“Bryn, draw its attention away from Milo. Malorn, cripple the back left leg. Shine, heal Grond. Grond… keep hammering!” Zephyra’s voice rang sharp and steady across the battlefield.

  I slid to the left, daggers flashing, and carved a shallow line across the hide of the Desert Triceratops. Its horn grazed the air where I had just been, the force of its charge sending sand spraying against my cheek.

  The beast bellowed, the sound rumbling through my bones. I wove back and forth, keeping its gaze on me, refusing to let it turn toward the others. Every second mattered. Malorn’s arrows peppered its leg, shafts quivering as they struck true.

  Grond’s hammers thundered against its flank, leaving dents in its dusty hide. Milo had already slipped poison into its blood—its sluggish movements told me it was working. And always, Zephyra’s winds pressed against it, currents of invisible force slowing its every step.

  I leapt to the side, found my angle, and hurled one of my astral blades. It buried itself in the beast’s last good eye. The roar that followed shook the air. Blinded and enraged, the triceratops unleashed its aetheric defense.

  The plates along its body vibrated faster and faster, humming with building force. Recognition hit me like a blow—

  “Everyone, hit the floor!” I shouted.

  An instant later, the world exploded. Sand erupted outward in a perfect ring, each grain sharpened into a blade. The storm tore across the battlefield.

  Grond, closest to me, hit the ground instantly, his instincts as fierce as his rage. Milo dove behind a jagged rock, pipe smoke vanishing in the spray. Zephyra and Shine were farther out, shielded by distance. But Malorn—Malorn was too near.

  I felt him falter through my tremor sense just before the wave tore into him. Thousands of slivers shredded armor and flesh alike. His runic shield flared at the last second, saving his life, but only barely. Instructors blinked him away from the fight, healers swarming to mend the ruin of his body.

  The sting of it hit harder than any wound of my own. If this had been real, our party would have lost him. The thought seared into me.

  Grond saw it too. His roar shook the field as he surged forward, fury turned to fuel. His hammers reshaped themselves, pick-like ends tearing into the beast’s side. Deep holes opened, blood pouring down its flank.

  Milo struck next, his slingshot snapping three alchemical bombs straight into the wounds. Grond dodged aside before they detonated in a practice maneuver. The explosion ripped through the triceratops, blowing half its torso apart.

  Zephyra’s winds clenched into a bubble around the beast, compressing the blast and amplifying the force. The contained detonation ended the fight in an instant.

  When the dust cleared, the massive body slumped to the sand, lifeless.

  I straightened, panting, sweat stinging my eyes. A faint shimmer caught my attention in the wreckage—a sand-colored shard glowing faintly amid the ruin. I stooped and picked it up, the surface humming against my palm. Another shard for the academy’s vaults.

  The rest of the party gathered around Zephyra, each of us battered, each of us quiet. I could already see the anger burning behind her calm eyes. She would blame herself for not raising that wind shield sooner to save Malorn.

  But as we turned toward the professors, we all braced ourselves for the consequences of losing of party member.

  We win or lose together. That is what it meant to be a team.

  Our steps were muted by the sand as we approached. We lined up in front of Professor Roark. He was an Orc Commander from the southern edge of Thaylros, a volcanic region where his people fought an endless war against the fire bug hives that poured out of the mountains like rivers of flame.

  Rumor was that he had only been given leave from the wall because of a fragile treaty. This one that had promised the orcs magical reinforcements in exchange for sending their best to help build this academy into something greater. Whether he came willingly or under pressure, no one could doubt his presence.

  Flanking him stood his three war chiefs. To his right was the Stalker Chief, lean and cloaked in dark leathers, eyes sharp as blades. Beside him towered the Berserker Chief, a mountain of muscle with scars that looked like they had been burned into him rather than cut.

  On Roark’s left was the Shaman Chief, his tusks capped in silver, tattoos glowing faintly with aetheric runes that pulsed like embers under his skin. Each one radiated mastery over their craft, embodiments of stealth, fury, and sorcery.

  Roark’s gaze swept across us, and I felt it like a blade poking into my chest. His tusks jutted from a jaw that could have been carved from stone, and his eyes burned with the same volcanic fire as his homeland. When he spoke, it was low and heavy, carrying the promise that his words were not to be ignored.

  “You killed it,” Roark said. His voice rolled like distant thunder. “But one of you fell in the fight. In the real world, he would be dead, and you would be the weaker for it.”

  Malorn stood stiffly, wounds mended but his armor still shredded from the storm of sand. He clenched his jaw but said nothing.

  Roark’s eyes moved over each of us in turn, lingering just long enough to unnerve. Then he barked, “Tell me. Each of you. What did you do wrong? Where did you fail your brothers and sisters? How will you fight better next time?”

  The words hung in the hot air.

  I felt Zephyra shift beside me, her shoulders tense as if she was already preparing to speak first. Milo twirled his pipe between his fingers, expression sobered for once. Grond’s hammers rested heavily at his sides, his stance unyielding. Shine looked down, her golden scales catching the light, but her eyes closed as if she was already rehearsing her answer in silence.

  My hand brushed the hilts of my daggers, still slick with the triceratops’ blood, and I thought back to the fight. Every choice, every strike, every failure to see what might have saved Malorn before it was too late.

  Roark gave a short, sharp nod. “Speak. You are not here to be coddled. You are here to bleed, to learn, and to rise. If you cannot tell me where you failed, you will fail again.”

  Zephyra lifted her chin, though I could see the faint tension in her jaw. She spoke with steadiness, but the edge of regret bled through.

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  “I should have anticipated its aetheric attack. I felt the shift in the air but acted too slowly. If I had contained the storm of sand before it released, Malorn would still be standing. My primary strength is controlling the field with my wind, and I failed to use it in time.”

  Roark gave no reaction, his gaze only shifting to Milo.

  The halfling tapped his pipe against his palm. His usual smirk had vanished.

  “I relied too much on Grond’s strikes to set up my alchemy. I should have been pressing the creature sooner, feeding it more poison before it grew desperate enough to unleash its attack. My hesitation cost us. Next time I won’t wait for the perfect shot. I’ll take every shot I can.”

  The Berserker Chief grunted, but Roark’s face remained unreadable as his eyes moved to Grond.

  The dwarf’s stance was rigid, fists tight around the hafts of his hammers. His voice rumbled low.

  “I let rage take me too far. When Malorn fell, I charged instead of holding position. It worked this time, but it was reckless. If Milo had missed his mark, I would have been crushed. I must keep my fury sharpened, not let it rule me. In another battle it could result in more injuries for our team.”

  Shine shifted uneasily, scales catching the light like pale gold. Her voice was quiet but clear.

  “I was too far back. Healing means nothing if I cannot reach my allies before they fall. I should have moved sooner, risked the edge of danger to be able to heal Malorn even as the attack hit. I was to hesitant to be near the danger.”

  At last, Roark’s eyes fell on me. They were like molten stone, unblinking.

  I swallowed and forced myself to meet his gaze. “I was the first to see the buildup. I should have recognized what it meant sooner and shouted the warning earlier. Malorn was too close by the time I called it. My role is to draw attention and protect the party. If one of us falls while I still stand, I have failed. I need to be paying more attention to what my target it doing over trying to take the best shots. My role isn’t about damage but distraction.”

  Silence followed, heavy as the desert heat.

  Roark finally nodded once, slow and deliberate. “Good. You saw some of your failures. That is the first step to correcting them. Remember that monsters will kill you if you do not learn, but pride will kill you faster. There are other things that you missed, and I will have it in the report for you after class.”

  He turned, gesturing to the chiefs. “Reset the field. Bring in the next beast. Let us see if these words remain words, or if they have some bite to them. Someone bring Malorn a new set of armor!” he shouted, the command echoing across the sand.

  And just like that, we were thrown back into the crucible.

  These last two months, the rhythm of our days grew brutal and unrelenting. Each morning began with beasts summoned or drawn in from holding pens. We fought until our muscles trembled, dissected the battles until our failures stung like fresh wounds, then went back to fight again. Hours were spent sharpening not only our blades but our coordination, our trust, our ability to act as one.

  The rest of our classes were no less demanding. Where once we had sat through lectures of broad instruction, now every lesson pressed directly into the marrow of our combat training.

  In Dungeon and Rift Exploration, we were asked to apply tactics we had used that very morning to hypothetical encounters within layered caverns. In Tactics and Strategy, we mapped the choices we had made on the field and then defended those decisions against professors who seemed determined to find every weak seam in our reasoning.

  Grades were given not only for knowledge but for the ability to stand in front of the room and hold our ground beneath fire. Oral presentations became their own kind of duel. We would be forced to argue a plan of attack or defend a proposed solution while professors and classmates struck at us with questions, trying to shake us until our arguments broke apart.

  For me, those moments carried an extra tension. The rumors had soured since the first days. They no longer spoke of me with curiosity but with dread. Some said I had bartered with creatures beyond the veil and paid in blood for their gifts. Others claimed my arm was cursed, a relic grafted to me from some forgotten tomb, its veins still pulsing with foreign life.

  A few swore I could hear voices in the silence, that the scars across my skin were not wounds but runes etched by my own hand to bind what lived inside me. There were those who insisted I was a killer, and that the academy had only admitted me to keep watch. And beneath it all lingered a darker tale, whispered like a prayer no one wanted to finish, that I was not human at all but something wearing the shape of one, waiting for the right night to peel the disguise away.

  Whenever I stood, the questions aimed at me were less about the problem at hand and more about my character, my worth, or the shadows of gossip that trailed me. A few professors stepped in to curb the worst of it, but even reprimands never silenced the next round of jabs.

  I had grown up with thick skin. Orphanage life had taught me not to crumble under insult. But no armor is perfect. The constant sting wore at me, carving deeper grooves than I wanted to admit. I wanted to belong. I wanted to be more than the outsider. Instead, every whisper seemed to build the wall higher.

  If it were not for Zephyra and the others in our party, I am not sure how long I would have endured it. Around them, I was not the outcast. I was simply a comrade, a fighter, someone who mattered to the whole. That made the difference between grinding forward and breaking.

  Yet even that comfort could not quiet everything. My tremor sense, once fixed at fifty feet, was slowly expanding, stretching further each day. With it came clarity I did not always want. In the classrooms, I could feel the subtle shifts of eyes and shoulders, the way students looked at one another when expeditions were mentioned. Bloodlust is easy to sense once you have felt it before, and it hung heavy in the air.

  And no gaze was sharper than the ones fixed on me. Luceran’s circle was obvious, their animosity radiating like a sickness. What unsettled me more was catching the flicker of hunger from the goblins I had fought in the tournament, and from those who had rallied around them since.

  It was still a month until our first real expedition beyond the academy walls. Yet every sense in me whispered that danger was already circling. Not just danger for me, but for the people standing beside me. If I was to protect them, planning could not wait for the march of days. The fight was already moving toward us.

  Another comfort was how Dusk and I were growing together. I believed we were standing at the edges of a true companion bond. Close to three months had passed since she first perched on my shoulder, and she was already changing, growing faster than I expected.

  Her intelligence was beginning to bloom in ways that startled me. It was no longer just instinct and reaction. She had started to project images into my mind — flickers of sight not my own, brief impressions that struck as clearly as words. In battle, where she still had to wait outside the circle since our bond was not yet complete, she would send me glimpses: the angle of a claw, the shimmer of an exposed joint, a ledge I had not noticed that could be used to flank.

  She had a knack for finding weaknesses in the creatures we faced, sharper and faster than anyone else in our party. For now, I hid that truth. When she whispered her visions into my mind, I disguised them as recollections from class, as though I was simply pulling from my memory of monster studies. None of the others questioned it, but inside, I knew I was leaning on her. I wasn’t sure I wanted to share her ability yet.

  If I had to guess, we might fully bond soon. The feeling built inside me, like a pressure that would soon break through. Yet beneath that anticipation was something stranger, something I could not articulate well. The bond felt less like a tether being tied and more like a door opening to something deeper.

  It was as if Dusk was not only growing but transforming. I could sense it in her aura, in the way her feathers glowed faintly when the moonlight caught them, in the pulse of energy that rippled through her when she cried out. It was not just a bond forming between us; it was as if she herself was being remade, reshaped at a level that touched the roots of magic.

  I could not explain it, even to myself. But the closer we drew, the stronger the sense became that Dusk was not meant to remain what she appeared to be now. She was on the edge of becoming something new, something I could not yet imagine.

  And that thought was both exhilarating and unsettling.

  I now found myself staring out past the academy walls, into the marvelous cavern the school had been carved into. My gaze caught on Emerilia, Dusk’s mother, as she circled and then glided toward a hollow high near the roof of the cave mouth. The sight of her was always a reminder that Asher was watching, even if he wasn’t physically present.

  This spot had become my favorite place for breaks between classes. I loved resting here with Dusk, watching the glow of the cavern lights ripple across the subterranean waters, the quiet pulse of a world beneath the world. More importantly, it gave me space. Here my tremor sense was less cluttered, the ground calmer than the training fields, and my mind could finally breathe.

  And that peace shattered in an instant.