RISE OF THE SWARM

The corridor was a torrent of student's, a current of chatter and rustling robes that sweeped Liam and Leo along. Leo was still animatedly discussing Therons lecture, his hand's sketching invisable runes in the air.

"—so if you use a tetrahedral cycling pattern instead of a simple spiral, the mana compression rate increases by at least eighteen percent! Can you imagine? You'd hit Initiate-Middle in half the time!" Leo's eye's were wide with excitment. He finaly seemed to notice Liam's silence. "You alright? You've been quiet since combat class. Still shook up about Alistair?"

"Something like that," Liam mumbled, dodging a group of laughing elementals. He wasnt ready to voice the crushing despair of Theron's lesson. The map to power he'd been shown was one he has no means to follow. "Just alot to take in."

"Tell me about it," Leo agreed, misinterpreting completly. "This place is massive. I got lost twice before first bell. Ah, here we are."

They stoped before a heavy oak door, indistinguisable from a dozen others except for the small, polished plaque beside it: Magister Valerius - Introductory Runic Theory. Leo pushed the door open with a reverence he hadnt shown for the lecture hall.

The room within was a stark contrast to the grand amphitheater. It was smaller, warmer, and smelt of dried herbs, old leather, and the hot, clean sent of ozone after a lightning strike. Shelves cramed with books, curious artifacts, and half-disassembled constructs lined the walls. Workbenches scarred from countless projects was arranged in a semi-circle around a central lectern. Unlike Theron's class, this one wasnt full; perhaps two dozen students was scattered around the room, including Elara and a few others Liam reconized from the yard.

At the lectern stood Magister Valerius. He was a Beastkin of a species Liam didnt reconize, with the sleek, grey-feathered head and inteligent, dark eyes of a bird of prey. His hands, currently sorting a stack of thin copper sheets, was nimble and tipped with sharp, black talons. He wore practical leather aprons over his robes, stained with soot and arcane regeants.

He didnt look up as they entered, his focus entirly on his task. "Find a seat. We begin," he said, his voice a soft, precise chirp that somehow carryed to every corner of the room.

Liam and Leo slided into two open spots at a workbench just as Valerius finished his preparations. He looked up, his head tilting in a quick, avian motion to take in the class.

"Runes," he began, without preamble. "They are the grammer of reality. While incantations are the poetry of will, and gestures are the dance of intent, runes are the immutable law. They are not suggestions. They are commands, etched into the fabric of the world itself."

He held up one of the copper sheets. With a sudden, startlingly fast movement, one taloned finger glowed with a faint white heat and he scratched a single, complex symbol into the metal. The rune flared with a soft blue light, then faded, leaving the copper gleaming as if freshly polished.

"This is Kael, the rune for 'to purify' or 'to make clear'," Valerius stated. "Its effect is simple, it's application, universal. It is one of the twelve foundational runes you will master this semester. Mastery does not mean memorization. It means understanding its essence, its weight, its resonance with other symbols. A misplaced line, a flicker of doubt in your intent, and…" He picked up another sheet, scratched a similar but subtly flawed rune. This one sparked, emited a puff of foul-smelling black smoke, and the copper sheet corroded instantly into a flake of green verdigris.

"…the law is misinterpreted. The result is chaos."

He let the lesson hang in the air for a moment. The class was utterly silent, captivated.

"Your task today is not to inscribe. Your task is to observe." He distributed the flawless Kael runes to each pair of students. "You will channel a trickle of mana—the barest whisper—into the rune. Do not try to activate it. You are listening. Feel how the mana flows through the channels. Feel the intent of the symbol. It is a circuit. Learn its pathways."

Liam's heart, which had began to calm, started hammering again. Channel mana. The one thing he could not do.

Leo eagerly took their copper sheet, his fingers hovering over the etched symbol. "Incredible craftsmanship. The depth is perfectly consistent. See?" He looked at Liam expectantly.

Liam nodded, his throat dry. He watched as Leo closed his eyes, his brow furrowed in concentration. A faint shimmer of energy, visible only as a heat haze in the air, flowed from Leo's fingertips and into the rune. The Kael symbol glowed with a soft, steady azure light.

"Wow," Leo whispered. "It's like… a perfect, flowing loop. No resistance at all."

Other students around the room was having similar successes. The soft blue glow of properly channeled mana lit up several workbenches.

Liam's turn came. He stared at the copper sheet as if it were a viper. He could feel Leo's curious gaze. He had to try. He had to at least pretend.

He placed his finger next to the rune, mimicking Leo's posture. He closed his eyes, trying to conjure the feeling of drawing in mana, of pushing it outward. He focused with all his might, imagining a stream of light flowing from his core, down his arm, and into the symbol.

Nothing happened.

He strained harder, his knuckles turning white. He thought of the duel, of Alistair's fire, of the cold nullification that had erupted from him. Come on. Just a spark. Anything.

Nothing.

He felt a familiar, dreadful pull. Not from the rune, but from within himself. The void in his core, agitated by his effort, began to stir. It wasnt seeking to give energy, but to take.

A coldness radiated from his fingertip. The copper sheet beneath his hand didnt glow. Instead, the meticulously etched lines of the Kael rune began to frost over. A thin, brittle layer of hoarfrost crystallized along the grooves, and with a faint, almost inaudible crackle, the delicate metal, supercooled, became fragile.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Leo asked, his voice laced with confusion. "You're not channeling heat mana, are you? You'll destabilize it."

Liam snatched his hand away as if burned. He stared in horror at the rune. The frost was already melting in the room's warmth, leaving behind water droplets that smudged the perfect lines. The symbol was blurred, its edges softened into meaninglessness.

"I… I don't know what happened," Liam stammered, his face flushing with heat and shame. "I must have… mis-channeled."

From the front of the room, a pair of dark, avian eyes was watching him. Magister Valerius had gone utterly still. His head was tilted, his gaze fixed not on the ruined rune, but on Liam's hand, then on his face. There was no anger in his expression. Only a deep, piercing curiosity, the look of a scholar presented with a fascinating and unprecedented anomaly.

He saw everything. Liam was sure of it. He saw the frost, the failure, the panic.

Valerius blinked slowly, then turned his attention to another student who was asking a question, deliberately breaking his gaze. But the moment of scrutiny had been long enough. Liam felt exposed, his secret laid bare under that inteligent, predatory stare.

The rest of the period was a special kind of torture. Liam kept his hands in his lap, refusing to touch anything else. Leo, bless him, spent the time trying to theorize how a "mis-channeling" could have caused a localized freezing effect, his curiosity overriding his confusion.

When the bell rang, Liam was the first one out the door, not waiting for Leo. He needed air. He needed to be away from the pressure, from the expectations, from the terrifyingly perceptive teachers and the students who could all do the one thing that defined their world.

He stumbled into a small, deserted courtyard nestled between two wings of the academy, gulping in the cool afternoon air. He leaned against a sun-warmed stone wall, sliding down to sit on the ground, and dropped his head into his hands.

He couldnt do it. He couldnt cycle mana. He couldnt inscribe runes. He couldnt even perform the most basic exercise without breaking it. The Empress's ultimatum echoed in his mind: pass your classes, advance your core. It wasnt a challenge; it was a death sentence with a one-year timer, a cruel joke played on a boy who was fundamentaly, magically broken.

The sound of soft, measured footsteps on gravel made him freeze. He looked up, expecting Leo, or worse, Valerius.

It was Fenrir.

The Beastkin stood a few paces away, his arms crossed, his tail swishing slowly behind him. He looked down at Liam, his golden eyes unreadable.

"Rough first day?" he asked, his low rumble of a voice devoid of mockery.

Liam could only nod, to weary to even be afraid anymore.

Fenrir was silent for a moment, his gaze sweeping over the empty courtyard. Then he spoke, his words simple and devastatingly direct.

"Your magic," he said. "It doesnt work like ours, does it?"