The mountain left.
That was the first thought that made any sense.
One moment the world had been made of weight—angry gravity pinning my bones to the floorboards—then it vanished so fast my body didn't understand the change. My knees hit the wood before my mind caught up.
I stayed there, hunched and shaking, hands splayed on the floor like I was afraid the ground would float away without me.
Air scraped into my lungs.
It wasn't a clean breath.
It was the kind you stole.
My chest heaved too hard, too loud. Sweat dripped off my chin and darkened the boards in little dots. My fingers trembled like they belonged to someone else.
I blinked and forced my eyes up.
The lamp still burned steady.
The glass of water sat on the table like it had never been threatened.
Nothing in the room looked different.
Except the floor.
My footprints were still there—pressed into the wood in shallow dents, perfect outlines as if the boards had softened only for me and then remembered they were supposed to be hard.
Proof.
I swallowed, throat raw from the scream I'd torn out of myself.
Theopard Erdallion watched me the way storms watched rooftops.
Not cruel.
Not kind.
Just… present.
That was the scariest part. He hadn't moved. Not even when I'd screamed. Not even when my legs had nearly folded into nothing.
He stood near the foot of the bed, tall and unmoving, gold eyes fixed on me with an expression that belonged on something that hunted for a living.
Nerissa was behind him, still as a drawn blade.
Vira hovered by the door, pale and rigid, hands clasped so tight her knuckles looked ready to split.
My whole body wanted to curl into itself and apologize for existing in front of them.
But my knees were already on the floor.
I couldn't go lower without becoming someone I hated.
I forced another breath in. Slower this time. Still ugly, but mine.
Erdallion spoke first.
"What you felt," he said, "was aura."
The word landed soft.
It did not feel soft.
I managed to lift my head a little more, eyes burning with sweat. "Aura…"
"A presence," he continued, and his voice was calm enough to be terrifying. "A will that presses into the world. It can be directed. Focused. Sharpened."
He looked at my footprints again, as if they amused him.
"People without it," Erdallion said, "can be made to kneel without a hand laid on them."
Vira made a sound near the door—small and strangled, like she'd tried to swallow a scream and failed.
Nerissa's jaw tightened, but she didn't interrupt.
Erdallion didn't look at either of them.
He looked at me.
"You think this was a display," he said quietly. "A trick. A threat."
My throat worked. I couldn't tell if he was asking a question or describing my face.
"It wasn't," he said. "It was a lesson."
A pause—just long enough for my heart to remember how to beat normally.
"Without aura," he said, "a strong man can still kill you. A monster can still kill you. But a skilled man can end you without effort. You can pass out before you understand why you're falling."
My fingers tightened against the boards.
The idea turned my stomach.
Crushed without touch.
No blade. No blood. Just… weight and darkness.
"Why teach me?" I asked before I could stop myself.
My voice came out rough, too small in a room this quiet.
Erdallion's gaze didn't soften. But something in it shifted—like the page turning again.
"Because you asked to be strong," he said. "And because you proved you won't stop moving when the world tells you to stay down."
My breath stuttered.
Nerissa's eyes flicked to me—fast, sharp, proud in a way she tried not to show.
Erdallion continued, "I will teach you aura."
The words hit like another pressure—different this time. Not crushing. Just heavy with consequence.
My brain tried to race ahead, trying to make pictures of what that meant: golden-eyed power, walking through fear like it was fog, never being helpless again.
Then another picture stabbed in.
Home.
Myrina's boots lined by the wall.
The stupid rock on her bedside table.
The silence that waited for me every night.
Erdallion stepped closer. The boards didn't creak under him. They should have.
"I will train you when there is no class," he said. "Before dawn. After dusk. When the guild is quiet."
I forced myself to keep looking up, even though my neck shook with fatigue.
"You will not take errand quests during this training," he added.
My eyes widened before I could hide it.
Errands were food. Errands were rent. Errands were… surviving long enough to become something else.
Erdallion saw the reaction and didn't care.
"I don't want your training and my time wasted by bad nutrition," he said. "You will eat properly. You will sleep properly. You will recover properly."
He spoke the words like they were not gifts, but tools he expected to be maintained.
"In this room," he went on. "You will stay in it. You will be fed. You will be provided for."
My mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
The offer was too large. Too clean. Too dangerous to accept without asking what it cost.
Erdallion's eyes narrowed a fraction, as if he'd heard the question anyway.
"And you will not return to your home," he said, "until you are ready."
The room seemed to tilt.
Home wasn't comfort.
Home was empty chairs and a room that still smelled like leather and cheap perfume.
Home was where Myrina was supposed to walk in someday and laugh at how worried I'd been.
But home was also… mine.
It was where my fear lived, yes—
—but it was also where my promises sat, quiet and waiting.
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
Erdallion's voice dropped lower.
"Ready," he repeated, "means you can bear what you're asking for. Physically. Mentally. Without breaking."
My hands clenched against the floor until my nails bit.
If I said no… I'd go back to errands and lessons and waiting.
Waiting for news that didn't come.
Waiting for grief to finish chewing through me.
Waiting for the Abyss to decide my sister's story for me.
If I said yes…
I would step into the lion's shadow and let it close around me.
I dragged air in, steadied myself, and forced my voice to obey.
"Yes sir."
Two words.
Short.
Precise.
Confident—at least on the outside.
Erdallion watched me for a breath longer, as if making sure I meant it.
Then he turned toward the door.
"Vira," he said.
Vira flinched like he'd snapped a whip.
"Y-yes, sir?" she whispered.
"With me," Erdallion said.
Vira's face drained further of color. Her hands unclasped, then clasped again—faster, like she couldn't decide where to put them. She shot a glance at Nerissa—pleading, silent.
Nerissa gave her a look that said breathe.
Vira nodded once like someone agreeing to walk into a storm.
Erdallion stepped out.
Vira followed him with the careful steps of someone trying not to wake a predator.
The door shut behind them with a soft click.
For a moment, the room held its breath.
Then—
From the other side of the door, I heard Vira's voice.
It was muffled. Shaky. Terrified in a way I hadn't heard from her before.
"Sir, I—I terribly sorry—please—"
The words tangled, cut off by the thickness of wood and distance. I couldn't hear Erdallion's reply. Only the fact that he was there, and that Vira sounded like she was trying to apologize for breathing.
My stomach twisted.
Nerissa moved.
Fast.
She crossed the room and knelt beside me, one hand hovering near my shoulder like she wasn't sure if touching me would snap me in half.
"You did well," she said softly.
Her voice was the first warm thing in the room.
I tried to laugh and failed. It came out like a cough.
My arms shook as I pushed myself up a little, shifting from my knees to a sit. The floor was cold. My skin felt too hot.
Nerissa's fingers finally rested on my shoulder—light pressure, grounding. Not a mountain. A hand.
I swallowed again, eyes still fixed on the footprints in the wood.
"Aura…" I whispered, like saying it might make it real.
Nerissa followed my gaze. Her mouth tightened with something complicated.
"It's real," she said. "And yes—when someone like him uses it, it's… terrifying."
I turned my head toward her. My vision swam for a second, then steadied.
"Is it really that amazing?" I asked. The question came out more desperate than I wanted. "Can I actually learn that?"
Nerissa didn't answer immediately.
She studied me—sweat-soaked, shaking, sitting in my own dents like a child who'd tried to wrestle the sky.
Then she said, very quietly, "You already did the impossible part. You didn't give up."
The words hit in a place deeper than pride.
I blinked hard.
"I… I almost did," I admitted.
"Almost," Nerissa said. "But you didn't."
Her hand squeezed my shoulder once, firm.
"Aura isn't a gift you unwrap," she continued. "It's something you carve into yourself until it becomes yours. Some people are born with the talent to find it faster. Some people only find it when they're about to die."
Her eyes flicked to the door.
"And some people," she added, "get noticed by the worst person in the city to impress."
That made a weak, startled sound escape me—half laugh, half disbelief.
Nerissa's lips twitched like she considered smiling and decided against it.
"You asked if you can learn it," she said. "Yes. You can. But don't treat it like a storybook trick. Aura is dangerous. It can protect. It can kill. And once you feel it, you'll realize how many people walk around the world pretending they're harmless when they're not."
A chill slid down my spine that had nothing to do with sweat cooling.
I stared at my hands again.
They were still trembling.
My nails had bits of wood under them, like proof I'd tried to dig into the world and hold on.
"If I learn it…" I started, then stopped. The rest of the sentence was too big.
If I learn it, can I find her?
Nerissa seemed to hear the missing words anyway.
She leaned closer, voice gentler. "If you learn it, you'll stop being the kind of person the world can crush without effort."
My throat tightened.
Outside this room, the guild still existed. People still shouted. Quest boards still creaked. Life still demanded coin.
Inside this room, I'd been introduced to a kind of power that made all of that feel… small.
I swallowed and asked the next question because it was safer.
"Do you have aura?" I asked.
Nerissa's gaze slid away for half a breath.
"Yes," she said simply.
Not boasting.
Not apologizing.
Just truth.
"And… you didn't…" I gestured weakly toward the door, toward the memory of that mountain on my spine. "You didn't stop him."
Nerissa's eyes sharpened, but her voice stayed calm.
"If I had," she said, "you would have learned a different lesson. That someone will always save you."
My face warmed with shame.
"I didn't mean—"
"I know," she said quickly. "But you need to understand what kind of man he is. Sir Erdallion doesn't offer his time like charity. If he trains you, it's because he expects something out of it."
My stomach turned again. "What does he expect?"
Nerissa looked at me for a long moment.
"Perseverance," she said. "Results. Obedience. Discipline."
She paused, then added more softly, "And maybe… hope. The kind he doesn't say out loud."
I didn't know what that meant, and I didn't ask. Some questions felt like stepping too close to a cliff.
Instead, I whispered, "He said aura can make people pass out."
Nerissa nodded once. "It can."
"And he did that to me," I said, voice thin. "But I didn't…"
"No," Nerissa said. "You didn't."
Her eyes flicked to the footprints again.
"And the floor remembers it," she murmured.
My gaze stayed on the dents.
They looked like someone else's.
Like proof of a boy who didn't exist yesterday.
Nerissa straightened slightly and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, returning to the practical part of herself like it was armor.
"You need rest," she said.
I opened my mouth to argue automatically—
—and realized I didn't have the strength to do it.
Nerissa saw that too.
"I'll handle the rest," she said firmly. "Class. Errands. Nanda. Your friends asking where you vanished to."
My chest tightened at the thought of Finn and Mya showing up at my door and finding it empty.
And then the guilt sharpened.
Home.
My sister's room.
The rock on the bedside table.
The way I'd promised the empty air that I'd bring her a real dungeon stone with better handwriting.
If I didn't go back tonight… the house would sit there in silence without me.
Part of me wanted to run. Not from training.
From leaving that silence behind, because it felt like leaving a piece of her.
Nerissa's hand found my shoulder again, as if she'd felt the shift in my breathing.
"Trey," she said softly.
I looked at her.
"You don't have to decide everything at once," she said. "You already decided the important thing. You're moving forward."
My throat burned.
"What if I'm not ready?" I asked, and hated how small the words sounded.
Nerissa's gaze didn't waver.
"Then you rest until you are," she said. "And when you're stable enough to stand without shaking, you go to class again. When you're stable enough to be crushed and still choose to rise, you train with him."
Her voice gentled again.
"You don't have to prove anything to anyone tonight," she said. "Not even him."
I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.
Then I asked, "How do I… learn aura?"
Nerissa's mouth twitched. This time she almost smiled.
"Ask the veterans," she said. "They won't shut up about it once you give them an excuse."
That image—Barrek booming about aura like it was ale, Ruth correcting him, Joren making it worse—made something loosen in my chest.
Nerissa continued, "They'll tell you what it feels like from the inside. What it costs. What it changes."
Her eyes sharpened. "And they'll also tell you why you shouldn't rush it just because you're angry."
I flinched, because she wasn't wrong.
Anger had been holding me upright since the caravan returned without her.
Anger had teeth.
Anger also made stupid decisions feel like bravery.
Nerissa stood and offered her hand.
I stared at it for a second, then took it.
My legs wobbled as she pulled me up. My feet found my dents in the wood like they belonged there.
"Eat when you can," she said. "Sleep when you can. If you wake and your mind starts chewing itself again…" Her voice softened. "Find me. Or find Barrek. Or find Ruth. Don't sit alone in your head."
I swallowed. "Okay."
Nerissa hesitated, then added, "You're not weak for needing help."
I didn't trust my voice, so I nodded again.
She stepped out, then paused in the doorway.
"Oh," she said, and her tone turned dry. "And if you go wandering, try not to accidentally insult the Guild Master again."
A weak sound escaped me.
Nerissa's mouth twitched—almost a smile—and then she closed the door gently behind her.
The latch clicked.
Silence filled the room.
Not the same silence as home.
This silence was clean. Empty in a different way.
I sat on the bed and stared at my hands until the trembling slowed.
My body was exhausted, but my mind refused to sleep. It replayed the pressure again and again—the way the air had become stone, the way my bones had wanted to fold, the way my thoughts had screamed down.
And then it replayed the moment it vanished.
Gone.
Like it had never been there.
Like I'd imagined it.
Except the floor remembered.
I lay back slowly and stared at the ceiling.
Don't go home until you're ready.
I didn't know what "ready" looked like.
But I knew what "not ready" felt like.
It felt like kneeling in the dirt while the world decided who lived.
At some point, exhaustion finally won. My eyes closed.
***
A sound woke me.
Not shouting.
Not footsteps.
Metal.
A steady clack—shhk—clack like a rhythm being hammered into the night.
I blinked in the dark, heart thudding. For a moment I didn't know where I was. The unfamiliar ceiling, the unfamiliar air—then memory slid back into place.
Guest room.
Guild.
Erdallion's terms.
The sound came again.
Clack—shhk—clack.
Training.
In the middle of the night?
Curiosity rose before caution could choke it.
I sat up, rubbing my eyes. My muscles protested, still heavy from being crushed, but the sound pulled at something inside me—an itch, a need to understand what kind of world I'd just stepped into.
I moved quietly to the door and cracked it open.
The hallway was dim, lit by distant lanterns. Shadows stretched long across the floor. The guild at night felt like a sleeping beast—still dangerous even with its eyes closed.
The sound came again, clearer now.
Clack—shhk—clack.
I followed it.
Slow.
Barefoot, so the boards wouldn't complain too loudly.
The sound led me to the training rooms.
One door was slightly ajar.
Light spilled through the crack—warm and flickering, like someone had lit lamps inside.
I hesitated.
This was probably restricted.
This was probably a terrible idea.
My hand still reached forward anyway.
I pushed the door open just enough to peek.
Inside, the training room was empty except for one person.
A boy—no, not a boy. Older than me. Around fifteen, maybe. Five years older. Tall in a lean way that looked like it had been built by hard work, not food.
He had black hair that stuck up in sharp spikes like it refused to behave.
Both of his arms were wrapped in bandages, thick and layered, as if skin underneath had once disagreed with the world and lost.
He stood in the middle of the room alone, holding a practice sword.
And he moved.
Not like the trainees in class who swung too wide and overcommitted.
Not like the veterans who made everything look effortless because they'd already paid the price years ago.
He moved like someone who had decided repetition was the only language worth speaking.
Step.
Swing.
Stop.
Reset.
Clack—shhk—clack.
His blade cut the air with a sharp hiss, then halted perfectly—no wobble, no wasted motion.
He breathed through his nose, steady. Controlled.
Bandages flashed with each movement.
It was late. The guild was quiet. And he was here, alone, carving something invisible into himself with every swing.
My chest tightened.
Aura.
The word rose in my mind like a spark.
Was that what this looked like? Training when no one watched? Becoming heavy from the inside?
The boy's sword snapped through another pattern.
Then he stopped.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
His head turned.
His eyes found the crack in the door.
Found me.
For one heartbeat, the entire room froze.
The lamps flickered softly. The air felt colder.
He stared straight at the sliver of my face like he'd known I was there the whole time.
Then he lowered the sword an inch.
And took one step toward the door.
"…"