They only ended up meeting up a few more times over the next couple of weeks - Danion was, ultimately, kept up by his new master a lot, and Cassiel didn’t feel comfortable enough around him to say anything. Some days he wasn’t even in class, in which case Juediel just skipped over his name in the register.

That happened more and more with the other students. Generally the Guardian trainees would all be absent together, one or two days out of the week, while other apprentices were in and out of class on an irregular basis. It was the noble kids who were most absent, Danion chief among them.

Everyone, essentially, except for Cassiel.

The Ministry didn’t permit Implanted to pursue civilian jobs - well, except for Cassiel, but she was a special case - so every other student found one reason or another to spend less and less time in the Academy.

Leaving her to sit there alone, day after day, listening to teachers who, more and more, knew that there students were less and less interested in their instruction.

Even Cassiel found it difficult to pay attention in any class except Juediel’s.

She still held onto hope that the retired Elite was hiding hints at secrets for Cassiel to pursue, methods of training or battle that she had just to pick up on in order to secure those treasured Implants.

Seeing the Guardian initiates with the Crystal Seeds that would eventually grow into their weapons was painful, knowing that she wouldn’t even receive that small a charity. Each was primed for a specific purpose - swords for the rank and file, staves for the clerics, bows for the archers and spears for the dragoons. The initiates would spend their training feeding suffusion into their Seeds, which would gradually grow into their weapons, specialised according to their wishes. If she closed her eyes now and focus, she could sense the kernels of energy that ebbed at the core of their Seeds, reminiscent somehow of each initiate’s unique wing-suffusion.

Seeing the apprentices was far more painful, however.

Each one felt the need to show off their new, unique secondary Implant. Danion had his horns, of course; Zathiel had received Implants set into the skin beneath her fingernails, and Aphion a large one in the centre of his forehead. As they trained, they would dedicate suffusion to expanding and carving out the intricacies of their Implants, making their Crystals unique to their style of battle.

Eventually they would inherit their master’s Heritage Crystal, a repository of information on how their master had practiced their techniques and specialised their Implants. Then their abilities would be fully mature and developed, and they would become an Elite in their own right.

Cassiel did her best not to let the longing show in her eyes, but she was certain Danion had caught her staring at his horns on more than one late night practice session. He had yet to say anything, thankfully - Cassiel hoped he wouldn’t at all.

She had been slowly improving, she thought, over the course of their lessons. They couldn’t practice flight, for obvious reasons, which meant that Danion spent a lot of time umming and erring over how to translate his lessons to a more horizontal experience.

Fortunately marksmanship was something she could train on her own time, so Danion’s teachings mostly relegated themselves to niche applications of suffusion or specialist knowledge on Implant growth styles.

Tonight, though, Danion had promised to show her something that they had never even touched on in the Academy, something that his master had apparently only just shown him a few nights before. He had refused to show her exactly what, however.

So Cassiel had spent most of her time at the Weathered Page distracted, unable to focus even on the now-tedious romance novel about the Inner Cities.

She had practically bolted from the place at close of day, glancing away to the Sunlight Aurora even as Prianne closed up shop. Once she’d given the older lady the customary hug and goodnight pleasantries, she had darted back home for a quick meal of reheated anradan stew, a spiced dish stuffed with pork and fruit.

Then it was back to the dip. Their customary meeting spot, now - the carved-up boulder and scarred dirt floor was evidence enough of the frequency of their visits.

Cassiel had barely arrived and practiced a few Sunrays before Danion drifted down from the sky, arriving by wing as he always did.

“Cassiel!” Danion called out, voice characteristically cheerful.

“Lord Danion,” she replied as he landed, bowing her head in respect. She always began their meetings according to the demands of etiquette, no matter how many times Danion told her to call him just that.

Indeed, he did not disappoint this time.

“Please, Cass, it’s just Danion, you know that,” he chuckled as he approached.

She did, in fact, know that - but it didn’t change the fact that, should the boy feel slighted or demeaned by her in any way, he could have pretty much anything he wanted done to her.

He was the noble. She was the abandoned cripple. She couldn’t forget that.

“Of course, Danion,” she replied with a tight smile. “What was it you wanted to teach me today?”

“Right, right,” Danion grinned, folding his legs and taking a seat right there in the middle of the crater. It was an odd habit of his, and Cassiel took a little more care in selecting her own seat.

Once they were both settled, Danion made a show of stretching out his neck, shoulders and wings, clearly working up to something.

“Cass,” he began. “What I am about to show you will make you think the heavens have fallen and all the pieces have turned into little heaven-gnomes that go around stealing from honest folk.”

“What?” Cassiel replied, honestly baffled.

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“It’s just- it’s amazing, alright?” Danion muttered out, sounding peeved.

“Why don’t you just demonstrate, Danion?” she suggested, trying to sound appreciative still. It wouldn’t do for him to get annoyed this early in the night.

“Okay, sure. Pay attention, though, okay?” He replied, uncharacteristically serious. “Apparently doing this wrong can be kinda dangerous.”

“Wait, rea-?” Cassiel began to ask, before Danion’s wings started to actively glow.

His horns followed suit, the suffusion within now doing more than merely adding a dull yellow cast to the crystals - now the orange luminescence was bright, almost too bright for her eyes, and it ebbed at the edge of her senses with an intensity closer to that of the Sunlight Aurora itself.

Belatedly, she realised that Danion was holding a hand out in front of him, and indeed was now staring at his palm intensely, even as the glow of his horns and wings grew stronger-!

Abruptly, the glow cut off, returning to the usual drab radiance.

For a moment, Cassiel was bewildered by what had just transpired. Nothing had seemed to happen other than a brief period of intense glow - which, admittedly, might be good as a distraction, but given the gravitas with which Danion had treated the event, she had expected… more?

Then, panting, Danion looked at her and grinned.

“I did it!” he crowed, pointing with one hand to his palm.

Frowning, Cassiel looked closer- and then her eyes widened and her jaw fell open, and she stared in wonderment.

Resting gently in the palm of Danion’s hand was a slim, short shard of crystal. No longer than the final joint of her smallest toe, no wider than a blade of grass.

But, nonetheless, there.

“What is that?” she murmured aloud, practically transfixed. There was no way Danion had just… created Crystal Implants, was there? That… would change everything.

“A Crystal Construct, my master calls it,” he grinned. “Apparently they’re one of the most versatile tools available to an Implanted, but I don’t know much of the specifics yet.”

“What do you mean by that?” Cassiel replied, heart in her throat, trying desperately to stop herself from hoping, but hoping nonetheless.

“Well,” Danion said, scratching at the back of his head with his free hand. “Apparently you can store suffusion inside them for later, in order to quickly recover a bunch of energy. Oh, or you can tie an effect to one, letting you activate it for later! Apparently that’s what the Valley Beacons are.”

The Valley Beacons were a great source of pride for the Academy’s history teacher. They were enormous Crystal formations, set into the peaks of the mountains that surrounded the Valley. They sent great pillars of orange-yellow into the sky when activated, apparently in response to external threats as they approached, providing fast and automatic warning to the residents. Cassiel had never seen them lit in her lifetime.

She hadn’t known they were… ‘Crystal Constructs,’ however.

Something best for only the nobles to know? A snide voice asked from the beneath the burgeoning hope she felt, rising even now to the surface.

“Can they be used as…” she hardly dared ask. “Actual… Implants?”

Danion laughed.

“Oh, no way,” he said, sitting backward as chuckles wracked his shoulders. “No, you have to harvest actual Sunlight Crystals for that, obviously!”

Obviously, Cassiel thought bitterly.

She fought to keep the disappointment from her features, merely giving him a tight-lipped smile and shaking her head.

“Of course, my lord,” she said, not trusting herself to say his name without that bitterness. “Obviously,” she echoed.

“Still, master says that if you get really good at generating Constructs you can make on the fly weapons, even trap your opponent in chunks of Crystal.” Danion leaned closer. “Apparently, there’s even a way of combining the genesis with your Sunshots, so that anything you hit gets transformed into Crystal.”

He sat back, eyeing her with a cocky grin.

Cassiel sat there gaping for a moment, then shook her head.

“Well, Danion, you were right,” she replied. “I certainly do feel like the heavens have fallen and all the pieces have… um… turned into gnomes, did you say?”

“Uh, yeah,” Danion said, jerking his eyes away and flushing a little. “Something like that.”

“So, will you teach me how to do that?” Cassiel asked, a little cautiously. She was still wary of pushing her luck with the young heir, but she was desperate for those Implants.

“Well, I’ll have to learn how to do it myself, first,” Danion admitted. “And there’s still a lot of ‘foundational’ stuff I apparently need to get started on first.”

“Foundational stuff?” Cassiel inquired, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, my master’s a real slave-driver,” he complained. “He keeps saying all the Academy stuff I learned is sloppy and half-hearted, that I basically need to learn everything over again from scratch.”

Cassiel said nothing for a moment, though she privately agreed. Danion had rarely paid attention in class, coasting by on the bare minimum even in the non-Implant classes. His Sunshot was among the weakest in the class, she was sure.

“I’m sure you just need to win him over,” Cassiel said diplomatically. “Prove that you’re dedicated.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Danion grumbled, climbing to his feet. “You sound like my dad.”

Cassiel tried not to ruminate on that as she followed his lead, standing as well as he moved to stand opposite the target boulder.

“Now, master always says the key to Construction is in layering your suffusion on the surface of your skin,” he continued. “Pressing down and focusing a lot of energy into a single-”

“One more word, Danion,” an unfamiliar voice cut through the casual air of the crater. “And I will be telling your father of this treason.”

Cassiel spun, her gaze going skyward, her wing coming over to protect the front of her body by instinct.

There, hanging motionless in the sky, was the winged form of an Elite with a pair of broad, slightly curving horns jutting outward from his forehead and above above his head of strawberry blonde hair.

Cassiel had never been this close to a real Elite before, not one in the prime of their strength - Juediel was retired, and far past her middle age.

This Elite, however - his suffusion battered against her senses like a physical force, the ebb of his power pressing against her and cowing her. His wings were broad, tapered, and his horns gave him an aura of threat and power.

Cassiel was awestruck, and terrified.

“Master!” Danion called out, fear evident in his voice. “I-I can explain!”

“What did I just say, boy?” The Elite - Danion’s master - called out, his voice low and dangerous.

His eyes were locked on Cassiel’s, and the expression on his face was one of pure fury.

She swallowed, her wing shivering, and crouched down lower to the ground, as though making herself a smaller target would help if he wanted to kill her right here, right now.

There was nothing she could do.