Robert bowed to the elderly instructor and stepped out of the mysterious room; the corridor's coolness struck his face. His mind weighed Kefius's hints about dreams and the workshop while sinking into a quiet dialogue with his own subconscious. The outer world had faded; his feet carried him, as if on autopilot, toward the Crimson Friends' hall.
When he reached the broad junction where several corridors met, he was still trying to perfect the trembling sphere on Meka's screen. That was why he almost failed to notice the figure approaching from the opposite side until it was nearly too late. First he saw the bend of light—as if the air itself formed a lens there. Then he caught the color. What one might call skin was really the sheen of polished crystal; beneath the semi-translucent surface a faint redness flowed, not like blood through veins but like liquid fire. Across that crystal were scattered bright, blood-red specks, as if a painter had let droplets fall.
As the figure drew near, details sharpened. She was a woman of unsettling beauty: a silky red skirt and matching top that did not hinder her movement. What set her apart from anything human was stark: two movable, black-tipped ears like a fox's atop her head; and behind her, swaying with a hypnotic rhythm, nine full tails, each cloaked in snowy silk that blushed red at the tips.
She walked as if oblivious to the world, moving to the music of her own making; her tails streamed behind her like a rippling cape. Spellbound, Robert edged aside. She would have passed him—yet she did not. One of the nine tails brushed, seemingly by chance, against his hand poised in the air.
Circuits shorted in Robert's brain. From the point of contact a warm, numbing wave rolled through his body; it was more than a sensation of skin—pure desire was poured straight into the soul. The calm white equilibrium of the Nodron Room shattered; only one thing remained: to draw nearer to the source of this feeling.
He turned to her. She had stopped as well, smiling like a predator pleased to corner its prey. Her eyes shone like melted amber, reading the deepest hidden longings within him.
"Ah," she whispered. Her voice was as sweet and intoxicating as a mix of honey and wine. "So you were the fresh vibration I felt—spice in the academy's stale air…"
Robert's tongue was tied. She stepped closer. The tails woke from their laziness, curling like snakes toward him; silky fur wound about his waist, arms, and legs, sweeping away the last crumbs of will.
"You're so tense, little bender," she murmured. Her breath smelled of night-blooming jasmine and the air after a storm. "Let go… I can show you pleasures beyond your dreams."
The tails tightened, drawing him to her body. Her lips hovered a breath away. As Robert drowned in those amber depths, surrender neared—
"AMARA! LET HIM GO!"
The commanding voice from the far end of the corridor cracked the spell like a bell. Normah, hands cradling a small sphere of sparking energy, rushed toward them.
The woman—Amara—growled, annoyed. Without taking her face from Robert's, she angled her head toward Normah. "Ah, Normah. No one ruins a perfect moment like you."
"You remember my last warning, succubus," Normah said as she closed the distance. "No touching the newcomers."
Amara's smile widened, now edged with danger. "But this one isn't like the others. His mind… tastes exquisite."
Normah moved to strike, but Amara lunged first. Three of the tails coiled like whips and lashed for Normah. Before a shield could rise, they pierced through like paper and bound the leader's body. Fury on Normah's face shifted to shock, then emptiness; the energy sphere fizzled out.
"You see?" Amara said, turning to Robert. "Even the strongest can't resist me. Now, where were we?"
Her helpless leader pierced the fog in Robert's head. Instinct to protect flared; he pushed back through a gap in the tails. "Let… her go!"
Amara blinked in surprise, then laughed—a crystalline, unnerving chime. "My, I didn't know you wanted me so much. Since you're in such a hurry…"
The other tails pounced. Robert stumbled and fell on his back. Amara straddled him, pinning his wrists; the nine tails cocooned him, sealing off movement.
"I'll give you special attention, Dream-Bender," she whispered—and pressed her lips to his.
It was an invasion, not a kiss. Soft yet imperious, her mouth crushed the last sparks of resistance. Words flowed from her lips into his mind: "Forget everything… Forget your team… Feel only me…"
Robert's gaze emptied; his will snapped. All he wanted was to drown in this rapture.
A few meters away, bound by tails, Normah's body lay inert, yet the ember of a leader's will had not gone out. Her right thumb twitched—barely. It found the emergency sensor of the Tu device hidden in her pocket.
A silent, coded message flashed into the Nexus:
[Emergency – Leader Normah. Sector 7 Junction. Threat: Psychic. Response: Uhura.]
Inside Robert, the white room of balance had become a red inferno echoing with Amara's sultry laughter. He sank, and welcomed the sinking. When Amara felt him begin to respond, triumph lit her amber eyes. This was no common surrender; it was devotion of prey to hunter. She withdrew three tails from Normah; the body slumped like a sack to the floor. Every thread of attention cinched around Robert.
Then the air changed. Like the shadow of a storm cloud suddenly blanketing a summer noon, a chill pressed on the spirit. Amara's aura of desire was strangled by an unseen hand. She sensed it first; her kiss broke, and she raised her head.
Uhura glided from the shadows. The Soul Hunter did not walk; she drifted above the floor. Cold, focused fury churned in her violet eyes. As she neared, the psychic static faded; Amara's field collapsed.
"Enough," Uhura said. The whisper thundered through the corridor like an avalanche, more felt than heard.
Amara snarled and rose. "He's mine! Stay out of this, Soul Thief!"
Uhura didn't answer. She touched her temples. An invisible pressure crashed outward; the air clenched like jaws. Amara screamed, clutching her head, as if a thousand shards of glass were driven into her brain.
"Leave his mind," Uhura's voice commanded within every skull. "Now."
The assault weakened Amara's hold on Robert, but the succubus would not yield. Through gritted teeth she smiled. "I can leave… because he now stays by his own will."
Uhura's face hardened. A thorny knot—one that made extraction nearly impossible.
At that moment the shadow behind Uhura stirred. From it slid a strange being without friction: an antique pocket watch with a brass frame and smooth body; where the dial should have been, two simply drawn eyes and a faint smile. Around it whirled a ring of inky, long hair spinning counterclockwise at hypnotic speed.
"Neel," Uhura whispered. "Put her to sleep."
The creature blinked and drifted toward Amara. The hair spun faster, and a deep, resonant purr rose—heard only by Uhura and now Normah—like a lullaby that weighted down the mind. Pattern and sound punctured Amara's defenses. Amber eyes lost focus; her stance slackened; lids drooped.
"No… this is… a trick…" she mumbled, drowsy and slurred.
With a final hum, Neel exhaled a near-invisible glitter of spores from the turning hair. Amara inhaled; the last of her resistance collapsed. Nine tails sprawled like rugs upon the floor. The cocoon around Robert loosened; the succubus toppled gently onto her side and fell into deep sleep.
The pressure lifted at once; Robert gulped air like a man breaking the surface. The corridor's gray, the ceiling lights, Normah on the floor—all came back into focus. Beside him lay the sleeping Amara, and above her drifted the pocket-watch thing with circling hair. Shame and sweetness clung like residue in his mind. Had he… answered her?
"Robert! Are you alright?" Normah had risen and hurried to him.
"I don't know… She… controlled me…" he said, the wobble in his voice the beginning of a lie.
Uhura approached, calm. Her violet gaze measured first Amara, then Robert. "His mental aura is cleared," she said, cool and professional. "But there's a psychic residue. Your dreams may be… lively for a while."
Robert's eyes slid to Neel. "And this… what is it?"
For a heartbeat Uhura looked at the creature with something like affection. "My Norenda. His name is Neel. We are one."
Neel winked and purred, satisfied.
"Norenda?" Robert said as he stood. "What does that mean?"
"Not here," Normah said, scanning the corridors. "Let's get to the hall before the Guards arrive for the succubus."
In the Crimson Friends' hall, Karnah and Tersan waited. Karnah leapt up at the sight of Robert's pallor. "Robert! What happened?"
"He saw worse than a ghost," Normah muttered, dropping into her favorite chair.
Robert told the story briefly, omitting his humiliating complicity. Karnah brought water and a nutrient pack. Tersan listened in silence; the joints of his sword-arm creaked, the wish to split Amara in two written across his face.
"Now will you explain?" Robert asked, looking at Neel. "What is a Norenda?"
Normah drew a slow breath. "Normally, this is for a later lesson. But since you've met… Norenda is a companion. One of the academy's oldest, most mysterious principles. Some students form a special bond with a being from what we call the Ancient Worlds—realities no longer existent or stranded in other dimensions."
"It can be an object," Uhura continued, indicating Neel, "or a living creature. They are reflections of our souls, lost fragments. They offer us power and wisdom; we anchor them here with purpose. A symbiosis."
"So this watch… is alive?" Robert asked.
"Not in the way we mean," Uhura said. "Neel is the last remnant of an ancient race called the Time Weavers. He carries their consciousness and the power to slow time. His hair is a defensive weave that lulls foes to sleep."
Robert was enthralled. Every corner of the academy hid a new secret. For a moment he wondered whether he would ever have a Norenda of his own.
"Not everyone does," Normah said, as if reading him. "It's not something you choose. It finds you—usually when you need it most."
The talk turned to Robert's first Bending Lesson. He spoke of Kefius, of Meka and Fuj, of the pact with his inner copy. He was honest here; he wanted other details to cover the shame of what had happened with Amara.
"You've seen the Hall of Doors," Normah mused. "And made terms with yourself. That takes most benders months. There's something rare in you, kid."
"Be careful anyway," Tersan rumbled for the first time, voice as always metallic and thick. "Power draws parasites like Amara. You're a bigger target now."
Conversation drifted to teams, upcoming trials, and how to fix the busted nutrient terminal. Robert played along, but a corner of his mind remained in the corridor. Uhura's warning—"psychic residue," "lively dreams"—would not leave him.
Most of all, there was the secret he kept: he had not only endured that wild kiss; he had answered it. Was it weakness—or a dark desire awakened by Amara's touch? He didn't know. He knew only that his dreams would never be the same. The sense of safety in the hall was a thin sheet of glass; it had cracked when Normah spoke of the Hall of Doors, and the dust lit under Uhura's quiet gaze. Robert felt he would have to find the door to his white room again—only now he knew the shadow waiting on the other side.
He didn't know how long he had lain there, having lost all sense of time; he hadn't slept, only thought. At last, the rumbling of his stomach called him back to the physical world. His body had concrete needs. He pushed himself up, washed his face, and stepped into the common hall.
The hall was completely different from how he'd left it: the warm, lively atmosphere had faded, replaced by a calm that bordered on melancholic desolation. The others had likely gone off to classes or their own affairs. The silence amplified the echo of his thoughts, and to escape it he turned toward the kitchen.
He pressed the food terminal; a gray paste, rich in protein and poor in taste, poured onto his tray. Just as he was about to sit, he noticed Bellero perched atop the terminal like a figurine. The mechanical owl watched him with large, lensy eyes; only a soft whir and click seeped from within its mechanisms.
He set the tray down and sat across from it. "Hello," he whispered.
Bellero cocked its head nearly one hundred and eighty degrees; its lenses whirred into focus. "Gu-hoo? Is-there-a-problem-New-Part?" it asked in a cheerful yet mechanical tone.
Robert gave a bitter half-smile. "A problem… where do I even begin?" He was facing a machine, and yet it wouldn't judge, wouldn't bombard him with questions—it would simply listen. "Today I went into my own mind, Bellero. I met my own soul. And then I almost sold it to a nine-tailed beast."
He dipped his spoon into the paste. "They told me I could bend reality, but I can't even bend my own will. What kind of justice is that?"
Bellero flicked its wings and alighted on the table; with tiny metallic steps it approached the tray, tested the paste with its beak, then recoiled in distaste. "Taste—awful. Feelings—also—so?"
Robert paused. "Yes… I suppose so. Mixed, humiliating, and… frightening."
For a moment the lenses glowed with a gentle blue; then a rhythmic, purring tick—more comfort than its usual "Gu-hoo"—rose from the owl. Robert spoke in a flow that might have been minutes, might have been hours: the pull he felt toward Amara, his distrust of Normah, the weight of the seal, his fear of what was to come. Bellero didn't interrupt once; it only listened, repeated that comforting tick now and then, and lightly touched his arm with a wing. The quiet companionship became the most meaningful conversation of the day.
When he finished eating, some of the poisonous pressure inside him had eased. He was just about to thank it when Bellero suddenly spread its wings. "Duty—calls! Eyes—must—be—aloft!" it chirped, then shot through the open vent and vanished. Robert smiled after it; he was alone, but he didn't feel quite so alone anymore.
The door opened without a sound; Sinf and Tina entered. They wore everyday clothes rather than team armor: Sinf in flowing lavender trousers and a white blouse, silver hair tied in a ponytail, bare feet barely touching the floor; her otherworldly grace seemed more approachable like this. Tina, in contrast, wore faded, knee-torn jeans and a tight black T-shirt with a flaming logo from some band she didn't know; her fire-red hair was its usual unruly blaze, her boots heavy, her stance a coiled spring—yet her face, beside Sinf, held a calm collectedness.
"Were you alone?" Sinf's soft voice gently parted the quiet.
Robert nodded. "Bellero was here a moment ago."
Tina glanced at his empty tray and tired face, then signaled something to Sinf. "Tina says your aura looks a bit cloudy," Sinf translated, "as if you've come out of a storm, but the colors are settling."
The three of them sat. For a few minutes they traded ordinary talk—Academy gossip, class load, the vileness of the paste—and the normalcy was medicine to Robert.
Then he caught a detail: a nearly inaudible timbre radiated from Sinf's presence; not a whisper, but the crystal chime of tiny silver bells quivering in the air with each breath. "Sinf," he said, smiling as he cut in, "there's a sound coming from you."
She blinked, then smiled shyly. "A sound?"
"Yes… like a little chime. It's lovely."
"I suppose it's the color of my essence," she said. "Most don't notice. Your senses are sharp."
The compliment steadied him. He turned to Tina and found a sound there too: not as crystal as Sinf's, but deeper, more primal—the low, continuous hum of embers in a hearth, the sound of controlled power.
Tina caught his listening and smiled, kindling a small flame in her palm; for a heartbeat it became a treble clef, then winked out. "She says," Sinf whispered with a grin, "everyone has a song; the important thing is to know how to listen."
The sentence hovered in the hall's stillness. Between the crystal bells and the ember-hum, Robert believed—perhaps for the first time—that he was truly at home. He was part of an orchestra; an amateur who didn't yet know how to play his instrument, perhaps, but he knew he had a song now.
The peace was sliced cleanly by the insistent edge of modern tech. From Sinf's belt, her Tu device played a three-note, urgent, rhythmic chime—no personal message, a protocol. The otherworldly serenity on her face sharpened into focus. The holographic screen lit her features: the flaming emblem of the Red Friends and the text, "Tactical Call: Sector 9 – Simulation Room 3. Participants: Normah, Karnah, Sinf. Subject: Triple Tactic Exercise – 'Cerberus Wall.'"
Sinf looked at them with apologetic eyes. "I have to go," she said; her voice remained gentle, now threaded with haste. "We're practicing an emergency defense with Normah and Karnah." She rose, movement liquid as ever. "Forgive me. Our talk was… truly lovely."
"I understand," Robert said. That was the Academy's truth: more than a band of misfits, they were a team always on call.
Sinf gave Tina a nod—one of those agreed-upon gestures Robert couldn't decode—and slipped away like a whisper until the door closed. A different quiet settled: the dense, awkward silence of two people unsure what to say. Sinf wasn't only healer and interpreter; she was the social bridge between them. The bridge had been drawn up.
Robert tensed; he thought of retreating to his room but feared snapping the fragile thread they'd spun. While he hesitated, Tina moved first. She touched the rim of an empty glass; a controlled flame seeped from her fingertip, and letters bloomed as mist on the cold surface: YOU DON'T NEED TO GO.
"No, I'm not going," Robert said, shaking his head. "I just… didn't know what to say."
New letters traced the glass: ARE YOU ANGRY?
"Why would I be?" he asked, not quite following.
Tina paused, then wrote more slowly: AMARA.
The word hit him like a punch to the gut. "No, I'm not angry; I'm… ashamed."
Tina turned slightly toward him; her posture spoke more than words—curiosity, and an absence of judgment. Robert opened further. "She was strong. She entered my mind and I… instead of resisting—" The sentence trailed off.
Tina let the glass be. A tremulous flame bloomed in her palm. Using her finger like a pen, she wrote in the air—not one-word translations now, but a true conversation:
SHE IS A PARASITE. SHE FEEDS ON THE WEAKNESS OF SOULS. YOU ARE NOT WEAK; YOU ARE NEW.
The letters crackled out. "Thank you," Robert said, and the talk flowed on. He spoke of his family, his half-finished project; Tina listened, asking questions or making comments with letters of fire. The flame's hue and brightness matched the mood: bright yellow for excitement, a pale, wavering blue for sorrow.
At first she cast the words on the neutral air above the table. As their talk deepened—Robert offering fears and secrets—she drew the invisible canvas toward herself; the words now appeared just over her lap, near her hands. He found himself watching not only the words but the maker—the hands, the delicate motions.
Then she went further. When he spoke of the Binding Seal and how he had stilled it, a shadow crossed her face—anger, and a familiar ache. She wrote, in sharper letters just before her chest:
CAGES. THIS ACADEMY LOVES CAGES.
The sentence struck him. Then she did something that stole his breath. Slowly, as if not to startle him, she slid the burning words upward. They rose from her chest to her collarbone, then hovered along the line of her long neck like a necklace of fire. The room's dynamic shifted in an instant; this was no longer merely a conversation—it was intimate to the point of danger. Robert struggled to read; the glow on her skin, the shadow of hair on her jaw, the pulse beneath the delicate surface fixed his attention. He felt the heat of the flame on his own face despite the space between them.
Tina knew she had his focus. Not with a conqueror's triumph, but like someone who had found the right person to receive a secret. Her writing quickened; no more single sparks, but smooth, long sentences, circling her throat like a collar of fire. His mind strained to keep pace with both spectacle and weight.
IN MY WORLD, the fiery calligraphy began, THERE ARE NO ACADEMIES—ONLY THE THRONE, AND WAR FOR THE THRONE.
The letters dissolved into a living tableau: volcanic spires under a perpetual crimson dusk.
WE PYRALIANS ARE BORN OF FIRE. OUR QUEEN IS NOT JUST A RULER, BUT THE GUARDIAN OF THE FIRST FLAME TO WHICH WE ALL ARE BOUND.
The scene shifted to a woman on a throne of fire, a crown of flame upon her brow.
BUT THE FIRST FLAME DOES NOT ACCEPT THE WEAK. IN EVERY GENERATION, THE QUEEN'S DAUGHTERS FIGHT THE QUEEN'S WAR: THE STRONGEST CLAIMS THE THRONE—BY DEFEATING THE OTHERS OR BINDING THEM.
A savage duel flashed—swords of fire, blazing orbs colliding.
I WAS ONE OF THOSE WARRIORS. MY VOICE WAS MY WEAPON; WITH WORDS I SHAPED THE FLAME, WITH COMMANDS I LED ARMIES.
Then a shadow-fire appeared—blacker than black, a negative flame devouring brightness. It shot like an arrow into Tina's fiery chest. In the real room she clutched her sternum and winced; the wound was still alive.
The letters at her neck now trembled with pain:
THE CURSE SEVERED MY BOND TO THE FIRST FLAME; IT STOLE MY VOICE—THE SOURCE OF MY POWER—AND IMPRISONED MY TRUE FORM IN THIS CAGE OF FLESH AND BONE.
The final word flared in anger, then faded to an ember. The hall returned to its dim calm, this time heavy with meaning. Robert no longer saw a small, quiet girl; he saw a princess stripped of power, a commander who had lost her voice, a being of fire confined to a body.
"Tina…" he said, at a loss. No word could ease such tragedy.
She lifted her head; the gold in her eyes shone not with reflected flame but with tears she could no longer hold. Her face bore an age-old weariness, a broken heart.
Without thinking, Robert reached across the table and laid his hand over her fist. A simple, consoling touch. She flinched but didn't pull away, and closed her eyes. Beneath his palm her skin was warmer than anything else it touched—not mere body heat, but the muted force of a volcano seeping through the bars of a cage.
That small contact opened a thin breach in the wall of fire and silence around her. For years, touch had meant either the cruelty of battle or the coldness of examinations; this one asked for nothing, pitied nothing—only understood, the quiet echo of a pain shared.
Witnessing that fragile moment, Robert felt a new resolve sprout within him—not pity, but the stubbornness of an engineer facing the impossible. One of the universe's most complex, tragic machines sat before him, and he wanted to repair it.
"Maybe not now," he whispered, low enough for only the two of them, "maybe not tomorrow. But one day, Tina… if you let me, we'll break this curse together. I'll build things; you'll quicken them with your fire. We'll find a way."