The training grounds burned.

  Not literally—though with Aresh and a senior both wielding fire, it was only a matter of time—but with the kind of brutal, relentless intensity that left no room for doubt or hesitation or the comfortable illusion that power could be gentle.

  Acharya Rajan stood at the center of the practice circle, arms crossed, face carved from stone and old scars. He was broad-shouldered, thick-necked, the kind of man who'd survived more fights than most people witnessed in a lifetime and wore the proof in every line of his body. His voice, when it came, cut through the afternoon heat like a blade.

  "Again."

  Aresh's chest heaved, sweat dripping into his eyes, hands shaking from exertion. Fire flickered weakly between his palms—orange, unstable, threatening to gutter out entirely. He'd been at this for two hours. Maybe three. Time had stopped meaning much after the first dozen failures.

  Beside him, Ishaan looked only marginally better. The third-year was taller, broader, more experienced, but his flames danced erratically along his forearms, control slipping every time Rajan pushed them harder.

  "I said *again*," Rajan snapped.

  Aresh gritted his teeth and summoned fire once more. It came reluctantly, sluggish and weak, like dragging something half-dead back to life.

  "Why?" Ishaan gasped, voice raw. "Why are we training this hard? He's a *first-year*—"

  "And you're a third-year who still can't hold a steady flame under pressure," Rajan cut in coldly. "Which means you're both exactly where you need to be."

  From the edge of the training ground, Acharya Amar Bisht watched in silence, arms folded, expression unreadable. He hadn't said a word since they'd started. Didn't need to. His presence alone carried weight—the quiet, assessing attention of someone who missed nothing and forgot less.

  Ishaan's jaw clenched. "It doesn't make sense. We're not soldiers. We're students."

  "You're *fire-wielders*," Rajan corrected, voice dropping lower, harder. "Do you understand what that means?"

  Neither answered.

  Rajan stepped closer, gaze moving between them with the kind of focus that stripped away excuses. "Fire is the most pure and annihilating power that could grace anyone. It doesn't compromise. It doesn't hesitate. It *ends* things." He paused, letting the words settle. "It's as rare as the sighting of a seer. And if you don't hone that power properly, you will either destroy others—"

  His gaze locked onto Aresh.

  "—or destroy yourselves."

  The words landed like a blow.

  Aresh felt them in his chest, in the place where his fire lived and burned and refused to be controlled no matter how hard he tried. He thought of the nightmares. The circle. The flames consuming everything. The sense that something inside him was always one breath away from breaking free.

  "Again," Rajan said, voice softer now but no less unyielding.

  Aresh raised his hands.

  The fire came.

  And this time, just for a moment, it held steady.

  ***

  Then the bells rang.

  Sharp. Piercing. Three long blasts that shattered the afternoon like glass.

  Incoming wounded.

  Rajan's head snapped toward the eastern gates. Amar straightened, expression hardening.

  "Go," Rajan said curtly. "Now."

  Aresh and Ishaan didn't need to be told twice. They bolted toward the main courtyard, flames extinguishing as they ran, exhaustion forgotten under the surge of adrenaline.

  By the time they reached the central grounds, half the Institute was already there.

  Students. Mentors. Scouts. Everyone who'd heard the bells came running.Someone near the front dropped a satchel. It hit the stone with a dull crack no one laughed at.

  The courtyard had gone completely still.

  The sky darkened with wings.

  ***

  The griffins descended in formation—four of them, massive and golden-brown, wings beating powerful enough to kick up dust and loose stone. Their riders wore AstraVana blues, faces grim, postures rigid with the kind of exhaustion that came from carrying something terrible and trying not to break under its weight.

  The lead griffin landed first, talons gouging deep furrows into the courtyard stone.

  Aresh caught glimpses of it even as the griffins landed.

  Along the terraces, earth-wielders knelt with hands buried in stone, veins of light running beneath their skin as the foundations thickened and locked. Ward-teams moved fast and silent, sealing classrooms and halls with layered protections meant to hold. Overhead, sky- and water-wielders worked in tandem, drawing currents so fine they were almost invisible, shaping a vast, unseen sphere around AstraVana and the dwellings below.

  The air felt heavier—braced. Ready.

  The scene that set view before his eyes was nothing less than horror .Slung beneath the griffin, secured in a reinforced harness, was a woman.

  Small. Dark-haired streaked with silver. Robes torn and stained dark. An arrow—broken, jagged, inscribed with faint glowing script—still embedded in her shoulder.

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  Her eyes were half-closed. Her breathing shallow. But she was *alive*.

  "Headmaster Saira," someone whispered.

  The name rippled through the crowd like a shockwave.

  Guru Devika was already moving, her team of healers surging forward with stretchers, emergency supplies, hands glowing faintly with diagnostic magic. She reached the griffin in seconds, fingers hovering over Saira's pulse point, eyes narrowing.

  "Mana depletion. Severe." Her voice was clipped, professional, but there was an edge underneath—fear, tightly controlled. "Arrow's lodged near the bone. Mantra-inscribed. We need a containment ward before we move her."

  Two healers immediately began tracing sigils in the air around Saira's body, blue-white light weaving into a lattice that hummed with careful, deliberate intent.

  The second griffin landed. Then the third.

  More bodies. More wounded.

  Three survivors—barely conscious, skin pale as bone, eyes glassy and unfocused. They moved like puppets with half-cut strings, limbs twitching weakly, breath coming in shallow, irregular gasps.

  And on the fourth griffin, wrapped in layer upon layer of shimmering ward-thread that pulsed faintly with contained magic—

  A body.

  Not moving. Not breathing.

  But not *empty*.

  Aresh felt it from twenty paces away. A flicker. Faint, distant, wrong. Like standing too close to a fire that had burned out but still radiated heat from embers buried deep.

  Mana. Residual. Clinging to a corpse that should have been hollow.

  Beside him, Lira made a small, choked sound. Her hand went to her chest, fingers splayed wide, face going pale.

  "Lira?" Aadyan was at her side instantly, hand on her shoulder, grounding.

  "I can feel it," she whispered, voice strained. "All of them. The pain. The *absence*. It's—" She swallowed hard, eyes too bright. "It's like they're drowning and can't remember how to surface."

  Aadyan's jaw tightened. "You don't have to—"

  "I do," she cut him off, quiet but firm. "Devika will need help. I can map their emotional states. Tell her who's fading fastest."

  Before Aadyan could argue, she pulled away and moved toward the healers.

  Aresh watched her go, something twisting in his chest. Then he forced himself to look back at the griffins.

  The riders were dismounting now, moving with the careful, controlled motions of people who'd been holding themselves together through sheer will and were starting to fracture.

  One of them—a tall woman with a commander's bearing and shadows under her eyes—crossed directly to where Headmistress Iravati stood at the courtyard's edge, flanked by Vedant and Charu.

  "Headmistress," the woman said, voice hoarse. "Swarit Aryan's team is two hours behind us. Seven more survivors. Eastern transport-creatures. They're moving slowly."

  Iravati's expression didn't change. "Condition?"

  "Stable. Barely." The woman's hands curled into fists at her sides. "But they won't last much longer without intensive care. The mana depletion—" She stopped, swallowed. "I've never seen anything like it. It's not just drained. It's *gone*. Like something reached inside and scraped them clean."

  Silence pressed down.

  Then, from the crowd, a voice cut through—sharp, familiar, edged with barely concealed satisfaction.

  "This is what happens when veils fall."

  Harlan. Western scout. Standing near the edge of the courtyard with his arms crossed, expression cold and assessing. "This is what you're inviting into your precious Conclave, Headmistress. Death. Chaos. Whatever did this to the East—"

  Aadyan recognized the tone. This wasn't an outrage. It was positioning.

  "Will not reach AstraVana," Iravati said, voice dropping to a temperature that could freeze blood. "We are prepared."

  "Are you?" Harlan gestured toward the griffins, toward the wounded, toward the warded body that *should not still have mana*. "You can barely contain what you've brought through your gates. What happens when more arrive? What happens when whatever *did* this follows them here?"

  "Then we fight," Iravati said flatly. "And we win. Because that is what this Institute was built to do."

  Harlan's mouth thinned. But before he could respond, another voice cut in—quieter, more measured, but no less cutting.

  "The South has seen similar incidents." Vanya, the Southern scout, stepped forward, expression thoughtful. "Smaller scale. Border villages. But the pattern matches." Her gaze moved to the warded body. "Mana harvesting. Deliberate. Methodical. Whatever's doing this isn't mindless."

  "It's hunting," Vedant said grimly.

  "And it's moving west," Vanya agreed.

  The courtyard went very, very quiet.

  Aresh felt the weight of it settle over everyone—students, mentors, scouts. The reality that had been distant, abstract, something happening *elsewhere*, was now here. Bleeding on their stones. Wrapped in wards. Staring at them with hollow eyes.

  Devika's voice cut through the silence. "We need to move them. *Now*. The healing ward—"

  "Is not equipped for this," one of her healers said, voice tight. "We don't have enough mana-crystals to stabilize ten people with this level of depletion. Maybe not even five."

  "Then we prioritize," Devika said, voice hard as stone. "Saira first. Then the ones Lira flags as critical. The rest we keep comfortable and hope Swarit gets here before—"

  She didn't finish.

  She didn't need to.

  The stretchers were lifted. The healers moved with brutal efficiency, carrying the wounded toward the eastern wing where the healing ward waited. Students scrambled to help, to make space, to do *something* that felt useful in the face of something so much larger than any of them had trained for.

  Aresh stood frozen, watching it all unfold, the flicker of residual mana from the warded body pulling at his attention like a hook under skin.

  He didn't realize Ishaan was beside him until the third-year spoke.

  "That could've been us," Ishaan said quietly. "If we'd been sent east instead of kept here."

  Aresh didn't answer.

  Because Ishaan was right.

  And that made everything so much worse.

  ***

  From the forest gate, unseen by the chaos in the courtyard, Jiv stood with Nandini, Lira gone to help the healers, Aadyan hovering protectively nearby.

  He watched the griffins. The wounded. The warded body.

  And for the first time in three centuries, Jiv felt something close to fear settle cold and heavy in his chest.

  Because he recognized the pattern.The smell came back first—burned air and cold stone. Then the silence that followed screaming.

  He'd seen it before.

  A long, long time ago.

  When the world had ended the first time.

  Whatever had done this hadn’t rushed. It had fed.