Test at Dawn

The evening darkness finally arrived. Soren still sat in the chair Konira had left him in.

“She doesn’t understand,” he muttered, pushing himself up from the wooden seat.

He looked up towards the narrow window high on the wall, moonlight spilled into the room, pale and cold, trying to illuminate the countless shadows within it.

You were the one who killed the dragon. I’ve never seen fire like that—blue fire. It was… beautiful.

Her words replayed in his mind. He didn’t understand them. Konira had never lied to him before, and that was what unsettled him most.

Closing his eyes, he stretched out his good hand. For the first time since he came into this world, he was going to consciously attempt a different spell, Fire. But first, he needed to recall the process that had carried him this far. Soren steadied his breath.

Frost isn’t magic, he reminded himself. It’s water slowing down, locking into place. He pictured tiny shapes, invisible but countless, drifting and colliding. In his old world, they had called them atoms—hydrogen clinging to oxygen, fragile bonds weaving them together. If he could just make them still, force them to bind tighter...

His fingers tingled with same sensation it’s used to by now. Eyes now wide, a shimmer of cold danced across his palm, slowly condensing and sticking together to his desired form.

A sharp icicle now hovered above his hand, crystalline and pure. Small, but beautiful. He lifted it toward the moonlight and the shard sparkled in its glow. The light passing through it refracted across the dark walls in a prism of colors.

“I doubt anyone else could form this beginner spell with this much purity,” he whispered, amused. It was, after all, the only spell he could perform.

His hand curled slowly into a fist. The icicle dissolved, droplets turning to vapor as he sped their atoms with practiced control. No puddle, no mess.

Opening his palm again, he thought of the opposite.

Frost was stillness. Fire... fire was motion.

Soren shut his eyes, shifting his focus. He pictured the same tiny shapes as before—not slowing, but racing. Vibrating faster. Faster. Heat was only that: motion, violent and unyielding.

A spark burst from his palm. Then a rush of flame roared to life, spilling outward in a violent plume. The room blazed gold and orange, heat washing over his skin. He flinched but did not recoil. Don’t panic. Focus.

His free hand clamped over his arm, grounding himself. He slowed his breath, as if cooling his thoughts with the calm that frost had always given him. The fire answered, shrinking—not extinguished, but drawn inward, compact. The heat did not fade. It sharpened.

The flame condensed, hotter, brighter. The gold shifted. Orange burned away. White licked at the edges until, impossibly, the fire bloomed blue.

His eyes snapped open. The brilliance seared him, and then the memories hit—massive golden eyes, the stench of ash, a dragon’s breath, and that same azure fire flooding the pit. His chest seized, breath caught in his throat. He jerked back, nearly losing his balance, his heart racing as if he were there again.

“No—!” His fist clenched, crushing the flame into smoke.

Soren dropped to his knees, palms pressing hard into the floorboards. His chest felt tight, each breath shallow, as if the frost he’d clung to his whole life was slipping away through his fingers.
“This must be a twisted joke…” he whispered, the words bitter on his tongue. Two lives of longing, of practice, all for frost—and now this.

Across the hall, Konira collapsed onto her bed, burying her face into the pillow with a muffled groan.
“He’s such a dummy,” she mumbled, the word barely audible.
Rolling onto her back, she hugged the pillow to her chest. A few steady breaths later, she forced herself to calm.
“I’ll try again tomorrow,” she whispered, eyelids growing heavy until sleep pulled her under.

Dawn came. The sun broke over the academy walls, and the bell tower rang twice in reply.
Soren stirred, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the light. He was still on the floor, slumped against his empty bed.
“Oh… right.” He remembered, his voice hoarse. He’d been too drained to climb into bed, the night spent tearing himself apart with experiments.

The memory came back sharply: kneeling on the ground, devastated, raging through grief until his thoughts cooled into grim resolve.
There has to be a way… a way to stay me, even while using this power.

Fragments of his old world’s lessons floated back—diagrams of water shifting forms, frost melting to liquid, liquid boiling to vapor. Heat sped particles apart, cold slowed them down. It was simple in theory, but with magic, he could feel it. Each flicker of frost, each flicker of flame—he sensed the particles moving, colliding, changing.

If frost was calm and stillness, then fire was restless motion. And somewhere between the two, he thought, lay balance. A place where water could exist and yet be driven forward with force, neither dispersing into the air nor freezing solid.

The idea clung to him. Not release, not explosion—something tighter, focused. Something he could hold in his hand until the moment he chose to let it go.

A knock at the door pulled him out of his thoughts.
“You awake yet?” Konira’s voice called evenly.

Soren rubbed his eyes and yawned. He still wasn’t used to her showing up at his door so early.
“Coming!” he croaked, pushing himself upright. The weight of last night still clung to him, but so did the spark of discovery.

Days passed.

Konira bit into her sandwich, her eyes fixed on Soren across the cafeteria table. He picked absently at his food, sliding olives to the edge of his plate. Finally, she broke the silence.
“What have you been up to these last two days?”

“Nothing special.”

Her gaze narrowed. “You’ve been heading back to your room earlier than usual. And you look exhausted every morning.” She leaned forward, ready for what he had to say.

“I’ve been practicing.”

Her palms smacked the wooden table. Half her sandwich toppled onto the plate. The crack drew every head in the room. Flushed, she sat back quickly, waiting for the noise to rise again before she spoke, softer but sharper.
“Frost isn’t who you are, Soren. You should really consider—”

“I’m not practicing Frost.” His interruption was firm.

Her eyes widened. “Then… you’re practicing—”

“Not Fire either.”

Konira blinked, confusion overtaking the fire in her voice. Her shoulders sagged.

“Don’t worry, Koni. You know how stubborn I am.” He forced a thin smile, shoving the last piece of bread into his mouth. Standing with his tray, he turned away before she could press further.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He lifted a hand in a wave without turning.

She watched him deposit his tray and slip out the door. Her chest tightened. He was hiding something, and for once, she wasn’t sure if it was to protect himself—or her.

The night returned once again. Legs crossed, Soren sat in the center of his room, breath steady. His palm glimmered, a faint light shimmering with the combined forces of frost and flame.

“Create. Control. Condense.”

The mantra left his lips as the spell shifted, its color deepening until it burned blue. His brows furrowed, body trembling under the strain.

“Every atom… every molecule…” His breathing quickened, shoulders taut. “And once everything is compacted—”

He snapped his fist shut. The light collapsed, the spell unraveling into harmless sparks.

“Phew.” He exhaled sharply, wiping sweat from his brow. “That was close. Don’t think I should try the last step indoors.”

A grin stretched across his face. The foundation was there. He finally had something real. All that remained now was a proper target.

But first—sleep.

Soren stirred awake. The sky outside was still dark, though the first hints of dawn pressed faintly at the horizon. The bells would ring soon. If he was going to move, it had to be now.

He rose quickly, fastening his robes with practiced care. A thin jacket went over his shoulders to ward off the morning chill. Tugging once at the ties around his waist, he checked himself over. Everything in place.

He pressed an ear to the door. Silence. Good.

A thin layer of frost shimmered across the hinges as he eased the door open, muting the creak. Closing it softly behind him, he moved down the hall, hugging the shadows. The night watch professors had just rotated off their rounds—no one would be doubling back this way.

At the gates, he slipped through and pulled them shut again, his breath clouding in the crisp air. His legs carried him swiftly past one of the stone pillars that lined the academy’s perimeter, vines shifting lazily along its surface. The defenses stirred faintly at his passing, partially revealing the Earth Sect. insignia, but as always, they ignored human blood.

By the time he reached the edge of the Gentlewood, the bells tolled twice behind him, the sound echoing over the academy walls. The sky was bleeding gold and rose, night’s deep blue giving way to day. It was just bright enough now that he could see his footing without light magic. Perfect.

He pressed deeper into the trees. The forest breathed softly around him, dew clinging to leaves, the hush of dawn settling over the undergrowth. Then—

A rustle.

Soren froze, easing behind the nearest trunk. Slowly, he peeked around the bark.

In the clearing ahead, a blue-hued slime quivered, its gelatinous form glistening in the early light. Harmless to the eye, almost cute—but still a monster.

His pulse quickened. This was it. The real test.

“Soren steadied his breath, hugging the tree with his free arm. Anchored, he stretched his palm toward the slime and shut his eyes.”

Create. Control. Condense.

Heat swelled in his hand, the spell forming quietly, atoms racing, molecules straining to break apart—but held fast under his grip. He pushed harder, every fragment contained, every flicker bound.

Flame enhancing Frost. Frost pressured by Flame.

He drew in one last breath.

Release.

The spell tore from him, a lance of compressed force blasting across the clearing. The recoil nearly loosed his grip on the trunk as birds lifted from trees above. In an instant, the slime burst apart, its glowing core shattered.

When the light cleared, he saw it—the shallow crater carved into the earth where the spell had struck. No wider than a few scoops of a shovel, but deep, clean, precise.

Soren stared, stunned. Then his lips parted into a disbelieving laugh. His hand rose to his forehead, covering the grin tugging at his face.

“With this…” he whispered, clenching his fist tight, “…I can forge my own path.”