Six months.

Six months since Avian had forced a Paragon Knight to move through sheer will and spite. Six months since divine chains shattered like glass under the weight of his refusal to lose. Six months of being the confirmed heir to House Veritas, with all the political bullshit that entailed.

And six months of Lysander Crowe trying to kill him every morning in the name of education.

"You're thinking too much again," she observed, her voice carrying that particular tone of disappointment mixed with anticipation. The kind that meant pain was imminent. "I can actually hear your brain grinding away. It's disturbing."

Avian barely managed to roll aside as her practice sword carved through the air where his head had been. The reinforced training room floor cracked under the impact - she was hitting much harder than usual today, even for her.

"Fuck!" he gasped, deflecting her follow-up strike that nearly shattered his guard. "Maybe if you taught me something new instead of just beating the shit out of me—"

"But violence is such an excellent teacher. Ask anyone I've trained." She flowed into her next attack with twice her normal speed. "Besides, you've been keeping your gravity manipulation separate from everything else. You use it like a hidden trump card instead of integrating it naturally. Every strike should flow with gravity - lighter on the backswing, heavier on impact. It should be as natural as breathing, not some special technique you pull out when desperate."

She was right, which was fucking annoying. The gravity magic she'd helped him discover months ago had remained compartmentalized, something he used separately from his swordsmanship rather than as part of it.

"I've been trying to keep it subtle—"

"Subtle is for people who aren't the heir. You're not hiding anymore." She grabbed his sword arm, twisted with more force than usual - just shy of actually breaking something - then threw him across the room harder than she had in weeks. He hit the wall with enough impact to crack the stone behind the padding. "Every strike, every movement - gravity should be part of it. Not an addition. Not a trick. Part of your fundamental style."

"Fucking hell, that hurt!" Avian groaned from his new crater in the wall.

"Good! Pain means you're learning. Get up. We're doing remedial education. With visual aids. And today, I'm not holding back as much."

Avian peeled himself off the wall, spitting blood. "Visual aids? And why the extra brutality? Did I piss in your breakfast?"

She pulled out chalk and started drawing on the floor while somehow intensifying her attacks. "Because you're the heir now, puppy. That means every enemy of House Veritas sees you as a target. You think they'll go easy because you're young? You need to be strong enough to carry that title, not just wear it."

She drew a circle the size of a wagon wheel while casually batting aside his desperate counter. "Right, time for review since I'm not sure your stubborn skull can actually hear what I've been saying for six months. Even after half a year, you still want to keep your abilities in neat little boxes instead of blending them into one seamless style."

"I blend them when necessary."

"You switch between them. There's a difference." Her next strike came so fast he barely saw it, sending him rolling across the floor. "Shit, ow, fuck!" he cursed as he tumbled.

"This is your Aether Core," she continued, ignoring his profanity. "Think of it as a battery. Stores raw power. Yours is Seventh Tier now, which means it holds seven times what a normal person's does. Still with me?"

"Hard to fucking forget when you beat it into me daily," he wheezed, ribs protesting.

"Exactly! Violence and learning, perfectly paired." She drew a smaller circle inside the first. "This is your Mana Heart. The engine that pumps power through your body. Most people have average ones — functional but nothing special. Some poor bastards have broken ones and can barely cultivate. A rare few have excellent ones."

She looked up at him with something like respect. "You have a perfect one. The kind that shouldn't exist. The kind that makes dual-path cultivation possible without your channels exploding like overstuffed sausages."

Lucky fucking me, Avian thought. Though even a perfect Mana Heart couldn't stop those divine chains from capping me at Sixth Tier before.

"Now," Lysander continued, drawing lines branching from the circles, "we've been over this, but since you're being sloppy — power flows two ways. Aura Conversion for warriors." She drew a figure hefting a sword. "Turns mana into physical enhancement. Makes you faster, stronger, harder to kill. Ranked from Novice to Paragon Knight."

She drew another figure throwing lightning. "Or Mana Circles for spellwork. Each circle you develop lets you shape more complex magic. Most mages cap out at Fifth Circle. Anything beyond that requires exceptional talent or a death wish."

"And dual-path means juggling both without dying."

"Exactly. Which your perfect Mana Heart allows. But here's what you keep forgetting—" She stood, dusting chalk off her hands, then immediately launched into an attack combination that would have killed him six months ago. "That gravity magic of yours? It should be woven into everything. Watch."

She demonstrated with her practice sword, and even without gravity magic, Avian could see the principle. "Every strike has a rhythm. Draw back light, strike heavy. You have the power to actually DO that, not just mimic it. Make your blade weigh nothing on the wind-up, then crush mountains on impact. It should be one smooth motion, not 'sword technique' then 'gravity technique.'"

Avian barely blocked, arms going numb from the impact. "Fuck me, you're really going all out today!"

"Language," she said with a grin, then hit him even harder. "Just kidding, I don't give a shit. Swear all you want, it won't make the pain stop."

"But there are limits," she continued while attacking. "Light use - enhanced jumps, minor weight adjustments, the constant flow in your swordwork. Fifteen times a day, no problem."

A brutal combination forced him back. "Medium use - combat-level gravity fields, making enemies stumble, weapons feel heavier. Three to five times before you need rest."

She swept his legs and sent him crashing down. "Heavy use - what you pulled against that Elder death mancer. Making his shadow constructs weigh ten times more? That's pushing it. Once, maybe twice if you're feeling suicidal, then you're out for days."

"The Elder fight was fucking strange," Avian muttered from the floor. "Something was off about the whole thing. He fled after just a shoulder wound - an ancient death mancer who survived five centuries by being paranoid suddenly runs into a forest alone? Made no goddamn sense."

"You think he wanted to die?" Lysander's interest sharpened, though she didn't stop attacking.

"Has to be. Nothing else explains it. The way he fought, the way he ran - it was like he was going through the motions." Avian rolled aside from a strike that shattered the floor where his head had been. "But that's a mystery for another fucking day."

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"Doesn't matter. You still pushed your gravity manipulation to dangerous levels against those constructs. Your body remembers that trauma even if you pretend it doesn't." She grabbed him by the collar and threw him into the ceiling, letting him drop. "Which is why we're going to practice integration. And today, I'm going to beat it into you properly because you need to be ready for real threats."

"Shit shit shit!" Avian cursed as he fell, trying to land properly and mostly failing.

The beating that followed was beyond educational. It was transformative in the way that natural disasters transform landscapes — violently and permanently.

But between desperate blocks, failed counters, and creative profanity that would make sailors blush, something clicked. Not new understanding, but renewed appreciation for what she meant. Every movement could flow with gravity. Every strike could carry that weight shift. He'd been treating it like a separate tool when it should be part of his foundation.

When Lysander finally called a halt, he was face-down on the floor, unable to move, tasting copper and failure.

"Fuck... everything... hurts," he groaned into the floor.

"Better," she admitted, which from her was practically a parade. "You're starting to understand. Tomorrow we'll work on making that integration instinctive. Right now you're thinking about it. Eventually, it needs to be as natural as breathing."

"Tomorrow?" he croaked. "What's wrong with today, you sadistic—"

She paused, looking toward his hand. "Actually... is it just me, or is your ring sparking?"

Avian managed to turn his head. She was right - Lux's ring form was crackling with electricity, something it hadn't done since Malethar.

Lightning exploded from the ring without warning. Lux materialized in mid-leap, electricity crackling through her fur as she went straight for Lysander with the joyous determination of a puppy who'd spotted her favorite chew toy.

"What the fuck—" Lysander's eyes widened in genuine shock, barely managing to sidestep. She caught the wolf by the scruff and redirected her momentum into the wall. "She's back? But she's been dormant since—"

Lux hit with a yelp and a shower of sparks, then immediately bounced back for round two.

"No! Bad wolf! You can't just— wait, is this your first time manifesting since Malethar?" Lysander dodged lightning-charged pounces while looking genuinely delighted. "This is incredible! The spirit bond must have finally healed!"

Lux's response was to split into three lightning copies and attack from multiple angles.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Avian and Lysander said in unison.

"That's new!" Avian managed to sit up despite his body's protests. "She couldn't do that before!"

"That's impossible!" Lysander corrected, though she was grinning while blocking all three copies. "Spirit wolves don't just develop new abilities! Unless..." She studied Lux with sharp interest. "The bond burning might have caused some kind of evolution. Traumatic power events can sometimes trigger changes in spirits."

The next few minutes were chaos. Wolf and knight danced around the training room in a blur of lightning and steel, Lysander trying to study this new development while Lux seemed determined to prove that enthusiasm could overcome tactics.

It couldn't, but the joy in Lux's movements - finally free after months of dormancy - was infectious.

Finally, Lux collapsed into a puddle of sparking fur, tongue hanging out, tail wagging despite exhaustion. Lysander stood over her, fascinated.

"Your wolf has evolved," she announced with certainty. "This is unprecedented. We need to study this, understand what she can do now."

Lux barked agreement, then immediately fell asleep.

"She's older than most civilizations," Avian said, finally managing to sit up properly. "You'd think evolution would be impossible at her age."

"Nothing's impossible with spirits. Especially not one bonded to someone like you." Lysander helped him to his feet with surprising gentleness. "Speaking of which..."

"What now? More beatings?"

"Something wrong?" Her tone was too casual to be casual.

"The divine chains," Avian said, seeing no point in hiding it. "They're reforming. I can fucking feel them."

He could feel them, faint but growing stronger. Like spider silk wrapping around his core, one strand at a time. The divine chains weren't gone - they were being reapplied, slowly, methodically. His Seventh Tier cultivation was fighting them, making the process harder than when he was Sixth, but if left unchecked...

They'll cap me at Seventh just like they did at Sixth, he thought grimly. Some asshole really wants me contained. Not dead, just... limited.

"I know." Her casual admission made him turn sharply. "Your father told me everything when he assigned me to you again. He trusts me more than anyone else in the clan - though I won't tell you why. The chains, the forced suppression, the way you shattered them in the arena." She grinned. "Well, that's what everyone thinks happened."

"What do you mean?"

"Your father told me something interesting. When you broke those chains in the arena, he sensed two distinct divine signatures. One was the chains themselves. The other... also came from you, but it was completely different. Not the chains, not something external - a separate divine power that manifested just long enough to shatter those bindings."

"What the fuck do you mean, a separate divine power?"

"No idea. Your father doesn't know either. But whatever it was, it disappeared right after. Like it only manifested because the chains were about to kill you." She grinned. "Makes you even more interesting to train. You're not just dealing with divine chains - you've got some kind of divine power that really doesn't like being contained."

"And you're not concerned about them coming back?"

"Oh, I'm concerned. But we've got time. At the rate they're reforming, you've got maybe a year before they become a real problem. Plenty of time to find whoever's doing it and convince them to stop." Her smile turned predatory. "Violently, if necessary."

She moved toward the door, then paused. "Oh, before I forget. Your presence is required at the Winter's Descent celebration tonight. Formal dress. Try not to bleed on anything expensive."

"Another fucking political thing?"

"Winter's Descent celebration - the annual festival marking the longest night of the year. Traditional time for the Empire's noble families to gather, pretend they're not plotting against each other, and exchange gifts that are usually veiled threats." She grinned. "The Veritas family takes it seriously. All branches gather at the main compound, even the ones who normally avoid each other. There's a feast, ceremonial combat exhibitions, and enough political maneuvering to make your head spin."

"Sounds fucking delightful."

"Oh, it gets better. Your brother Thane will be there with his new shadow techniques. Should be fun watching you two dance around each other while the extended family takes bets on who'd win in a real fight."

"Great. Just what I fucking needed." Political theater with the brother who'd given up the heir position but still commanded respect. Thane had been training independently, and rumor said multiple Imperial Knight Commanders were trying to recruit his talent.

"Any advice?"

"Don't die. Makes the toasts awkward. Oh, and Avian?" She turned back. "The reason I went so hard today? You're not just representing yourself anymore. You're the future of House Veritas. Every enemy we have is watching, waiting for weakness. You need to be strong enough that they don't even consider trying."

She left, whistling something that sounded suspiciously like a funeral dirge mixed with a victory march.

Avian looked down at Lux, who was somehow snoring despite being made of lightning. His body felt like it had been put through a meat grinder, then reassembled by someone who'd only heard descriptions of human anatomy. Tonight would be all politics and pretense, tomorrow would bring more violent education, and somewhere in between he had to figure out who kept trying to chain him.

"Fuck my life," he muttered.

But first, he needed a bath. And possibly an entirely new body, since his current one had apparently offended Lysander's teaching sensibilities.

"Come on, girl," he said, nudging Lux with his foot. "Time to pretend we're civilized."

The wolf opened one eye, gave him a look that suggested civilization was overrated, then dissolved back into his ring with a final spark of protest - though the spark seemed brighter than before, more vibrant.

Six months as heir. Two and a half years until the Academy.

If Lysander didn't kill him in the name of education, the politics definitely would.

At least the death would be fucking instructional.

He limped toward his quarters, already dreading whatever "gifts" tonight would bring. Knowing noble families, they'd all be weapons disguised as something else.

Or maybe that was just his paranoia talking.

No, he decided as Elira appeared with medical supplies, her expression showing this was completely routine after six months of daily beatings - though her eyes widened slightly at his worse-than-usual condition.

"Rough session today, young master?" she asked with practiced calm.

"Lysander decided I needed extra education. With her fists. And feet. And the fucking ceiling."

"I'll prepare extra healing salves then." She didn't even blink at his language anymore. Six months of being heir had stripped away most of his polite facade, at least in private.

It's definitely going to be weapons.

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