CHAPTER 38: FIRST DRILL, FIRST FAILURE

In the profound stillness of Aethelgard, Kairen took his place on the stone platform by the waterfall. The thundering roar, which he had once fought as an enemy, now felt like a familiar shield, a wall of sound that insulated him from the quiet, lonely valley.

He had succeeded in summoning a single, controlled drop of Essence. The memory of it—that cool, obedient wisp of starlight pulsing in his palm—was a constant, burning ember of hope in his mind. He had held it, felt its power. Now, Vanamali had given him the next, far more daunting task.

"You have invited the Essence," Vanamali had said, his voice a calm presence in the mist, his gaze fixed on the thundering water. "It answered. You have held a single drop. That is the first word of a long and complex sentence."

The Sage turned to him, his ancient eyes piercing. "Now, you must learn to make it stay. To move from a single drop to a continuous thread. You must draw it, hold it, stabilize it, and in time, learn to move with it. This," Vanamali stated, his gaze sharpening, "is where your true training in control begins."

Kairen’s confidence from his first success wavered. This felt like moving from lifting a pebble to lifting a mountain. But he nodded, his jaw set with determination. He would not fail.

He closed his eyes, sinking into the mental fortress he had built and practiced reinforcing. His ’Inner Sanctum’—a small, simple room from his childhood home, warm, safe, anchored by the memory of his mother’s smile, Dain’s boisterous laugh, and Lia’s quiet kindness.

Anchored in that small, safe room in his mind, he reached out.

He felt the cold, intricate lock of the Garuda Seal, and then, with a now-familiar act of will, he gently invited the power to flow.

It came. A thin, shimmering, blue-white thread of pure, cool energy, beautiful and perfect, extended from his palm, connected to his core. It felt like holding a strand of the night sky. He held it, his heart swelling with a fierce, triumphant joy. One second. Two. It was working. He was holding it.

He tried to draw just a little more, to make the thread stronger, thicker.

And the Sorrow attacked.

"Help me...!"

It wasn’t a whisper this time; it was a psychic scream. The vision of crimson eyes and a falling axe didn’t just knock on the door of his Inner Sanctum—it slammed into the walls with the force of a battering ram.

His concentration, split between the delicate act of channeling the Essence and simultaneously maintaining the fortress, shattered.

The thread of Essence in his hand snapped.

"Agh!"

Kairen cried out, a sharp, choked gasp that was more psychic than physical. A wave of agonizing, unnatural cold lashed back up his arm and struck his core. It didn’t burn; it was the opposite. It felt like being plunged into a void, an icy, suffocating fist closing around his heart. He collapsed, falling to one knee, clutching his chest, his arm numb and tingling violently as if struck by lightning.

Vanamali was at his side instantly, his expression grim but unsurprised. He placed a hand on Kairen’s shoulder, a simple touch, yet it felt like an anchor, pouring a quiet, steady warmth into him that beat back the encroaching void.

"You see now," the Sage said, his voice firm, leaving no room for self-pity. "To channel the Essence is to invite its echoes. The power and the sorrow are bound together, Kairen. They are one and the same."

Kairen looked up, his face pale, frustration warring with a deep, cold fear. "But I... I built the fortress. I held it."

"You held the fortress in stillness," Vanamali corrected. "Your ’Inner Sanctum’ can withstand a passive, meditative assault. But it is not yet strong enough to anchor you while you are actively using the power. Channeling the Essence is like opening a door in that fortress. The storm you invited in was not just the power, but the grief attached to it."

Kairen gritted his teeth, the psychic chill still making him tremble. "So what do I do? I can’t meditate and channel at the same time. The moment I focus on the thread, the fortress weakens. The moment I focus on the fortress, the thread breaks."

"Then you must make the fortress stronger," Vanamali stated simply. "You must make it so strong that it stands on its own, without your conscious thought."

His gaze drifted to the open platform by the falls. "Your mental and physical training must now become one. You will not master the thread until your mind is strong enough to hold the fortress while the storm of the Essence flows through it."

Vanamali gestured to the open space. "Begin the physical forms I taught you. But this time, your mind will not be on your body. You will practice them within your Inner Sanctum. You will move your body in the physical world while holding your mind perfectly, utterly still in the mental world. You must learn to separate your physical actions from your mental anchor."

The Sage’s eyes met his, and Kairen saw the immense difficulty reflected there. "Only when your mind can withstand the echoes while your body is in motion," Vanamali concluded, "can you then hope to add the flow of Essence. Only then will you be able to juggle all three."

Kairen’s heart sank. It was like learning to juggle, while balancing on a rope, while being shouted at by a nightmare. It felt impossible. But as he looked at Vanamali’s unyielding expression, he knew he had no choice.

He rose, took a shaky breath, and began the first, slow, agonizingly difficult movement.

While Kairen learned to separate mind and body, Squad 7 was learning just how painfully, disastrously connected they were.

"Move! Move! Move!" Instructor Vorlag’s voice was a gravelly roar that echoed across the muddy, obstacle-strewn training field. "This is not a garden party! This is not the Academy! This is war! Act like it!"

It was the first official team-based drill for the new "Wartime Protocol" squads. Squad 7 stood at the starting line, a fractured, miserable picture.

Dain, as squad lead, looked grim, his hand gripping his axe haft so hard his knuckles were white. He felt the crushing weight of responsibility, of Kairen’s memory, of Lia’s safety.

Kaelan stood a few feet away, his movements jerky and hesitant, his usual golden-boy arrogance replaced with a palpable, vibrating fear of making a mistake. He kept glancing at Lia, then quickly looking away, his face pale.

Lia, standing just behind Dain, was pale and trembling, clutching her new healer’s staff like a shield. Her eyes, wide and haunted, darted nervously toward every simulated "ambush" point, every shadowed obstacle. She looked like a fawn surrounded by wolves.

Ilya was absent.

When Dain had reported for duty, Vorlag had cut him off before he could even ask. "Veyne is in the infirmary, Ragnor," the Captain had barked. "Magical backlash. Seems she found her own way to fail before the drill even started. Your squad is already a man down. Do not make me fail the rest of you."

Now, Vorlag’s gaze, like a hawk’s, was fixed on them from a high observation platform. "The objective is simple, Squad 7!" he yelled, his voice magically amplified. "Cross the field. Neutralize all hostile targets. Protect your healer. She is your priority. Do not let her take a single simulated hit. Go!"

A magical horn, sounding brutally like a war cry, blared.

"Okay," Dain said, his voice a low, nervous rumble. "Okay, we can do this." He looked at his two broken teammates. "Kaelan, you’re on ranged offense. Take out targets from a distance. Lia, you stay right behind me. I’m the shield. Nothing gets through me. Kaelan, just... just hit what I tell you to."

They moved out, a staggered, awkward line. Dain took the lead, his axe held at the ready, his head on a swivel.

They passed the first fifty yards. Nothing. Kaelan was visibly shaking, his eyes darting everywhere.

A target—a heavy wooden automaton—suddenly popped up from behind a low, stone wall, a red crystal on its chest glowing, signifying a ranged attacker.

"Kaelan, target! Left flank! Take it!" Dain bellowed, planting his feet and raising his axe, ready to intercept a counter-blow.

"I... I see it!" Kaelan flinched. He saw the target, raised his hands, and was suddenly paralyzed by a torrent of memories. The island. The demons. Lia falling. Don’t mess up. Don’t be too strong. Don’t hurt anyone.

His hesitation cost him. He finally unleashed a spear of ice, but in his fear of using too much power, he used too little. The spell was weak, poorly aimed. It chipped the automaton’s shoulder instead of shattering the crystal.

"Target active!" the automaton’s rune-voice blared, a simulated arrow firing from its chest and thudding into the mud near Dain’s feet.

"Dain!" Lia shrieked, her voice high with pure panic.

The sound of Kaelan’s explosive magic—even as weak as it was—combined with Dain’s shout, was the trigger.

Lia’s mind shattered. She wasn’t on a training field. She was on the island. The crackle of ice was the sound of the Hellhound’s claws on stone. Dain’s shout was Kairen’s last roar. The automaton wasn’t wood; it was the Razorclaw, its talons descending.

Her breath hitched. The world tunneled. She screamed, a raw, terrified sound, her hands flying to her ears as her new healer’s staff clattered uselessly to the mud.

"Lia, move! Get behind me!" Dain roared, seeing her frozen.

But another target, a melee automaton, burst from a trapdoor on their right flank, its wooden arms swinging, aimed directly at the now-defenseless, cowering healer.

Dain’s discipline, hammered into him by Vorlag, evaporated in a flash of white-hot terror. His vow to Kairen, his promise to protect Lia at all costs, took over. Not again. I will not let her fall again.

He abandoned his post. He abandoned his squad. He abandoned his objective.

With a roar of pure, protective fury, he crossed the ten feet in an instant, a blur of motion. He didn’t just block. He annihilated. His axe came down, infused with his grief, and shattered the second automaton into a thousand splinters.

He stood over Lia, his massive body a protective, trembling wall. "It’s okay, Lia! I got it! You’re safe!"

A loud, piercing, final klaxon sounded. The drill was over.

Dain looked up, breathing hard, his rage and adrenaline fading, replaced by a cold dread. Instructor Vorlag was on the platform, his face a mask of thunderous, apocalyptic rage.

"Pathetic," Vorlag spat as the three active squad members shuffled before him. Lia was still visibly shaking, Kaelan looked like he wanted to disappear, and Dain was flush with shame.

"Ragnor!" Vorlag barked, his voice dripping with contempt. "I gave you one objective: protect your healer. The first sign of trouble, your healer drops her staff and covers her ears. And what do you do, Squad Lead?"

He jabbed a thick finger at Dain. "You abandon your position. You break formation. You leave your other offensive asset completely exposed to a counter-attack. You are not a leader, Ragnor. You’re a bodyguard. And you failed!"

He rounded on Kaelan, who flinched as if physically struck. "Brightblade! They tell me you’re an Arcane prodigy. I saw no prodigy. I saw a coward. Your target was a stationary piece of wood, and you hesitated! Your weakness, your fear, cost your Vanguard his position. A mage who is afraid to cast is a civilian with a target on his back. You are useless. You failed."

Finally, his gaze softened almost imperceptibly as he looked at Lia, but his voice remained firm, cutting to the bone. "Healer. You are still on that island. I see it in your eyes. Your body is here, but your mind is not. And because you are there, you are not here. You are a liability to them, and they are a liability to you. You failed."

He glared at the three of them, a perfect picture of dysfunctional, trauma-ridden failure.

"This is, without a doubt, the worst first-day performance I have ever seen in my twenty years of service," Vorlag stated, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl. "Your squad is a broken, fractured mess. You aren’t just a team; you’re a danger to each other. You’re a danger to me. You’re a danger to this entire Academy."

He pointed to the far side of the field, to the gauntlet—a grueling, nightmarish obstacle course of deep mud pits, high climbing walls, and crackling magical barriers.

"Your punishment for this disgrace is to run that gauntlet. All of you."

Lia let out a small, terrified sob. "Instructor, I... I can’t..."

"You will," Vorlag said, his voice like iron. "You will run it as a team. You will finish it as a team. And you will run it... until I get tired of watching you. Go."

Dain’s face was a mask of shame and anger. Kaelan looked like he wanted to be sick, in their failure.