Chapter Eleven
Returning to her dorm, Cassara found the room empty, giving her much needed privacy. She sat on the edge of her bunk, wincing as she drew the curtain partway closed.
She pulled her shirt carefully over her head, teeth clenched as fabric brushed across the side of her ribs. The bruise was blooming violet-blue across her skin, darkest where the edge of the desk had caught her ribs. It was ugly. What was worse? It ached when she breathed too deep.
Tears stung in the corners of her eyes but she blinked them away.
This was no time for self pity. In just two days the top ten first year students would be announced and they’d run the Rift for the first, and only, time until they started their second year.
She wasn’t about to miss out on a chance to prove herself, to beat Verena, because of a little bruising.
Cassara was prodding lightly at the edges, wondering if she could sneak into the infirmary for some ointment, when she heard the door open. She flinched, yanking the edge of her shirt down and twisting toward the wall.
But it wasn’t fast enough.`
Talia’s voice came quiet and flat from across the room. “That looks bad.”
“It’s nothing.”
“You bounced off a desk,” Talia said simply. “Pretty sure it’s not nothing.”
Cassara narrowed her eyes. “Who told you that?”
If word started spreading that she was injured, if it somehow got back to the instructors…
Talia shrugged. “I happened to be in the hall when it happened.”
Cassara remained silent, watching as Talia crossed the room and knelt beside her trunk. There was a soft click of the latch giving way followed by shuffling and the faint clink of glass. Cassara turned away, pretending not to be curious, when she felt a thud beside her on the bed.
When she looked she saw a small jar made of pale blue glass. It was wax-sealed and had a thin ribbon of string tied around its rim.
Cassara glanced towards Talia. “What’s this?”
Talia crossed her arms loosely around her waist. “A salve. My grandmother makes it. Helps with bruises. Soothes the inflammation. It won’t fix you overnight, but it’ll get you closer to healed than nothing.”
Cassara stared at the jar. “What’s in it?”
“Wyrdroot, flame-leaf, a bit of duskspore.” Talia shrugged. “Old recipe. Been passed down through five generations of bone-setting midwives.”
Cassara eyed her now, not just the jar. “Where are you from?”
Talia’s gaze flicked away. “Outer isles. Charthorne.”
Charthorne. She knew the name, but barely. A speck on the edge of the Empire’s trade routes, known more for its storms and dangerous passage than prestige.
“I’m the first in my family to get in here,” Talia added, voice quiet but steady. “They didn’t expect me to last a week.”
Cassara didn’t answer right away, instead she picked up the jar and turned it slowly in her hand. “So is this how you plan to last longer? By drugging your competition?”
Talia gave a dry smile. “If I wanted you gone, I’d have let you limp into the Rift without it.”
Cassara snorted, despite herself.
She uncorked the jar. The scent that rose was sharp and herbal, earthy with something cool beneath it. “I won’t thank you,” she muttered.
Talia was already walking back toward her desk. “Didn’t ask you to.”
Dipping two fingers into the salve, Cassara found the texture thick, slightly gritty, but not unpleasant. She hesitated, eyeing the purpling bruise along her ribs, then braced herself and dabbed the ointment on.
It stung, not the screaming sort of sting, but a sharp, prickling heat that spread instantly through the skin. Her breath caught which caused another stab of pain from somewhere deeper. Then, just as suddenly, the pain began to dull, easing into a warm throb instead of the fire it had been before.
Her shoulders dropped a fraction. It wasn’t a miracle cure, but it was better. Much better.
She glanced toward Talia, who was already bent over her desk, scribbling with quick, easy strokes. Cassara considered saying something but instead she recorked the jar, shoved it beneath her pillow. Finally, after much contemplation, “This doesn’t make us friends,” she said.
Talia didn’t look up. “Tragic.”
Cassara rolled her eyes, stripped down the rest of the way, and tugged her nightshirt over her head. The ambient glow of the dorm’s magelight had dimmed to a soft pulse, casting the alcoves in half-shadow.
She climbed into her bunk, tugged the curtains the rest of the way closed, and stretched out as slowly and carefully as she could. Her ribs ached, but not enough to keep her from sleep.
For the first time since classes began, she didn’t lie awake counting every mistake.
Just one.
But it hurt less now.
Two days later the bruises still bloomed dark across her ribs.
Despite using the ointment regularly, they were still tender to the touch and wrapped in a tight, pulsing ache that throbbed with every breath.
Talia’s salve had helped more than she wanted to admit, but not enough to erase the pain entirely.
But Cassara hadn’t expected it to, and she hadn’t wanted it to. It served as a lingering reminder of that moment between Gideon and Julian, when everything insufferable and stupid in her life collided.
She moved a little slower when no one was looking, shifted carefully when dressing, but when asked how she was, she smiled and said fine. If anyone suspected the truth, they’d pull her from the Rift before she ever set foot on the first platform.
So she told no one.
And when the summons came, she reported without complaint.
By the time the top ten first-years gathered at the mouth of the Rift chamber, the atmosphere had turned electric. Magitek sigils pulsed along the curved walls, their glow sharpening with each footstep, and the course below waited in preparation, stone shifting, the air laced with mana.
Cassara stood near the edge, ACS rig clipped in place, tension coiled beneath her skin.
Across the platform, Verena was preening.
Julian leaned casually against the rail like he owned the Rift itself.
Gideon stood still and quiet, gaze fixed on the shifting terrain as if memorizing every obstacle.
Several other students that Cassara couldn’t name were scattered throughout the waiting area, all of them trying their best to look casual and disinterested.
Instructor Nareen stepped into the center of the platform, her halberd resting across her shoulders.
"You're here because someone saw potential," she said, tone clipped. "Probably not me. But we'll see if they were right."
A few scattered laughs. None from Cassara.
"You're about to run the training version of the Rift. No beasts. Just your ACS rig, your reflexes, and the charming instinct to survive. You'll be split into pairs."
A girl near the front brightened slightly. "We'll have a partner?"
Nareen's smile was sharp. "No. An opponent."
The girl's expression fell.
Nareen paced the platform's edge, halberd balanced across her shoulders.
"Running against another student isn't about ranking, though that's a nice bonus for those of you obsessed with the prestige board.
It's about learning to think when someone else is taking your options away.
When the route you planned gets blocked.
When the timing you counted on shifts because another living, breathing variable is moving through the same space. "
Cassara glanced towards Verena who offered a smirk in return.
"Out in the field, corrupted beasts don't follow patterns.
They adapt. They react. They force you to make split-second decisions with incomplete information.
" Nareen's tone hardened. "The Rift does the same thing.
Your opponent isn't your enemy—they're chaos given form.
And if you can't handle another student making your life harder, you have no business facing something with claws and teeth that actually wants you dead. "
A few students shifted uncomfortably.
"So you'll compete," Nareen continued. "When one of you seals a route, the other scrambles. When platforms collapse, you adjust. When everything goes wrong at once—" She smiled coldly. "—you figure it out or you fail. Simple as that."
She raised a pale crystal etched with runes. "Pairings will be determined by resonance sort. The system's not random, it's responsive. It analyzes tension, rivalry, and the kind of unresolved friction that makes teams combust."
“Sometimes it’ll pit you against someone you hate. Sometimes,” Nareen added, her tone sharp, “it’ll pair you with someone you don’t trust to catch you when you fall. Its purpose is to make you see each other.”
She flicked the crystal.
The runes launched into the air, names unraveling like constellations in motion. Arcs of light shimmered and shifted as they aligned above the platform. Every student tilted their head back to watch, breath held, posture tight. The Rift was choosing.
Cassara Allencourt.
Her name lit first in silver-white, bright and steady, hanging at the center of the spellwork.
She braced herself, refusing to look at Verena even as her name started to form, red-gold threads curling into place, the pairing nearly complete.
Then something changed.
The glow around Verena’s name flickered, warped like heat haze. It destabilized, unraveling in a spiral of dimming light before vanishing entirely.
A quiet gasp slipped through the group.
Verena’s eyes widened, then narrowed.
Another name flared beside Cassara’s, this one cooler in tone than Verena’s had been.
Gideon Delvanir.
Cassara went still.
Julian’s face darkened and for half a heartbeat Cassara thought he might protest. Across the platform, Verena’s expression sharpened, though she said nothing.
Nareen glanced up at the shifting display, one brow lifting with mild interest.
“Oh,” she said, a touch too pleased. “Well that’s interesting.”
The rest of the pairings came faster now. Julian Tremaine sparked next, paired with a girl named Mara Cavalle.