The demonstration hall had been designed for control.
Its ceiling was high enough to vent heat without allowing expansion. The walls were layered stone and treated metal, etched with dampening channels that bled excess energy into the foundation. The floor sloped imperceptibly toward a central drain not for water, but for residue.
Nothing here was decorative.
Nothing here was meant to endure beauty.
Three practitioners stood at measured intervals along the inner ring.
They did not face one another.
They faced inward, toward a focal array sunk into the floor like a surgical wound that had never fully healed. Each wore an anchor some at the wrist, others at the throat devices smoothed by constant handling. Their hands were bare. Their expressions blank.
The Senior Magister observed from the raised platform above.
He was an older man, hair cropped close to the scalp, posture rigid not from pride but habit. His eyes were sharp, his hands clasped behind his back with a precision that spoke of long familiarity with restraint. He had seen demonstrations like this before.
That did not make him comfortable.
"Begin," he said.
The first practitioner moved.
He was a man in his early thirties, broad-shouldered, stance wide and aggressive. His jaw tightened as he reached for the Krag, seizing it the way one might grab a blade already in motion.
The air shuddered.
Heat did not bloom gradually.
It arrived.
The stone in front of him darkened instantly, surface moisture flashing to steam so fast it scalded the skin on his forearms. He forced the energy forward anyway, teeth clenched, veins standing out along his neck as the Krag resisted his grip.
This was not a fireball.
It was flash ignition.
The focal array absorbed the brunt of the discharge, but not all of it. Radiant heat spilled sideways, washing across the nearest wall. Treated metal blistered. A sharp chemical stench filled the hall as coatings failed.
The practitioner staggered back, coughing.
The air he had inhaled had been too hot.
His lungs seized not burned, but cooked. The delicate tissue inside flash-damaged, swelling immediately. His cough turned wet and ragged as fluid flooded spaces meant for air.
He dropped to one knee.
"Cease," the Magister said.
The man did not respond at first.
When he did, it was only to retch, bile and blood splattering the stone.
Medics moved but did not rush.
They waited for the signal.
The second practitioner was a woman.
She stood differently.
Feet closer together. Shoulders loose. Eyes half-lidded, breath measured. When she reached for the Yara, she did not pull.
She opened.
The temperature in the hall dropped.
Not dramatically at first. Just enough to register as discomfort. Moisture condensed along skin and stone, clinging like sweat that did not evaporate. Frost crept outward from her feet in branching patterns, delicate and precise.
She guided the flow carefully, shaping it into a narrow vector toward the array.
This was not ice.
It was thermal extraction.
Heat was stripped from the stone faster than it could equalize. The surface cracked with a sharp, brittle sound like bone snapping under strain.
The woman's hands trembled.
Her lips paled.
Blood vessels constricted as cold leeched inward, slowing circulation, numbing extremities. Her breath fogged thickly in front of her face.
"Enough," the Magister said.
She released the flow immediately.
Too late.
Her fingers did not warm.
The tissue had already been damaged. Frostbite had set in beneath the skin, nerves stunned, circulation compromised.
She stared at her hands, jaw clenched, refusing to cry out.
The third practitioner hesitated.
He was younger than the others—barely into his twenties. His anchor was new, its etching sharp and unscarred. Sweat beaded along his hairline.
"Proceed," the Magister said.
The man reached for the Krag.
It resisted.
He pushed harder.
The energy surged unevenly, bucking like something trapped and panicking. His grip faltered for half a second.
That was enough.
The discharge did not go forward.
It grounded.
The current traveled through the array and into the floor, seeking equilibrium. It found the fastest path through him.
His body convulsed violently as electricity tore through muscle and nerve. His back arched, teeth clenching so hard something cracked.
His heart seized.
Not stopped.
Misfired.
He collapsed, rigid, eyes wide and empty.
The alarms sounded then.
Medics moved quickly now, practiced and grim. They did not waste time with reassurances. They shocked him once. Then again.
For a moment, his body jerked.
Then stilled.
From behind treated glass in an observation corridor, the handler watched.
Aurel was not there.
He had not been permitted near the hall.
It did not matter.
The wards along the corridor hummed louder, compensating for something they could not isolate. The handler felt it as pressure behind the eyes, the same sensation they had learned to associate with recalibration.
They pressed their palm briefly against the glass.
The demonstration concluded.
Success was logged.
Later, in the records wing, a clerk summarized the outcome.
One practitioner: respiratory failure pending.One practitioner: peripheral nerve damage, permanent.One practitioner: cardiac death.
The language softened immediately.
"Acceptable loss," someone wrote.
Another replaced it with: "Instructional expenditure."
The file moved on.
That night, the handler returned to Aurel's room.
The silver line still gleamed faintly. The wards hummed at a higher pitch than before, strained but holding.
Aurel sat on the bed, posture careful, eyes lifting as the handler entered.
"Did something happen?" he asked.
The handler hesitated.
"Yes," they said.
Aurel absorbed that quietly.
"Did it hurt them?"
"Yes."
Aurel nodded once. His fingers tightened in the blanket, then loosened again.
"I don't want to do that," he said.
"I know," the handler replied.
They stood there, separated by a line no one pretended was for the child's sake.
Somewhere deep in the fort, a stabilizing ward failed then corrected itself.
No alarm sounded.
The system held.
This time.