Chapter 2 Two

A knock came at the door. "Kaien. You up? Ranking Season starts today."

It was Rowan's voice.

Kaien's whole body went rigid. He got up and opened the door instead of answering through it. He needed to see Rowan's face.

Rowan grinned at him. "You look like you saw a ghost."

"Didn't sleep well." Kaien kept his voice flat.

"What's the schedule today?"

"Opening assessments first. Arena matches start at noon." Rowan fell into step beside him down the hall. "Why, you planning on sleeping through your own Ranking Season?"

"How long until the Ascension trials."

Rowan blinked at him. "Five years, same as always. Why are you asking me that like it's a test question?"

"No reason."

Five years. Kaien held onto the number and kept walking.

"Arena's this way, in case you forgot how to walk." Rowan clapped him on the shoulder. Kaien's fist tightened and he made himself hold still.

The arena was already full by the time they got there. Instructors were calling out match positions over the noise of the crowd. Kaien pushed ahead of Rowan, scanning the ring, until he found Tobin Ashe standing across from a Celestial disciple. Spiritual energy was already gathering between them.

"Where's the fire?" Rowan called after him. Kaien didn't stop.

He remembered the boy now that he could see him. Tobin pushed too hard in every match. Refused to yield first. It was going to kill him today unless something changed.

The light around Tobin's chest didn't flare. It cracked.

Kaien vaulted the barrier before the instructors understood what they were looking at.

"Someone get an Elder down here—"

"Don't touch him, if the core ruptures—"

He reached Tobin first. He pressed both palms flat against the fracture spreading through the boy's spiritual core. He didn't stop to think about how he knew what to do. He pushed his own energy into the crack and held it shut.

Tobin screamed. Not from pain, the pressure inside him finally had somewhere to go.

Kaien held on until the leaking stopped. Until Tobin went slack and breathing under his hands instead of dying in front of half the academy.

The arena went quiet.

An instructor knelt beside Tobin and checked his pulse. Then he looked up at Kaien. "That's a high rank sealing technique. Where did you learn it?"

"I improvised."

"Nobody improvises that."

"I did." Kaien stood up and offered nothing else.

His eyes found Master Vaelor at the edge of the crowd. Vaelor wasn't smiling.

"Where," Vaelor said, low, so only Kaien could hear it, "did you actually learn that?."

"I told the instructor. I improvised."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

Vaelor looked at him for a long moment. It wasn't the look he used to give Kaien after a win. "We'll talk later," he said. It wasn't a question.

He turned and walked away.

Kaien stood there. Something in his chest went tight and cold as he walked the man who betrayed him walk away.

"Disciple Ashwyn."

He turned around. A Council attendant stood behind him in grey robes, a formal seal pinned at the collar. That uniform didn't show up at the academy unless something had gone above an instructor's authority.

"The Council has requested your presence," the attendant said. "Immediately."

Kaien's stomach dropped.

"For what."

The attendant didn't answer.

"Follow me," he said instead.

The Council chamber was smaller than Kaien remembered from the last time he'd stood in it, though this was the first time in this life he'd ever set foot inside.

Three Council members sat behind a long stone table. Kaien didn't know all of them yet, not at seventeen, but he recognized the seal on the middle seat. Celestial Clan.

"Disciple Ashwyn." The woman in the center didn't look up from the parchment in front of her. "You used a technique today rated for Elders. A Seven-Tail has no business knowing it."

"I improvised."

"That's what the instructor's report says you told him." She finally looked up. "We don't believe you."