CHRONOFOUDRE Book 1: The Awakening Chapter 9: Trial by Fire
Mira's hand is worse than Lyra described.
I corner her after morning drills, before she can disappear into the crowd heading to breakfast. She sees me coming and tries to duck away, but I'm faster.
"Show me," I say.
"Show you what?"
"Your hand. The one you've been hiding under increasingly longer sleeves despite it being winter and everyone wearing long sleeves anyway."
She freezes, caught. For a moment, I think she'll bolt. Then her shoulders slump.
"It's not that bad."
"Lyra says you'll lose functionality permanently if you don't get treatment."
"Lyra should mind her own business."
"We're a squad. Your business is our business." I soften my tone. "Please, Mira. Just show me."
She hesitates, then slowly pulls back her left sleeve.
The frostbite has consumed her entire hand. What was once isolated to fingertips now creeps past her wrist, blackened tissue shot through with crystalline blue veins. The skin looks brittle, like it might crack if she moves wrong. When she flexes her fingers, I can hear them creak.
"Holy shit."
"It's not that—"
"That's horrifying. When did it get this bad?"
"Gradually. Week by week." She pulls the sleeve back down. "My ice magic is unstable. Every time I channel, some of it backflows into me. The healers can treat symptoms, but they can't fix the core problem—I'm poisoning myself with my own power."
"So stop using it."
"And get classified as non-combat effective? Removed from the active roster?" She shakes her head. "I'd rather lose the hand."
"Mira—"
"You don't understand." Her voice cracks. "This is the only place I'm not worthless. My family didn't want me. Couldn't use me. I froze everything I touched, ruined everything I tried to help with. But here? Here I'm useful. I can fight, I can contribute, I matter." She meets my eyes. "If they take that away, what am I?"
I don't have an answer. Because I understand completely.
We're all terrified of being useless. Of being sent away from the one place that gives our cursed powers purpose.
"Let me talk to the healers," I finally say. "Maybe there's another option. Magical dampeners, control techniques, something that doesn't involve you losing pieces of yourself."
"They've already said—"
"Let me try. Please."
She searches my face, then nods slowly. "Okay. But if they say the same thing..."
"Then we'll figure something else out. Together."
The infirmary healer—a middle-aged woman named Elise with streaks of gray in her dark hair—listens to my explanation with professional detachment.
"Miss Ashford has been avoiding treatment for three weeks," she says, pulling out a medical file thick with documentation. "Her condition is self-inflicted through continued channeling despite explicit medical advice to cease."
"Is there any treatment that doesn't involve stopping her magic completely?"
"Several. All carry significant risk." Elise flips through pages. "Magical dampening bracers would limit backflow but also reduce her channeling capacity by sixty percent. Essence realignment therapy might address the root cause but has a forty percent failure rate that can worsen symptoms. And there's an experimental procedure involving Aether filtration, but we've only performed it twice—one success, one fatality."
My stomach drops. "Those are the options?"
"Those are the options that don't involve amputation or complete magical suppression." She closes the file. "Miss Ashford is being stubborn and foolish. If she continues current behavior, she'll lose the hand within two months. Possibly her life if the frostbite reaches vital organs."
"What would you recommend?"
"Amputation. Clean removal, magical prosthetic fitted, six weeks recovery." Elise's tone is clinical. "She retains combat effectiveness, eliminates the spreading necrosis, and can continue her career with minimal impact."
"She'll never agree to that."
"Then she'll die slowly and painfully while her own magic consumes her from the inside out." The healer's expression softens fractionally. "I understand pride. I understand fear of loss. But I've seen too many young Awakened cripple or kill themselves refusing treatment. Don't let her become another statistic."
I leave with more information and less hope than I arrived with.
Finn's experimental treatment is scheduled for tomorrow.
I find him in the library—a cramped room full of outdated military manuals and theoretical texts that no one reads. He's poring over a medical journal, his face pale but determined.
"Research?" I ask, sliding into the chair across from him.
"Understanding what they're going to do to me." He pushes the journal toward me. "Magical capacity expansion through forced Aether saturation. Basically, they flood my channels with more energy than they can handle, forcing them to adapt or rupture."
"That sounds horrifying."
"Seventy percent success rate. Of the thirty percent failures, half result in permanent magical loss, the other half in death." He says it matter-of-factly, like discussing the weather. "Better odds than I expected, honestly."
"Finn, you don't have to do this."
"Yes, I do." He closes the journal. "I heard what Gregor said. About me being dead weight. He's right. I'm rank F trying to keep up with rank D and C teammates. Either I improve or I wash out, and I can't—" His voice breaks. "I can't go back to being useless. I can't."
There it is again. That same desperate fear driving Mira, driving Gregor, driving all of us.
The terror of being nothing.
"The squad values you," I try.
"The squad tolerates me because you won't let them cut me loose." He meets my eyes. "I see how Gregor looks at me. How even Lyra calculates whether I'm worth the resource investment. I need to be better, stronger, useful enough that I'm not a burden."
"And if the procedure kills you?"
"Then at least I tried." He manages a weak smile. "Better to die trying to improve than wash out knowing I never had the courage to risk it."
I want to argue. Want to tell him he's valuable as he is, that gambling his life on thirty-percent odds is insane.
But I remember the raid. The desperation that triggered my Awakening. The willingness to do anything—risk anything—to save the people I cared about.
Who am I to tell Finn he's wrong for feeling the same?
"When's the procedure?"
"Tomorrow morning. Early. Before I can change my mind." He laughs, but it's shaky. "Will you... will someone be there? After? Just in case it works and I wake up?"
"I'll be there," I promise. "And I'll make sure the others know."
"Thanks, Kael." He stands, gathering his books. "For not trying to talk me out of it."
"I think you're insane."
"Probably. But at least I won't die wondering what if."
He leaves me alone in the library, surrounded by dusty books about tactics and strategy, thinking about courage and stupidity and the razor-thin line between them.
That night, I gather Squad Seven in a quiet corner of the barracks.
Lyra arrives first, materializing from shadows with her usual unsettling silence. Gregor follows, looking suspicious. Mira comes last, sleeve pulled down to hide her hand.
"What's this about?" Gregor asks.
I explain Finn's procedure. Mira's condition. The choices they're both facing.
Silence follows. Heavy and uncomfortable.
Finally, Lyra speaks. "Finn's odds are acceptable given his alternatives. Mira's situation is more complex but solvable with proper medical intervention."
"That's your analysis?" Gregor sounds incredulous. "They're both risking everything and you're calculating probabilities?"
"What would you prefer? Emotional hand-wringing?" Lyra's tone is sharp. "We're in a military academy training to be weapons. Risk is inherent. The question isn't whether they should take risks—it's whether these specific risks are tactically sound."
"They're not tactics, they're people!"
"They're both." Lyra doesn't back down. "And if we pretend otherwise, we're lying to ourselves about what we're becoming."
Mira has been quiet, but now she speaks. "I'm not getting the amputation."
"Then you'll die," Lyra states flatly.
"Maybe. Or maybe the experimental Aether filtration works."
"Fifty percent mortality rate."
"Better than one hundred percent mortality from doing nothing." Mira's voice is steady despite her words. "I've made my choice. I'm having the procedure."
I stare at her. "When?"
"Tomorrow afternoon. After Finn's, assuming he survives. If he dies..." She swallows hard. "If he dies from taking the same kind of risk, at least I'll know what I'm getting into."
"This is insane," I say. "Both of you gambling your lives—"
"We're already gambling our lives every day we're here," Gregor interrupts. "At least this way they're betting on themselves instead of slow deterioration."
I look at him, surprised. "You agree with this?"
"I think it's reckless and stupid and probably going to end badly." He shrugs. "But yeah, I agree with it. They're taking control instead of letting the Academy grind them down. That takes guts."
Lyra nods slowly. "Gregor is correct. Passive acceptance leads to predictable decline. Active risk creates possibility for improvement."
"Or death," I point out.
"That's always a possibility. At least this way they choose how they face it."
I want to keep arguing. Want to talk them all out of this collective insanity. But looking at their faces—Mira's quiet determination, Finn's desperate hope, Gregor's hard-won respect, Lyra's cold calculation—I realize I've already lost.
They've made their choices.
All I can do is be there for the aftermath.
"Fine," I say. "We support them. All of us. Whatever happens."
"Agreed," Lyra says immediately.
"Yeah," Gregor adds.
Mira just nods, relief visible in her expression.
We sit together in silence, five people who've become something more than squadmates through shared suffering, now facing shared risk.
Tomorrow, two of us might die.
Or we might all come out stronger.
There's no way to know which.
The next morning, I'm waiting outside the medical wing at dawn.
Finn arrives pale but composed, accompanied by two healers I don't recognize. He sees me and manages a small smile.
"You came."
"Promised I would."
"The others?"
"Will be here after. Gregor had mandatory training he couldn't skip, Lyra's arranging coverage for your duties, Mira's..." I trail off.
"Preparing for her own procedure. I know." He takes a shaky breath. "If I die, tell them it wasn't their fault. And tell my family... tell them I tried to be useful."
"You're not going to die."
"But if I do."
"I'll tell them."
He nods once, then follows the healers inside. The door closes behind them with terrible finality.
I wait.
Minutes stretch into hours. I'm supposed to be in weapons training, but I don't move. Can't move. Just sit on the cold stone bench outside the medical wing, watching that closed door.
Other conscripts pass, giving me curious looks. An instructor stops to ask if I'm waiting for someone. I nod, and he leaves me alone.
Two hours in, Gregor appears. "Any news?"
"Nothing yet."
He sits beside me without asking. We wait together.
Lyra arrives an hour later, emerging from shadows near the entrance. "Status?"
"Still in there."
She settles on my other side, perfect posture even sitting. "Procedure should take approximately four hours total. We're at three."
Mira joins us as the fourth hour begins. Her sleeve is rolled down, hand hidden. She doesn't speak, just sits with us.
Squad Seven, waiting to learn if we're about to become Squad Four.
Finally—finally—the door opens.
Healer Elise emerges, looking exhausted. Her gaze finds us immediately.
"He's alive."
I exhale a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. Beside me, Mira makes a small sound.
"The procedure was successful," Elise continues. "His Aether channels have expanded significantly. We're estimating he's moved from rank F to rank E, possibly approaching D with proper training."
"Can we see him?" I ask.
"He's sedated. Will be for several more hours." She pauses. "He asked that if he survived, I tell you something. Quote: 'I did it. I'm not useless anymore.'"
Mira starts crying. Gregor looks away, jaw tight. Even Lyra seems affected, though her expression remains controlled.
"Thank you," I manage.
Elise nods, then her gaze shifts to Mira. "Miss Ashford. If you're still considering the Aether filtration procedure—"
"I am."
"Then we should begin preparations now. You've already waited too long."
Mira stands, pulling her sleeve up to reveal the blackened hand. Elise's expression tightens but she doesn't comment, just gestures for Mira to follow.
Before she goes, Mira turns back to us. "If I don't make it—"
"You'll make it," I interrupt.
"But if I don't, tell my family..." She pauses, considering. "Tell them I wasn't afraid."
Then she's gone, following Elise into the medical wing.
And we're waiting again.
Mira's procedure takes longer. Six hours. Six hours of sitting on that same bench, watching that same door, wondering if she's alive or dead or somewhere in between.
Finn wakes up around hour three. A healer lets us visit briefly. He looks terrible—pale, sweating, clearly in pain—but alive. Conscious. When he sees us, he grins.
"Did it work?" he asks, voice hoarse.
"Rank E, approaching D," Lyra reports.
"Yes." He closes his eyes. "Yes."
We don't stay long. He needs rest, and we need to get back to waiting.
Hour six arrives. Then seven. Then eight.
"This is taking too long," Gregor mutters.
"Complications happen," Lyra says, but even she sounds uncertain.
Hour nine, and I'm seriously considering breaking down the door when it finally opens.
Healer Elise looks worse than before. Exhausted, stressed, covered in what I hope is sweat and not blood.
"She's alive," she says immediately. "Barely. The procedure worked, but there were complications. Severe complications."
"What kind?" I ask.
"The Aether filtration destabilized her ice magic entirely. We had to perform an emergency essence realignment simultaneously. She went into shock twice. We almost lost her." Elise runs a hand through her hair. "But she's stable now. The frostbite is gone. Her magic is... different. Changed. We won't know the full extent until she wakes and tries to channel."
"Can we see her?"
"Not yet. She needs monitoring. Maybe tomorrow." Elise meets my eyes. "She was very brave. And very, very lucky."
After she leaves, the four of us just sit there, processing.
"Two procedures in one day," Gregor says quietly. "Both survived. That's..."
"Improbable," Lyra finishes. "The odds of both succeeding were approximately twenty-one percent."
"They beat the odds."
"They did."
We sit in silence, exhaustion and relief mixing into something I can't quite name.
Finally, I stand. "Come on. We all need sleep. We can check on them tomorrow."
As we walk back to the barracks through the cold night, I feel something shift. We went into today as five people trying to survive together.
We're coming out as something else. Something stronger.
Squad Seven.
Not perfect. Not invincible.
But ours.
The alarm tears me from sleep that feels like it lasted five minutes.
But it's not the morning bell. It's the attack siren.
I'm on my feet before conscious thought, joining the flood of conscripts pouring out of the barracks. Outside, the courtyard is chaos—instructors shouting orders, students scrambling for weapons, the night sky lit by fires burning in the city beyond the Academy walls.
"What's happening?" someone yells.
Drake appears, moving through the crowd with authority. "The capital is under attack! Raiders broke through the outer defenses—orcs, trolls, unknown magical support. All combat-capable conscripts to the armory. Now!"
We run.
The armory is a madhouse. Instructors distributing real weapons—actual steel, not practice blades. I grab a short sword, test its weight. Heavier than practice weapons, better balanced.
Around me, conscripts are transforming from students to soldiers. Fear in their eyes, but determination too. This is what we've been training for.
This is real.
"Squad Seven!" Lyra's voice cuts through the noise. I find her near the entrance, already armed. Gregor is with her, hefting a war hammer. No sign of Mira or Finn—they're still in the infirmary.
"We're down two members," Gregor states.
"Then we adapt," Lyra replies. "Defensive formation Beta. Kael, you're our heavy hitter now. Gregor provides barriers and close combat. I'll handle tactical strikes and reconnaissance."
"Where are we deploying?"
"Eastern wall. Reports say that's where they're concentrating their assault." She checks her weapons—two ice daggers, perfectly formed. "This is a real battle. People will die. Probably people we know. Stay focused, stay together, survive."
We move out with the rest of our rotation, maybe sixty conscripts total. Instructors lead us through streets already filling with smoke and screams. Buildings burn. Civilians run past, fleeing toward the inner districts.
This isn't the Academy's controlled environment. This is war.
We reach the eastern wall to find it already breached. A section of the massive fortification has collapsed, creating a gap thirty feet wide. Through it pour raiders—orcs in crude armor, trolls swinging tree trunks, goblins in swarms.
And defending against them, a thin line of Imperial soldiers and Awakened.
"Form up!" Drake is there, organizing conscripts into defensive positions. "Squad Seven, you're on secondary line! Hold the gap if the primary line breaks!"
We take position twenty yards behind the main defense, watching the battle unfold.
It's nothing like training.
Training is controlled. Predictable. Safe.
This is chaos incarnate. Magic exploding in all directions. Steel clashing against steel. Screaming—so much screaming. The smell of blood and burning flesh and fear.
An orc breaks through the primary line, charging straight at our position. It's massive, eight feet of muscle and rage, covered in scars and wielding an axe that could split a horse.
"Barrier!" Lyra commands.
Gregor slams his hands down. Stone erupts, forming a waist-high wall. The orc hits it at full speed, stumbles, and I see my opening.
Temporal lightning lances from my hand. I don't age it to dust—that would waste energy. Instead, I target its leg joints, aging the tendons and ligaments. They snap under its own weight, and the creature goes down hard.
Gregor finishes it with his hammer. Brutal. Efficient. Necessary.
More raiders come. We hold the line through desperation and teamwork and pure stubborn refusal to break. Gregor creates barriers. I strike with precision. Lyra appears from shadows to eliminate threats we don't see coming.
We're a machine. Not perfect, but functional.
Then I see it.
Behind the raiders, coordinating their assault—a figure in tattered robes. Human-shaped but wrong. Where its face should be, just shadow.
A raider-mage. Just like the one from my village.
And it's looking directly at me.
Our eyes meet across the battlefield, and I feel recognition. It remembers me. The boy whose Awakening destroyed its kin during the raid on Ash-Borough.
It raises skeletal hands, and reality warps.
"Kael, move!" Lyra shouts.
I dive sideways as space itself tears where I was standing. The attack misses me but hits a conscript behind me—a girl from Squad Four whose name I never learned. She screams once, then crumples as her body ages centuries in seconds.
Dead before she hits the ground.
The raider-mage is targeting me specifically. Using temporal magic like mine, but twisted, corrupted.
"I'll distract it!" Gregor yells. "You flank!"
"That thing will kill you!"
"Then make sure my distraction counts!"
He charges before I can stop him, raising stone barriers as he goes. Drawing the mage's attention.
It works. The raider-mage turns its focus to Gregor, warping space around him. He dodges, barely, and keeps coming.
Lyra grabs my arm. "Shadow-walk. Now."
"What?"
"Trust me!"
She pulls us both into shadow—her ability extending to include me. The world goes dark and cold, like drowning in ice water. Then we're emerging from a different shadow, twenty feet from the raider-mage's back.
"Kill it," Lyra hisses.
I don't hesitate.
All the power I've been holding back, all the destructive potential I've been learning to control—I release it in one focused strike.
Violet-silver lightning erupts from both hands. Not just temporal acceleration, but pure concentrated annihilation. I pour everything into it—fear, rage, desperation, the memory of twenty raiders dissolving during my Awakening.
The bolt hits the raider-mage dead center.
It doesn't age. Doesn't disintegrate.
It simply ceases to exist.
One moment it's there, corrupted and terrible. The next, there's just a silhouette of ash that wind scatters before it hits the ground.
The feedback nearly kills me. I collapse, every nerve burning. Distantly, I hear Lyra shouting for a healer. Gregor's face appears above me, his mouth moving but I can't hear words over the ringing in my ears.
Then darkness takes me, and I know nothing more.
End of Chapter 9