The morning bell hadn't even finished ringing when Arjun elbowed me in the ribs, nodding toward a guy sprinting past with a stack of scrolls clutched to his chest like they were about to explode. The campus was already humming with that specific, chaotic energy you only get when a few hundred teenagers are simultaneously trying not to be late. A professor strolled past us, casually debating something about resonance frequencies with a pair of seniors, while two other students argued loudly about whose fault it was that their assignment was three days overdue.
I was too busy staring up at one of the sky bridges to really process any of it. The thing was suspended between two ancient stone towers, but there were no visible supports, no cables, no struts. Just a graceful arc of weathered rock and polished alloy, hanging in the air like it had simply decided gravity didn't apply to it today. I was mentally running through at least four different engineering explanations, none of them making any sense.
Arjun sighed, long and suffering. "Please don't start."
The Life Sciences lecture didn't feel like a classroom at all. It felt like a research lab that had accidentally swallowed a library, with specimen tables scattered across the room instead of neat rows of desks. The professor didn't lecture so much as he interrogated the air, throwing questions at us like he expected the answers to materialize out of sheer curiosity. Today's topic had drifted, naturally, into monster physiology, and I found myself leaning forward, genuinely hooked.
When the professor asked why certain creatures developed specific armor plating, half the class gave the obvious answer about defense. I raised my hand before I could stop myself, pointing out a tiny detail in the specimen's joint structure that suggested the plating was actually a byproduct of internal heat regulation. The room went quiet for a second, and I could feel a few people looking at me differently, not because I was showing off, but because I was actually thinking out loud. Taara caught my eye from across the table and smiled, because she knew that look on my face. It was the one where I completely forgot everyone else existed.
The bell rang, and the hallway exploded into motion. I was still mentally replaying the joint structure thing, walking on autopilot while Taara and Arjun talked about something I wasn't really hearing. Then it hit me. I literally stopped in the middle of the corridor, causing a minor traffic jam behind us.
"...Wait," I said, my eyes going wide. I turned to Taara, talking a mile a minute, connecting the heat-regulation theory from class to something we'd learned yesterday about how Sigils manifest under physical stress.
She actually stopped walking, her expression shifting from polite interest to genuine realization. "...I never thought of it that way."
Arjun looked back and forth between us, completely lost. "I have absolutely no idea what either of you just said."
Arcane Physics was where I really lost track of time. The professor was demonstrating some ancient mechanism powered by divine resonance, a beautiful, intricate thing of carved stone and glowing conduits. Instead of just watching, I found myself sketching an improvement in my notebook, not because I thought he was wrong, but because my brain couldn't help trying to optimize the flow. I was so absorbed I didn't notice him walking over until his shadow fell across my page.
He looked at my sketch for a long moment, then smiled, a small, knowing thing. "Stay back after class."
My stomach immediately dropped. I spent the rest of the lecture convinced I was about to be publicly humiliated for doodling on the syllabus. When the room finally cleared, he just wanted to talk about the idea, and the conversation lasted maybe two minutes. But I walked out of there grinning like an idiot for the rest of the day.
Lunch was just lunch. No sitcom jokes, no dramatic revelations. We sat under one of the big banyan trees, passing around containers of food, the conversation drifting from a professor's weird habit to hometowns to music. I recommended a band I'd been obsessed with back in Hyderabad, and Arjun promised to listen to them. He never will.
The afternoon shifted the moment we changed into training uniforms. The atmosphere didn't get tense, exactly, but it got focused, practical, heavy in a way the morning lectures never were. The instructor moved us through the stations with a quiet efficiency that told me he already knew exactly what each of us was good at, and what we weren't.
I struggled. Badly. The sword felt wrong in my hands, the spear was awkward, the staff kept slipping, and my arrows went everywhere except near the target. Each station lasted only a few minutes, but it was enough to make it very, very clear that I was not a natural warrior. The important thing wasn't the failure, though. It was the fact that every time I got thrown, I just sat up, rubbed my shoulder, and asked, "Again?"
The instructor noticed. I never complained, never blamed the equipment, never quit. I just kept getting back up.
Then we got to hand-to-hand, and the instructor paused, watching me settle into a stance. "...You've trained before."
I nodded, rolling my shoulders. "Krav Maga."
For the first time all afternoon, I was comfortable. Balanced. Confident. My classmates noticed, and so did the instructors. I wasn't exceptional, but I was solid, and it felt good to finally not be the worst person in the room. Then the instructor changed the rules slightly, adding a second attacker and a restricted space, and I immediately lost my footing. The difference between street self-defense and battlefield combat became painfully, embarrassingly obvious.
The class was almost over, and everyone was exhausted, sweat-soaked, and ready to collapse. Nearby, another group was conducting fire-resonance training, a ceremonial bonfire burning steadily in the background. I wasn't really paying attention to it. My instructor paired me off for one final spar, and my opponent came at me hard.
Then, for a few seconds, everything went strangely quiet.
My breathing slowed without me telling it to. My movements stopped feeling like decisions and started feeling like reflexes, smooth and inevitable and effortless. I wasn't stronger. I wasn't faster. I was just... instinctive. Three clean counters landed in perfect sequence, each one landing exactly where it needed to, ending in a flawless takedown that put my opponent flat on his back before either of us really understood what had happened.
The training hall went completely silent.
My opponent sat up slowly, staring at me like I'd just sprouted a second head. "...What...?"
I was staring at my own hands, because I had felt it too. Something had moved through me, something old and quiet and absolutely certain.
Then the instructor smiled, a small, knowing thing. "Again."
I nodded, shaking my head like I could clear the weirdness out of it. The next exchange, I was completely ordinary again. My opponent caught me with a sweep I should have seen coming, and I hit the mat so hard the wind left my lungs in a single, undignified whoosh.
The whole class laughed. Including me.
I lay there on the mat, staring up at the ceiling, grinning like a fool. "...Yep. There I am."
We walked out of training together, a slow parade of sore, sweaty, complaining teenagers. Some were excited, some were limping, some were already plotting revenge on whoever had thrown them. I walked more quietly than usual, my mind replaying those few seconds over and over, trying to figure out what had just happened to me.
Arjun noticed. He didn't tease me, didn't ask what was wrong. He just walked beside me, his shoulder bumping mine occasionally. Taara noticed too. She didn't push. We just walked through the evening-lit Citadel together, the mountains turning purple above us, the lamps flickering on one by one.
High above the arena, as the sun disappeared behind the Himalayan peaks and the training bonfire still burned in the distance, Devavratha watched silently. Another instructor joined him on the balcony, leaning against the stone railing. Neither of them spoke for several long moments.
Finally, the instructor glanced over. "Did you see it?"
Devavratha kept watching the flame, his expression unreadable in the dying light. His answer was barely above a whisper.
"No."
A beat.
"I felt it."
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