The deep woods of Velchant were different than the village. In the village, the air was tamed by the smell of baking bread and the hum of civilization. But here, under the canopy of ancient, gnarled oaks and twisting pines, the world felt raw. The ground was a treacherous map of exposed roots and slippery needles, and the light fell in jagged, uneven spears.
It was the perfect place for a fight.
Victor stood in a small clearing, his boots sinking slightly into the soft loam. He had shed his outer tunic, leaving only a dark vest that showed the heavy scarring on his forearms—reminders of a decade spent on the border watch. Even standing still, he radiated a dry, suffocating heat. His Ignara bond didn't manifest in flashy bolts or majestic wings of fire; it lived under his skin, turning his veins into lines of glowing amber and his presence into a furnace.
"The trees don't care about your footing, Lif," Victor said, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register he used for training. "The earth doesn't care if you're Hollowborn. If you fall, the forest just watches. Now, show me you've been paying attention."
Lif stood twenty paces away. He looked small against the backdrop of the massive trees, but his stance was wide and fluid. He wasn't looking at his father's face. He was looking at Victor's shadow, watching the way the dust moved around his boots. To anyone else, Lif might have looked like a kid playing soldier, but in his mind, the clearing had been transformed into a complex grid of vectors and traps.
He didn't wait for a signal. He lunged.
Lif's speed was startling. Even without the speed of mana-reinforcement, his body was light, whip-thin, and explosive. He didn't run straight at Victor. Instead, he darted toward a sloping pine, ran three steps up its vertical trunk, and launched himself into a spinning kick aimed at Victor's temple.
Victor didn't flinch. He didn't even move his feet. He just raised a massive forearm, and as Lif's boot connected, a dull orange pulse of light rippled through Victor's skin. The sound wasn't of flesh hitting flesh; it was the sound of a hammer hitting a brick wall.
Lif's leg went numb instantly. The mana hardening had turned Victor's arm into solid, scorched earth.
"Good height," Victor grunted, catching Lif's ankle mid-air. "But you're fighting me like I'm a man. I'm a wall. You don't kick a wall, son. You find a way around it."
Victor swung Lif like a sack of grain, intending to slam him into the soft dirt, As he was swung, he didn't fight the momentum—he leaned into it. He reached out, grabbed the leather strap of Victor's vest, and used the force of the throw to whip himself around Victor's back.
He didn't try to punch. He knew Victor's enchanted skin would break his hand. Instead, Lif hooked his arm around Victor's neck and jammed his thumb into the nerve cluster behind his father's ear.
Victor let out a surprised growl, his grip loosening. He wasn't hurt, but the sudden, precise pressure had caused a short-circuit in his focus. He stumbled forward, and Lif released him, rolling across the forest floor and coming up in a crouch behind a thick oak.
"Creative," Victor said, rubbing his neck. A faint trail of smoke rose from his skin as he boosted his Ignara heat. "Most boys would have tried to wrestle me. You're trying to dismantle me."
"Wrestling you is like wrestling a mountain, Dad," Lif panted. His chest was already heaving. He had been moving for less than a minute, but the sheer physical output required to match a mana-user was draining his reserves at a terrifying rate. He didn't have the luxury of a "second wind" fueled by the stars. He only had his lungs and his will.
Victor smiled, a predatory, proud look. "Then let's see how you handle it."
Victor surged. He didn't use fireballs; his aim was notoriously poor, and he'd always preferred the honesty of a fist. But he used his Ignara to ignite the air around him. As he moved, the dry leaves on the ground curled and blackened. He was a juggernaut of heat and muscle.
Lif saw the charge and realized he couldn't dodge in time. The clearing was too narrow. If he moved left, Victor's reach would catch him. If he moved right, he'd be pinned against a thorn-bush.
So, Lif went down.
As Victor's massive fist whistled over his head, a strike that would have shattered a tree trunk, Lif grabbed a handful of loose, dry pine needles and dirt. In one fluid motion, he threw the debris directly into Victor's eyes.
"Dirty" Victor roared, blinking and swinging blindly.
"Useful" Lif countered.
While Victor was momentarily blinded, Lif didn't go for a strike. He knew he couldn't knock Victor out. Instead, he sprinted toward a low-hanging branch he had scouted earlier. He jumped, caught the wood, and used his momentum to kick a rotted, heavy hornet's nest that was wedged in the fork of the tree.
He timed it perfectly. The nest fell directly onto Victor's head just as he cleared his vision.
Victor froze. The swarm erupted, a cloud of angry, buzzing insects. But Victor was an Ignara user. He didn't panic. He simply closed his eyes, and a sudden, violent flare of heat erupted from his pores. It wasn't a flame, but a thermal pulse—an invisible wall of air so hot that the insects were incinerated before they could even land.
The clearing went silent for a beat. The smell of singed wings and ozone filled the air.
"Nice try," Victor said, his eyes finding Lif, who was now perched ten feet up in the tree. "But you're running out of tricks. And you're tired."
He was right. Lif's hands were shaking. His vision was starting to blur at the edges. Every breath felt like inhaling liquid lead. He had used every ounce of his "genius" to create openings, but Victor's raw power and Ignara-hardened endurance were an insurmountable wall.
"I've got one more," Lif rasped.
"Show me."
Victor didn't charge this time. He walked. He knew the end was near. He raised his fists, the Ignara light now burning a deep, angry crimson around his knuckles. He was going to end this with a grapple—get close, pin the boy, and teach him that strength has its own finality.
Lif dropped from the tree, but he didn't land on his feet. He landed on his back, skidding through the dirt.
Victor reached down to grab him, but Lif's "genius" had one final move. He hadn't just fallen; he had landed on a specific patch of ground where a thick, buried root of the great oak broke the surface.
As Victor stepped forward to pin him, Lif jammed his heel against the root and used it as a fulcrum. He didn't push Victor—he pulled. He grabbed Victor's ankles and used every remaining bit of his physical strength to yank.
Combined with Victor's own forward momentum and the uneven ground, the giant went down.
Victor hit the earth hard. But before he could roll, Lif was on him. He didn't punch. He didn't choke. He simply sat on Victor's lower back, pinning his father's arms behind him in a way that used Victor's own massive weight against his shoulder joints.
It was a perfect lock. For three seconds, the Great Victor of Velchant, a retired general was pinned in the dirt by a twelve-year-old boy with no magic.
Then, the heat spiked.
Victor didn't fight the lock with muscle. He just let his Ignara flare. The temperature of his skin skyrocketed. Lif held on for a second, his teeth gritting against the pain, until the smell of his own scorched palms forced him to let go.
He rolled away, gasping, his hands red and blistered.
Victor stood up, brushing the dirt from his chest. He wasn't angry. He looked stunned. He looked at the spot where he had fallen, then at his son, who was now curled in a ball on the moss, trying to catch his breath.
"You... you used the root," Victor whispered, his voice full of awe. "You knew I'd step there because you saw me favoring my left knee from earlier."
Lif couldn't answer. He just gave a weak, shaky thumbs-up.
Victor walked over and sat down in the dirt next to his son. He didn't care about the dirt or the singed leaves. He reached out and gently took Lif's blistered hands in his own. He didn't use Ignara now; he just used the natural warmth of a father.
"That wasn't just a fight, Lif," Victor said softly. "That was a masterpiece. You fought like you were reading a book I haven't even written yet."
Lif finally managed to sit up, leaning his head against his father's massive shoulder. "I had you... for a second."
"You had me for three seconds," Victor corrected him, a rumble of laughter in his chest. "And in a real fight, three seconds is enough to kill a man."
They sat there in the quiet of the forest for a long time. The sun was higher now, the light turning a brilliant, pale gold. The heat of the spar was fading, replaced by the cool, damp breath of the woods.
"I'm so tired, Dad," Lif admitted, his voice barely a whisper.
"I know. That's the price of your gift, son. You don't get to be lazy. You don't get to rely on the stars. You have to be smarter, faster, and braver than everyone else just to stand on the same ground."
Victor stood up and, with a grunt of effort, hoisted Lif onto his back. It was a familiar feeling—the rough leather of the vest, the smell of woodsmoke and old iron, the steady heartbeat of the man who had taught him how to survive.
"We're going home," Victor said, beginning the long trek back toward the village. "Your mother is going to kill me when she sees your hands. I hope you're ready to tell her it was your idea."
Lif let out a sleepy, exhausted chuckle, his eyes already closing. "I'll tell her... you tripped."
Victor laughed, the sound echoing through the trees. "Aye. I suppose I did."
As they walked out of the deep shadows and back toward the golden fields of Velchant, Lif didn't feel like a Hollowborn. He didn't feel like an empty vessel. He felt full—full of the lessons of the earth, the thrill of the hunt, and the knowledge that while he might not have the fire of the stars, he had a spark of something much more dangerous.
He had a mind that knew how to break the world. And as he drifted into a deep, well-earned sleep on his father's back, he knew that one day, he wouldn't just be making his father stumble.
He'd be making the stars themselves look twice.