Dawn painted the peeling walls of the dormitory gray. Brando lay motionless on the bed, staring at the ceiling with tired, reddened eyes. The day before had seemed like a feverish dream, or perhaps a particularly vivid nightmare. Yet it was all real.

  One hour and thirty-seven minutes. That was how long he had spent in Jason's Chamber. AGATHA had confirmed it before he stumbled out of the Daedalus: "Duration of stay: one hour, thirty-seven minutes, twelve seconds." He hadn't closed his eyes all night. How could he sleep after what he had seen? After what had happened?

  The Cold Veins were no longer visible. That luminous network that had decorated his skin like a violet web had disappeared the moment the entity dissolved. But something had changed inside him; he could feel it. It was as if someone had turned a key in a lock he didn't know he had, opening a door that could no longer be closed.

  The puppy—he really needed to find a name for it; he couldn't keep calling it that forever—hadn't moved from his side all night. Now it lay curled up against him. Every so often it made a small sound, as if to remind him he wasn't alone.

  "Hey," Brando whispered, absently scratching behind its ears. The creature stretched slightly, pressing harder against him. It was strange how that contact made him feel more anchored to reality.

  Outside the window, the first signs of life from the Academy began to filter into the morning air. Soon the corridors would fill with life and normality. But how could everything be normal after what had happened in the Daedalus? He sat up slowly, feeling every muscle protest, as if his body remembered something his mind was trying to forget.

  Karanti.

  The word echoed in his head like a distant echo. The entity had called him that, as if it knew him and saw through him to something buried so deeply that even he didn't know it existed.

  The puppy emitted a small whimper. Its three eyes stared at him with that strange intensity that seemed to see beyond the appearance of things.

  "Don't worry," Brando murmured, more to reassure himself than the creature. "Everything will be fine."

  But as he said it, he knew nothing would ever be "fine" in the normal sense of the word. He had reached [Violet One] Stage, but at what price? And what did it really mean? He got up from the bed and approached the window. In the distance, the Artifact dominated the horizon as always, a constant and disturbing presence. Before, he had feared it, and now he no longer knew what to feel. It was as if something inside him resonated with that dark mass, something larger than he could imagine.

  "We need to keep this secret," he murmured to the puppy, which had followed him like a faithful shadow. "But who can I trust now?"

  The creature tilted its head, as if considering the answer to the question with him. The third eye on its forehead half-closed for a moment, then reopened with an almost questioning glow.

  Giordano was his only true friend at the Academy. The only one who had treated him like a person and not an anomaly. Telling him everything would be natural, almost obligatory. But this secret was different. This was dangerous.

  And then there was Bianca. She had given him the pass to the Daedalus, had somehow guided him toward this discovery. But why? What were her true intentions? Telling everything to Giordano would somehow mean making an enemy of the girl, and making an enemy of someone of her rank would be a suicidal act, especially now that he had a chance to become a Cold Soldier.

  Brando sat on the edge of the bed. It was time to discover what he could really do.

  He focused on his left palm. The cold responded immediately to his call, condensing into a small sphere of violet ice that floated a few inches from his skin. It was surprisingly easy now, almost natural. The sphere rotated slowly, perfectly under control.

  "So this is [Violet One]," he murmured. The ice glowed faintly in the dimness of the room, just like the ice he had seen other students create.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  But there was something more. He felt it in his Cold Veins, a kind of pressure, as if there were another channel to explore. He raised his right palm and concentrated again, but this time differently. He didn't try to force the cold as he had been taught. Instead, he let it flow naturally, following that new instinct he had discovered in the Daedalus.

  Brando materialized a second sphere above his right hand. The base color was still violet, but darker streaks, almost black, pulsed within it like flows of ink in water. The surface wasn't smooth like normal ice. It seemed rippled and restless.

  "Curious," Brando whispered. Esposito's lessons had been extremely clear on how Bearer progression worked.

  Each Stage, from Violet to Red, was divided into seven levels. Rising in level within a Stage gradually strengthened the body by making muscles denser, reflexes faster, and increasing endurance. A [Violet Seven], for example, was much stronger than a normal human. They could shatter bricks with their grip and run for hours without tiring.

  Changing Stage, however, was a quantum leap. The Cold Veins thickened and branched out, allowing control of ever-greater quantities of ice and sending physical capabilities skyrocketing. A [Violet One] could create just a few not particularly defined geometric shapes of ice. A [Green One] could freeze an entire bathtub into a block of ice in seconds. A [Red One] could transform a lake into a sheet of ice with a simple gesture of the hand.

  And it wasn't just a matter of quantity. Higher Stages allowed increasingly complex constructions, from the simple spikes of the Violets to the articulated ice constructions of the Reds. The ice became harder, more resistant, and more durable.

  But this dark ice was completely different from anything Esposito had described.

  "What the fuck..."

  Brando tried to make the second sphere, the one with the dark veins, float. The ice didn't respond as it should. While the normal sphere maintained a stable position, this one oscillated and pulsed as if it had a life of its own.

  A sudden movement almost made him fall off the chair. The dark sphere suddenly jerked to the right, like a dog pulling the leash from its owner's hands. Brando tried to bring it back under control, but it was like trying to catch water with a sieve, slipping away from his mental grip.

  A sudden movement almost made him fall off the chair. The dark sphere suddenly jerked to the right in the same way a dog would pull the leash from its owner's hands.

  "Get back here, damn it..."

  But the sphere had other plans. It headed decisively toward the old rusty metal nightstand. Brando noticed the teapot that had been lying there for who knows how long, must have been left over from previous occupations of that room. It was little more than a metal wreck now covered with rust and dents.

  The ice sphere stopped, suspended above the teapot. The dark streaks within it accelerated their pulsing, like a heartbeat growing stronger. Then it changed shape. It didn't melt, didn't fragment, but transformed completely. Like a living creature, the ice deformed completely, modifying its solid structure into an increasingly viscous one, until it became almost liquid. It moved exactly as if it were a slime-like phase suspended in the air.

  "What the hell is..."

  Brando didn't have time to complete the sentence. Viscous tentacles of ice wrapped around the teapot in an implacable grip. The rusty metal emitted a sharp sound from the compression of the viscous ice, and in moments it crumpled like an empty can. Like an amoeba engulfing its nourishment, the gelatinous mass assimilated the metal fragment by fragment.

  Brando remained petrified, paralyzed with amazement. The puppy had huddled behind his legs with all three eyes wide open, observing the scene.

  In a dozen seconds, no trace of the teapot remained. It had been completely absorbed by the sphere, and the streaks inside had taken on a ferruginous red color, like pulsing filaments of liquid rust trapped in the ice.

  The KryoWatch on his wrist emitted an unexpected beep.

  [New Ability Acquired: Rust Ice]

  [Level 1]

  [This ice, upon impact, releases a corrosive effect that can rust metals, deteriorate structures, and degrade organic materials. It can be thrown as a projectile or used as a blunt weapon.]

  "Ability?" Brando murmured, staring at the KryoWatch display. "Level?"

  The sphere now floated placidly. The ice had literally digested the teapot.

  "So it's a predator ice," Brando said aloud, giving voice to his thoughts.

  The KryoWatch emitted another beep.

  [Name Registered: Predator Ice]

  [Base Ability of Bearer Brando Casadei]

  [Allows the devouring and assimilation of compatible things]

  Brando ran a hand over his face. "Wait, wait... so I just gave it a name? And what does 'compatible things' mean?"

  The KryoWatch display remained silent this time, as if it had already revealed too much. The predator ice sphere was slowly beginning to melt, but the dark veins remained visible until the last fragment.

  "Okay, let me understand," Brando stood up and began walking around the room. "I have ice that eats things. Digests them. And gets abilities?"

  The puppy followed him with its gaze, its third eye glowing faintly as if in response to his words.

  "And it has levels," Brando continued, trying to organize his thoughts. "Like the normal Stages of Bearers? No, it must be different. Normal ice doesn't eat things."

  He stopped abruptly. If this ice could devour objects and acquire their properties, how many different possibilities were there? What was the limit of this thing? He needed to run tests to be sure.