No one stopped Akari and Kalden as they left the city. Kalden got them a cabin on the next train, and they sat in silence as they pulled away from the platform. What was there to say? They’d both seen the same fight. They’d both seen dozens of people get shot and dismembered, staining the snow red with their blood.

Now she couldn’t stop shivering. Mana beasts were one thing. As dangerous as those were, they felt like a glorified video game compared to the carnage she’d just seen.

Akari ordered a water when the attendant stopped by. She was already shaking enough without throwing caffeine into the mix. In hindsight, the water was half ice, and that might have been even worse.

“Want a blanket?” Kalden asked from across the cabin.

“I’m fine,” Akari said at once. Then she glanced around the small space. “Wait—they have those in here?”

Kalden stood and opened his seat cushion like a treasure chest, revealing a storage compartment inside. He opened a sealed plastic package, then tossed her the fleece blanket.

Akari unfolded the material across her lap, pulling it up to her neck. It didn’t calm her racing heart, but it was better than being cold.

Kalden just leaned back in his seat and stared out the window, watching the snow-covered hills roll by.

“Think he’ll come after us?” Akari asked. Most of the Golds hadn’t survived the battle, but she’d caught glimpses of Frostblade before they left. The healers were already tending his wounds.

“We should assume the worst,” Kalden said, “but they have bigger drakes to track right now.”

“And what if they come knocking again?”

“We’ll be honest with them,” he said.

“You want to spill the whole story?”

“No, but we can tell them how she tried to recruit us to free her master. We turned her down, so we have nothing to hide.”

Akari gave a slow nod. The Martials probably knew Relia’s plans, so they wouldn’t learn anything new from her and Kalden.

The hours rolled by as they passed the same landscapes from before. White foothills became jagged skylines as the train carried them south through Ironhaven. They turned east after that, passing miles of farmland on the way back to Elegan.

It was just past two o’clock when they stepped through Kalden’s front door. His parents wouldn’t be home until tomorrow, so they had the house to themselves.

“I’m already starving,” Kalden said as he shrugged out of his jacket.

“Same.” Akari knelt to unbuckle her combat boots. Some people didn’t eat when they were anxious, but she was the exact opposite. If anything, she only got hungrier at times like this, and the train’s free cookies didn’t cut it.

“We can get pizza,” Kalden suggested.

Akari imagined the sauce, and Relia’s fight flashed in her mind. “How about something less red?”

“That rules out most South-Espirian cuisine.” He hummed in consideration. “Let’s see if the cooks left anything in the fridge.”

She followed him past the waterfall and into the kitchen with its fancy stone countertops and dark wooden cabinets. The center island was long enough for twenty people to stand around, even if they liked their personal space.

Kalden stopped in front of the fridge and pulled open a pair of stainless steel doors. Like everything else in his house, the shelves were perfectly organized, as if his servants had nothing better to do. He pulled out a few plates covered in plastic wrap and placed them on the island. One plate had sushi on it, and the others held fancy-looking fish and exotic fruits she’d never seen before. The Golds probably grew this in a secret greenhouse so they could feel even smugger while they ate.

Kalden passed her some chopsticks as he turned on the TV. A pair of news anchors sat around a polished table wearing navy suits and silver badges. A second later, the scene cut to pictures of Relia in White Vale, just before her fight with the Martials.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

They gave the usual Fugitive speech, encouraging people to come forward if they knew anything. Akari had heard this a dozen times now, and she barely listened as she ate. The sushi melted like butter in her mouth, but the fruit tasted like sour, dry wine.

They cut to more footage of broken vans and a crashed helicopter. Above it all, a single phrase caught her attention: “Twenty-seven casualties.”

“How many are there total?” she asked Kalden.

“Martials?” Kalden picked up the remote and lowered the volume. “Less than twenty agents at Frostblade’s level, but there’re hundreds in the organization. Maybe thousands if you count the noncombatants.”

In other words, Relia hadn’t even put a dent in their ranks. But why would they send so few people to White Vale if they had hundreds on staff? Had both sides underestimated the other?

“Maybe they’ll stop being stupid and talk with her,” Akari muttered. “Relia said it herself—she just wants to get her master and leave.”

Kalden shook his head as he finished chewing. “I know Frostblade’s style. Remember how those raptors kept throwing themselves at Relia? That’s what will happen here. They’ll let this island burn before they back down.”

Akari glared back at the TV. “And those idiots will cheer the whole time.” The news had already painted Relia as a dangerous killer, even when it wasn’t true. She’d stubbornly avoided lethal techniques until the last possible moment. Things would only get worse, now that they had actual casualties.

“Some skeptics will question it,” Kalden said. “But they’ll be called traitors and conspiracy theorists.”

“You sure we made the right choice?” Akari asked.

“What?” Kalden looked at her as if she’d just set his kitchen on fire. “We never would have survived that fight.”

“Relia never said we’d join her today.”

“I understand that, but you really want to get involved after what we saw?”

“Relia can handle the Martials,” Akari said. “She blunted her Missiles for half the fight, and she still won.”

“Barely. And it only gets worse from here.” He gestured back to her picture on the TV. “She’ll struggle just to find food and shelter at this rate, much less win battles. I feel bad for her, but there’s nothing we could’ve done.”

After dinner, they headed downstairs and plugged in the thumb drive. True to Relia’s word, all twelve videos were there.

They started with the Construct video. This was a more in-depth version of Relia’s crash course, and the Grandmaster showed them how a Missile could stretch into a shield. He went on to explain how Constructs could take any shape. For example, domes started as flat circles, then you applied pressure to the middle, warping the shape into three dimensions.

The Grandmaster made it look so easy, but Akari knew how stable mana was. Getting a specific shape would be like using fans to organize dust and dandelion seeds. But somehow, Relia had done it while removing twelve inches of steel from her chest.

Of course, she’d been practicing for years, and this was probably like preschool for her.

Next came the ambient mana video, followed by a series of shaping exercises. These later videos were longer than the first half of the series, and they formed the foundation for more advanced aspects. And like the aspect video, many of these were theoretical. In one video, the Grandmaster ranted for a full ten minutes.

“You wouldn’t expect a happy ending with your high-school crush,” he said. “And yet, this is exactly the age when most young mana artists choose their aspect. Or worse—their parents choose for them.”

Akari thought of her foster mother, Noella, and how she hated being a healer. More than once, she’d implied that her parents had chosen this career for her, and that she’d never wanted it. Akari wouldn’t say she sympathized with the woman—Noella still had a better life than every Bronze she knew. Still, she could never be a true combat artist, even if she wanted to. That was depressing in its own way.

“Most high schools won’t share these shaping techniques with you,” the Grandmaster explained. “Instead, they’ll funnel you down specific paths and regard everything else as a waste of time. They’re wrong, of course. Finding your aspect is like finding your soulmate. It takes time, patience, and years of experience to get right.”

The last video talked about the peak of the Novice realm, and how you prepared your body for the Apprentice advancement. This involved opening smaller channels and paving the way for Cloak techniques.

This was all out of Akari’s league right now. She didn’t even have enough mana to form Constructs, much less Cloaks. These last few videos had felt like watching infomercials for stuff she couldn’t afford.

Still, she took diligent notes, copying down every exercise. On top of that, she watched each video several times, committing every word to memory. Thumb drives and notebooks could be stolen; only her memories were truly safe.

She and Kalden sat there until well past midnight. Eventually, she found herself lying on the leather sofa, covered in two thick blankets. Kalden must have left the bar light on because the room had a faint orange glow. Thunder roared outside, and rain clattered against the windows.

Great. It was still winter, so that meant the sidewalks would be solid ice when she left.

Akari felt around on the end table and found her glasses folded up beside a bottle of water. Definitely Kalden’s doing—she normally slept with those right next to her pillow.

Akari snuggled into her blankets and closed her eyes again. She hadn’t meant to spend the night, but it had been a long and exhausting weekend, and she couldn’t summon the energy to care.

Sometime later, a feminine voice cleared her throat.

“Shit.” Akari’s eyes shot open, and she glanced frantically around the room. A blurry form loomed in the chair just a few feet away. She snatched up her glasses from the table, scrambling to put them on.

When the world finally came into focus, she found herself face-to-face with Kalden’s mother.