Sweat rolled down Lyra's brow and stung her eyes. The stationary bike groaned beneath her as she pushed through another impossible interval. Chronowell's trainers insisted the mages do physical conditioning every morning. At first, she thought it was pointless. Back home, a mage who trained their body was a contradiction. But here, on the Earthbound System, raw effort could force your stats upward. Nothing worked like that in the Legion, where your class determined the shape of your strength, and you lived and died inside the boundaries it imposed.

  If you were a soldier, you became strong in only soldierly ways. If you were a striker, you gained speed only in the directions your strikes traveled. Her father called it "refinement." In truth, she now saw it for what it was:

  A cage crafted so perfectly that it convinced you it was a path.

  The Legion produced warriors, terrifying ones, but all of them were carved into the same shape by the same philosophy: strength to overcome your enemies, not by your will. No wonder its culture bred battle-eager brutes. There wasn't room for anything else.

  Lyra had always been different. Her primary stat now was willpower. In a way, she molded the world into shapes that she saw fit; it was almost therapeutic. Dane had been her first good teacher in that. He didn't treat magic like a threat or a weakness. He treated it like a language—a doorway.

  And when she realized the Chronowell instructors couldn't hold a candle to him, she grew so frustrated she left their training halls entirely. If she wanted to grow, she'd have to throw herself into the dungeon… alone. Challenge or death. Those felt like the only paths. And she'd made it to the fifteenth floor by herself. This was an achievement that seemed to carry its own kind of gravity among the adventurers who paid for their runs.

  But there were rumors, whispers said Dane had clawed his way down to the fiftieth floor on his own.

  She didn't know what to do with that.

  Part of her wanted to dismiss it. He'd nearly died fighting the Phoenix priests; how could someone so close to death be that far above her? But another part, quieter, more honest, suspected she already knew the truth.

  Her father spent years teaching her that priests were lesser men who hid behind rituals because they lacked real strength.

  Yet she had come to see magic for what it truly was. And she loved it. Loved it in a way that felt like a betrayal of him.

  "Hey. Earth to Lyra, are you still with us?"

  She blinked. The others had stepped off their bikes, chest heaving, towels draped across their shoulders. She hadn't even noticed the cool-down.

  "Yeah," she said quickly. "Sorry."

  A flash of irritation hit her every time she apologized. It was always her first instinct. In the Legion, if you inconvenienced Tormund, even if it was only by breathing too loudly, your apology had to be immediate and sincere. Anything less was disrespect.

  She rolled her shoulders back, forcing that voice out of her skull.

  "We're heading to magic class," one of the other trainees said. "Instructor Lindstrom said if you skip again, you're out of the program."

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  Lyra wiped the sweat off her brow.

  Of all the threats she'd faced, the dungeon floors, the monsters, her father's shadow, being "kicked out of the program" was almost funny.

  But she nodded anyway.

  Magic wasn't nonsense arts for weaklings; It was hers, and she wasn't going to let anyone take it from her, not her father, not the Legion, not even some teacher that probably would have made a better seamstress than a mage.

  "Come on," one of the girls said, nudging her with an elbow. "If we're late again, she'll make us write those sigils until our fingers bleed."

  "That only happened once," another corrected.

  "Oh, please. Once was enough."

  Lyra fell into step beside them as they spilled out into the hall. Their chatter rose and fell around her. It was easy, familiar, utterly foreign. They talked about things she barely understood. Weekend markets. Street vendors. "Netflix marathons." Dating gossip. Someone named Chris, who apparently "couldn't throw a firebolt to save his life but had nice hair."

  Lyra tried to keep up, but half the words flew past her like arrows from an unknown battlefield.

  Still… she liked listening.

  These girls fought differently. Laughed differently. Lived differently.

  They weren't like the Legionnaires she'd grown up with, storming through the halls with too much pride and too little thought.

  No one here barked orders. No one demanded obedience. No one judged the shape of her shoulders or the angle of her stance.

  Chronowell felt strange. But still safe and comfortable.

  "You doing okay?" Maria asked as they took the stairs down toward the mage wing. "You've been spacing out more lately."

  Lyra hesitated. "Just thinking."

  "Thinking about him?" another teased lightly.

  Lyra nearly tripped. “What? Who?"

  "Oh, come on. The Baron. Everyone knows you trained with him." The girl leaned closer conspiratorially. "Half the people in this building think he's some kind of boogeyman. The other half think he's hot."

  Did these girls really think that anyone who spent a few hours together was dating? There had been that time on the Whale where she put her hand on his back, but she hadn't meant anything by that. She didn't notice until he pulled away that the gesture could have meant anything more. "He was my teacher.”

  "And your crush," Maria said. "Probably. A little. Maybe?"

  Lyra groaned. "Please walk into the nearest wall."

  Laughter rippled through the group, warm and good-natured.

  Dane had been the first person to show her magic wasn't shameful. Wasn't weakness. Wasn't a flaw? He'd given her a path she never would have taken alone.

  The group rounded the corner, and the door to Magic Theory came into view, etched with silver filigree that pulsed faintly with mana.

  Lyra slowed unconsciously, taking a breath.

  "Still nervous?" Maria asked.

  "No," Lyra lied. "Just… curious."

  "Don't worry," another girl said. "Instructor Lindstrom's strict, but she's fair. Way better than Mark. He used to throw chalk at anyone who blinked wrong."

  "Plus," Maria added, "Lindstrom actually knows what she's doing. She trained under a big-shot mage who used curse magic. Though she never talks about it.”

  "Yeah," another said. "She's weirdly humble for someone who could probably blow up half the district."

  Lyra frowned. "She's that strong?"

  The girls exchanged a look.

  "Not strong like that," Maria said. "Just… sharp. Like she sees things the rest of us miss."

  Lyra didn't know what that meant. But something about it made her straighten instinctively. As they approached the door, the faint hum of mana intensified, resonating through the soles of her feet.

  Lyra reached for the handle... and the door opened on its own.

  Instructor Lindstrom stepped out, rune tablet tucked under one arm, soft threads of blue mana still dissipating from her fingertips.

  Her gaze swept the group. She was like a queen. Composed and expectant, but behind her eyes was something gentler.

  Then her eyes landed on Lyra.

  "Good," Lindstrom said. "You came this time."

  There was no mockery in her tone. It was just a simple statement. Firm but encouraging, as if she'd already decided Lyra was capable of more than she showed.

  Lyra felt something stir in her chest. Respect, maybe.

  "Take your seats," Lindstrom said, stepping aside. "Today we're working on will-alignment. And I promise you, it's more important than any dungeon floor."

  Lyra entered the classroom with the others.

  She didn't know it yet, but this quiet, steady instructor would one day matter more than she could possibly imagine. For now? She was just Instructor Lindstrom. And Lyra was just trying to stay in the program.