The road to Bastion Aurora wasn't dramatic.
No flaming skies. No demon hordes cresting the hills. Just dirt, stone, and the occasional crooked tree that looked like it regretted growing here.
Arel preferred it that way.
Less noise meant more room to think.
The three carriages rolled in a loose line, flanked by mounted escorts. The steady creak of wheels and the clop of hooves set a rhythm that almost counted as calm.
Inside Arel's carriage, they had settled—without planning—into a pattern:
Rian by the window, trying to drink in every new sight.
Lyra with her notebook, alternating between writing and watching people like they were puzzles.
Blade sprawled in his corner, long legs stretched out, boots nearly touching Arel's.
Arel opposite him, back straight, hands relaxed on his knees, mind working.
"So," Blade said eventually, breaking a comfortable silence, "how strong are you?"
Rian choked. "You just ask that?"
Lyra didn't look up. "Of course he does."
"It's relevant information," Blade said. He pointed lazily at Arel. "You're Pilcrow. There are stories. I'd rather have data."
"Stories are data," Lyra murmured.
"Stories," Blade countered, "are what happens when data drinks too much."
Arel considered his answer.
Lying was easy. Cleaning up after the consequences was not.
"Human Diamante," he said. "Comfortably. Untrained, I sit around one hundred thirty thousand. With basic technique, I can push higher in short bursts."
Rian blinked. "You say that like you're listing prices at a market."
"That is a lot," Lyra said. "At your age."
"Yes," Arel said. "It is also not enough."
Blade's eyes sharpened.
"Not enough for what?" he asked, though his tone said he already knew.
"For my objectives," Arel replied. "Control and war."
Rian frowned. "You talk like a general trapped in a child's body."
"I talk like someone who's read casualty reports," Arel said. "Once you've seen how many Madera and Acero die in a month, 'one hundred thirty thousand' stops sounding impressive."
Blade let out a low whistle.
"And the other thing?" he asked. "The catastrophic part."
Arel's fingers brushed the pendant under his shirt.
"The Furia doesn't fit neatly into the human scale," he said. "It spikes. If I let it off the leash, I can probably match—briefly—things I shouldn't be able to match."
"Things with wings?" Blade asked.
"Sometimes," Arel said. "Sometimes worse."
Rian stared.
"And you're just… fine saying that?" he asked.
"It's going to come up," Arel said. "Better you hear it from me than from someone screaming during a crisis."
Lyra's gaze flicked from his face to his hands and back again.
"It bothers you," she said. Not a question.
"Of course," Arel said. "Uncontrolled variables bother me. Especially when they're me."
Blade grinned.
"For a walking disaster warning," he said, "you're weirdly reasonable."
"I try," Arel replied.
The carriage rattled over a rough patch.
Outside, Calenor's voice drifted back, low and even, giving some order to the riders. The formation shifted with practiced ease.
"Do you like fighting?" Rian asked suddenly.
Arel glanced his way.
"I like solving problems," he said. "Fighting is one method. It's also expensive."
"Expensive?" Rian echoed.
"In energy. In lives," Arel said. "You don't spend that for fun. Killing for fun is for idiots and demons."
"And angels," Blade added.
"And certain politicians," Lyra said.
Rian pressed a hand to his chest. "Personally offended you didn't include fishermen."
"You're chaotic, not cruel," Lyra told him.
"That's the nicest insult I've ever received," Rian said.
The mood loosened.
Hours slipped by in a mix of talk and quiet. Lyra traced the known overlaps between human, celestial, and demonic ranks, half explaining, half organizing her own thoughts. Rian kept asking questions that betrayed more intelligence than he pretended to have. Blade told a story about a border merchant who tried to sell a fake relic to a real demon.
"And then what happened?" Rian asked.
"The demon paid full price," Blade said. "Then ate him."
"That's not funny," Rian said.
"It is a little funny," Lyra said.
"It's a useful lesson," Arel added. "Know what you're actually dealing with."
The wheels' rhythm became almost hypnotic.
Then it changed.
The carriage slowed. The clatter of hooves softened. The wheels hit something rougher than packed earth.
The four exchanged a look.
"Problem?" Rian asked.
"We'll find out," Lyra said, already closing her ink bottle.
The carriage stopped.
A knock on the wall. Calenor's voice, just loud enough.
"Out. Slowly."
No panic. But no casualness either.
Arel stepped down first.
The air felt… thinner.
There was a faint sourness under the usual smells of dust and horse. The sky was still uniformly grey, but the light seemed strangely flat, as if someone had scraped a layer of warmth off the world.
They were on a cut of road hugging a low rise. Rock rose steep on one side, while the other dropped into a shallow ravine littered with stubborn shrubs and stones.
Ahead, one of the other carriages had stopped at an angle.
Beyond it, something that had once been a wagon lay broken across the road.
Wood, blackened and splintered. Bits of iron. Scraps of cloth. Deep scorch marks spiraled across the ground, still faintly smoking.
Arel's mind started cataloging details before he told it to.
Aura fire. Demonic taint. Maybe both.
He walked far enough to stand beside Calenor.
"Stay by the carriages," the escort said without looking back. "Weapons ready if you have them. Do not flare your aura unless I give the order."
Rian hovered close to the carriage. Lyra placed herself where she could see both the wreckage and their own escort line. Blade stepped forward just enough to see, not far enough to get yelled at.
The other riders fanned out. Three ahead, two sweeping the sides, one staying near the students. Calenor advanced down the center, cloak shifting around his legs.
He knelt by one of the scorch marks and brushed two fingers lightly through it.
The air hissed.
"Residual demonic aura," he said. "Thin. A day, maybe two."
"Celestial?" one of the escorts asked.
Calenor's mouth tightened.
"There's a trace," he said. "Like glass dust. They intervened. Or passed through."
"So this got caught between both," the escort muttered. "Unlucky."
Arel looked for bodies.
He found parts.
A hand still half-gloved. A piece of a leg. A scrap of cloth stuck to something that might have been bone.
Rian made a choked sound and looked away.
Arel didn't.
He let the sight settle. Another entry in the long, growing list in his head labeled *This Is What The War Actually Does*.
The heat under his ribs stirred.
Not in hunger.
In recognition.
*This is the environment,* something deep in him whispered. *This is what you were made for.*
"I was born into it," Arel thought back, which was not something children were supposed to do with their own curse. "Not for it. There's a difference."
The Furia pulsed once.
Amused.
Blade came to stand beside him, hands shoved in his coat pockets, posture too-relaxed.
"First time seeing something like this up close?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," Arel said.
He waited for nausea, shaking, the urge to vomit that so many accounts described.
They didn't come.
Instead, his thoughts kept stacking.
"How many attackers?" he asked.
Blade's eyebrow went up. "You're asking me?"
"You look like someone who pays attention," Arel said.
Blade rolled his shoulders and studied the scorched lines.
"Judging from the spread," he said slowly, "three to five. One heavy, the rest support. Maybe some disposable trash."
"Agreed," Arel said. "And they didn't bother to clean the site. Either rushed or confident. Or lazy."
Blade gave him a sideways look. "You read too much."
"Libraries don't usually try to kill me," Arel said. "Demons do."
Calenor straightened.
"We move together," he called. "Clear the road, then through. Eyes on the treeline and the ravine. If anything moves that shouldn't, shout first, swing second."
The riders went to work.
They dragged aside pieces of broken wagon, careful of anything that still smoked. One of them muttered a quick prayer over the scattered remains—reflex more than faith.
Lyra's gaze followed the escorts, then slid toward the ravine.
"Shades," she said under her breath.
Arel looked at her. "Explain."
"The way the aura hangs," she said. "And the cold. Like heat's being pulled sideways. Shades tail bigger demons. Like scavengers. They come after, when the good meat's gone."
Blade nodded. "Heard the same. They're weak, but irritating. Hard to hit. They like people who look fragile."
Rian glanced at his own empty belt.
"That would be me," he said.
"Statistically, yes," Arel agreed.
"That is not comforting," Rian muttered.
"It wasn't intended to be," Arel said. "It was intended to be accurate."
Something moved in the ravine.
A shadow, sliding where the light didn't change.
Arel's attention sharpened. His hand drifted toward the pendant hidden under his shirt at the same instant Calenor's sword hissed free.
"Contact," one of the escorts snapped.
The thing that climbed the ravine wall looked like a wolf drawn by someone who had only ever heard vague descriptions.
Too long in the limbs. Too thin in the body. Its edges flickered like smoke, its eyes pale pits.
Then another appeared.
Then three more.
They flowed up onto the road without dislodging so much as a pebble.
"Shades," Lyra confirmed.
"Stay behind the carriages," Calenor ordered. "Form line!"
The escorts closed ranks with practiced speed.
Steel met mist.
The first shade lunged low for a guard's legs, but his blade slashed through its neck. Its form shuddered, then dissolved with a sound like breath on glass.
Two more rushed into the gap it left.
The air grew colder.
Sound dulled at the edges. The warmth of bodies, the lantern's faint heat, even the roughness of the road underfoot—all of it felt a layer further away, as if something were leeching substance from the world.
The Furia liked it.
The heat in Arel's chest pressed harder against its boundaries, the way muscles ached for motion after being forced still.
He inhaled once.
Held.
Let it out.
*Control first.*
One shade broke away.
Instead of going for the guard line, it slid along the outer edge of the road, a slick of living shadow angling toward the carriages—toward the four younger, less-armored, more-interesting targets.
Rian went rigid.
Lyra stepped half in front of him, planting her feet.
Blade didn't move at all.
"Do you—" Rian began.
"Yes," Arel said.
He moved.
He didn't sprint. Didn't shout. Just stepped forward enough to alter the angle of the attack.
The shade launched itself, jaws distending, teeth like smoke-made-knives.
Arel lifted his hand.
He did not let the Furia roar.
He did not let it spill out in a wave.
He cracked the door, just enough for a sliver to escape, and attached a condition so hard it felt like engraving it in his own bones:
*Intercept. Contain. No spread.*
Darkness coiled around his fingers, not chaotic but tight, a black spiral hugging his knuckles and palm. It felt like forcing a river through a straw.
The shade hit his hand.
For a heartbeat, it pushed.
Its teeth sank into the swirling dark, but there was nothing there for them to truly catch—not flesh, not aura in the usual sense. Just pressure.
Arel closed his fingers.
The shade compressed.
Its too-long snout crumpled in on itself, body folding like cloth, then like paper, then like something more abstract. There was a muffled sound—not quite a scream, not quite a crack—and then it collapsed into a point and ceased to exist.
No explosion. No backlash.
Just… absence.
Frost spidered out in a thin ring around Arel's boots, staining the packed earth pale.
He exhaled.
The Furia surged, wanting more.
He tightened the leash until his jaw ached.
"Enough," he told it, in the same tone he used when correcting a flawed stance.
The heat recoiled.
Annoyed.
But it thickened back into its usual coiled presence.
Arel opened his hand.
The air above his palm was clear.
Behind him, Rian let out a breath that turned halfway into a shaky laugh.
"Did you just—"
"Yes," Arel said.
Blade stared openly now, grin gone, eyes bright.
"You ate it," he said. "You just—what was that?"
"Containment," Arel said. "And an experiment. I hadn't tried that on a living target before."
Rian made a strangled sound. "You're experimenting in the middle of an ambush?"
"If I wait for ideal conditions, I'll never learn anything," Arel said. "I had safety margins."
"That does not make me feel safer," Rian said.
Lyra's gaze stayed on his hand.
"You compressed its entire form without triggering a recoil," she said slowly. "Shades are unstable. They're supposed to snap back when you try to bind them."
"Apparently not always," Arel said. "Under certain constraints."
Calenor cut through another shade, sword leaving a trail of pale mist. The remaining creatures wavered, then broke, sliding back down the ravine and dissolving into the rocks' shadow.
Silence fell.
The cold lingered a moment longer, then began to fade.
The riders scanned the ravine and the ridge, then relaxed in small increments.
Calenor turned.
His attention went straight to Arel.
He walked over, boots crunching faintly where frost had formed and melted again.
"That," he said, looking at the thin pale circle on the ground, "was not a standard Pilcrow flare."
"No," Arel said.
"Did you lose control?" Calenor asked.
"No," Arel replied. "I let a controlled fraction out with a specific intent."
Calenor's gaze pinned him. "Intent?"
"Neutralize the closest threat with minimal collateral damage," Arel said. "Test a compression method. Confirm whether the Furia can consume unstable constructs without spreading."
"And?" Blade prompted, because Blade never knew when to stop.
"It can," Arel said.
Rian stared at him as if he'd just disassembled a bomb by poking it.
Calenor was quiet for a few seconds.
Then he nodded once.
"I'll include this in my report to the Academy," he said. "They'll want you under measured conditions as soon as possible. Preferably not on a roadside with corpses nearby."
"That seems reasonable," Arel said.
"Sane," Blade added. "Which is why it feels so out of place right now."
Calenor's eyes narrowed slightly, as if weighing something.
"Next time," he said slowly, "if I order you to hold, you hold. Understood?"
"Yes," Arel said.
Calenor's stare didn't soften.
"Understood," Arel repeated. "Provided the risk calculus allows it."
Calenor sighed, just loud enough to hear.
"I walked into that," he said. "Get back in the carriage. We're not stopping again unless we have to."
They climbed back inside.
The carriage felt smaller now, the walls closer.
Rian slumped onto the bench and dropped his head back against the wood.
"I'm going to die of stress before anything actually kills me," he muttered.
"That would be wasteful," Arel said.
"You just folded a monster into nothing like you were trying out a new recipe," Rian shot back. "You don't get to lecture me about stress."
"I wasn't lecturing," Arel said. "Just observing."
"Worse," Rian said.
Lyra was still watching his hands, eyes thoughtful.
"What did it feel like?" she asked.
Arel thought.
"Hot," he said. "Pressured. Contained. It wanted to expand. I refused. The shade itself… felt like noise. Then quiet."
"Any backlash?" she asked.
"None yet," he said. "If it shows up later, I'll note it."
Blade leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"You realize," he said, "that you looked completely calm while doing something I am reasonably sure will show up in someone's nightmares tonight."
"Panicking doesn't improve outcomes," Arel said.
"True," Blade said. "Does make the story better, though."
Rian threw his hands up. "Of course that's your metric."
Lyra flipped her notebook open and made a few quick notes.
"What are we now?" Blade asked her. "Labels?"
She didn't look up as she spoke.
"Risky genius with self-destructive potential," she said, inclining her head slightly toward Arel. "Sarcastic chaos vector," she added, pen twitching in Blade's direction. "Underestimated adaptability," for Rian.
Blade grinned. "And you?"
Lyra closed the notebook with a soft snap.
"Control group," she said.
Arel almost laughed.
Almost.
Outside, the carriages started moving again, rolling over the cleared section of road. The broken wagon and its scattered dead shrank behind them, another invisible mark added to the map of a war most people only knew through rumors and censored reports.
Arel settled back into his seat.
Under his sternum, the Furia had gone quiet again. Not pacified. Alert. Curious about this new trick.
*This is what we can do,* it seemed to say.
*We will do it on purpose,* he answered, *or not at all.*
His two main lines didn't change because of one roadside skirmish.
Control himself.
Become strong enough that the logic of the war bent around him.
Now, though, a third line had begun to sketch itself beneath the others, faint but insistent:
Do not let these ones be wasted.
Rian, who made jokes with shaking hands but hadn't run.
Lyra, who saw patterns in aura and blood.
Blade, who grinned at the edge of danger like it was a dare.
He didn't know yet if it was possible.
The road curved, and far ahead, just barely visible through the grey, a darker shape rose against the horizon. Towers. Walls. A jagged line that cut the sky.
Bastion Aurora.
The place where, if everything went according to his own unreasonable plans, he would turn a curse into a weapon and an obsession into a method.
Expectation settled in his chest, complex and heavy.
Not hope.
Hope was too soft.
This felt more like standing in front of a locked door with the key half-formed in your hand.
Difficult.
Interesting.
He could live with that.
Efficiently, if possible.