"Why do the weak always insist on standing up?"
The question—rhetorical yet filled with disdain—drifted through the training grounds like a snake of smoke, slow and curling, poisonous in intent.
It was barely past dawn in Stol, the Beast Soul Master Academy nestled at the throat of the northern range, where mountains met sky and ambition met brick walls. The Kingdom of Astraea, for all its brilliance in steam-weaving circuits and crystalline energy cores, remained under the boot of monarchy. Strange how a kingdom could fly airships, yet still bow to a bloodline.
But Aelius Gray had bigger problems than political contradictions.
Namely, a six-foot-tall summoned flame wolf currently trying to barbeque him alive.
The training grounds—polished obsidian tiles interlaced with runes that glowed faintly under pressure—had already seen better days. Several were cracked. Blackened. A few were even melting at the corners, a direct result of Cassian Holt's overly enthusiastic display of dominance.
Cassian stood there, all poise and sneering elegance. His uniform was pristine—of course it was—white and silver without a single mark. Like the scuffle never touched him. Because it hadn't.
The wolf did all the dirty work.
And Aelius Gray? Well, he was currently trying to figure out whether the blood in his mouth was from his gums or if one of his teeth had finally given up. Again.
"You don't have a beast soul. You don't have a future. What are you fighting for?" Cassian continued, brushing a strand of dark hair behind his ear. The gesture was delicate, deliberate, and entirely infuriating. "Are you hoping someone will pity you into greatness?"
Aelius didn't respond. He didn't have the breath for it. Or maybe he did, but he'd learned long ago that answering bullies only made the punches hit harder.
He rose. Slow. Spear gripped like a lifeline. His legs trembled beneath him—traitorous, ungrateful things—but they held.
That was the thing about Aelius. He didn't know when to stop. Maybe it was stupidity. Or stubbornness. Or maybe—just maybe—it was because he'd once seen his mother work three jobs and still sing him lullabies without missing a note.
People like Cassian, born with silver spoons and soul crystals in their cribs, didn't understand what it meant to have to fight.
The wolf growled, low and threatening. Its fur pulsed with emberlight.
Aelius remembered the first time he saw a summoned beast. He'd been twelve, watching a ceremony from behind a locked gate, too poor to attend but too curious to stay away. He'd sworn then he'd stand on those grounds one day. Not because someone invited him, but because he carved his own way there.
The flame wolf lunged again. Aelius sidestepped, barely, his spear grazing its side—not enough to hurt, just enough to say I'm still here.
Cassian narrowed his eyes. "Pointless."
And maybe it was. Maybe this whole spar—or beatdown, let's be honest—was pointless. Aelius wasn't going to win. He never had, not against Cassian.
But there was something to be said about losing with intention.
"I fight," Aelius rasped, voice like gravel dragged over glass, "because one day… I won't be the one getting up."
Cassian blinked. Just once.
It was the kind of statement that stuck to the ribs.
Aelius wasn't a genius. He wasn't a prodigy. He had no beast soul echoing inside his chest, no lineage to speak of... Well he was a bastard, no glowing destiny etched into his bones. But he had something else.
Call it foolish resolve. Call it desperation. Call it the echo of a promise made in the quiet of an orphanage dormitory under flickering lights: I'll be more than this.
The flame wolf snarled. Aelius squared his shoulders.
He'd fall again, sure.
But gods help the man who thought that meant the story ended there.
Because sometimes, the ones who rise last… are the ones who rise hardest.
Cassian's smirk curled cruelly at the edge. He didn't like being talked back to—especially not by someone bleeding and dirt-smeared who still had the gall to stand tall.
"Break him," he ordered, almost lazily, like one might flick a hand to shoo away a fly.
The flame wolf didn't hesitate. It lunged, claws igniting mid-air, fangs glowing with heat.
Aelius tried to move, tried to raise his spear—too slow. The beast slammed into him like a meteor wrapped in fury. He hit the ground hard, ribs screaming, air ripped from his lungs as claws raked across his chest and shoulder, shredding fabric and skin alike. The sting was blinding, sharp enough to steal thought.
The wolf didn't stop.
A paw came down, crushing his spear-arm against the obsidian floor. A sickening crack—his forearm bent wrong, too wrong.
Pain bloomed.
Red blurred his vision, but he didn't scream. He wouldn't. Not in front of Cassian. Not in front of the others who'd started to gather at the edges, watching with quiet detachment, like this was just another morning lesson in cruelty.
The wolf snarled, raising its claw again.
"Aelius!"
That wasn't Cassian.
"Enough."
That voice cut clean and cold through the tension, like steel dragged across ice.
Instructor Halvern. Cloaked in midnight blue and iron, his presence alone was enough to command obedience.
Cassian froze. So did the wolf.
Halvern's boots echoed as he stepped onto the scorched platform, eyes narrowing as they swept over Aelius's broken form.
"I said enough," he repeated, quieter now, which somehow made it worse.
The flame wolf growled, then vanished in a flicker of red embers. Cassian didn't meet the instructor's gaze, choosing instead to dust an invisible speck from his cuff.
"Emotional outbursts have no place in a summon bond," Halvern said, voice calm but edged. "When you fight to hurt, you show your beast more than command—you show it your weakness."
Cassian said nothing.
Halvern turned to Aelius, still on the ground, arm bent, breathing shallow but steady.
"And you," he added, tone unreadable. "You're not dead. Good."
There might've been the shadow of approval in that last word. Or maybe it was just pity.
Aelius didn't care either way.
He coughed, spat blood to the side, and tried—gods help him—to sit up.
"...Still standing?" Halvern asked, arching a brow.
"Not...yet," Aelius rasped with a grimace. "But I'll get there."
The instructor's lips twitched. Not quite a smile, but something close.
"Then you'll make a fine beast master… once you stop being an idiot."
And with that, he turned, cloak billowing behind him as he strode away, leaving a ruined boy, a humiliated noble, and a lesson scorched into the training grounds:
Victory isn't always about winning.
Sometimes it's just about refusing to stay down.
A blur of blue streaked across the training ground before Aelius could even try to crawl.
"You absolute idiot!"
That voice—sharp, fast, and laced with the kind of concern that always sounded like anger—could only belong to one person.
Liora Vayne.
Her hair, that striking shade of sapphire, fluttered like a battle flag as she knelt beside him. Her academy uniform was slightly wrinkled, like she hadn't even finished getting dressed before sprinting here. Her bright blue eyes—usually calm, always calculating—were wide with frustration.
"Aelius, what the hell were you thinking?! Sparring him? Cassian?! Are you trying to die today, or is that just a bonus plan you forgot to mention at breakfast?"
He tried to answer, but all that came out was a grunt.
"Oh don't even try talking," she snapped, slipping her arm under his unbroken one and carefully lifting him to a seated position. "You've already said enough with your entire body being a disaster zone."
Her hand glowed faintly as she pressed it to his ribs—light affinity healing, soft but not showy. It didn't erase the pain, but it stitched the worst of the bleeding.
"You do realize that jackass summoned his beast with full aggression intent, right? That's practically a kill order in beast code. And what did you do? You just nodded like a happy little idiot and said 'Sure, I'll totally fight a living flamethrower with a stick.'"
Aelius coughed again, chuckling hoarsely through the ache. "I thought... you liked it when I was brave."
She shot him a glare so fierce it could've flattened mountains. "I like it when you're not dead, you moron."