The KryoWatch vibrated lightly on the nightstand. It was 5:15 in the morning. Brando opened his eyes in the darkness of the room and reached out to grab it, reading the message flashing on the screen.

  [PRIORITY ACCESS]

  [Sender: F-07]

  [East entrance, coordinates 47.23N, 6:00 hours. Don't be late.]

  It had to be Folgore sending the message. "Great," he muttered in the dark, running a hand over his face. "As if I'd slept at all."

  He got out of bed feeling every muscle protest. His mind seemed wrapped in fog as he dressed mechanically, and twenty minutes later, Brando and Rusty were waiting outside the Alpha-Omega Dormitory. Brando didn't have authorization to enter, so he'd sent a message to Giordano on the KryoWatch, but ten minutes had passed and still no sign of him. Brando checked the time again: 5:47.

  "Fuck," he muttered, pressing the external intercom button for the third time. The sound seemed too loud in the unnatural dawn silence.

  Finally, the main door opened and Giordano appeared, his red hair shooting in all directions and deep circles carving his face.

  "I slept like... half an hour," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes with slow movements as he descended the marble steps. "Do we realize we're about to go train with one of the Four Aces?"

  "I didn't sleep at all," Brando replied, turning to head toward the main path. "Move it, I don't want to be late. Not with her."

  The cafeteria wasn't open yet and they couldn't have breakfast. They had no choice but to head toward the Daedalus. During the journey, some guards on patrol crossed their path, but continued on their way without sparing them a glance, as if they were invisible.

  "It's like we're ghosts," Giordano murmured while dodging a patrol drone that completely ignored them. "Did you notice? Nobody's looking at us, it's creepy."

  "Maybe Folgore somehow already changed things to let us pass unnoticed," Brando hypothesized, though the idea made him uncomfortable. How much power could an Ace have to manipulate the Academy like this? Only a few hours had passed since their encounter, yet everything had already changed around them, as if there was a prohibition against questioning what they were doing out at that hour.

  Following the coordinates, they reached a secondary entrance to the Daedalus, different from the one Brando had used the first time. Unlike the main entrance, hidden in Vesuvius, this was a simple metal door set into the rock, with a control panel beside it.

  "The staff entrance, I imagine," Giordano said, studying the door. "Never seen it before."

  "It's not even on the official maps," Brando added, trying to remember the route Bianca had shown him. "There must be an entire system of passages we don't know about."

  A soldier in white uniform was stationed beside the entrance. When he saw them, he frowned and prepared for ice creation.

  "Hey, you. What are you doing here at this hour? Shouldn't you be in class?"

  "In two hours, maybe," Giordano replied with a tired smile. "We've been summoned."

  "Summoned?" The soldier seemed skeptical as he studied them from head to toe. "By whom, exactly?"

  The soldier's KryoWatch display began to ring, then lit up showing a message:

  [AUTHORIZATION CODE LIGHTNING-07]

  [ACCESS GRANTED TO: CASADEI, VOLPE + 1 PSEUDO-GLACIAL]

  [LEVEL -13. ALPHA PRIORITY]

  The soldier stared open-mouthed, eyes wide, and his face had instantly lost color, leaving an unnatural pallor. What he had just read was truly absurd.

  "Code Lightning..." he murmured, then stiffened into such a perfect attention position he seemed like a statue. "I apologize for my negligence, sirs. You may proceed immediately."

  The door opened with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a polished metal elevator. Brando and Giordano looked at each other, stunned, not knowing what to say. What the hell had just happened? Out of nowhere they were being treated like lords. In any case, they had no time to waste, and as soon as they entered with Rusty, the doors closed automatically and the elevator began descending much faster than they expected. The display indicated the levels: -1, -2, -3...

  "How deep are we going?" Giordano asked, visibly nervous as he watched the numbers continue to descend. "I thought Jason's Chamber was on the fourth level and that was the lowest floor."

  "I thought I knew the Daedalus," Brando admitted, watching the numbers continue to drop: -7, -8, -9... "But this is beyond anything I've ever heard of."

  "Maybe they're taking us straight to the center of the Earth," Giordano murmured, looking at Rusty who had curled up in a corner of the elevator.

  The elevator stopped abruptly, making them stagger for a moment. When the doors opened, they found themselves in a clinical-looking corridor, with white walls and metal flooring. Neon lights illuminated the path before them in a route that led to a single massive door at the end. They were at level -13.

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  "I don't like this," Giordano grumbled. "Looks like the antechamber of hell. Or worse, the dentist's waiting room."

  Rusty made a low sound while keeping all three eyes fixed on the door.

  The door slid upward with a mechanical hum as soon as they were a few steps away. Inside, an enormous space extended before them: it was a circular chamber at least fifty meters in diameter. In the center, a perfectly circular arena of permanent orange ice glowed with its own light.

  Beside the arena, with arms crossed, Folgore awaited them. Without her helmet, her copper-colored hair fell freely over the shoulders of her white uniform. Beside her stood a young woman Brando and Giordano had never seen before.

  "You're punctual," Folgore said, with a tone suggesting surprise. "A good start."

  The girl beside Folgore studied them with attentive eyes. She had to be only a couple of years older than them. She had short black hair, cut asymmetrically, with a striking white streak running through the right side. Her skin was fair, but the entire left side of her face was marked by strong redness that appeared as crystalline patterns, as if tiny ice fragments had been embedded under the epidermis. She wore a modified version of the Cold Soldiers' uniform that covered every part of her body except her face.

  "This is Sara Esposito," Folgore introduced her. "My most promising student."

  "Esposito?" Giordano raised an eyebrow, suddenly suspicious. "Like Lieutenant Esposito?"

  The girl rolled her eyes so theatrically they seemed about to fall from their sockets.

  "Yes, like the Lieutenant, like the Scientific Department director, like the Cryogenic Councilor and like hundreds of other people in the Polis," she replied with a voice that resembled more a set of well-placed knife strikes. "The Espositos are one of the Eight Houses, there are lots of secondary branches of the family. We're not all assholes like Uncle Massimo."

  "Uncle?" Brando felt his stomach tighten. "Lieutenant Esposito is your uncle?"

  "Third degree," Sara specified with a grimace of disgust, as if tasting something particularly unpleasant. "And we don't get along very well, if that's what you're thinking. He thinks I'm a disgrace to the family. The feeling is mutual, since he's an asshole with a superiority complex bigger than Vesuvius."

  "Sara is an Omega, like you, Giordano," Folgore intervened, advancing into the arena. "And despite being only 19 years old, she's already reached [Yellow Two] stage."

  "[Yellow Two]?!" Brando and Giordano exclaimed in unison. "How is that possible?" Brando asked. "To reach that level usually takes years of training."

  Sara shrugged, observing Rusty with curiosity instead of answering. The puppy returned the gaze, tilting his head as if trying to understand something complex.

  "I had excellent motivation to learn quickly," Sara replied, absently touching the crystalline striations on her face. "When your Cold Veins are literally trying to turn you into an ice cube from the inside, you learn to control them pretty quickly."

  "It happened when you were a child?" Brando asked, observing the crystalline patterns on her face.

  "Yes, I was seven," Sara confirmed. "Cold Veins normally don't manifest before age ten, when the body has developed the necessary cryogenic channels. In my case, they activated prematurely. An extremely rare adverse reaction, about one case in a million." Sara absently ran her fingers over the crystalline striations marking her face. "The cryogenic energy had nowhere to go, so it began crystallizing tissues from the inside. They put me in cryogenic stasis for three years while they looked for a solution. For the Espositos, physical perfection is as essential as rank. A 'crystal girl' with half a deformed face? Unforgivable. When they woke me, my Cold Veins had become hyperreactive. The choice was simple: learn to control them perfectly, or die within weeks. My 'defect' became my strength."

  "Sara is a prodigy," Folgore intervened, with something that seemed almost like affection in her voice. "And more importantly, she's a Cryomedic, one of the best of her generation. She'll be essential for the type of training that awaits you."

  "Cryomedic?" Giordano seemed confused. "What exactly does that mean?"

  Sara raised her eyebrows with an ironic expression. "You're an Omega and you don't know what a Cryomedic is? What do they teach you in this cesspool of an Academy?"

  Folgore sighed heavily, running a hand over her face.

  "They really didn't explain it to you? These teachers are incompetent..." She moved toward the center of the arena, gesturing for the others to follow. "Once you reach [Blue One] stage, Bearers develop what we call 'Specialty,' a natural predisposition toward a particular use of ice."

  With a fluid wrist movement, Folgore materialized four ice symbols that floated before them: a sword, a flame, a cross, and a circle with four cardinal points.

  "There are four main specialties," she continued. "The Cryowarrior can voluntarily thicken their Cold Veins to temporarily enhance their physique, becoming a superior fighter. The Cryoelemental can fuse their ice with natural elements, creating unique combinations. The Cryomedic can produce ice with healing or regenerative properties. Finally, there's the Cryoeclectic, who can use all specialties but excels in none."

  The symbols floated, rotating slowly in a hypnotic dance.

  "There's no 'better' specialty than the others," Folgore added. "Maximum potential is reached when all four collaborate. This is the secret of the Four Aces: each of us is the absolute specialist in our category."

  As she spoke, Brando noticed that of the four floating symbols, the ice flame glowed with particular intensity when Folgore looked at it. Additionally, he distinctly remembered the orange ice of her helmet, with those multicolored veins that seemed to contain more elements than simple frozen water.

  "You're a Cryoelemental," Brando said, connecting these details.

  Folgore nodded.

  "The strongest Cryoelemental in Nea-Polis," she confirmed, without a shred of boasting in her voice. It was a simple statement of fact. "And that's why we're here. Your Cold Veins have extraordinary potential, but they're raw, unformed. With traditional training methods, it would take months, if not years, to reach the level we need."

  "And we don't have years," Giordano concluded. "We have a week."

  "Exactly." Folgore nodded to Sara, who approached carrying a metallic case that looked heavy. "We'll use unconventional methods, techniques forbidden by the Academy's official doctrine. Techniques that, if applied correctly, can compress months of progress into a few days."

  "And how dangerous are these techniques?" Brando asked, looking at the case with growing apprehension.

  "Very dangerous," Folgore answered honestly. "But that's why Sara is here. As a Cryomedic, she can repair damage to Cold Veins almost instantly. Without her, the techniques we'll use could cause permanent damage."

  The "almost" in that sentence didn't escape Brando.

  Sara opened the case, revealing a series of disturbing-looking medical instruments and several vials containing liquids of various colors, all with a label bearing the cryomedic cross symbol.

  "Before we begin," she said, extracting an instrument similar to a small gun with a thin needle, "we need to do a complete diagnostic test. We need to know exactly the current state of your Cold Veins."

  "What's that?" Brando asked, pointing to the instrument.

  "A cryogenic aspirator," Sara explained. "It extracts a tiny sample of your Cold Veins for analysis. It'll hurt a bit, but it's necessary."

  "Like a glacial biopsy?" Giordano asked, looking at the needle with apprehension.

  "No, it's much more like a blood draw," Sara replied, preparing the instrument. "Only instead of blood, we extract condensed cryogenic energy. It's not as invasive as it seems, although..." Her face twisted into a slightly sadistic grimace. "Some have said it burns like lava."

  "Fantastic," Giordano muttered.

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