Thane's quarters were supposed to be a sanctuary. First suite in the heir wing, decorated with seven years of accumulated privilege. Instead, it felt like a tomb for his dying ambitions.
He'd been staring at the wall for an hour, replaying dinner's humiliations, when reality bent. One mont alone, the next his father stood in the center of the room like he'd always been there.
"Get dressed," Aedric commanded. "We're going to have a lesson about perspective."
"Father, I—"
"Now."
The word carried weight that made refusal physically impossible. Thane dressed in training clothes, movents chanical. His father watched with eyes that saw too much and judged everything.
"Where are we going?"
"To see why you lost."
They walked through corridors Thane had owned for seven years. His territory, his birthright. Except now it all felt borrowed, temporary. Like everything else he'd thought was his.
"You think training harder would have changed the outco," Aedric said, not a question. "You think more hours, more dedication, more sweat would have kept your position."
"I've trained every day since—"
"You've perford every day. There's a difference." They stopped at a reinforced door. Avian's training room. "Do you know what your brother's actual power level is?"
"He hides it well, but Master rank at most. Maybe peak Master if—"
"Sixth Tier Aether Core. Grandmaster aura rank. Third Circle approaching Fourth in mana cultivation." Aedric let the words fall like stones into still water. "At twelve years old."
The corridor spun. Thane grabbed the wall for support.
"That's impossible."
"Is it? Or is it just impossible for you?" His father's expression held no sympathy. "You peaked at Fourth Star, Master rank, after seventeen years. He reached Sixth Tier in six months."
"No one advances that fast. No one—"
"God-touched do." Aedric placed a hand on Thane's shoulder, and reality shifted. The world beca muffled, distant, like viewing through thick glass. "Now watch. See what you're truly competing against."
They passed through the door without opening it. Inside, Avian moved through forms that had no na in any manual.
Thane's breath caught.
This wasn't the desperate third son from dinner. This was sothing else entirely. Avian flowed between stances like water given killing intent, each movent promising violence with mathematical precision. His aura filled the room — dense enough to see, dark enough to fear. Grandmaster rank, undeniably, impossibly.
But it was the intensity that struck hardest. Avian trained like death was chasing him, like every second of imperfection ant graves. Sweat poured off him but he didn't slow. When he struck the reinforced training posts, they cracked. When he moved, the air itself seed to flinch.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Aedric murmured. "Raw talent refined by desperation. He doesn't train to improve. He trains to survive sothing that already killed him once."
"What?"
"Figure of speech. Or perhaps not." His father's smile held secrets. "Watch his footwork."
Thane watched. The movents were wrong — no, not wrong. Different. Older. Like sothing predating the Empire itself had been resurrected in a twelve-year-old body.
Then Avian drew his sword.
"What the fuck is that?" Thane breathed.
The blade was midnight given edge, drinking light rather than reflecting it. Runes crawled along its length in languages that hurt to perceive. When Avian swung it, reality seed to tear slightly at the edges.
"That," Aedric said with sothing like pride, "is what happens when soone refuses to accept limits. A demonic blade, pre-Empire construction, bonded to him completely. It grows stronger with every drop of blood spilled."
"Demonic weapons are illegal—"
"Laws are for people without the strength to ignore them." His father's attention never left Avian. "Do you understand now? This isn't about training harder. You could train every mont until you die and never reach where he stands today."
Avian shifted to magical practice. Mana flowed through channels that shouldn't exist in a warrior, forming patterns that made the air sharp. Third Circle approaching Fourth — combat magic that could kill as efficiently as any blade.
"He's dual-path," Thane said numbly. "You said he was god-touched, but this..."
"This is what you're competing against. A perfect Mana Heart in a body that refuses limitations, wielding techniques that shouldn't exist anymore." Aedric turned to his son. "So tell , Thane. Do you still think training harder would have mattered?"
Thane watched his brother — no, this stranger wearing his brother's face — demonstrate why second place had been a rcy. Every movent scread of battlefields Thane had never seen, of survival purchased with violence he'd never needed.
"How long has he been hiding this?"
"Six months of developnt. Though 'hiding' implies he had this power before. He didn't. He created it through will and suffering I wouldn't wish on enemies." Aedric's voice carried odd respect. "Your brother broke himself into pieces and rebuilt sothing stronger. Repeatedly. Daily. Until this erged."
"It's not fair."
"Fair?" His father laughed, quiet and terrible. "Fair is what the weak cry when the strong take what they want. Fair is the excuse of those who can't accept their own limitations."
On the training floor, Avian had started combining magic and swordwork. Blade strikes that carried elental force. Defensive spells that turned into killing counters. It was beautiful the way natural disasters were beautiful — terrible, inevitable, and absolutely uncaring about what they destroyed.
"I trained my whole life," Thane whispered.
"You perford your whole life. He survived six months. The difference matters."
"So what am I supposed to do? Just accept it? Bow and scrape to my younger brother who appeared from nowhere to steal everything?"
"You're supposed to evolve. Or die. Those are the only options that matter." Aedric's hand lifted from Thane's shoulder. The world snapped back into focus, sounds returning like a slap. "One week until the next trial. Decide what you're willing to beco."
"Father—"
But Aedric was gone, reality forgetting he'd been there. Thane stood alone outside his brother's training room, listening to the sounds of impossible strength being forged from pure will.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Inside, unaware of observation, Avian continued. The demonic blade sang as it carved through air, promising death to anything that dared oppose its master. A twelve-year-old body housing power that shouldn't exist, couldn't exist, but did anyway because the alternative was unacceptable.
Sixth Tier. Grandmaster. Dual-path. God-touched.
His little brother had beco a monster while Thane was playing at being heir.
He walked back to his quarters on numb legs, mind racing through possibilities. Training harder wouldn't work — the gap was too vast. Traditional advantages ant nothing — Avian had discarded tradition entirely. Even ti was against him — one week until the next trial.
But there were other ways. Older ways. Ways that proper heirs weren't supposed to consider.
If you can't match a monster's strength, you find its weakness. Everyone had one. Even god-touched twelve-year-olds who'd sohow compressed decades of power into months of suffering.
Thane reached his room and locked the door. Then he went to his desk, pulling out papers that proper heirs definitely weren't supposed to have. Contacts in low places. Substances that weren't quite poisons but weren't quite not. Information about accidents that looked natural enough if you didn't examine too closely.
His father had told him to evolve or die.
He'd just never specified which direction evolution had to take.
Avian finished his training session drenched in sweat and satisfaction. Every day Fargrim felt more responsive, more eager. The blade had tasted blood in that alley, rembered its purpose. Now it wanted more.
Bloodthirsty bastard. But aren't we all?
He cleaned the blade carefully — demonic or not, maintenance mattered. The runes pulsed contentedly as he wiped away sweat and trace mana, the sword almost purring under his attention.
A knock at the door made him pause. The servants knew better than to interrupt training. Which ant...
"Co in, Lysander."
The door exploded inward, hanging off one hinge. Lysander Crowe stood in the wreckage, grinning like violence given human form and a questionable sense of humor.
"Points for awareness, puppy. Negative points for not dodging the door shrapnel." She stepped through the ruined entrance, examining the training room with professional interest. "Nice setup. I probably won't destroy all of it."
"The door was expensive."
"Bill your father. He can afford it." She pulled out what looked like a small sun compressed into a fist-sized orb. "Know what this is?"
"Condensed mana bomb?"
"Condensed mana bomb with a tir!" She tossed it casually. "Fifteen seconds. Either contain it or enjoy explaining to the servants why the heir wing has a new skylight."
Fuck fuck fuck—
Avian caught the orb, feeling power that wanted to expand, explode, consu. His mana wrapped around it desperately, trying to contain force ant to level buildings. Sweat that had nothing to do with training poured down his face.
"Ten seconds," Lysander noted cheerfully. "Most students panic right about now."
Can't hold it. Too much power. Need to redirect, not contain.
He shifted tactics, channels screaming as he forced the explosive energy through his cultivation base. Not absorbing — that would kill him. Redirecting, dispersing, bleeding it off in controlled bursts that made the air crack.
"Five seconds. Getting warm?"
Fucking insane woman.
The orb's light dimd as he found the rhythm. In through his channels, converted through his core, out through his aura in waves that made Lysander's hair flutter. Not elegant, but functional.
"Ti," she announced as the last energy dissipated. "Congratulations, you're not a crater. Barely."
Avian dropped the spent orb, gasping. "Was that necessary?"
"Nope! But it was fun." She produced another orb. "Round two?"
"How about we start with introductions?"
"Boring. But fine." She sprawled on his training mat like she owned it. "Lysander Crowe, Knight Commander, youngest Transcendent in history, voted 'Most Likely to Cause an International Incident' three years running. I'm here to make you stronger or dead. Possibly both."
"Comforting."
"I try. Your turn. Impress with your stats so I know how much I can hurt you without permanent damage."
"Sixth Tier Core, Grandmaster aura, Third Circle mana approaching Fourth."
"At twelve?" She actually looked impressed. "Fuck sideways. Daddy wasn't exaggerating about the god-touched thing. That's disgusting levels of talent."
"Thanks?"
"Not a complint. Talent makes people soft. But you..." She studied him with eyes that had seen too much. "You don't move like talent. You move like soone who earned every scrap of power through bleeding."
Too perceptive. Why is everyone too fucking perceptive?
"So here's how this works," she continued. "Every day, I try to kill you. Not really — probably — but close enough that your body won't know the difference. You survive, you grow stronger. You die..." She shrugged. "I'll say nice things at your funeral."
"What kind of training?"
"The kind that would make the Church cry." Her grin turned sharp. "Your daddy wants you strong enough to survive whatever cos next. The trials? Child's play. The real threats haven't even shown themselves yet."
"What threats?"
"The kind that think a god-touched Veritas heir is either a tool to use or a threat to eliminate." She stood, energy coiling around her like a living thing. "The kind that rembers what happened last ti soone with your particular flavor of power erged."
Five hundred years ago. When I saved the world and got murdered for it.
"History has patterns," Avian said carefully.
"History has warnings. But we'll worry about that after you survive week one." She headed for the broken door. "Rest tonight. Tomorrow at dawn, we start. Eat heavy — you'll need the energy to regrow limbs."
"You're joking."
"Usually! But not about that." She paused at the threshold. "Oh, and puppy? That sword you're trying to hide? Fargrim, right? Bring it tomorrow. I want to see what demonic steel can do when properly motivated."
"How do you know that na?"
"Please. I'm obsessed with combat history. Fargrim's ntioned in every serious text about the Demon King - his personal blade, supposedly drank the blood of the Four Heavenly Kings." Her grin widened. "Most people don't give a shit about ancient history, but those of us who do? We know all the fun details. Though I'll admit, I thought it was destroyed. Finding it on a twelve-year-old is... interesting."
She left before he could respond, taking her casual insanity with her. Avian stood in his destroyed doorway, processing what had just happened.
New teacher. Probably crazy. Definitely dangerous. Knows about Fargrim.
This was going to be a long week.
Elira appeared from nowhere, surveying the damage with her usual calm. "Shall I arrange for door repairs, young master?"
"Please. And maybe... reinforcent?"
"I'll see what can be done about Knight Commander-proofing." She paused. "Will you be needing anything else? dical supplies, perhaps? Last rites?"
"Your confidence is inspiring."
"I try to be realistic. Dinner will be ready in an hour. I suggest eating well — regenerating limbs does require significant calories."
"She was joking about that."
"Was she?" Elira left the question hanging as she departed.
Avian cleaned up, changed clothes, and tried not to think about what training with an insane Transcendent might entail. One week until the next trial. Seven days to get stronger while avoiding Thane's promised accidents and whatever Lysander considered educational.
Going to be a very long week.
Dinner was a quiet affair. Just him and too much food in a dining room ant for entertaining. He ate chanically, storing energy for tomorrow's probable dismbernt.
Halfway through, Kai appeared.
"Heard you got a new teacher," he said without preamble, stealing a chair. "Also heard she exploded your door."
"News travels fast."
"Destruction travels faster. The servants are taking bets on how many pieces you'll be in after day one."
"Comforting."
"I put money on 'mostly intact.' Don't let down." Kai snagged food from Avian's plate. "How was she?"
"Insane. Powerful. Probably going to kill by accident."
"So perfect for you then." His expression grew serious. "Listen, about Thane..."
"What about him?"
"He's been quiet today. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that usually cos before soone does sothing stupidly desperate."
Great. As if tomorrow wasn't going to be painful enough.
"Any specifics?"
"No. Just... watch your back. And your front. And maybe your sides." Kai stood. "I'd offer to help, but Lysander would probably use as a training prop. I'm allergic to being dismbered."
"Reasonable."
"Try to survive the night. And tomorrow. And basically the whole week."
He left Avian alone with his thoughts and too much food. Outside, night settled over the compound like a shroud. Sowhere out there, Thane was planning. Lysander was probably designing new ways to almost kill him. The next trial lood in seven days.
But those were tomorrow's problems. Tonight, he had a door to fix and sleep to catch before dawn brought fresh insanity.
One week. Seven days to get stronger, stay alive, and maybe figure out why everyone seed to know more about his potential than he did.
Should be fun. If fun ans painful and probably fatal.
He finished dinner, checked that Fargrim was clean and ready, and went to bed. Tomorrow would hurt. But pain was just information, and he'd gotten very good at translating its language.
Besides, he'd survived dying once.
How much worse could training be?
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