Greta set me down.

  Her eyes never left mine as she lowered me to the ground. The motion was controlled and deliberate, careful and unhesitating. The distance between us seemed to change as she moved, less a matter of space and more a matter of intent. It was one of the most intimidating experiences I had ever endured, especially because I was the one at its center.

  There is a difference between being lifted and stared down, and being lowered while that stare never breaks. When someone holds you and looks through you, it is threatening in a way you can brace against. When they lower you slowly, deliberately, while keeping their eyes locked on yours as if nothing else in the world exists, it becomes something else entirely.

  That moment went beyond fear.

  I did not have the words to describe how utterly terrifying it was. Language failed me in a way it rarely had. I felt exposed in a way I had never experienced before. It felt like she was eating my soul while staring directly into my eyes, stripping me down to whatever was left underneath, peeling away every excuse and every layer of distance I might have tried to hide behind.

  I do not swear often, but there are moments when restraint becomes dishonest. This was one of them. That shit was the most terrifying experience of either of my lives, because it was precise.

  I have fought monstrous nightmare creatures from the voidlands. I have bargained with demons and slain angels. I have destroyed cities and watched the consequences spread outward from my own decisions, rippling through lives I could never fully account for.

  None of it prepared me for this.

  Nothing I had lived through before this moment approached the fear I felt standing there, pinned in place by Greta’s gaze as she set me down and then stepped back. She did not move or raise her voice. She simply stood there, holding everything in, and the pressure of that restraint pressed down on me until it felt like it might break.

  My heart pounded hard enough that I could feel it in my throat, each beat loud and insistent. My breathing came shallow, driven more by habit than comfort. She still did not look away, not even for a moment.

  She backed off slowly, just far enough to take me in fully, as if assessing damage or deciding what shape this was going to take next. Her posture remained rigid, her expression unreadable, her attention absolute.

  She spoke quietly at first.

  “So you did it,” she said. “Even though I asked you not to.”

  I did not shrink away from her words, though every instinct urged me to. I could not find the words I needed, not quickly enough, not honestly enough, and she took my nod as answer enough.

  “So,” she continued, her voice still level, “is it fair to say that I cannot trust you?”

  The question struck deeper than any shout ever could have. I had betrayed her trust, and there was no way to make that smaller. I respected her, truly respected her. She had done nothing but teach, guide, and occasionally make fun of me in the way friends do. I would have called her my friend without hesitation.

  She was also my teacher in this life.

  My existence might have carried greater scope and heavier history, yet her depth of care matched anyone I had ever known. She believed every child mattered, and she acted like it.

  I opened my mouth to speak.

  She cut me off.

  “Azolo,” she said, “I am trying to understand why you did this. I know you said you would do it in the future, but you promised me you would not do it during training. You promised me you would not do this.”

  She met my eyes again. “And yet you went around that promise.”

  “I am not going to scream at you,” she said. “I am not going to hurt you.”

  Her voice did not waver.

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  “I am going to explain why I am disappointed in you, and I hope that in the future you will not disappoint me like this again.”

  “What is done is done,” she continued. “But you need to understand that you hurt me.”

  She gestured at my face, not accusing, only indicating. “By hurting yourself, you made a statement. People will see this. They will know I allowed it, even if I did not do it myself. Even if I went out of my way to tell you not to.”

  Her jaw tightened. “They will think I failed you.”

  She paused. “Do you understand what I am trying to say?”

  I tried to speak again.

  She raised a hand. “No. Just nod if you understand.”

  Her eyes hardened.

  “I do not want words from your mouth right now,” she said. “I cannot trust you.”

  She did not raise her voice. That made it worse.

  “If you wish to make things better going forward, I want to see you do so through your actions,” she continued. “Not explanations.”

  She studied me for a long moment. “You have a powerful advantage. You see the world differently because of it. But you are still a child.”

  She held my gaze. “Even if you carry the mind of an adult, your body influences your thoughts. You do not see it because you are you, not the person you once were. You are the person you are now.”

  Her words landed carefully, each one deliberate. “Your mind is still developing in ways you no longer recognize. That clouds your judgment.”

  She gestured faintly toward my face. “How difficult would it truly have been to do your enchantments the simple way, without what you did to yourself?”

  She shook her head once. “Do not explain why you did it. Do not tell me what you felt or why you believed it was necessary.”

  “I have met many children,” she said. “I have dealt with more reincarnators than you likely realize in my years.”

  Her voice remained calm. “I am gold rank. I have been gold rank for nearly seventy-five years. I am not as young as you think I am.”

  “My body slowed its aging long ago,” she continued. “Not in the same way a wizard halts their aging.”

  She did not look away. “Those on martial paths change when their cores advance. When we reach a new stage, our longevity increases. Our aging slows. That does not mean we stop developing.”

  “I live in the prime of my life for far longer than most people expect,” she said. “And you will do the same. I know that for a fact. With your mind, you will accomplish great things.”

  She tilted her head slightly. “You may do terrible things. You may do great ones. But right now, I am your teacher.”

  “I am teaching you because you are still a child,” she said.

  “If reincarnators arrived in this world as adults in every way that mattered, do you think we would treat them like children?”

  She shook her head once. “No. We treat you as a child because you are one. Your body is that of a child. Even if your mind is not, your body influences it. Five hundred years of life does not change this fact.”

  Her voice stayed even. “I know I am repeating myself. I am doing that because there is one point you need to understand.”

  She looked at me, waiting.

  I nodded, slowly and deliberately, trying to convey what words could not. My regret was real. The loss of respect from someone who had mine entirely hurt more than any punishment she could have chosen.

  The weight of her disappointment settled over me, heavy and inescapable. My first instinct was to swear that I would never do something so foolish again, and the thought died almost as soon as it formed. That kind of promise was foolish in itself.

  What she was trying to make me understand, what I was struggling to accept, was that I, Azolo, former archwizard, was being shaped by my body as much as my mind. My thoughts were not as clear or as stable as I believed them to be. I had not yet grown into whatever future version of myself might make better decisions. I was not who I had once been.

  I was who I was now.

  I was a three-year-old child.

  My mind carried echoes of who I had been, habits and instincts shaped by another life, but those echoes did not grant me immunity from the limits of this one. I could try to catch myself when emotions surged and redirect them with logic, but logic could only go so far when it was filtered through an undeveloped body.

  She was right. I had taken a stupid risk for almost no reason. I could have accomplished the same work without marking myself. I could have waited until I had the practice and control to do it properly. Instead, I had rushed, handed part of the process to someone else, and then compounded the mistake by activating something I did not yet understand, ignoring the simple truth that there would be an integration period.

  I had known mana from one side of the equation, the side where it answered my will. I did not yet understand it from the side where it did not. What I had were theories and goals, not the understanding required to act on them safely.

  I had pushed forward because I thought speed mattered.

  It did not.

  The god of iron had never demanded haste. He had spoken of a new life, not a race. He had warned me, even, that I would need rest, that I would need balance. He had mentioned cheat days, and I had ignored that advice because slowing down felt like failure.

  I did not want to admit it, but I knew even he would have been disappointed in me. Not because I had broken some rule, but because I had failed to listen and failed to keep my word.

  I had betrayed the trust of someone who had given me more of it than I had any right to expect. She had used her name and her standing to have Meka transferred to her class because she believed I could help her more than Randall could. She had been right about that.

  What I had been wrong about was assuming that meant I no longer needed guidance myself.

  She had not acted because I was exceptional or because I understood everything. She had acted because she saw a way to help both Meka and me. She saw familiarity where Meka needed it, and she saw potential where I still needed instruction.

  I was not finished growing.

  Not even close.