The room still smelled like frost and silence when Syraen's voice left me. Her words clung to my skin like smoke.
Find the scale before the full moon. Or blindness will own you.
My fingers twitched against the couch cushion. My nails felt too sharp. My chest too tight. It wasn't just the prophecy anymore—it was a countdown. Every breath was another second gone.
The door slammed.
Heat rolled in first, like someone dragged the sun inside. Damian filled the doorway, jacket hanging off his shoulder, fire practically leaking from his veins. His eyes—burned amber with something darker underneath.
"On your feet, Crimson," he growled. "Playtime's over."
I stiffened. "What—"
"Vault training can wait. You want to survive here? Then prove you deserve to breathe the same air as us."
His voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It was a blade pressed to my throat.
Devon sat forward. "Damian—"
"Stay out of it." His tone cut the room in half.
I gripped the edge of the couch. "What is this?"
"A lesson," he said, baring teeth in something too sharp to be a smile. "Rule one: no mercy."
Draven said nothing. He just leaned against the wall, ice coiling off his frame like a warning. Watching. Waiting.
I stood, every muscle screaming, but I didn't let him see it. If Damian wanted a fight—fine.
The walk to the training rink was silent, except for Damian's boots striking the floor like war drums. The deeper we went, the colder the air grew, until the corridor opened into a cavern of steel and firelight.
The rink was a wound carved into the earth. Black metal walls, veined with glowing runes, hummed with containment wards. Scorch marks striped the ground. Chains clinked somewhere in the shadows.
Damian shrugged off his jacket, tossing it like an afterthought. Heat rippled across his skin. Flames licked his arms in lazy arcs, hungry for something to burn.
"Rule two," he said, stepping into the center. "You either fight back—or you break."
I swallowed hard. The floor bit cold against my bare feet. My crimson uniform hung in tatters from yesterday's chaos. My heartbeat was too loud, too fast.
"I can't see you," I said flatly.
"Then listen harder."
He moved before the words finished.
A blur of heat slammed into my ribs. My body flew sideways, skidding across iron. Air left my lungs in a ragged gasp. The world tilted. Pain roared.
Before I could rise, his hand fisted my hair, yanking me up.
"Prophecy looks different up close, doesn't it?" he hissed near my ear. "Nothing but a blind girl choking on her own blood."
I spat copper fire onto the floor. And stood.
His smirk sharpened. "Good. Crawl slower next time."
Then the blows came like storms. Fists, elbows, flames kissing skin until it blistered. Every impact cracked something inside me—ribs? Maybe pride.
But I kept standing. My breath hitched. My body shook. Still—I stood.
I will not crawl. I will not give him the satisfaction.
The floor trembled under my bare feet. My pulse pounded like war drums. Every sound fractured into clarity—the snap of his boots, the hiss of fire on steel, the rush of air as he moved.
Something inside me… broke.
Then—rebuilt itself in fire.
Pain detonated in my hands. Bones snapped like brittle twigs, twisting beneath my skin. Claws tore through flesh with a wet crack, black and slick with blood. My scream shredded into a snarl that shook the air.
Heat flared—but not his. Mine.
My voice deepened into something primal. My teeth sharpened mid-breath. Molten gold and crimson split my vision like lightning through night.
My spine arched, vertebrae cracking as if a beast clawed its way out of my skin. Shadows rippled under my flesh. My pulse roared loud enough to drown the world.
Half-shift. Half-human. All wrong.
And it hurt. Gods, it hurt.
Blood ran down my arms in thick streams where bone and skin couldn't decide which shape to hold. My claws clicked against iron as I staggered forward, growl vibrating from somewhere deeper than my lungs.
Damian froze.
Not pity. Not fear. Recognition. Of something older than wolves. Older than flame.
Something that did not belong in this world.
His fire dimmed at the edges. "What… are you?"
I lunged. Not to kill. To survive. My claws scraped the floor, sparks screaming as metal tore.
Then—
Ice slammed the world in half.
A wall of frost exploded between us, shards biting skin like teeth. Air burned cold enough to choke. Damian flew backward, slammed against steel with a crunch that rattled my bones.
I collapsed.
My claws twitched. My breath hitched in broken snarls. My body bled where it broke itself.
Through the ringing in my ears, a voice sliced like a blade.
Draven.
"Enough."
Footsteps—slow, lethal.
Devon's gasp, power humming as light bloomed against my shredded skin. Hands pressed to my ribs. Warmth, magic, desperate whispers.
Damian's snarl answered from across the frost. "You saw it. She's not a girl—she's a weapon. A curse. You think this ends with her sleeping under your roof?"
Draven's voice was winter. "Touch her again, and you won't live long enough to regret it."
"Keep pretending she's not a threat," Damian spat. Blood hit the floor like punctuation. "When she burns this place to ash—remember this moment."
The world tilted. Darkness spilled over the edges. My last thought—
Not of Syraen.
Not of prophecy.
Just this:
If this is what it takes to survive… then let it break me.
Then nothing.