"Aghh! Why can't I do this?!"
Ryn lay flat on his back in the middle of the commoner training grounds, with one arm thrown dramatically over his face as though he had just been taken out by some beast rather than by basic self-awareness.
The training hall was quieter than usual today. Most students were either beginning their electives or recovering from the collective panic Professor Seris had abruptly delivered to us in the main assembly hall two days ago. The commoner training hall still smelled faintly of dust, sweat, metal, and old stone scorched by repeated spell impact. The walls were dark, reinforced, and scarred with countless shallow marks where badly controlled Aether had struck over the years. Several target dummies stood near the far side, patched and re-patched so many times that they looked less like equipment and more like survivors.
Randel stood over Ryn with the expression of someone trying very hard to be encouraging.
"You'll get there eventually," Randel said. "Anyone who can use Aether can sense their core. It just sort of comes with the territory."
"Well, apparently not my territory," Ryn groaned. "My territory seems to be a tad stupid."
Taron crouched beside Ryn at eye level, chin resting thoughtfully on one hand.
"Don't worry, Ryn," he said, "even if you can't sense it, we can just sense it for you."
Ryn slowly lowered his arm and gave Taron a look of deep, judgmental exhaustion.
"Why are you even here?"
Taron pointed toward me, then toward Ryn.
"Uh... cause you and Kael are."
Ryn stared at him.
"That's not a good answer."
"But it's my answer."
"It's a terrible answer."
Taron smiled. "Still mine, though."
Ryn pushed himself up onto his elbows, face twisting as though Taron's existence alone had inflicted some previous injury back into activity.
"Aren't these training grounds a bit too shabby for someone like you? One of the Ten Heirs?" he asked. "Don't you find this place beneath you?"
For once, Taron did not immediately answer.
He looked around the hall.
At the cracked floor.
At the worn-down targets.
At the unevenly displayed lamps.
Then he looked back at Ryn.
For a moment, his expression was not that of someone joking.
Then he smiled.
"I go where the wind takes me," Taron said. "No place is too shabby for someone like myself."
As he spoke, he rose smoothly from his crouched position and turned slightly to the side, one hand resting against his hip, chin lifted at the perfect angle for dramatic lighting.
A soft breeze passed through the room.
It caught his dark auburn hair and lifted it just enough to make the strands flow back elegantly from his face. His uniform rustled alongside his movement. Even the light seemed to catch him at a specific angle that would only benefit his looks.
He looked, annoyingly, impressive.
Ryn stared.
Randel blinked.
I looked at the nearest window.
It was closed.
Ryn's eyes narrowed.
"Did you just use Ventus magic to blow your hair?"
Taron kept his gaze away from him, pretending to feign ignorance
"... I don't know what you're talking about."
"You did! You absolutely did, didn't you?!"
"I would never abuse the sacred use of Aether for something simple like aesthetic effect."
"... You literally just did, though."
"That sounds like an accusation. Do you have the appropriate evidence for it?"
"The evidence is your stupid dramatic hair that's flowing despite there being no wind in the room."
Taron ran a hand through it, entirely unashamed.
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"I accept it as one."
Ryn looked at me.
"Kael, you agree with me, right? Taron's dramatic, flowy hair looks ridiculous."
I didn't answer.
Not because I had nothing to say, but because I wasn't listening.
Despite it looking like I was staring at them, I was, in fact, looking past them.
Not intentionally.
But because my thoughts had slipped elsewhere.
Two days had passed since Professor Seris had explained the Leyre Island Examination to us. Two days since the hall had gone silent under the weight of her words. Two days since the exam had stopped being a couple of students' theory, stopped being Professor Orin's challenge, and started becoming a reality, a dangerous one at that.
Twenty-four hours.
Different starting points.
Beasts and safe zones.
Student eliminations and final finishing gates.
Hidden achievements.
And getting top ten.
Professor Seris' speech had done something unpleasantly effective. It had lit a fire under the first-years and made the exam feel like a door slightly ajar. A brutal one. A door that only opened if we were willing to bleed to open it.
Ryn had been training harder since then.
And so had I.
He had tried to hide it behind complaints and insults, but I noticed. He had started asking Randel about how to sense his core better, both casually during the day and during sparring. Apparently he had watched Ilya's movements more closely. He had dragged me into strategy conversations at inconvenient times.
I, in turn, had been thinking about the exam almost constantly.
Too constantly, perhaps.
"Kael."
The island itself mattered most.
"Kael."
If starting points were separate, then the priority was figuring out the island's orientation from my starting spot. I wouldn't be surprised if they gave an incomplete map that would likely be intentionally misleading or limited, and safe-zone alerts only triggered when nearby one, meaning—
"KAEL!"
I blinked.
Ryn was glaring at me from the floor.
Taron looked amused.
Randel looked concerned.
"Sorry," I said. "I was just thinking about something."
Ryn sat up properly. "Something pointlessly complex, I bet."
Taron laughed immediately.
Randel laughed too, though his version was softer and awkward, as if he was not sure whether laughing at me would be offensive or not.
"It was relevant," I said.
"Sure it was, pal."
I exhaled through my nose. "Do you need something?"
"Yes, in fact," Ryn said, gesturing at his chest with both hands. "Advice. How do I sense my Aether core?"
I looked at him.
Then at Randel.
Then back to Ryn.
"Uh, I don't really know."
Ryn's face flattened. "What do you mean you don't know?"
"I was able to sense mine from the beginning."
A silence followed.
Ryn stared.
"Well, that's just great," he said. "How helpful."
I couldn't tell him that a large part of my awareness of the Aether core came from the Codex's ability to calmly inform me of something that should have required years of training to do on my own.
'I can't tell Ryn that the Codex is the one who does all the sensing for me.'
That would create several problems.
Most of them being a hassle to explain.
I turned my focus inward.
'Hey, Codex, is there anything I can say to help him?'
For a second, nothing happened.
Then the familiar cold clarity unfolded in my mind.
[QUERY RECEIVED]
[SUBJECT: AETHER CORE SENSORY DEVELOPMENT]
[STANDARD RESPONSE: TIME, REPETITION, AND INTERNAL AETHER FAMILIARITY]
'That's not helpful, Codex. There's got to be something specific he can do.'
[AN ALTERNATIVE METHOD IS AVAILABLE]
[FOCUS ON SINGULAR EXTERNALISED AETHER POINT]
[RECOMMENDED TARGET: PALM, WRIST, OR STERNUM]
[PROCESS: ISOLATE SENSATION OF AETHER FLOW AT TARGET POINT]
[TRACE FLOW BACKWARD THROUGH AETHER PATHWAY NETWORK]
[POTENTIAL OUTCOME: CATALYSIS OF CORE SENSORY RECOGNITION]
[PREDICTED SUCCESS: VARIED DEPENDING ON USER]
I considered what the Codex said.
'Hm, that certainly sounds plausible. Worth a try anyway.'
Then again, many things the Codex said sounded plausible while also being deeply abnormal to everyone else here.
Ryn snapped his fingers in front of me.
"Don't go weird again on me now."
"I'm not going weird."
"You were drifting off again."
"No, it wasn't that. I thought of an idea that you can try."
Randel straightened slightly. Taron tilted his head with interest.
I looked at Ryn.
"Maybe try not to sense your core directly; instead, focus on a single point in your body first. Your palm or chest, then release a very small amount of Aether there, not enough to cast anything, but enough to tune everything else out and focus only on the sensation at that point. Once you can feel the Aether gathering there, try tracing the sensation backwards through your pathways that carried the Aether. The idea is that following the flow back may lead your awareness to the location of your core."
All three of them stared at me.
Ryn's expression shifted from irritation to heightened interest.
Randel looked genuinely surprised.
Taron's eyebrows rose.
"That's…" Randel began. "I've never heard anyone explain it like that."
"Neither have I," Taron said.
I felt a small internal warning bell.
'Oops. I might've given too much. I don't want them getting suspicious and hounding me with questions.'
"It's just an idea, I don't even know if it'll work," I said.
Taron's smile sharpened. "Where did you learn it?"
I paused.
Too long.
"Uhhhh…" I said.
Ryn narrowed his eyes.
Randel looked increasingly curious.
Taron looked entertained.
"Myself??"
Silence.
It was not convincing.
It was possibly the least convincing answer I had ever given.
Taron and Randel looked at each other.
Then, at the same time, both said, "It's Kael; what can you do?"
I frowned.
"Huh?"
Ryn pointed at them triumphantly.
"HAHAHA! Now you guys understand how I feel on a daily basis."
"Wait," I said. "I don't understand what you guys—"
The atmosphere in the room had suddenly changed.
Not loudly.
Not obviously.
But enough that it warranted an immediate reaction from everyone in the room.
The air at the entrance to the commoner training hall tightened, suffocating those past it.
Randel turned first.
Taron's smile disappeared.
Ryn pushed himself to his feet, half-irritated and half-alert.
I looked toward the doorway.
And there he was.
The primary object of my thoughts the past few days.
Just stood there.
Darius Renora.