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Inside a large lecture hall, a large holographic battlefield map floated behind Professor Denna Orvyn. The hologram was an impressive sight, but what drew the most attention was Orvyn herself.
The beautiful, middle-aged woman wore a cloak of water draped across her shoulders, its currents flowed around her body without spilling a single drop. Shimmering blue streaks of water ran through her black hair, moving like miniature currents, while her sapphire eyes held the calm certainty of a deep ocean.
"The mid lane," Orvyn said, gesturing toward the hologram, "is the heart of every match. Rotations, ganks, objective control, map pressure, wave management — all of it flows through here." She tapped the center of the projected battlefield. "Control the center of the map, and you control the pace of the game."
Ember wrote that down and underlined it.
Orvyn continued, providing information about rotation and timing. That's when the door in the back opened.
She paused mid-sentence, acknowledging the new student.
The room turned, chairs shifting as half the room sat up straighter. Everyone watched the newcomer except for Ember. Then the whispers started.
"Is that him?"
"No way."
"He actually came."
"He's even more handsome than the photos."
Footsteps echoed through the quiet classroom. The six-foot newcomer moved with effortless confidence as Ember tracked the sound without meaning to — closer, closer — and then they stopped.
A shadow loomed over her.
"Excuse me," said the shadow.
Her grip tightened around her pen. She knew that voice.
No. Not here. Not now.
She didn't look up. Didn't turn. Her eyes locked on her notes. The figure passed across her and settled into the empty seat to her right.
Slowly, Ember turned to look to see the person already facing forward.
Magnus Cindercrest.
He wore the academy uniform as if tailored specifically for him. Crimson hair fell across his forehead, each strand carrying the faint glow of smoldering embers. He had golden eyes with sharp and refined features, carrying the elegance of old nobility.
Ember immediately looked away.
"What do you think you're doing," she said, flatly.
"Sitting," Magnus said, his voice calm, confident. "Is that a problem?"
"Yes."
"That's Unfortunate." He paused. "It's good to see you—"
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
She looked around. "There are plenty of other seats."
"There are." He glanced around the room. "But this one has the best sightline to the board. Same reason you chose it, I'd presume."
Ember's expression hardened as she stared at him, only to find him completely relaxed and unbothered. Seeing his indifference only fueled her anger further.
"One hour," Magnus said. "Surely we can manage that much."
He finally turned to face her, a faint smile forming on his lips.
"Right, cousin?"
Ember quickly turned back to the front of the classroom, ignoring his question.
Orvyn resumed as though nothing had happened, the holographic battlefield expanding to trace the mid lane's full strategic weight. Shortest route to the enemy base. Fastest experience gain. Earliest power spikes. She walked through rotations, objective windows, burst-damage thresholds, and wave-clear priority. Students wrote furiously. Ember's pen moved with them.
"A mid-laner is not merely another player," Orvyn said. "A mid-laner is the engine that drives the battlefield."
Ember focused on the lecture.
Or tried to.
The words reached her ears but didn't stay. Her thoughts kept pulling her back — to the past, to the memories she'd carried every day like something still bleeding. And right now, Magnus's presence magnified it. So much. Her hand trembled from her effort to hold her anger still.
She shook her head. Then she realized she'd missed the last ninety seconds of the lecture when she looked down and found her notes trailing off mid-sentence. Her thoughts continued to linger, and her blood began to boil. Without knowing it, she conjured two small flames, one dark red and one orange. They hovered silently behind her chair. Not burning anything, not threatening anything, just there.
Ember remained unaware of them, but Magnus noticed them immediately.
He didn't say anything or glance over. He just continued watching the professor with the same expression he'd walked in with.
At the front of the room, Orvyn let the battlefield map dissolve. In its place, a one-versus-one arena materialized, rotating slowly above the projector platform.
"Many people believe mid lane is won through talent," she said. A slight smile. "They are wrong."
"Over the next several weeks, you will learn how to defeat opponents stronger than yourselves." She let the arena rotate. "And by the end of this course, each of you will prove it in live solo battles."
Excited whispers spread throughout the classroom.
Ember stared at the arena.
The shape of it was clean and simple — two starting points, one center, no teammates. Just you and whoever stood across from you.
She became aware, with a certainty that settled cold in her chest, that the person sitting beside her might eventually be standing on the other side of that map.
Neither of them spoke.
The tension sat between them. And the flames behind her flickered slightly brighter.
— — —
The door to Professor Orvyn's classroom swung open before the dismissal chime finished ringing.
Ember didn't wait for it.
She pushed through the flood of students spilling into the hall, packed with the usual post-period crush of students spilling from four different classrooms at once. Voices overlapped. Bags bumped.
"Ember."
She didn't slow down.
"Ember — hey."
Kessa Dawnmere fell into step beside her, slightly breathless, her auburn hair still half-tucked into her collar like she'd grabbed her bag mid-sentence. She had that look she got when she already knew something was wrong but was deciding how carefully to approach it.
"Hi, Kessa," Ember said. Flat.
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
"You walked out before Orvyn finished her closing notes."
"I heard enough."
Kessa glanced sideways at her. Didn't push. That was the thing about Kessa — she knew when to let silence do the work. They moved together through the crowd.
The hallway was loud, but Ember caught a drop in volume as she passed by. It was that particular drop in volume that happens when people are talking about something rather than just at each other.
She noticed the eyes first.
A pair of second-years by the notice board, heads together, glancing toward her and then quickly away. A girl near the water fountain stopped mid-sentence when Ember passed. Small moments, each one easy enough to dismiss on its own.
Then she saw four figures. Maybe five. Spaced apart along the left wall. Black hoodies, hoods pulled up, hands loose at their sides. None of them were talking. They just stood there, backs flush to the wall, faces angled down just enough to obscure their features.
Ember slowed slightly as she passed by.
That's strange.
She turned back to get a better look, but bumped into someone instead.
"Ember Strife," the boy said like someone who'd been waiting for this moment. He stood tall in front of her. A third-year, probably, with a confident smile.
"I've been hoping to catch you," he said. "You came up in a discussion I was having, and I thought, well, might as well introduce myself properly. I'm—"
"Okay," Ember said, cutting him off.
His smile flickered, recalibrating. "I just wanted to—"
"Kessa, do you know him?"
Kessa blinked, glanced at the boy, then back at Ember. "I — no, but—"
The boy pivoted smoothly, extending a hand toward Kessa instead. "Hi, I'm Carl. We might have overlapping electives, actually — are you in Advanced Essence Theory?"
Kessa took his hand on reflex. "Oh — yeah, Tuesday and Thursday."
He lit up. The conversation opened like a door, and Ember took a step back from it, her gaze already drifting back down the hall.
The wall where the hooded figures had been standing was empty.
All of them. Gone.
She scanned the crowd in every direction.
Nothing.
How many were there? Four? Five? She hadn't looked carefully enough.
Carl was still talking behind her. Kessa laughed at something he said.
"Excuse me," Ember said, not looking back at either of them.
She stepped forward—
And her boot came down on something wet. Standing water on an indoor tile floor, just a shallow pool of it.
Then the water glowed.
Blue-white light pulsed upward from the floor. Just as Ember registered what was happening, the ability detonated.
The force hit her face first — a pressurized column of water that connected with her nose and snapped her head back. Her feet left the ground. The ceiling tiles spun past her vision in a blur of white. Her skirt went with the upward momentum, and she felt the air on her thighs before she landed hard on the tile, directly on her tailbone, the impact ringing up her spine.
For a second, the hallway was absolutely silent.
Then someone laughed. A single, startled laugh — and that was all it took. Others caught on, the laughter spread, and with it the pointing.
Ember sat on the floor in a pile of water, drenched from head to toe, her hair plastered flat against her face. Her eyes burned, and her nose was bleeding.
She fought the reflex to press her hands over her face.
That had hurt. Not the way a prank hurt — not the bruised-ego, walk-it-off kind of hurt. There was actual force behind that ability, calibrated and precise. Someone was targeting her, intentionally trying to cause her pain.
"Ember — oh god—" Kessa was already crouching beside her. "Are you okay? Can you stand?"
"I'm fine," Ember said. Her voice came out thicker than she intended.
"You're bleeding."
"I know."
"Let me—"
"I'm fine," she said, though she let Kessa help her to her feet anyway because her tailbone wasn't fine.
The laughter hadn't stopped. If anything, it had gotten louder. Someone near the back was already narrating to their friend. She caught the word skirt, and her jaw tightened.
She kept her face neutral as her eyes swept the hallway. Whoever had set the trap was either still here or had had enough time to clear the corridor during the setup. The hooded figures — the distraction — the boy who'd stopped her just long enough — her mind was already assembling the shape of it.
Planned. Coordinated. They knew which path she'd take.
She looked down.
On the tile just inside the waterline, caught against the baseboard like it had been placed there deliberately, was a small red wristband.
She picked it up.
Two letters in stark block type: E.R.
And below them, the number 13.
She stared at it for a moment.
"Come on," Kessa said gently. "Let's get you to the nurse. Your nose—"
"Yeah." Ember closed her fingers around the wristband. "Okay."
She let Kessa steer her toward the east wing without looking back at the crowd. She didn't want to give whoever was watching the satisfaction of seeing her search for them.
But she kept the wristband.
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