Ranvir sat down on his bed and began reading Figir’s book. She’d apparently written the book not long after achieving the Sword on the Discipline of the Piercer. She’d only been seventeen at the time.

Ranvir felt a little self-conscious, he was seventeen and had only just begun his training. He didn’t know if she was particularly impressive, or if that was the standard, but if her book was any judge she’d been very fast.

In fact, that seemed to be a recurring theme through what he read of the book. There was almost as much emphasis on Figir’s achievements as there was on how she achieved them.

Ranvir had heard the term ‘proud and bound’ before, in reference to the tethered being arrogant due to their power, but this was the first taste he’d really gotten of it.

As he got a little further into the book, it moved onto her beginnings at the Royal School, how she’d figured out the uniform trick and accessed her tether within a quarter hour of the puzzle.

Accessed her tether? He got up from the bed, opening his drawer and pulled out a uniform. Considering for a moment, he put it on. It was exactly as difficult as he’d imagined it to be. There was a surprising amount of give in the cloth, when really pushed into it, while still being extremely uncomfortable.

“Accessing my tether.” He scanned the page to see if she’d written anything else, but found nothing more on it. “Great.”

Closing his eyes and sitting down on his bed, he reached up to press a finger against his chest. Trying to feel for a space, or a connection. He couldn’t sense anything other than the discomfort of the uniform.

Another deep breath, he tried to sense inside himself. For a moment he felt something, like a gap. The realization was enough to jolt him out of his focused state. Closing his eyes, he tried to find it again, but couldn’t find the gap anywhere. No matter how he searched it avoided him.

Maybe the finger’s important? He’d stopped pressing with his finger, figuring it wasn’t actually needed. Tentatively, he pushed against his chest lightly, almost immediately he felt a small opening appear inside himself.

It was weird. He couldn’t actually feel himself, of course, it was more like an opening in his awareness of himself. Now he just had to access it. Pressing against the space, he felt it resist.

Pushing harder, the opening widened further. He kept pushing until he felt like a bruise was forming on his chest, before he tried again. This time his awareness slipped inside easily.

He let out a gasp as he saw the tether. It was the three tiny threads, filaments of threads that had descended into him, during the ceremony.

It was barely formed, yet he knew instinctively that it would change as his ability matured. He felt a little flicker of something move through him, as he examined the miniature rope. It felt thinner than a spider’s silk, and he didn’t dare disturb it too much.

Soon enough, he felt the space begin to close on its own, shoving him out.

Blinking, Ranvir rocked lightly on the bed, feeling a little dazed. He had no idea how long he’d been, he wanted to say watching, but that wasn’t the right word. How long he had been experiencing his tether. Nor had he any idea how long it took him to find that space in himself.

Leaning forwards to close the book, he finally noticed his uniform. It was no longer uncomfortably tight. It was still a little off, too tight over the shoulders for free movement and the legs were binding him still, but overall it felt much better.

A little smile crept onto his face. Putting Figir’s books away into the chest, he stepped into the common room.

He found Sansir in the middle of thoroughly beating Esmund, in chess. Or Esmund had some wise plan that involved him losing all his pieces.

More importantly, Ranvir noticed as he examined them closer, their uniforms fit. If anything, they fit even better than his did.

“You figured it out too?” He asked, trying not to let his disappointment show.

“Yeah, it just took a little to figure out the trick.” Sansir said, without looking up from the board.

“Don’t let him fool you, I figured it out first.” Esmund said, leaning back on his chair. If his loss wasn’t evident on the board, it was in the set of his shoulders. “Sansir is teaching me to play.”

Ranvir knew a little bit about chess. He’d seen some of the older men and women playing it at their village, but it was supposed to be ‘grown-up entertainment’. Ranvir paused realizing, he was a grown-up now.

“Are you any good?” He asked, stepping closer.

“No.”

“He’s fine, just needs a little more practice.” Sansir explained.

Ranvir nodded, as Sansir moved one of the smaller pieces, taking one of the more intricate of Esmund’s. The move caused his short friend to let out a groan.

“A little practice?” Esmund asked, "I didn’t even notice that." Ranvir, of course, didn’t really understand what Sansir had done, but it obviously wasn’t good for Esmund. “I give up, you win this one too.”

Sansir reached over and tipped Esmund’s other intricate piece. “Thanks for the game.” He reached out offering his hand. His opponent rolled his eyes, but took it. Then their tall friend turned to Ranvir. Before he could speak, a bell tolled loudly. Fortunately, it wasn’t as pervasive inside the dorm as it was outside, but still easily noticeable.

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Esmund shot up from his seat, like he’d been stung in the rear. “Finally!”

Ranvir couldn’t help but feel a little jealousy at how well the uniform fit him. It wasn’t so much that the uniform fit him better, rather than it was how he’d somehow figured the trick out on his own, or at least only with Sansir’s help.

Sansir himself got up from his seat too, following behind the halfway running tethered that was leading the way.

Fortunately, it didn’t take as long to find a staircase down as it did the last time. This one they managed to find pretty quickly, through the power of vaguely remembering the route. Alone, this was no great power, but when combined with three others it quickly became ‘okay’.

A few minutes later, they escaped from the cluster at the center, to scan the surrounding fields. It didn’t take long to find the right one. There were multiple other groups out, but only one of them had a student waving his arms and calling them over.

“You made it!” Thorin exclaimed, as they got close enough to talk. Ranvir and Sansir nodded, as Esmund replied with equal exuberance. “You’re about to see the kind of warriors Elusria can turn you into!”

Ranvir did his best to keep his visible excitement down, but standing next to Esmund he might as well not bother. Next to him, not even the fastest birds seemed energetic. Ranvir was just relieved, he wasn’t the only one trying to temper himself. Sansir too was shifting from foot to foot impatiently, though his face betrayed nothing.

“Students!” A man yelled, bringing the attention from Thorin to him.

He was standing in the middle of a series of rectangular arenas. All of them were about thirty feet by seventy feet, giving lots of space for what Ranvir assumed to be sparring. There were however only seven of these arenas and more than fourteen students, not counting Sansir, Esmund and Ranvir.

“This is a simple sparring match. The trimester hasn’t yet begun, so try not to hurt yourself too badly, we do not want to involve the medical professionals before the year has even begun. Step into a ring, when I call your name!”

He quickly started yelling out names, that flew right through Ranvir’s ears. In one, out the other. Instead, he took to examining the teacher. He was an older man, bald though he showed faint signs of hair in a half moon around the top of his head. He had an icy set of wings embroidered on his back, which became visible as he turned to some of the students.

“Teacher Vralt, is a Master of the Discipline of Wings. His ice Mantle is damn near undefeatable.” Thorin said out the side of his mouth to them.

Vralt finished yelling names and to Ranvir’s disappointment, didn’t call out Thorin’s. He’d been hoping to see the fifth year fight.

“Look over there, the ones closest to us.” Thorin pointed. “The guy with his back to us, is a obsidian manipulator. He was one of the first from our year to reach the second stage of his Discipline.” Ranvir looked closer, noticing a pair of black, shiny wings embroidered on the man’s shoulder. “But he’s up against an ice generator who’s on the second stage of the body. It’s going to be a tough fight.”

“What are stages?” Esmund asked, looking on intently. Ranvir too examined the ice opponent. He had a frozen heart embroidered on his lapel.

“Stages?” Thorin looked surprised, for a moment. “It’s doesn’t really matter to you, yet. Basically, three Disciplines, each with three stages, just as the Triplet Goddess wills it. Higher stage means better tethered.”

Ranvir’s eyes were forced back to the arena, as the teacher yelled out for the fight to begin. Immediately, small pebbles that reflected the sunlight started rising from the ground around the obsidian tethered. They quickly gained a spin, until he was standing in the middle of a whirlpool of black stone shards.

“Isn’t that unfair?” Sansir asked. “They planted those shards in the arena to help him fight. If he’s a manipulator he’s not always going to have obsidian readily available.”

“Actually, that’s not true.” Thorin jumped in, as fog started falling from the ice tethered’s body. It wasn’t thick enough to hide him, but enough to easily spot it. “Obsidian can be found nearly anywhere. It might not be directly on the surface, but there’s always some sort of dusting or specks and shards of it scattered under the immediate dirt. We only lay the shards in the arena, to avoid unforeseen damage like inhaling the really tiny stones.”

Sansir didn’t reply, instead opting to shoot Thorin a doubtful glance.

“Don’t take it from me. Take it from the bishops. The Triplet Goddess scattered obsidian to all the world’s corners, just like she did ice, which then turned to the water of our lakes, river and the ocean.”

Ranvir wasn’t sure what to believe, but Sansir was obviously skeptical.

The ice tethered had started circling the obsidian dome, when suddenly they exploded forwards in a rush. Ranvir stared with wide-eyes as the dome tore open his skin, leaving thin cuts all along the forearms raised to protect his face, some even cutting through his uniform.

He was positively white-gold with amazement, when the wounds started to grow together, like water rapidly freezing over on a rime oak. The ice tethered lowered his arms, ready to move in as though he hadn’t been hit at all, when the obsidian manipulator lifted even more obsidian from the ground, with a quick move of arms.

This time, Ice charged forwards, except when he ran into the stone they didn’t act like they’d been suspended by string, instead it was more like they were strong branches, that only gave way slowly.

Ice’s charge halted, Obsidian raising a new series of shards, though he clustered these together. Before sending them like a huge arrowhead towards Ice.

“This is a difficult match up.” Thorin explained. “Obsidian holds the advantage, due to reaching the second stage of Wings, but manipulating so much stone requires power, more so than Ice needs to keep his Body running, even when using both of his concepts.”

“Concepts?”

“Touch like ice and regrowth like ice. Don’t ask me how, I’m not a Disciple of Body.”

“So it’s an endurance race then?” Sansir asked, Ranvir reluctantly took his eyes away from the still developing fight.

“For Ice, yeah. But for Obsidian it’s a sprint. He needs to put Ice down, before he expends too much of his energy.”

Ranvir turned his gaze back to the fight, when he felt something hit him, then vibrate through him. The hole in the center of his chest opened. A bright white line, seemingly as thin as a finger suddenly crossed the sky above them, emanating from the tower.

Then the world exploded into light, as heat washed over him.

Ranvir fell to his knees, rubbing at his eyes. He heard multiple people cursing around him, as their sight was ruined too.

“What was that?” Esmund asked, for the fifteenth time still in disbelief. Fifteen minutes had gone by and Ranvir’s sight had mostly returned. The sparring had completely stopped, when the light had blinded everyone.

“That was probably Ayvir.” Thorin replied, he too had red eyes, both from rubbing them and the sudden brilliance. “Master Ayvir now, I guess.”

“Master Ayvir?” Sansir asked. Ranvir turned his gaze to the tower.

“Yeah, it tends to happen when you achieve a new stage. The power just rips through you. Ayvir has been close to becoming a Lancer for almost a year now. I guess he finally did it.”

A Lancer? Must be related to the Discipline of the Piercer, like Figir, she achieved the stage of the Sword.

“So that was someone at the third stage?” Ranvir asked. Thorin looked at him surprised for a moment, before speaking up.

“Yup. Pretty incredible, huh? Like I said, the higher the stage, the stronger the tethered.”

Well, Ranvir knew what his goals looked like, at least.