Roy sat on the edge of his bed, the silence of the room pressing against his eardrums. For a long minute, he didn't move. He just stayed there.
He stood, his movements mechanical, and retrieved a thick notebook and a pen from their hiding place under the bed. The notebook was heavy, its side fitted with a series of stepped, reinforced tabs numbered 1 through 10. Each number felt like a weight, a measurement of the horrors he'd witnessed and still was witnessing.
He retreated to his bed, the book resting on his knees. The notebook was bound in black leather, its pages yellowed at the edges from years of use. The cover bore no title or name. He stared at it for a second. Finally, he opened it to Grade 4. There were already pages full of memories.
He opened a fresh, white page. Roy began to write. The pen scratched against the paper as he wrote a detailed description of what he'd seen: the blunt slab of metal, the vacuum of air that turned a knight and a fortress wall into microscopic dust, and the cold, mercenary pragmatism of a man who sold his honor for a "crust of bread." While it didn't give him any new information, he still wrote it like every other memory.
He paused, the pen hovering over what he'd written about Bors using the civilians as a shield to stop Lucian's fire. A bitter, dry laugh bubbled in his throat.
"A king humiliated, a legendary knight bifurcated, and an entire city—a capital—leveled to the dirt just to make a point," Roy muttered, his eyes narrowing at his own handwriting. "Hundreds dead, all in a single memory... and this is only a Grade 4? The scale is beyond broken."
His gaze drifted downward. His finger brushed against the final tab, Section 10. His hands came in front of his eyes.
Suddenly.
He saw his own hand, smaller, fragile. Covered in something thick, acidic. One second yellow like vomit, the next dark with blood. It wouldn't settle. It kept changing.
A younger version of himself on the bed, folded tight, knees crushed to his chest. The book jammed against his legs. Pages trembling with every shallow breath.
He was recording something that shouldn't be—
The pen snapped.
Jagged plastic tore into his palm. He didn't flinch. He drove the broken pen into the page, scratching out the words he'd just written.
His hand jerked, frantic, unstoppable. Blood spread. Ink bled into it. Red into black.
The tip punched through the page. Then another. And another.
Still, he didn't stop.
Scratching. Tearing. Digging deeper.
Until the record was nothing—just a smeared ruin of blood, ink, and shredded paper.
Roy's hand was just beside the tab marked 10. On the side of his finger, a pale, jagged scar caught the dim light, a reminder of that day. The air in the room grew cold as he stared at that final section, the apex of the scale, the grade that broke the rest, the archive of whatever had truly broken him.
After a long, suffocating moment, he pulled his hand back.
"Better not," he whispered, his voice steadying. "Some things—"
A small shadow moved from under him, coiling up his body like a venomous snake until it reached the small scar on his finger. It draped over the mark, its texture shifting until it matched the exact shade of his skin, making the wound invisible.
"—are better forgotten."
He snapped the notebook shut and tucked it back into its sanctuary. Taking a long, cleansing breath, he leaned his head against the cold stone wall. As he stared into the dark, a sharp, slate-gray flash swept across his pupils, a flicker of a connection.
A small, sharp smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He did a quick stretch. Shadows began to grow from the ground and cover his body.
"It will need some practice, but... let's have some fun."
The atmosphere in the training grounds was thick with a silence that felt like a physical weight. Omar didn't break eye contact with Valeria, his breathing shallow and ragged, the displaced bone in his arm a grotesque reminder of the violence that had just ended.
Finally, he exhaled a long, shaky sigh and fished his ID out of his pocket.
"What are you doing?" Valeria asked, her eyes narrowing.
Omar didn't answer her. Instead, he scanned the wary circle of classmates until his gaze landed on the largest among them. He flicked the ID card toward Marcus. "Hey, big guy. Can you do me a favor and get me something from my room?"
Marcus caught the card out of the air, looking confused. "Sure. What am I looking for?"
"Under the bed, there are some cardboard boxes. Open the first one and bring me two bottles from it," Omar said. His voice dropped in tone, losing its sarcastic edge. "And Marcus? Don't look around too much."
"Wasn't planning on it," Marcus grunted, turning toward the dorms.
Valeria crossed her arms after they were completely healed. "So? Talk."
"What? You won't wait for him?" Omar's smirk returned, along with his sarcastic tone. "I thought you wanted everyone to hear the truth. Seems a waste to tell the story twice."
"I don't want to hear anything," Ren muttered. He was ignored.
Valeria sighed. "Fine. We wait."
Jax didn't need to be told twice. He collapsed onto his back, staring at the sky. "If we're waiting, I'm resting." Ren followed suit, sitting beside him in a sullen heap.
Across the grounds, Marcus entered Omar's room. He stopped in the doorway, surprised. The space was utterly bland. No posters, no personal things, no soul.
He knelt by the side of the bed. There was a built-in drawer for storage. Most students used it to hold their clothes, which took up half the space under the bed. On the other side, pushed deep into the shadows, were several plain cardboard boxes. He pulled the first one out and flipped the lid.
Marcus froze.
The box was packed with the exact same white healing liquid Anton had handed to Darius. It was the "new" healing drink.
'How does he have these?' Marcus wondered. 'Instructor Darius didn't know about it just two days ago, and a student has a full box of them.' He shook the thought away, grabbed two bottles, and shoved the box back into the dark. He left the room for good.
"What's taking him so long?" Vivienne was tapping her arm in anger.
"It hasn't even been ten minutes, Viv. Calm down," Elise said, wiping her hands as she finished healing Valeria completely.
"Don't call me that," Vivienne hissed.
Just then, the heavy doors creaked open. Marcus walked back onto the platform and handed the bottles to Omar. The silence returned, sharper than before, as the class recognized the glow of the liquid.
Omar didn't offer an explanation. Instead, he gritted his teeth, grabbed his forearm, and with a sickening crunch, wrenched the broken bone back into place. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough. He didn't scream, though his face went white. Without missing a beat, he popped the caps and downed both bottles back-to-back.
"That's the drink Anton gave Darius," Valeria said, her voice low and dangerous. "The 'new' healing drink. Why do you have a box of them in your room, Omar?"
"New?" Omar wiped his mouth, the color already returning to his skin as the liquid knit his cells back together. "It has been a year since they made it. Some might call it new, but not me."
"Are you calling Mister Anton a liar?" Vivienne challenged.
"It won't be new," Ren interjected, his voice indifferent but loud. "They lie all the time. Didn't you all see that cannon?"
The place went cold. They all remembered what Darius had said about the classified information.
"Instructor said that the reason the info about mana is classified is because they don't know how to make weapons from it but know it is possible," Marie said.
"Then we see a mountain-sized barrel last night. The math doesn't add up," Ren continued.
"How many things have they lied about?" Marcus whispered.
"It doesn't matter. Everything will be revealed with time, even if they try to hide it," Omar replied. He looked around the circle. "But let's not pivot. This is about the secrets, and I have an offer."
"And what is that?" Valeria's eyes narrowed.
"No 'normal' person accepts an invitation to a secret that could get them killed at any moment, unless they have a skeleton in their closet or a hole in their soul. We all have secrets."
Jax sat up, his expression uncharacteristically grim. "It isn't like we had an option. I tried and was thrown to the ground."
Omar let out a short, dry laugh. "If you were ready to quit after one failed attempt, Jax, you didn't really want to leave. There's a reason you didn't try a second time. And the rest of you? Did you all become cowards because you saw one person get tackled?"
The silence and the annoyed looks were enough of an answer.
Omar stood up, his hazel eyes locking onto Valeria, then Marie, then the rest.
"You want to know what the deal is with Roy, Marie, and me? You want to know what we are hiding?" Omar asked, his voice steady. "Fine. I'm ready to lay it all out. But I'm not the only one on the hook. I'll tell you everything—if every single one of you tells your secret and the real reason you are here."
No one moved. The air was stagnant.
"What are you doing? Do you really plan to—" Marie whispered to Omar.
"Shh." Omar didn't look at her. "Nothing will be revealed. It's all part of—"
He never finished. The shadows around him began to move.
Then everyone's shadows moved.
Omar opened his eyes wide, a smile coming to his face.
"What now?" Ren groaned.
The shadows came together and created a circle on the ground.
"Hasn't he caused enough trouble?" Elise snapped.
"What? It's not like I'm breaking any rules," a voice drifted from the resting area.
The entire class spun their heads around. The shadow circle on the floor remained empty. They saw Roy on the canopy. His legs seemed to dissolve into the shadows.
At that same moment, back in the dorms, Roy's physical body remained on his bed.
"Technically, my body didn't leave the dorm, so there are no rules broken."
"Was this a part of your plan?" Marie asked, whispering.
"No. No, it was not." Omar couldn't hide the smile on his face.
Meanwhile, in a dark room, the only light came from a screen at the far end.
SLAM.
"Repeat what you just said," Darius growled, his fist striking the table hard enough to crack it. His gaze locked onto the man seated across from him.
The man didn't flinch. "You have one week after your return," he said evenly. "Get them ready to kill."