00:00I could talk to the girl, offer her a different creature, something she could actually manage,
00:04and transfer the phoenix over to you, quietly.
00:07No, I'm not going near the disciplinary council over this.
00:10Besides, I have Kieran. That's enough.
00:14Celia looked genuinely mournful. Then she shifted to her real point.
00:18A creature pulling against its bonded partner is a problem for everyone.
00:23And Evelyn hasn't advanced the first stage in ten years.
00:25The elders have discussed sending her out on a field assignment, a year or two away from the Spirit Pact
00:30Academy.
00:31Practical experience, away from all of this.
00:33I understood what she wasn't saying.
00:35They'd given up on the phoenix as a resource for the Spirit Pact Academy.
00:39In the council hall, Evelyn made the whole thing into a production.
00:43She cried.
00:44She accused me of engineering her removal to take the phoenix.
00:47In front of all the senior elders, she made her counteroffer.
00:50If senior wants the phoenix, she should just say so.
00:53I won't stand in the way.
00:56But if she takes him, she gives me Kieran, a mixed lineage serpent for a pure-blooded phoenix.
01:02Honestly, Lyra comes out a laugh.
01:04Which one, Evelyn?
01:06You focus on your phoenix and stop coming up with terrible ideas.
01:10While the elders dealt with Evelyn, I was at the creature registry with the headkeeper, investigating a disappearance.
01:17Three had vanished overnight.
01:19Two small rabbits and a unicorn.
01:21I reinforced the gate myself before I left.
01:25Any disturbance at all, and I would have felt it.
01:28There was nothing.
01:30Not a sound.
01:31Not a rogue creature.
01:33No trace of that energy anywhere.
01:36Right?
01:37I looked around.
01:38The registry was built into the mountainside.
01:41The rock face itself was warded.
01:43No slipping through the earth.
01:45No passing through walls.
01:46I was still thinking when the keeper started cooing at one of the deer.
01:50Don't be scared.
01:51Big Brother Serpent just looks mean.
01:54He won't eat you.
01:55That pulled something loose in my mind.
01:57I hesitated.
02:00Do creatures ever turn on each other?
02:03What a horrifying thing to say.
02:06They have awareness.
02:08They would never...
02:09Kieran slipped an arm around me and spoke low into my ear.
02:12People do terrible things to each other.
02:15Creatures aren't different.
02:16I've heard of a practice.
02:18A dark technique.
02:19Used by creatures who want to advance without resources.
02:22My skin had gone cold.
02:24Wild creatures had no access to elixirs or rare materials.
02:28If they wanted to grow in power fast, the most efficient shortcut was this.
02:33Consume the core of another creature.
02:35The higher the level of the creature they took from, the faster the gain.
02:40Kieran had nearly died at the hands of one practicing exactly that method ten years ago.
02:44Once it works, it will come back for more.
02:48We staked out the registry that night.
02:50Nothing happened.
02:51Quiet all the way until dawn.
02:53I reassured the keeper and headed out.
02:58Hallmaster, there's an incident at the residences.
03:01Kieran shifted, wrapped around me, and moved.
03:04When we landed, I didn't need to go inside to know it was bad.
03:07I could hear the crying from the courtyard.
03:09It was one of my newest students.
03:11A girl who'd come to the spirit-packed academy with his own creature.
03:14Fox.
03:14Soft and round and always sprawled in patches of sunlight.
03:18Kind of creature that made people smile just looking at it.
03:20She was sitting on the ground, holding what remained of her.
03:23Not much left.
03:24Your guess was right.
03:25The core was removed.
03:26One strike, clean.
03:28It happened before she could make a sound.
03:30She only noticed when she felt the bond break.
03:32I felt the cold settle in my chest.
03:35Without thinking, I looked around for the phoenix.
03:37He was standing beside Evelyn, still as a statue.
03:40The picture.
03:41Don't look.
03:42It's him.
03:44You're certain?
03:45I went to the archmaster.
03:47Don't move yet.
03:48You need proof.
03:50Catch him in the act.
03:51He said it with total gravity.
03:53Meanwhile, behind him, his courtyard had become a small zoo.
03:56Several of them had taken human form and were crowding around Kieran to ask about his parents' bloodlines.
04:02I keep all my creatures close.
04:04Your new firehound relieved himself on the floor.
04:07You could clean it up for your teacher.
04:08Absolutely not.
04:09The senior elders started watching the phoenix.
04:12Their eyes went to him more carefully during training.
04:15They noted that his power had grown noticeably in ways that weren't explained by his circumstances.
04:20Then, nothing.
04:21Weeks passed.
04:22No more disappearances.
04:24No incidents.
04:25Two weeks went by.
04:26The girl never quite recovered from losing his fox.
04:28The other students spoke about the disappearances less and less until the whole thing drifted
04:33into the category of strange spirit-packed academy legend.
04:36Something that had happened, maybe, possibly.
04:39Nobody quite remembered the details.
04:40But I couldn't let it go.
04:42Kieran's certainty sat with me every day.
04:44I went to the archmaster and asked to have the phoenix formally restricted.
04:49You think we don't see it?
04:50But without evidence, what do I tell the students?
04:53If I punish someone without proof, I lose the trust of the whole spirit-packed academy.
04:58And without that trust, the spirit-packed academy dissolves.
05:02Then, one night, while I was deep in meditation, something flashed past my window.
05:06A pair of red eyes.
05:08Bright.
05:08Gone in an instant.
05:09Where was Kieran?
05:10I moved to the water's edge, floating on the surface, a single golden feather, an invitation,
05:16or a taunt.
05:17Find me and I'll give him back.
05:18I reached out through the bond and found Kieran's location, the back forest.
05:22I hit the ground running.
05:23I arrived through the wards in a flash of light, and walked straight into a shockwave from two
05:28powers colliding.
05:30Kieran and the phoenix were already fighting, fully committed.
05:33I went rigid.
05:34When had the phoenix broken through?
05:36He moved through the trees in a golden coat, fast and precise, ducking and redirecting
05:42Kieran's strikes, with the ease of someone who'd had longer to prepare for this moment.
05:47Beside the ward barrier, Evelyn sat perfectly still, like a doll that someone had set down
05:53and forgotten.
05:54When I got close enough to see her clearly, my stomach turned over.
05:58Evelyn was dead.
05:59Her eyes were still open, fixed in an expression of complete disbelief.
06:04Her abdomen had been cut open.
06:06Her core, the source of her power, the root she'd spent years building, was gone.
06:12I hadn't even had time to process it, before the sky above the forest went dark, clouds
06:18banking hard and fast, thunder starting low and rolling.
06:22The bond close.
06:24Harm your bonded partner, and the consequence comes down from the sky itself.
06:28He'd killed his own bonded partner.
06:30He'd lost his mind.
06:32A lightning judgment of this scale would leave nothing of him.
06:36All that power.
06:37All that scheming.
06:39And he'd thrown it away for this moment.
06:41I didn't bother playing it soft.
06:43All that power.
06:45All that power.
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