like an open wound.
"Burning the courtyard," Vinlius mused, her cane suddenly pressing into Ezra's solar plexus. "Twelve injured. Three buildings unsalvageable." The pressure increased. "What precisely are you hiding, boy? Because that?" She jerked her chin toward the window - toward the smoke still visible on the horizon. "That wasn't just resonance . That was an awakening."
Vaun's fist connected again. And again. The impacts rang through Ezra's skull like cathedral bells - left cheekbone, right orbital, the bridge of his nose with a sickening crunch. Blood sheeted down his face, hot and relentless. His vision swam in and out of focus, the professors' silhouettes blurring into monstrous shapes.
"That's enough. Stop." The voice cut through the haze, but Ezra couldn't place it through the ringing in his ears.
Rough hands pried his jaw open. He choked on the iron flood filling his mouth, the coppery tang making his stomach heave. A cold light stabbed into his throat - some enchanted lantern or spell.
"Hmm." Grimm's grunt vibrated through Ezra's skull. "Vaun. The knife."
Krill's protest sounded miles away. "Don't you think this is excessive even for-"
Steel flashed. White-hot agony erupted below Ezra's ribs as the blade sank deep. A wet, sucking sound followed as Vaun twisted it.
These scheming bastards, Ezra thought through the pain. All this theater just to-
Then he felt it.
The light inside him - the one they were so desperate to see -shifted. Not the wild inferno from before, but something older. More deliberate. His blood sizzled where it touched the knife still buried in his gut.
The chains snapped like dried twigs.
Vaun barely had time to widen his eyes before Ezra wrenched the blade free with a wet schlick. The wound beneath knitted itself together, flesh weaving like living thread. Power - true power, not the uncontrolled outburst from before - thrummed through his veins like a second heartbeat.
Grimm's tattoos flared crimson. Vinlius's cane hit the floor with a thunderclap. Krill actually stumbled back.
And Ezra...Ezra smiled.
" You …. Sly bastards "