A drop of sulfuric bile hissed against the cold rim of the alembic. Ignas ground three pinches of ebon-iron filings into powdered solar quartz, his pulse throbbing behind his temples as the agony flared along his forearm.
[NEUTRALIZING AGENT: ‘OBSIDIAN MIST OF REVERSAL’. COMBUSTION SEQUENCE ARMED.]
If the vent lines flooded the lower barracks tonight, Rasa would breathe that foul grease before dawn. She lacked the reinforced meridians of the upper classes; her lungs would dissolve into black froth within days. Ignas slammed the brass pestle down, pulverizing the crystal until it flared a blinding, bitter violet. The dire consequences of waking Zaltys could wait until tomorrow. Tonight, his sister drew clean air.
He uncorked the vial of Zaltys's choler—scraped from the conduit valve—and poured it into the boiling suspension.
A thick, oily smoke billowed out, refusing to disperse. It did not rise toward the stone ceiling. Instead, the purple-black fog wrapped around Ignas's throat, clinging like wet silk, dragging his consciousness downward into a freezing abyss.
The stone walls of the forbidden subterranean lab peeled away like charred parchment.
Ignas stood upon an endless sea of stagnant black water beneath an eclipse. Coiled beneath the surface was an eye—vast as a continent, ribbed with calcified scales, pulsing with ancient hatred. The voice of Zaltys did not enter through his ears; it broke like rotten timber across his mind.
*A tiny moth flutters backward,* the slumbering god chuckled, the sound rattling the floorboards of reality. *Did you truly believe an old raven gave you mercy?*
A phantom manifestation materialized before Ignas. Saule stood on the left, bound in glowing amber chains, her skin split by creeping divine rot. On the right stood Rasa, clutching an empty wooden bowl, her form translucent, flickering like a guttering tallow candle. An umbilical cord of braided time linked their chests.
*No thread is spun from nothing,* the presence purred. *To snatch the dead girl from the maw of destiny requires an equal vessel of untainted blood. Pull Saule back into the light, little alchemist, and watch your sister's very name rot out of the memories of men. The loop feeds on your greed.*
Ignas reached forward, but his hand passed through Rasa's fading cheek. A terrifying certainty snapped into place: the regression was an engine built to milk his desperation. Every step he took toward preserving Saule's heartbeat drained the tether holding Rasa to the world.
"Get out of my head!" Ignas roared.
The vision shattered. The stone laboratory slammed back into focus. Ignas crashed against the edge of the stone worktable, coughing out black phlegm. His fingernails tore against the granite. His mind spun in frantic circles. Saving Saule meant Rasa’s utter erasure. But abandoning Saule would damn his soul and feed the rot that would consume them all anyway.
Before he could wipe the bile from his mouth, the iron door of the lab buckled inward with a concussive bang.
Domantas stood in the entryway, flanked by two burly second-years wearing the scarlet sashes of the Enforcers. A cruel grin twisted the prodigy's lips, his amber-tipped focus rod already glowing with unstable cinnabar fire.
"I knew it," Domantas sneered, stepping into the mist-clouded chamber. "The worthless runt sneaks into the sealed vaults after curfew. Trespassing. Theft of Citadel reagents. Desecration of classified distillation chambers."
Ignas stood motionless beside the bubbling alembic, his gaze blank, his temper simmering behind a facade of exhaustion.
"Leave, Domantas," Ignas muttered softly. "You have no idea what you're stepping into."
"What did you say to me, dog?" Domantas took two swaggering steps forward, the flame at the tip of his rod surging into a blinding, crackling orb. "You think because Saule pitied you in the catacombs, you can speak above a whisper in my presence? You are a dreg. A parasite dragged here on a bursary meant for real talent. I am expelling you tonight, Ignas. But first, I’ll sear that insolent tongue straight out of your jaw."
The two lackeys chuckled, drawing their bronze cleavers.
Domantas raised his rod, channeling a lethal arc of fourth-circle flame—a spell meant to kill, not subdue. "Kneel, trash!"
Ignas never reached for an elixir. He raised no shield. He never even widened his stance.
He simply inhaled a measure of the cooling violet fog lingering above the condenser, held it in his lungs for half a heartbeat, and exhaled.
A pale, iridescent plume drifted across the short distance between them.
It did not look dangerous. It moved at the speed of a sigh. But the moment the vapor grazed Domantas's outstretched flame, the roaring fire snapped out like a pinched candle wick. The prodigy’s sneer froze on his face. His arms locked rigidly in place. The magical energy in his meridians solidified into brittle frost, locking every joint from his collarbone to his boots.
The two lackeys halted, jaws slack as the cleavers dipped.
"Wh—what did you..." Domantas tried to scream, but only a dry, pathetic rattle escaped his petrified vocal cords. His eyes rolled frantically in their sockets as cold sweat poured down his paralyzed cheeks. He couldn't move so much as a single knuckle.
Ignas walked over, his boots clicking rhythmically against the stone flags.
He stopped an inch from Domantas's frozen face. The young noble's pupils dilated until the whites were nearly swallowed, terror finally replacing that arrogant conceit.
"A fourth-circle combustion matrix with an ungrounded sulfur core," Ignas whispered, his voice dangerously even. "A novice mistake. You rely on the heat of your wand because your own blood is too weak to hold a spark. If I had exhaled through my teeth instead of my lips, the core in your spine would have boiled until your skull cracked open."
Ignas casually flicked the side of Domantas's nose with a thumb.
The impact sent the prodigy toppling backward like a wooden statue, crashing heavily onto the stone floor with a dull, humiliating thud. He lay there, rigid as a board, staring at the ceiling in mute, trembling disbelief.
Ignas shifted his gaze toward the two lackeys. Both boys immediately dropped their cleavers, knees rattling against the stones as they backed against the doorway, white as chalk.
"Take him," Ignas said.
Before the trembling students could scramble to pick up their frozen leader, the massive iron alarm bells atop the Citadel began to shriek.
The shrill, deafening clamor echoed through the subterranean stone walls, followed immediately by the dull, tectonic rumble of wards splintering somewhere above. Three concussive booms rocked the foundation, rattling the glassware on the counters and raining ancient plaster down from the ceiling.
Through the open ventilation ducts, a raw, terrifying wail cut through the fortress.
"Breach!" a distant instructor's voice echoed through the hall corridors, laced with panic. "The southern ward has failed! Carrion-gargoyles and marrow-stalkers in the Great Hall! All initiates, fall back!"
Ignas froze.
The Great Hall. The central assembly where the first-year initiates were confined during the evening curfews.
Where Rasa was waiting for him.
Ignas cast no further glance at Domantas. He vaulted over the threshold, sprinting into the fog-choked corridor as the screaming bells tore through the night.