Ten years earlier

Luka and Abel ducked out of the summer heat and into the cool tunnels underneath the city.

They had skipped class to get Mutiny alone. Neither Hadley nor Lena approved (Hadley would never be told specifics about Mutiny, but he also wasn't stupid. Lena knew about Mutiny, she was just a far better student than Luka and her brother), but they would take notes for them anyway — and really, how important was Intro to Ethics anyway?

Honestly, Luka could out-school most of the teachers at this place anyway. The only reason he was here instead of Russia, was because he was following his parents' dream to live in America.

And, at the times when he was most honest with himself: Because he hadn't been able to stand living in their shadow.

While American ethics differed somewhat from Russian ethics, they still had yet to cover anything in the syllabus he didn't know.

Abel slung his bag in a corner, tugged off his tie and unbuttoned his Academy shirt, leaving himself in the tank top he was wearing underneath. Abel was careless with most aspects of his life, including his appearance. He cared about how he looked, it was just that he sometimes seemed to forget. So he let his hair grow out and his ties remain untied. He picked his socks at random, so they didn't necessarily match. Today, one was patterned in reds and blues while the other was green. Luka hadn't changed since his morning run, and was still in training clothes, plastered with the Academy coat of arms like everything else.

"No internal magic rules apply," Abel said, as they took their positions in front of each other.

"Yeah, I know."

Abel was the only person Luka had met, who actually thought Healers had the advantage in a fight. Most Forgers and Fighters and Summoners believed that their own power, their own strength, more than made up for the advantage of being able to heal throughout the fight, but not Abel. Of course Luka wasn't exactly a normal Healer, but even so. He remained oddly flattered by the unfamiliar wariness towards his powers.

"Ready?" Abel asked.

"Always," Luka replied, smiling brightly at the promise of a challenge.

A beat later, the fight begun. Luka charged first. Impatience was a vice he couldn't quite shake, and Abel, knowing him too well, already had a shield up.

Luka held the symbol of the spell in his head, and applied the magic to send a burst of power at Abel, designed to knock him back, but his defenses absorbed it. Abel stepped around him, eyeing him, while he bend down and drew a pole from the ground. Luka smiled at the choice of weapon. Abel's weakness in these duels was always a reluctance to do harm. Mutiny duels differed, with different rules for different people. Abel and Luka always played for first blood, and Abel wasn't going to get much blood from a stick.

He dodged an attack and an attempt to trip him, and retreated to put some distance between them. He knelt, lightly touching his fingers to the ground, letting Abel believe he was going for a weapon of his own. Instead, the ground exploded around Abel, shards of rock and cement and dust rising around him. Luka focused on the shards. He couldn't hold them all, and the rest clattered to the ground, but he held enough that Abel was surrounded by sharp edges. While he conjured another shield around himself, Luka sneaked around him.

He drew a blade from the wall, and let the rest of the stones drop to the ground. Abel started turning, but Luka grabbed him, put the blade to his throat.

Shield spells required constant focus and attention. It dropped the moment Luka ambushed him.

He hesitated too long, and didn't get to draw blood, before Abel triggered a spell of his own and the blade vanished from Luka's hands, reappearing in Abel's. Luka took an elbow to the ribs, and he hissed a curse at the pain. No blood, though. He dodged another attack, but Abel tackled him to the ground, while he was still wondering if one of his ribs were cracked.

Abel pinned him down, lowering the blade to his neck. "Do you yield?"

"Never," Luka said, smiling up at him.

"You're out of options," Abel countered.

Luka shrugged as well as he could, pinned underneath him. "It's all about intent," he said. "I don't believe you're going to hurt me, so you haven't won yet."

"You have no idea what I'm willing to do to you," Abel said, gripping the blade tighter.

Luka flashed him another smile. "Stop flirting," he said. "Finish it."

Seconds ticked by, while they stared each other down.

"No," Abel said in the end, shifting his weight off him. "I'm not going to—"

Luka pushed him off, and rolled over him, reversing their positions.

"See? Intent."

"Are you going to cut me?" Abel asked.

"Only if you make me," Luka said. He tilted his head, a smile still playing in his lips. "Do you yield?"

Another moment passed, before Abel surrendered. "Yes," he said, rolling his eyes at Luka.

Luka stepped off him, and offered him a hand.

"Again?" Luka asked, and Abel smiled.

Luka stepped away to check his phone, and found increasingly alarmed messages from both Hadley and Lena.

"Fuck," he spat. "Something is happening. We have to go back. Now."

"What?"

"I don't know." He put his phone in his pocket and gathered his things. "Come on."

Even if they hurried, it would take more than 15 minutes to get to the Academy. Once they made it to the West Medford Station, Luka called Hadley.

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"What's going on?" Luka asked.

"Where the hell have you been?" Hadley asked. "No, forget it. Don't answer that."

It wasn't like Luka would have answered, even if it was one of the least important things to worry about right now.

"Some kid decided to set a Soul Eater loose, and it seems like his dying wish was to take the entire Academy down with him," Hadley continued.

"The entire Academy?" Luka asked, incredulous. Soul Eaters couldn't be stopped, so if this kid wanted them all dead, they would all be dead soon.

"Or his entire class, who knows? He was found dead in the courtyard behind the hospital. He didn't talk to anyone about what he was going to do, at least no one who will come forward."

"So, what's being done? Where are you right now?"

"No one knows what to do, so we're evacuating. If you're at the gates, Lena and I will join you in a minute."

"We're on our way."

He hung up, put the phone absently back in his pocket.

"A Soul Eater is on the loose, possibly targeting the entire Academy," he explained to Abel.

"The Academy specifically, or everyone involved with it?" Abel asked.

"Don't know, I assume the latter."

"Well, shit."

"Yeah," Luka agreed. "Thomas and Lena are meeting us at the gates." They were still more than 10 minutes out, but he hoped it would be enough time.

"What difference does it make?" Abel said. "If it's targeting all of us, there is no escape."

"I know," Luka said. "I guess the best we can hope for is that it's only after whoever drove the kid to do this."

He set off at a sprint, and Abel followed.

Soul Eaters were a last resort, a way to unleash your magic on something threatening. The catch was that it would always take the mage down with it, but it was a good way to save others if you were dying anyway. It was never meant to be used as a way of committing suicide, but unfortunately, that was exactly what depressed teenagers with a vendetta were doing. Technically, the thing that killed the mage was the act of summoning the Soul Eater, as it stole every ounce of magic the person possessed.

Soul Eaters were pure magic, living entirely for the dying wish of their mage.

Soul Eaters survived until their purpose was fulfilled.

They were limited by the power of the mage, but not much else. And it wasn't like killing a lot of mages would necessarily take a lot of force.

Depending on the intent of the dead kid, it could apply to mages within the walls of the Academy, but they might as well all be hunted down one by one until they were all gone.

And no one could stop it.

Unless.

Luka's mind was working furiously, trying to hold on to the idea that was forming in his head. He struggled with the details, wanting for more information, that he just didn't have. No one knew much about Soul Eaters, which was why any semblance of a plan he could come up with might not work.

They made it to the Academy. Hadley and Lena were waiting outside. Luka took an involuntary step towards the gates, his hand gripping one of its steel bars, as if getting a little closer to the scene would allow him to see what was going on.

He just needed the final pieces to fall into place.

"I have an idea," he said, turning back towards the others.

They were already moving away from the Academy, but their retreat was halting, as they waited for Luka to follow.

"What? Lavrin, we need to go." Hadley stopped, but he could see the waver in his step, the reluctance to stand still growing with every second. "There's nothing we can do.

There's nothing anyone can do."

Abel and Lena had stopped too, but seemed no more willing to give in to Luka's whims, when their life was on the line. His own survival instinct wasn't happy with him either, but he fought it, forcing his mind to stay sharp. He very nearly had a plan. The Soul Eater was unstoppable, everyone knew that. It was born with a singular purpose, and it would not stop before it fulfilled that purpose. The problem with that theory was that no one actually knew. Luka had never heard of anyone who had stood up to a Soul Eater and tried to stop it, and if no one had tried, there was no knowing if it actually could be stopped. He idly pulled his fingers through his hair as he thought.

"We all know what Soul Eaters are," he said, thinking out loud.

"Yes, they're an unstoppable force. Which is why we're leaving," Lena said, pulling on her brother’s arm to get him to move, but Abel was intrigued. Before, the desire to survive had been winning. Now, he moved slowly closer to Luka, as his curiosity won out.

Abel never had the strongest survival instinct either. He was like Luka in that regard, but tragically lacked the Healing to follow through with it. Which was why it was a good thing he, unlike Luka, had someone like Lena to stop him from doing stupid shit. Luka had Hadley, but Hadley's heart wasn't always in it. He was too fond of letting Luka learn his own lessons through trial and error and pain, or too tired of arguing about Luka's every ill-advised impulse.

"They're the essence of the caster, every last drop of power they have, but really they're just energy," Luka continued his train of thought.

"The faster you get to the point, the better," Hadley said, the rising urge in his voice was a point of distraction. One Luka did his best to ignore.

"I'm going to draw on the energy," he said. "Repurpose it."

"You can't. Even if that was possible, that amount of energy… You won't survive."

"Not if I do it alone," he said. The others were scattered around him, and he tried not to think about how the distance between him and each of them seemed to correspond to their willingness to help. Abel had moved closer, while Hadley had moved further away. Hadley was no longer the nearest person to him, and there was a distant part of him that felt betrayed by that. Hadley didn't trust him. Not with his life.

"It makes sense," Abel said, and became the supportive voice Luka desperately needed. "I think it can work."

Luka fully intended to go through with the idea, regardless of their support, which was why having someone on his side was a huge relief. Breathing came more easily to him then, as resolve set in. Everything was better with a mission, a challenge for him to focus on.

"We're going to need a spell to make the energy malleable."

The plan finally solidified in his mind, the pieces put together hastily but with confidence. Luka assigned the roles, and each of them nodded, though Hadley and Lena looked hesitant. They glanced at each other, as if considering whether they wanted to stick together on this, but neither said anything. Lena would never leave her brother, and Luka would like to think that his friendship with Hadley was important enough for him to stay. Lena was going to stay with Luka. He was nervous about asking her to help with the spell, but she was the best one. He needed to know if she saw any flaws in his hasty construction. Meanwhile, Hadley and Abel were tasked with luring the Soul Eater back to the small courtyard, where it had been born, and holding it, while Luka worked the spell.

He was ready for it, when it came. His magic swirled around his hands, and he nodded at Lena to help with the creature. He spoke the spell out loud, so the others could follow along.

The Soul Eater was constructed entirely out of energy, and painted the sky a pale neon blue. It flickered, shifted, like electricity come alive. Although it wasn't solid, it had a distinct draconine shape. Its body was long and serpentine, ending in a sharp tail. It had strong legs with sharp claws and spikes running down its spine. It was unclear why the Soul Eaters always looked like dragons. Maybe people just universally thought dragons were the coolest creatures ever, maybe it was somehow symbolic. As far as Luka knew, no one were entirely clear on how the energy manifested or why it manifested as it did.

The Soul Eater was tied to the casters very life force, hence the name. There was absolutely no reason why it should always manifest the same way in all people, unless it wasn't about them at all. That was where the theory had started, that the reason Soul Eaters looked like dragons, was because that's where the magic came from. It was born from dragons, and it died as dragons. Luka liked the idea that magicians carried the souls of dragons inside them, even though he knew it was nothing more than a fairy tale.

The creature wasn't happy about being contained. It squirmed and thrashed, and Luka noted its erratic movements, as it tried to escape the hold. It wasn't immediately his problem, and he closed his eyes to focus on his words, rather than his friends. He felt the energy of the creature, and would know if it came any closer to him. He spoke the words slowly, deliberately, and the Soul Eater howled. He hoped it felt its power dwindle. He hoped the spell was working.

He lifted his hand towards Lena, who started her own spell. It was supposed to move all the way around the loose circle they were standing in, from Luka to Lena to Hadley to Abel. Of course it never got that far. It had all been too perfect, too easy, and then everything started going wrong