Grayhall Preparatory Annex looked less like an academy and more like a fortress that had lost an argument with time.
Its outer walls rose from the eastern cliffs in uneven slabs of black stone, cracked by frost and patched in places with mismatched brick. Ivy crawled over old arrow slits. Two of the watchtowers had collapsed halfway and been rebuilt with timber so cheap Rowan could see daylight through the gaps. The iron gate leaned slightly to the left.
Above it hung a weather-beaten sign.
GRAYHALL PREPARATORY ANNEX
Someone had scratched words beneath it with a knife.
WHERE FUTURES GO TO DIE
Toma had laughed when Rowan told him that phrase.
Then he had stopped laughing when he realized Rowan wasn't joking.
Rowan stood before the gate with one travel bag over his shoulder, a bandaged right hand, and exactly four silver marks in his pocket.
The carriage that brought him from Asterfall City was already leaving.
It hadn't waited to see if the gate opened.
That felt appropriate.
Cold wind rolled off the cliffs and tugged at Rowan’s jacket. Far below, waves battered themselves against black rocks. Somewhere overhead, a gull screamed like it had also been assigned to Grayhall against its will.
Rowan flexed his bandaged fingers.
Pain answered.
Not as violently as before, but enough to remind him that the Archive didn't repair skills gently.
Three days had passed since the awakening.
Three days since the black window opened.
Three days since Unstable Spark became something else.
The Archive now displayed his skill as:
[Piercing Spark]
[Classification: Modified Failed Skill]
[Current Stability: 31%]
[Primary Function: Compressed ignition discharge]
[Warning: Repeated use may cause nerve damage.]
Rowan had read that warning many times.
He had also read the next line many times.
[Growth Potential: Unknown.]
Unknown was still better than none.
He held onto that thought as the gate groaned open.
A boy with greenish skin, one horn, and a bored expression leaned out from behind it.
“You Rowan Vale?”
Rowan blinked. “Yes.”
The boy checked a slate. “Zero-rank?”
Rowan’s jaw tightened. “Apparently.”
“Good. If you were here by mistake, I’d have to fill out a form.”
The boy opened the gate wider and turned away.
Rowan stepped through.
Inside, Grayhall’s courtyard managed to look worse.
Students crossed the cracked stone in mismatched uniforms. Some wore standard gray jackets like Rowan’s. Others had academy coats patched so many times the original fabric had become theoretical. A girl with glowing blue veins argued with a floating metal disk that kept spinning in circles. A broad-shouldered boy accidentally crushed a wooden bucket by picking it up. Near the fountain, a student sneezed and turned invisible for two seconds before reappearing face-first in the water.
No one reacted much.
Grayhall, Rowan realized, wasn't a school for people with no skills.
It was a school for people whose skills had gone wrong.
The horned boy led him across the courtyard.
“I’m Bren,” he said. “Second year. Don’t touch the east wall after sunset. Don’t eat anything orange in the dining hall unless it’s supposed to be orange. If Professor Mael asks whether you hear whispers from mirrors, say no even if you do.”
Rowan stared at him. “Do people hear whispers from mirrors?”
“Only once, usually.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“This is Grayhall.”
They entered the main building through a pair of doors that looked older than several kingdoms. Inside, the corridors smelled of dust, damp stone, ink, and something faintly burned. Notice boards lined the walls, crowded with warnings.
DO NOT DUEL IN STAIRWELLS
UNSTABLE SUMMONS MUST BE REGISTERED
TEMPORARY CURSES ARE NOT VALID EXCUSES AFTER THE THIRD INCIDENT
ANY STUDENT FOUND FEEDING THE CELLAR DOOR WILL LOSE DINING PRIVILEGES
Rowan slowed at the last one.
Bren kept walking. “Don’t ask.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were.”
“I was.”
They stopped before a small administrative office where a woman with silver spectacles and ink-stained fingers sat behind a desk stacked with files.
“New zero-rank,” Bren said.
The woman looked up. “We prefer the term unclassified.”
Bren shrugged. “The ministry doesn’t.”
Her eyes moved to Rowan. “Name?”
“Rowan Vale.”
“Awakening status?”
Rowan hesitated.
The Archive icon pulsed faintly in the corner of his vision.
“Failed formation,” he said. “No official skill.”
The woman’s pen paused.
“Failed formation,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“Any residual effects?”
Rowan kept his right hand still at his side. “None listed.”
That was true.
No official residual effects were listed.
The woman watched him for a moment too long, then wrote something down.
“Dormitory C. Training group seven. Practical assessment in one hour.”
“One hour?”
“You arrived late in the term.”
“I was assigned three days ago.”
“Yes. Late.” She stamped a paper and handed it to him. “Grayhall doesn't have enough staff to gently introduce you to disappointment. You will find it yourself.”
Bren grinned. “Welcome.”
Rowan took the paper.
Training group seven.
Dormitory C.
Practical assessment.
His stomach clenched.
He had expected classes. Explanations. Perhaps a week of being ignored before someone asked him to demonstrate how useless he was.
One hour was ambitious.
Bren showed him to Dormitory C, which was at the far end of a corridor where the roof leaked into strategically placed buckets.
“Your bed is the one not currently smoking,” Bren said.
Rowan looked into the room.
Four beds. Three occupied by evidence of other people’s existence: boots, books, a cracked shield, a jar full of something glowing faintly purple. The fourth bed stood near the window, narrow and plain.
It wasn't smoking.
A small mercy.
“Training yard is behind the west wing,” Bren said. “If you get lost, follow the sound of things exploding.”
“Does that happen often?”
Bren considered. “Today is Tuesday, so yes.”
Then he left.
Rowan set his bag on the bed.
For a moment, the room was quiet.
He sat.
The mattress complained beneath him.
He looked at his bandaged hand.
The skin beneath the cloth still tingled. Toma had wanted him to see a healer before leaving Asterfall. Rowan had refused because healers asked questions, and Toma had already asked enough for both of them.
Failed skills aren’t supposed to do that.
No.
They were not.
Rowan opened the Archive.
The black window appeared instantly.
[Failed Skill Archive]
[Current Access Level: 1]
[Stored Formations Available: 1]
[Modified Skills: 1]
He selected Piercing Spark.
The skill diagram unfolded, still cracked, still unstable, but different from before. The output vent had been redirected outward. The flame structure compressed into a narrow point. Red warning marks pulsed along the mana pathways connecting his palm to the skill core.
[Stability: 31%]
[Recommended Action: Stabilize Core Ignition Loop]
[Estimated Stability Increase: +22%]
[Required Input: Repeated controlled activation]
[Risk: Mana burn.]
Repeated controlled activation.
In other words: practice. Painful practice.
Rowan closed the Archive.
He had one hour.
He used thirty minutes to find the training yard.
He used ten minutes to get lost.
He used five minutes to accidentally open a door onto what appeared to be a lecture about ethical necromancy and immediately close it again.
By the time he reached the west yard, training group seven had already gathered.
There were twelve students.
All around Rowan’s age.
All watching him arrive late.
A girl with short black hair and silver rings around her wrists leaned against a practice post. A boy with scaled patches along his neck stretched his arms while steam drifted from his shoulders. A thin student in oversized gloves kept his hands clasped tightly together as if afraid they might escape.
At the center of the yard stood a row of training stones.
Each one was waist-high, dark gray, and carved with simple mana channels designed to react to skill output. Rowan recognized them from academy manuals. They were basic assessment tools. Light them, move them, crack them, freeze them, mark them—whatever your skill could do, the stone measured the strength and stability of the effect.
At proper academies, training stones were replaced when damaged.
At Grayhall, these looked like they had survived several wars and resented it.
A man stood beside them with a notebook in one hand.
He was perhaps forty, with dark hair threaded with gray and a long coat that had once been formal before acquiring scorch marks, claw marks, and at least one stitched tear shaped like teeth. His face was narrow, his eyes sharp, and his expression suggested he had already been disappointed by the day and expected it to continue.
“Late,” he said.
Rowan stopped. “Sorry. I got lost.”
“This is Grayhall. Getting lost is expected. Arriving after getting lost is the requirement. Name?”
“Rowan Vale.”
“Official status?”
Rowan braced himself. “Zero-rank.”
Several students looked over with renewed interest.
Not sympathy.
Curiosity.
A true zero-rank was rarer than a broken skill.
The instructor wrote something in his notebook. “Elian Voss. I supervise practical skill development for group seven. If your skill explodes, misfires, mutates, screams, leaks, bites, or attempts negotiation, inform me before continuing.”
Rowan wasn't sure whether that was a joke.
No one laughed.
Professor Voss gestured toward the line. “Join them.”
Rowan took a place at the end.
The girl with silver rings glanced at him. “Zero-rank?”
“Apparently that’s today’s headline.”
“Got a skill?”
“No official one.”
“That means yes, but weird.”
Rowan looked at her.
She smiled faintly. “Mira Ash. My skill makes me fast enough to break my own bones.”
“That sounds inconvenient.”
“You’re polite.”
“I’m new.”
“Don’t worry. Grayhall fixes that.”
Before Rowan could reply, Voss snapped his notebook shut.
“Assessment exercise. Each of you will activate your skill against a training stone. I'm not looking for power. I'm looking for control. If you impress me with power and injure three classmates, I'll be impressed while assigning you cleaning duty.”
A broad-shouldered boy raised a hand. “What if we injure only one?”
“Then I'll be less impressed.”
The boy lowered his hand.
Voss pointed to the first student. “Begin.”
The girl with the silver rings went first.
Mira stepped forward, rolled her shoulders, and vanished.
No—not vanished.
Moved.
She crossed the ten paces to the training stone in a blur and struck it with two fingers. The stone lit blue—then cracked as her momentum carried her into it shoulder-first. She bounced off, hit the ground, and lay still for one alarming second.
Then she lifted a hand. “Fine.”
Voss wrote without looking worried. “Control failure at deceleration phase. Again next week.”
Mira dragged herself upright and limped back into line.
The scaled boy breathed steam onto his stone. It glowed red, then froze solid.
“Mixed output,” Voss noted.
The student in oversized gloves removed one glove, pointed at his stone, and whispered something. The stone sprouted tiny arms and began crawling away.
Voss sighed. “Containment.”
Two students chased the stone.
Rowan watched with a strange mixture of horror and relief.
These people weren't weak.
That became clear quickly.
Their skills were flawed, unstable, dangerous, or inconvenient, but none were useless. Mira’s speed was astonishing. The scaled boy produced two opposing elements. The gloved student animated stone.
At any other school, with proper training, some of them might have been exceptional.
Here, they were treated like damaged goods.
Just like failed skills.
Rowan’s right hand tingled.
The Archive icon pulsed.
He ignored it.
“Vale,” Voss said.
Rowan stepped forward.
The yard quieted.
Not completely.
Enough.
He stood before the last training stone.
Up close, it was worse than it looked from the line. Scorched on one side, dented on another, scratched with old spell marks. A basic academy stone would detect output type, force, mana efficiency, and stability.
This one looked as if it might only detect whether he was unlucky.
Voss watched him carefully.
“Officially no skill,” the instructor said.
“Yes.”
“Residual mana reaction?”
“Yes.”
“Can you reproduce it?”
Rowan hesitated.
The safe answer was no.
If he said no, Voss would probably record him as non-manifesting and assign him to theory, physical conditioning, maybe basic mana exercises. Rowan could practice privately. Learn the Archive slowly. Avoid attention.
Avoid questions.
Avoid whatever happened to people who could see deleted skills.
Then he heard Cassian’s voice in memory.
If you ever claim again that your crystal sparked, don’t do it where real skill holders can hear you.
Rowan lifted his right hand.
“I think so.”
Interest sharpened in Voss’s eyes.
“Proceed.”
Rowan faced the stone.
He opened the Archive.
Not fully. Just enough to bring the skill diagram into view.
[Piercing Spark]
[Stability: 31%]
[Warning: Repeated activation may cause backlash.]
“Thanks,” Rowan muttered.
Mira, back in line, tilted her head. “Is he talking to himself?”
“Many do,” Voss said. “Continue.”
Rowan inhaled.
Find the core.
Exhale.
Open the path.
Mana stirred beneath his skin.
The skill structure answered immediately, far more eager than it had been in Asterfall. Heat gathered in his palm, compressed and unstable. Pain followed, sharp but manageable. Like gripping a hot wire instead of being impaled by one.
Progress, technically.
He aimed at the center of the training stone.
Small output.
Controlled output.
Do not burn through school property on the first day.
He released.
The spark shot from his palm.
It was still ugly.
A crooked orange-white shard, barely larger than a coin.
It hit the stone.
There was no explosion.
No dramatic burst of flame.
Just a soft, vicious hiss.
A thin black hole appeared in the center of the training stone.
Then continued through it.
Then through the second training stone behind it.
Then through the wooden fence.
Then through a bucket no one had noticed until water spilled everywhere.
Silence.
A gull screamed overhead.
The first training stone split neatly in half.
Both pieces fell away from each other and hit the ground with a heavy crack.
Rowan stared.
That wasn't small output.
His palm smoked.
Pain crawled up his wrist.
The Archive updated.
[Activation successful.]
[Output efficiency: 11%]
[Control rating: Poor.]
Poor?
Rowan almost laughed.
The second training stone groaned and collapsed.
No one moved.
Then the broad-shouldered boy whispered, “Zero-rank?”
Mira’s eyebrows had climbed toward her hairline. “That's a very aggressive zero.”
Professor Voss walked forward.
Slowly.
He crouched beside the split training stone and ran one finger along the melted channel. The stone still glowed faintly orange at the edges of the cut.
He looked at Rowan’s hand.
Then at Rowan’s face.
“Again,” Voss said.
Rowan swallowed. “Again?”
“Lower output. Same target.”
“The target is broken.”
“The left half remains emotionally available.”
Someone snorted.
Rowan raised his hand again.
The Archive warning pulsed.
[Backlash risk increasing.]
He ignored it.
Heat gathered.
This time, Rowan tried to pull less mana. The spark formed smaller, flickering at the edge of collapse. He released it toward the left half of the broken stone.
It veered.
Not much.
Enough to miss the stone entirely and punch a smoking hole into the ground beside Voss’s boot.
Voss looked down.
Then up.
Rowan lowered his hand. “Sorry.”
“Do not apologize to me. Apologize to my boot.”
“I’m sorry, Professor Voss’s boot.”
Mira laughed.
Voss did not.
But something in his eyes changed.
He stepped closer.
“Describe your skill.”
Rowan’s pulse quickened. “It’s a spark.”
“That isn't a description. That's an insult to language.”
“It creates compressed heat.”
“Source?”
“My hand.”
“Trigger?”
“Manual release.”
“Rank?”
Rowan paused. “I don’t know.”
“Official classification?”
“None.”
“Name?”
Rowan almost said Unstable Spark.
That was what it had been.
The Archive had renamed it after repair.
“Piercing Spark,” he said.
Voss stilled.
The yard’s humor faded.
Voss studied him with an intensity that made Rowan want to step back.
“Who named it?”
“I did.”
The lie tasted clumsy.
Voss heard it.
Rowan saw that immediately.
“Did you?” the instructor asked.
Rowan said nothing.
Voss looked back at the destroyed training stones. Then at the burned fence. Then at Rowan’s bandaged hand.
“Your official file says failed formation.”
Rowan kept his voice even. “Yes.”
“Failed formations don't have names.”
“Maybe mine was misfiled.”
“Failed formations don't burn through two training stones either.”
“I noticed.”
A few students laughed nervously.
Voss didn't look away.
For the first time since Rowan arrived, the instructor’s expression lost its dry irritation.
Beneath it was something much more dangerous.
Recognition, sharp and unwelcome.
Voss stepped closer and lowered his voice so only Rowan could hear.
“Show me your hand.”
Rowan hesitated.
“Now.”
The command was quiet.
Not cruel.
Not optional.
Rowan unwrapped the bandage.
His palm was red, blistered in a branching pattern that looked less like a burn and more like a diagram etched beneath the skin. Thin silver-gray lines traced from the center of his palm toward his wrist, fading as they climbed.
Voss inhaled once.
Carefully.
The way someone might breathe after seeing a corpse move.
He reached for Rowan’s wrist, then stopped before touching him.
“Did the examiner see this?”
“No.”
“Did anyone at Asterfall?”
“No.”
“Good.”
That wasn't the response Rowan expected.
Voss straightened and turned to the class.
“Assessment is over.”
A chorus of protest rose immediately.
“But I didn’t go yet,” someone said.
“I still need to retrieve my stone,” said the gloved student.
“My shoulder just stopped hurting,” Mira added.
“Excellent. Enjoy that.” Voss pointed toward the main building. “All of you, leave. If anyone discusses Vale’s assessment outside this yard, I'll assign them to cellar inventory.”
Every student went silent.
Even Mira.
Especially Mira.
Within seconds, group seven began gathering their things with impressive urgency.
Rowan watched them go.
Mira paused beside him.
“That,” she said quietly, “was either very good or very bad.”
Rowan looked at the destroyed stones.
“I’m leaning bad.”
“Grayhall bad or normal bad?”
“There’s a difference?”
“Oh, definitely.”
She left before explaining.
Soon only Rowan and Voss remained in the yard.
Wind moved across the broken stones.
Voss stood with his back to Rowan for several seconds, looking toward the sea.
Then he said, “Failed skills are deleted.”
Rowan’s mouth dried.
“Yes.”
“They don't stabilize.”
“No.”
“They don't evolve.”
Rowan said nothing.
Voss turned.
His sharp eyes fixed on Rowan like knives pinning paper.
“Three possibilities,” the instructor said. “First, your file is wrong. Second, the awakening system malfunctioned in a way the ministry will bury under enough bodies to build a road. Third…”
He stopped.
Rowan wished he had not.
“Third?” Rowan asked.
Voss’s gaze dropped once more to the silver-gray lines fading across Rowan’s palm.
“Third, someone taught you something that should no longer exist.”
The Archive icon pulsed.
Once.
Slowly.
As if listening.
Voss took one step closer.
His voice lowered.
“Who taught you to repair a failed skill?”