Kael shifted against the wall and looked across the room. She hadn’t spoken in a while, still sitting cross-legged, her eyes sharp even in rest.

  “It could be worse,” he said at last, the words dry in his throat. A half-smile tugged at one side of his mouth, though it didn’t last long. “I’ll manage. I can make myself useful.”

  He didn’t explain further. Not because he wanted to hide—though he did—but because he wasn’t sure what mattered yet. What to say. What not to.

  After a breath, he added, “Didn’t really get to the team tactics part of training. Think you can run me through the basics?”

  Aiko looked over and gave a single, measured nod.

  “We’ll figure it out,” she said. “I can guide us when the time comes.”

  Her voice was even. There was no hint of superiority in it—just commitment.

  “I won’t die here,” she added. “And neither will you. I’ll make sure of that.”

  Kael wasn’t sure how to respond to that. There was no bravado in her tone. No posturing. Just a statement.

  Then, in that same steady cadence, she offered him a glimpse of her own situation.

  “Physically, I’m sitting around sixes. Lightning affinity. And I’ve got enough essence to work with for now, at least for low-level techniques.”

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  Her eyes stayed on his, waiting. She didn’t press, didn’t demand. But her meaning was clear.

  Kael’s shoulders eased, just slightly. Not because he suddenly trusted her, but because she wasn’t pushing him to give more than he could.

  “Pretty even on the physical side,” he said. “I’ve got air affinity. It’s decent, but I’m still working out the limits. Don’t expect anything clean yet.”

  Aiko nodded slowly, her expression thoughtful. She didn’t say anything more, just filed the answer away.

  “We should use the time to go deeper,” she said. “See if either of us can already shape a spell.”

  Kael nodded in return. That, at least, he could do.

  He straightened a little where he sat, letting his body settle and his thoughts quiet. His breathing slowed, fell into rhythm. In through the nose. Hold. Out. Again.

  Breathing exercises were one of the few things he’d actually practiced. Not because someone told him to. Because he hadn’t trusted fate to wait. He’d always assumed the Dive would come early. So he prepared in the only way he could.

  As the world narrowed around the rhythm of breath, he felt it—that familiar shift inward. Focus sank below the surface, past his senses, into the part of himself that pulsed with something other than blood.

  The soulcore.

  He didn’t see it, exactly. But he could feel its shape, settled deep in his body like something coiled and alive. The outer layer shimmered with Arcane essence, not visually, but through sensation—heat, weight, tension.

  His awareness brushed against it, and instinct led him to press further.

  That was when he felt it. Movement, flow, something cool and sharp twisting just beneath the surface.

  Air.

  The affinity responded to his attention—not as words, not as clarity, but with a sense of shape and direction. Possibility began to stir in the back of his mind. A faint understanding of what could be done with it.

  It wasn’t a breakthrough. But it was a start.

  He kept his breathing steady and sank deeper.