Jim sat in his little shack on the edge of the academy grounds. The place was no more than four planks nailed together, with a roof that leaked when it rained and a door that whined like an old hound every time it opened. Through the thin walls, he could hear the cheers and laughter spilling from the main courtyard, echoing across the stones as the new students were sorted into their class groups and assigned tutors for the year.

  In the beginning, he used to attend those ceremonies. Stood at the back with rake in hand, watching their bright, hopeful faces as they were called up to the peer tables. Watched them beam with pride, puffed up like little kings and queens. For a while, he’d even clapped along, caught up in the noise.

  But as the years passed — and the deaths mounted — he’d stopped going.

  He’d voiced his concerns, more than once. Told the Grand Magister himself how their reckless theatrics were filling these kids with a false sense of invulnerability. How all the coloured sparks and grand speeches would count for nothing if the war ever flared up again. How it would be a gods-damned bloodbath.

  He remembered the last conversation clearly. Five years ago, after the Choosing Night — the one that left two students dead before the term had even properly begun. No battlefield, no Umbar ambush. Just training. And two coffins in the ground.

  The meeting was held in the Magisters’ hall, all senior tutors gathered at the long oak table. The place smelled of wax and parchment, banners drooping from the rafters, every candle polished until it gleamed. Jim had felt small in there, smaller than usual, but he’d spoken anyway.

  “Sir, if we don’t start instilling real-world survival skills into these kids right now, they’ll be torn apart if the Umbar decide to kick things off again,” Jim had said, hands braced on the table.

  Plandorph had smiled — calm, serene, untouchable, like a statue carved from marble. “The war ended ten years ago, Jim. No need to fuss. We won.”

  “Aye,” Jim had said. “We won. By the bloody skin of our teeth. Don’t dress it up as anything else. Believe me, it was no easy win.”

  “I’m just saying,” Jim pressed on, “we need to go back to basics. Teach ’em the fundamentals. I know I can’t access the Source, but I know about staying alive. I could teach them a healthy level of respect.”

  That was when Elmsley had cut in, lips curled in that smug half-smile of his.

  “Yes… you can’t access the Source, can you?” he’d said, letting the words drip with poison. Then he’d turned back to Plandorph with a smirk, as though Jim wasn’t even worth addressing directly. “Should he even be at this table?”

  And Plandorph had said nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  Jim had looked around the room — not one of the others spoke up for him. Not a cough, not a word. Just silence, heavy as a stone.

  So he’d stood.

  “Aye. Just be warned,” he’d said, voice carrying across the chamber. “You’re teaching these kids to die with flourish.”

  And with that, Jim had walked out — boots echoing against the polished floor — and he never returned to a Choosing Day again.

  Now, years later, the memory made him chuckle bitterly. He raised his cup — Highland whiskey, sharp and smoky, a little taste of home — and took a long sip. The burn spread through his chest, loosening the knot of old anger.

  Then came the knock.

  Sharp. Aggressive. Three quick bangs, like the door itself had offended someone.

  Ah, Jim thought, right on cue.

  He took another sip, leaned back on his chair, and waited.

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  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  There it was. Just the right level of pissed off.

  Jim stood slowly, joints creaking like old timbers, and wandered to the door with the cup still in hand.

  “Who is it?” he asked, pitching his voice into mock innocence.

  “Professor Elmsley,” came the clipped reply from the other side, every syllable tight with fury.

  “How can I help you?” Jim drawled, all sugar and sarcasm.

  “Open the door, Jim.”

  “Alright, alright…” He made a show of unlatching it, taking his time.

  The door swung open.

  Elmsley stood there, normally pale face now flushed an ugly red, cloak askew, hair no longer perfectly slick. His eyes were sharp, brimming with the kind of anger that looked rehearsed — rage polished for effect.

  But Jim didn’t give him the chance to perform.

  “I warned the lad about the dragons,” Jim said flatly, before Elmsley could even inhale for his tirade. “He chose not to listen. He’s lucky he didn’t get eaten.”

  Jim met his gaze with a dead-eyed stare, the kind that carried twenty years of muck, blood, and bad memories behind it.

  “Now fuck off.”

  And with that, he slammed the door in Elmsley’s face. The sound echoed through the shack, a dull, satisfying thud.

  Jim went back to his chair, dropped into it with a grunt, and took another long, slow sip of whiskey. The fire in the cup lingered, warming him more than the thin walls ever could.

  He drank several more cups before deciding to turn in. By the time he lay down on his narrow cot, the bottle was lighter and his head pleasantly heavy.

  As he pulled the threadbare blanket over himself, he wondered — would it be dreamless this time? The kind of sleep he preferred. No faces. No fire. No memories clawing their way up from the dark. Just black silence.

  He hoped.

  But his mind had other plans.

  He woke before dawn with a sharp gasp, sitting bolt upright in the dark. Breath heaving, sweat clung to his brow in clammy beads. He wiped it away with the back of a rough hand.

  “Fucksake,” he whispered to the empty room.

  Swinging his legs over the side of the cot, he groaned as his weight settled onto old bones. He rolled his shoulders, working the stiffness from scarred muscle, wincing when something popped in his back.

  His joints creaked like old timbers in a storm.

  Too many years. Too many ghosts.

  Jim pushed himself upright. Best to walk it off. Walking the grounds always helped — cleared his head, shook the dreams out of him. And, with any luck, he’d stumble on some blackout-drunk prefect or tutor who’d passed out somewhere stupid. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d dragged one back in before they froze stiff on the grass.

  He pulled on his old wax coat, tugged his battered hat low over his brow, and grabbed his favourite poking stick — a splintered length of ashwood capped with a bronze tip. Ugly as sin, but sturdy, and it had never failed him.

  He stepped out into the cold.

  The air bit at his face, sharp enough to sting. Frost glazed the ground, crunching under his boots. Somewhere out in the paddocks, a dragon let out a long, rumbling exhale that rolled across the earth like boulders grinding in a riverbed.

  Jim set off into the stillness.

  The cool air worked on him, stripping away the last claws of the dream, dragging him back into the here and now. He followed his usual route through the woodland — old hidey holes, shadowed corners, the places half-cut prefects and tutors liked to collapse after “celebrating” their return.

  He found the usual detritus: a few empty bottles glittering with frost, a lone boot someone had vomited in, the stale stink of spilled ale. But no bodies. No drunks.

  Odd, Jim thought, scratching his stubbled chin. Usually someone’s curled up in the brambles by now, half-dead from whiskey and bravado.

  He made his way toward the dragon paddock, boots crunching softly through the frozen grass, breath clouding before him in pale puffs.

  That’s when he saw him.

  A boy, face-down near the paddock fence. One of the prefects by the look of him — the black and purple of his coat already rimed with frost, stiff in the dawn light.

  “Fuck’s sake,” Jim muttered, breath steaming in the morning chill.

  He trudged over, boots crunching in the brittle grass, and gave the lad a shove with the tip of his stick.

  No movement.

  How drunk is this little bastard?

  “Come on, mate. Ya need to get back to your dorm or you’re gonna freeze to death.”

  He prodded him again, a little harder this time. Still nothing.

  Jim frowned. The unease crawled in slow. He crouched down, knees creaking, and rolled the boy onto his back.

  The cold hit him deeper than the air could manage.

  It was one of the lads who’d been with Castus yesterday. The cocky one.

  “Oi. Wake the fuck up, lad—”

  He stopped dead mid-sentence.

  No breath. No rising chest. The boy’s eyes stared glassy at the pale morning sky.

  Jim leaned closer, scanning instinctively like a soldier checking for the wound. His calloused fingers pulled open the coat, then the shirt beneath.

  Blood.

  A stab wound, deep and ugly, punched straight into the chest. The edges weren’t clean — jagged, torn, like the blade had been forced in with a twist.

  But what really turned his stomach was the mark around it. Blackened skin, a scorch spreading like cracked lightning across the flesh.

  He’d seen that before.

  Jim’s throat tightened, his gut twisting into knots.

  An ember knife.

  He sat back on his haunches, staring at the corpse, the frost catching in the boy’s hair like powdered glass. The silence around him pressed heavy, broken only by the distant rumble of a waking dragon.

  “The fucking Umbar are here,” he whispered.