The palace halls were colder than his room.
Not magic-cold. Just stone and silence and the particular emptiness that came from walking corridors designed to make him feel small. Viktor's footsteps echoed against marble polished smooth by generations of servants.
His chest was already tight.
Legate Orell would be watching today. He'd known since yesterday, when Aldwin had mentioned it in that flat, dismissive way—The IMF will observe your progress tomorrow—but knowing and experiencing were different things. When Orell came, she brought her abacus and her measuring eyes, and she wrote reports that went straight to Werner, to the IMF council, to people who decided his future.
Viktor's hands were shaking. He shoved them into his pockets.
The training hall door was oak, banded with iron, and very heavy. He pushed it open with both hands.
The room beyond was everything his quarters weren't. Large. Formal. Ruthlessly organized. Geometric patterns marked the floor—circles and careful lines for positioning. Practice dummies stood against the far wall, scarred from ice and impact. A long table held water basins in various sizes. Everything smelled like cold metal and old stone and decades of accumulated spellwork.
Master Aldwin stood near the center circle, hands clasped behind his back.
Tall, narrow-shouldered, grey-bearded. Mid-sixties and severe. He wore formal blacks, high-collared and unforgiving, and he watched Viktor enter with the expression of a man who already knew he'd be disappointed.
"You're late."
Viktor wasn't. He was exactly on time.
"Yes, Master Aldwin."
"Don't apologize. Improve."
Viktor nodded, stepping further in. His eyes went to the corner.
Legate Livia Orell stood there like she'd been part of the architecture all along.
Early thirties, IMF grey uniform perfectly pressed, dark hair pulled back. Sharp features that never relaxed. In her hands, held with careful precision, was her abacus. She didn't acknowledge Viktor's entrance. Just stood there, still and watchful.
The tight feeling in Viktor's chest got worse.
"Begin your warm channels," Aldwin said. "We'll proceed with precision work once your Source is active."
Viktor moved to his position—second circle from the center, facing the water basins. He pressed his palms together, focusing inward. His Source stirred. Cold bloomed through his chest and down his arms. The air around him cooled. His breath misted.
"Good," Aldwin said, though his tone suggested it was barely adequate. "Now. Precision lattice. Three-point geometry. You know the structure."
Viktor did. Call water from the smallest basin, shape it into a triangular frame, hold it frozen and stable for a count of ten. Control. Not power.
"Begin the working," Aldwin said. "With proper structure, Prince Viktor. Chant and form."
Viktor's stomach dropped.
The chants were supposed to help—formal structure for young mages still learning control, syllables that shaped intent into clean channels. When his mother chanted, her voice was steady and clear, each phrase placed like a stone in a wall. Viktor's mouth never cooperated. The words felt foreign, disconnected from what his magic wanted to do.
He drew breath, focusing on the smallest basin.
"Aqua surgere, forma tenere—" His tongue caught. The words felt wrong, too formal. His Source responded anyway—eager, immediate. Water rose from the basin in a shaking column.
"Cleaner," Aldwin snapped. "Your pronunciation is sloppy. Again."
From the corner: click-click.
Orell's abacus.
Viktor tried again. "Aqua surgere, forma tenere, glacies—" He lost the third phrase. The water pulled faster than he'd intended. He tried to shape it into the triangular frame, reaching with his mind, desperate.
The water froze. Not into a lattice. Into a jagged, uneven mass.
Aldwin's jaw tightened. "Stop. Release. Try again."
The ice fell and shattered.
Viktor's hands shook. Nausea crept upward from his stomach.
"Aqua surgere—"
"Louder," Aldwin said. "And precisely. Every syllable matters."
Viktor's voice cracked. The water surged too fast, and when he tried to freeze it the cold came like a hammer. The geometric frame appeared for half a second—perfect, crystalline—then it spread. Frost raced outward in branching patterns, crawling across the air, reaching for the next basin, for the floor—
"Control!" Aldwin barked.
Viktor slammed his intent shut. The magic stopped. The frost hung suspended, intricate and beautiful and completely wrong, then fell.
Silence.
He'd failed. Again. In front of Orell. Werner would hear about this—Werner always heard.
Viktor's chest hurt. His breath came too fast.
From the corner: click-click-click.
He didn't look at Orell. Couldn't.
And so.
Viktor tried.
He tried four more times, and each attempt was worse than the last.
The fifth time, the water didn't even reach the frame stage before it flash-froze into a solid spike that cracked against the floor. The sixth time, he managed half the lattice before his concentration shattered and the structure collapsed into slush. The seventh time, his voice gave out entirely on the third phrase and the magic just—happened—without any structure at all, wild and cold and reaching.
Aldwin had to step back.
The old master's face had gone from irritated to something else. Not quite fear, but close. Wary. Like Viktor was a dog that had started showing teeth.
"Enough." Aldwin's voice was flat. "Cease channeling. Now."
Viktor released his hold. The ice fell. His hands were shaking so badly he had to clasp them behind his back to hide it. The nausea had climbed all the way up into his throat. His chest felt like someone had wrapped iron bands around his ribs and was pulling them tighter with every breath.
Silence filled the training hall. Heavy. Suffocating.
Then, from the corner: click-click-click-click.
Viktor flinched.
"Master Aldwin." Orell's voice was calm, measured, utterly without inflection. "Your report stated his Tone was degrading. I see that clearly now."
Tone. The smoothness of his Source release—how cleanly the magic flowed or how roughly it fractured. His mother's Tone was like glass. His was apparently breaking.
Aldwin turned toward her, his jaw tight. "The boy has power, Legate. Undeniable power. But his focus—"
"Is poor." Orell stepped forward. Not far. Just enough that the light from the high windows caught her face, making her features sharper. "He defaults to raw output when pressured. The chanting structure provides no stability."
Viktor's throat tightened. She was talking about him like he was a problem to be solved.
"His control fractures under observation," Orell continued. She wasn't looking at Viktor. She was looking at her abacus, her fingers moving beads with the same clinical precision a surgeon might use with a scalpel. "Yesterday's incident during unsupervised practice confirms the pattern. Escalation without refinement."
Click.
Viktor's stomach turned over. How did she know about yesterday? Had Aldwin reported it already? Or was someone else watching him when he thought he was alone?
"Growth without governance."
Or eliminated.
"The prince is young," Aldwin said, though his tone suggested he was offering an excuse he didn't believe. "Control can be taught."
"Control can be taught to those with the temperament to receive it." Orell's fingers stilled on the abacus. Finally, she looked up. Not at Aldwin. At Viktor.
Her eyes were grey. Cold. Clinical.
"Uncontrolled power is a liability, Prince Viktor." She spoke directly to him for the first time, and each word landed with the weight of a stone. She paused. "You are a liability."
Viktor couldn't breathe. The iron bands around his chest had gone so tight he thought his ribs might crack.
"The Imperial family requires precision. The IMF requires stability. You have demonstrated neither. Do you understand?"
He managed a nod. Barely.
Orell's expression didn't change. "Master Aldwin will continue your instruction. I will return next month to assess progress. If there is any."
She made one final notation on her abacus.
Click.
"You are dismissed, Prince Viktor."
Viktor didn't wait for Aldwin to confirm it. He turned and walked—too fast, almost running—toward the door. His hands fumbled with the iron handle. Behind him, he heard Aldwin begin to speak to Orell in low tones, but he didn't catch the words. Didn't want to.
The door swung open.
Cold air hit him. The hallway stretched out before him, grey and empty and impossibly long. His quarters were on the other side of the palace. Past the administrative wing. Past the places where siblings gathered and servants worked, and people existed who weren't failures.
Viktor stepped through the doorway.
The door closed behind him with a heavy thud that echoed down the corridor.
He ran.