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"T oday, we mourn those who passed and celebrate those who did not," Rector Voss announces from a high balcony overlooking the courtyard of Confluence. His voice echoes across the stone as rain patters softly down on all of us. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbles, deep and low. "To stand here today alive and tethered to an elemental is a testament to your value, students. Know this. Find pride in this."

The entire school is gathered, with first-years at the front as we're "celebrated" for our elemental tethers.

For our success.

For the luck of living where so many others died violently.

I can still see the empty spaces where students once stood. Students whose names I hardly dared to learn because I knew it would only make their likely deaths harder. The girl with the crooked smile from channeling class who once sent her summoned water sphere to my palm to save me a day of Sestra's lectures. The tall boy who I used to see doing extra push ups and training in the courtyard every evening. The pair of twins who always had smiles on their faces.

Gone.

My chest throbs with a familiar ache—that hollow, gnawing feeling that comes with surviving when others didn't. I swallow hard against the lump in my throat.

But I know I'm lucky to have an intact group of friends who survived with me.

Mireen and Beck are to my left, while Ambrose is to my right.

"He's handsome," Mireen whispers from beside me. She still bears scrapes and a few bandages, like everyone who made it out of the elemental plane alive.

"Shh," I say, giving her arm a subtle whack. She's not wrong, though. Rector Voss stands well over six feet tall with black hair streaked in gray at the temples. He has elegant features with a long, pleasant-to-look-at face, and his skin is tanned and unmarked, which I find odd. I would've thought the leader of a school for primals would be a primal himself.

Rector Voss is dressed in an immaculate black robe with a circular sigil I’ve seen around the Campus. It bears four marks, one for each of the affinities. Each of the known affinities, at least.

My fingertips idly trace the disguised mark on the back of my left hand.

Voss stands with hands folded behind his back, eyes scanning over us with an intensity that makes my skin crawl—like he's searching for something specific among the survivors. He doesn’t even seem to notice the rain, though most of us are already shivering by now.

All the instructors, both primal and otherwise, are lined up beneath the wall where Voss stands. There are also Empire guards present and selectors, which is the first time I've seen anybody who wasn't immediate staff of the academy since the day we arrived.

"First-years…" Voss continues after a long pause. "You've survived against all odds. Legacies. This was expected of you, but your journey to earning a primal tether was no less impressive. Aspirants. You took a risk coming here, and now you can see the fruits of your labor."

He gives another long pause, and I sense people shifting behind me. There are well over a hundred surviving first years spread out to my right and left. All tethered, now, or else they wouldn't have had a way to return through the rift.

I suppress a shiver for any who were unlucky enough to survive until the rift closed. I can't imagine the suffocating horror of realizing you had run out of time—of knowing you were untethered, and the only doorway back to your world was about to close.

The thought alone sends ice through my veins. To be trapped there, abandoned and alone, watching your only escape vanish while darkness closed in around you...

It makes me think the students I saw get turned to ash by the fire wolf may have been the lucky ones.

Behind me, there's a row of students representing each year, up to the fifth years. The entire school is gathered here, assembled in the courtyard. With everyone lined up and organized, it’s frighteningly clear how each class is smaller than the one before it. Fifth years seem to have less than a hundred surviving students.

The attrition never stops. Every year here is a trial to survive. A life-and-death struggle with no end in sight.

"Offerings," Voss finally says, lips spreading to reveal straight teeth with sharp canines. "Congratulations to you, especially. Confluence Academy is not a kind place, and offerings know this better than anyone. I'm happy to announce that your survival means you are offerings no longer. Today, you all become aspirants in every sense. You'll find new uniforms in your rooms, and student officers will help show you to your new quarters. You'll now have access to more areas in the library, you will not have to share your rooms, and you'll find your class schedule has been reduced to give you more time to pursue areas of interest and recover."

I look at my friends, eyes wide with excitement, a strange flush of heat spreading through my chest. We all assumed something like this was coming, but nobody was certain. All we knew was the second-years didn’t seem to have a single offering in their ranks.

"Also, I should note that aspirants and legacies are highly discouraged from killing fellow classmates. Yes, deaths will still occur in the course of your training, but we expect the number to be far smaller than what those of you in the offerings quarters will have grown used to. Our fragile alliance with the elemental plane and Empire's orders mean you have all just become far more valuable assets to us. Indispensable, even. So, again, wanton murder of classmates will not be overlooked any longer. I advise you all to set aside any grudges or ill-feelings you may harbor from your first two months here on campus."

I can't tell if I'm imagining it, but I think I see Voss' gaze lingering on Malakai. Something passes between them—an understanding, perhaps, or a warning. My muscles tense.

No matter his words, I don't feel any of the lingering tension between my shoulders lighten. Killing each other may be discouraged, but I imagine some will still find a way. The only difference is they'll have to be more discreet and creative, now.

"Today, you have all formed the beginnings of a tether with your elemental companions. You'll spend the next five years learning to strengthen that tether, growing your personal power and the abilities of your elemental in the process. By the time you graduate, you'll cease simply being a tethered and you will become primals, the deadliest weapons in Empire's army."

There's a sudden cheer from the courtyard that drowns out the falling rain. I look around, wondering how anyone could cheer right now when it still feels like we're prisoners. I notice just a few others who aren't cheering, Bastian included.

It warms me to him slightly to see he's not celebrating. If Raith wasn't still recovering in the healer's room, I imagine he would be stony-faced now, too.

So many died for us to get here. If this is a victory, it's one that was built on a pile of corpses so large it makes my stomach turn. And becoming weapons? The thought certainly doesn’t make me want to cheer.

"You are wise for your thoughts, angry human," Typhon rumbles in my mind. Even when he's hiding himself from others, I can always see him. I can sense him, too, even if he's not in view. It feels like an internal compass, always pointing toward Typhon.

"You know you can just call me Nessa, right?" I think back, fingers curling into my palms as the small round of cheers and clapping continues.

"I will call you by your name when you earn the distinction."

"Is that how it is? Maybe I'll start calling you little boy blue. How would you like that?"

"You wouldn't dare." A flash of heat travels down our tether, mixing anger and something almost like amusement.

I smile to myself. I've already come to understand that Typhon is uptight and a little grumpy at the best of times. But he knows he's going to have to take one of his lesser forms soon, and he is clearly upset about it. He wants to spread his wings and maybe 'roast a student or two' to assert our dominance. I told him that wasn't going to happen.

"Now," Voss says, "as is custom, newly tethered first-years will approach the selectors and present your elementals for categorization. You will be required to share your elemental's name and age. And…" Voss hesitates, smiling slightly. "In the highly unlikely case any of you have bonded an elemental old enough, you will present any other forms it's capable of assuming."

A few older students chuckle, as if the suggestion is ridiculous.

"So we need to lie about your age. Do we need to make up a name for you, too?" My throat tightens at the thought of revealing even a fraction of what Typhon truly is.

"The indignity doesn't cease…" His mental voice reverberates with disdain.

"Please, Typhon. Raith was right. If we come out and show how powerful you are, I'll probably be dead by the end of the week. I don't care if the Rector is trying to say we're safer now than we were before. I'll believe it when I see it." I remember Malakai's cold eyes watching me, calculating.

"They would have to get through me first, angry human."

"And I'd still rather avoid that. So can we please just be discreet, even if it's apparently against your nature?"

"You may claim my name is… Typhonus."

I blink, then slowly drag my eyes to where he's sitting straight-backed and proud in front of the students.

"Typhonus? So subtlety and deception aren't in your nature either, are they? What other forms can you take? Maybe I can try to think of a name that seems like it fits your shape."

"I can take many forms, angry human. My earliest was a type of flying fish known as a kuratokken. They are native to ? —"

"Flying fish. Good. That sounds really unimpressive. We'll call you Pondus. Flying fish. Aged… thirty? Is that too young?"

Typhon turns his dragon-like head toward me in outrage as the first students begin approaching and presenting their elementals to the selectors.

Most elementals take the forms of animals I recognize, but crafted out of pure elemental energy. I note with interest that the younger elementals other students bonded seem more insubstantial, somehow. They're generally more transparent and seem less solid, unlike Typhon who just… looks like an actual blue dragon for the most part. Most elementals are also roughly the same size, maybe that of a regular sized dog or slightly larger. Voss watches from high up on the balcony, eyes sharp and full of interest, as if he's still searching for something—or someone. His gaze fixes on me for a moment, lingering just long enough to send a chill down my spine.

"Pondus is not a fitting name for someone of my status and power. A pond? You really wish to name me after such a small and insignificant body of water?"

"Oceanus?" I suggest. “And I doubt we’ll need to use the name much beyond today. It’s just for official records to keep who you are hidden.”

Typhon sighs, making steam rush from his dragon-like snout. He turns his face away from me. "Very well. Only because it will ensure your safety."

"Thank you, Typhon."

There's a slight blossoming of warmth through the tether. "The kuratokken is only one of my other forms, you know. I could choose something slightly more impressive. My second tether granted me the ability to keep the wings of the kuratokken and elongate my body to resemble an ancient sea serpent known as a markoth. It is not as grand as my current form, of course, but it's rather impressive."

"The less impressive, the better. Let people underestimate us. If anyone ever tries to come for me, we'll have the element of surprise when you show them what a badass you truly are."

That earns another pulse of appreciation through the tether.

"Very well. Should we consider eliminating the one-eyed water touched and the fire touched girl from the planes? They know my true form, along with their allies. If we're going to such lengths to conceal it, I imagine they represent liabilities in the plan."

"No." I fire the thought back without even giving it real consideration. “They are killers. We’re not.”

“And if we must become killers to survive?”

“We’ll be protectors. If we’re cornered and there’s no other choice… then we’ll go from there. But I still think it matters to draw the line somewhere. To not let this place turn us into something else. Surviving here won’t mean shit if I have to become a monster to do it.”

“Hmm… Noble,” Typhon muses. “But what will we do if they tell others about my form?”

“Who would believe them?” I counter. “Is anyone seriously going to think Nessa Thorn tethered Typhon, first heir to the water throne and ruler of the tides? Ancient, badass water dragon and formerly rogue elemental?”

I sense his pleasure. “You remembered my titles.”

I grin. “You’ve reminded me of them a few times.”

“Your point is taken. I believe the other flesh bags underestimate you. We shall let your enemies live for now to preserve our own morality, as you say. If the time for consuming your enemies comes, I will eat them with joy and righteous justice in my heart.”

“We’ll cross that bridge if it comes.”

“Bridges? Hah! I have wings, angry human. No body of water is an obstacle to me. It is simply an opportunity to crush my ? —”

“It’s an expression, Typhon. Lighten up.”

He makes a low growling sound and sits a little lower, blue eyes deep and fierce as he watches the ceremony.

The legacies and aspirants—or at least those who were aspirants before Confluence Day—finish presenting. Some of the legacies, like Bastian, present elementals quite a bit larger than the dog-sized that seems standard. Bastian’s horse is the size of a real horse, and one legacy girl with an earth marking has a golem made of stones that’s almost twice her height.

But now the former offerings are approaching, and it won’t be long before it’s my turn.

Beck eventually has his name called. He presents Uther and earns a few impressed noises from the gathered students. After Mireen's turn, I approach the selectors and wait.

"Present your elemental," the selector says. Compared to the way the selectors treated us that first day, I feel a twinge of satisfaction to see a hint of fear on the man's face. We're not helpless offerings anymore, and he knows it.

"Ready?"

Typhon walks beside me in his water dragon form, and then closes his eyes. His body swirls, losing form as the water currents twist and reshape him. A moment later, he's significantly smaller and looks like an ordinary fish, but with butterfly-like wings and a strange formation of whiskers on his head that almost looks like a crown.

I have to try not to smile. Seeing him contained in such an unassuming form makes me picture a great lion in the body of a kitten.

“Are you wearing a crown?”

“I am heir to the water throne. And… this being has a formation of sensory glands that do resemble a crown. yes.”

The selector's eyes narrow slightly. "What is that?"

"Uh," I say.

"Kuratokken," Typhon reminds me. "They were known as king fish by the original humans nearly fifteen hundred years ago. Celebrated for their regal ? —"

"Some kind of flying fish," I say.

Anger passes through the tether.

"Inconspicuous, remember?"

Typhon floats beside me, his annoyance obvious even in his small fish eyes.

"I see. Age?"

"Old enough to make his eyes water."

"He's thirty."

"Quite young. Hm. Very well. Name?"

I glance over my shoulder and see students whispering and a few smiles behind me. The flying fish is admittedly one of the least impressive forms any elemental has taken. Except, of course, the poor earth affinity who tethered some kind of large mosquito thing.

"Oceanus."

The selector's eyebrow twitches up, but he nods and scribbles the information down on his parchment. "Congratulations, and thank you for your service."

Before the selector has even finished his sentence, Typhon turns himself invisible to other eyes and shifts back into his dragon form. He growls low and angry in my mind. "You owe me a great debt for that, angry human."

As I walk back to my place, I catch Serena staring at me, her brow furrowed. She leans over to whisper something to Malakai, whose single eye narrows, jaw tensing as he watches me pass.

A problem for another day.

The dining hall buzzes with an unfamiliar energy as students settle in after the ceremony. Some gather around the warm fires, trying to dry off and warm up after standing in the downpour for over an hour.

Soaked hair and uniforms or not, the atmosphere in the dining room among first years feels almost like relief.

Maybe I didn't want to cheer during the ceremony, but I have to admit I feel what everyone else feels. For the first time in two months, it feels like we've earned at least a moment to kick back and relish in how much we've overcome.

Typhon refused to leave my side to go check on Raith, so I had to rely on second-hand information that students in the healer's room were visited afterward by the selectors and allowed to present their elementals in private.

I'm surprised to find myself already itching to go check on him.. My fingers tap against the wooden table as I think about his tightly regulated, so-rare-they're-almost-nonexistent smiles and the intensity in his eyes. The memory of his warmth beside me in the elemental plane sends a flush of heat to my cheeks.

Just thinking about the way he looked at me then—like I mattered, like I was worth protecting—makes my heart do this stupid fluttering thing I can't seem to control.

I settle for keeping an eye on Malakai, Serena, and the students I know for sure are part of his unofficial little army. So long as they're here in the dining hall, Raith should be safe from any sort of assassination attempt.

"You can relax, angry human," Typhon says. "I know the fire touched and his safety are important to you. I've established a line of communication with his elemental, Pyrin. I will alert you if there's any cause for concern. Pyrin says the fire touched is currently resting and safe."

"Oh. You can do that?"

"The things I can do would make your fragile meat brain explode with wonder."

"Right. Well, thank you."

Typhon has decided to sit directly on a table of food, invisible to all but me, as students reach through him to grab heaping helpings.

"Doesn't that bother you?" I ask him. "That girl literally just reached through your belly to grab a slice of pie."

"They are insignificant to me. This spot gives me the best vantage point to watch for danger."

I grin around a mouthful of warm, buttery mashed potatoes. "This is super weird, right?" I ask Mireen who sits across from me. She nods.

"Yeah. Definitely. Ollie is… talkative. He wants to know what everything tastes like in exhausting detail. I'm still trying to get used to having another being in my head."

"Uther has a lot of opinions," Beck says. "Good ones, though. And he's actually kind of hilarious. You guys should've heard him during the ceremony. He had so many priceless one-liners. He kept telling me how many bites he could eat everyone’s elemental in. One. Half of one. A nibble. The guy is stone cold,” Beck says wistfully, shaking his head at the memory.

"Akaron doesn't talk much," Ambrose says as he slices into a steak. "But he's really intelligent. Having him in my head is like having a clone of myself in a way. Like another, extra brilliant mind."

"Is he humble like you, too?" I ask, barely holding back a smile.

Ambrose smirks. "Yes. We're both extremely humble, actually."

"So… care to explain why your elemental looked like a flying fish and you called it Oceanus?" Mireen asks. "People were laughing about it."

"Yeah," I say. "We thought it was better to be discreet."

Ambrose leans closer, eyes scanning the nearby students to make sure nobody is listening in. "So he can take two forms?"

"More than that, supposedly. He… really didn't like having to be a fish. He wanted to show them what he is."

"I bet," Ambrose says. "I still can't believe he's… well," Ambrose glances to his side again and settles for raising his eyebrows significantly.

"Yeah," I agree.

"What's he like?" Mireen asks.

"Um…" I look up at Typhon, who is sitting with his serpentine body coiled around the table, his back straight, head held high, and his wings spread as if he's trying to sun himself from the high dining room windows. "Proud? But he really cares about keeping me safe, too. I feel like I already trust him with my life."

"As you should," Typhon growls with a satisfied undercurrent.

Mireen's right. It's hard to get used to having another voice constantly interjecting in my own head. But there's also something oddly comforting about it. I've felt so crushingly alone at times, especially since the storm three years ago. Even when surrounded by people, it often feels like I'm on an island.

Like I'm swimming against a current that keeps pushing me farther and farther from shore, with no one to throw me a rope.

"So," Beck says, not bothering to finish chewing. "I hear the classes in the western wing are particularly dangerous. All about strengthening our tethers and learning to fight side by side with an elemental."

Ambrose nods. "Heard the same."

"I'm just happy they aren't going to let us openly kill each other anymore," Mireen says.

"Yeah that's all well and good, but did you hear Rector Voss? New uniforms," Beck says. "I can't wait. Maybe the aspirant ones won't chafe so much."

"I think that's a personal problem," Ambrose says. "Mine are perfectly comfortable."

Beck claps Ambrose on the back. "That's because you're not muscular enough, yet, brother. How are you so sleight with what they feed us and all the training they put us through, anyway? Is your brain stealing all the nutrition, maybe?"

Ambrose cuts him a look. "I was very thin when I came here. This is actually the largest I've ever been."

Beck nods. "What did you do before this, anyway? It certainly wasn't any kind of manual labor."

"My parents owned a book shop. I was hoping to become an author. Historical studies. Things like that."

Until today, none of us have ever talked much about our lives before Confluence. I can't say why, exactly, except to guess that it's too painful to dwell on what was. Maybe we all decided it's easier to pretend our past lives are like the dead—they're behind us, and talking about or thinking of them will only cause more suffering.

There's a slight pause as everyone else must be having similar thoughts.

Beck speaks, all the humor and bravado gone from his voice. His eyes are distant, but a faint smile touches his lips as he talks. "I was a farmer. We grew all sorts of things. Had the best corn you've ever tasted, too. It had this sweetness you couldn't match anywhere south of the divide."

Mireen chews her lip. "I helped with the wounded. We were so close to the fighting with Red Kingdom that pretty much every girl in my town either helped with the injured from the front lines or worked on supplies—clothing, food, weapons, and things like that. I spent most of my life seeing the kind of damage primals do to people. Especially fires," she adds with a look in my direction.

Is she trying to warn me about Raith?

But my thought cuts short when I realize they're all watching me now—waiting for me to share about my past.

"I'm from a place called Saltcrest," I say eventually. The name of my home feels strange on my lips already. My throat tightens. "I used to fish with my brothers and my father most days. I was always good on the water, so I mostly guided the boat and helped lead us to where the catches were. My oldest brother, Rodrick, used to joke that I was half fish." My smile fades when the memory of crashing waves and the sight of a hand vanishing beneath the water fills my mind. The phantom sensation of water filling my lungs and the burn of salt in my nostrils makes me shudder.

The memory seems to have physical weight—the weight of the water pressing down, the screams swallowed by howling wind, the desperate, frantic reaching for something, someone to hold onto as the current pulled us apart. I blink hard and force the images away before they can consume me.

If the others sense I'm not saying more, they don't push me on it.

Instead, Beck thankfully changes the subject, even if it's not to a particularly cheerful topic. "So what are we going to do about Malakai?"

"We should keep an eye on him," I say. "For now, I don't care what Rector Voss said. We should still assume he's coming for us."

Ambrose, Mireen, and Beck all nod seriously.

“I’m just going to ask the uncomfortable question,” Ambrose says slowly, leaning close and keeping his voice low. “Wouldn’t we be doing ourselves and the rest of the first-years a favor if we struck first? Why wait for them to catch us by surprise. Why not make a plan to…”

I shake my head. “I don’t want us to become the things this place is trying to make us. Weapons. That’s what they want us to be. They put our backs to a corner and hope we’ll turn into killers to get out. But I want us to be better than that. Trying to kill Malakai for what he did would be the Confluence way. It would be the easy way. But I still want to be me when I’m done with this place. Killing Malakai would kill part of me, and I’m not willing to give that up. Not for him.”

There’s a pause around the table and then Beck breaks it by raising his mug toward us. “To being the good guys, then.”

Mireen’s smile is crooked. “To being the good guys. And all the people who died, giving us far more rooms to choose from and ample closet space.”

Ambrose nods seriously and sticks his cup out. “To being the good guys. Not what Mireen said.”

“Rude,” Mireen mutters.

I clank mine with the other cups. “To being the good guys.”

After we’ve all taken a sip, Ambrose frowns. “So we’ll wait and see with Malakai. Where do we stand with Raith and Bastian, though, Nessa? Can we count them as allies?"

They heard the part about Bastian saving me and Raith in the elemental plane, but this is the first time they've asked about him beyond the usual teasing when he has gone out of his way to say something to me in public.

"I think we can trust Raith." My voice wavers just slightly, and I feel my cheeks warm again. I seriously need to get whatever that reaction is under control.

"And Bastian… I'm still not sure. I'm not sure I fully trust any of the legacies."

"But you trust a fire?" Mireen asks. Her tone is sharp, and she lets out a soft sigh. "Sorry. I know the two of you went through something together in there. I just… have trouble believing we can trust him."

"I get that. But he has had so many chances to kill me, now. I can't see what his game could be if he really is an enemy. Why leave me alive for so long only to come after me later?"

"I don't know," Mireen says. "But I still think we should all keep our guard up. Anybody except the four of us is a question mark. And here? Question marks can kill you.”

Beck raises his cup with a goofy smile. "Another toast!”

Ambrose groans, but grips his cup.

“To surviving,” Beck says. “Even when death tried really, really hard to get us. And to our new friends. Uther, Akaron, Ollie, and… what did you call him again? Oceanus?"

"He will use my proper name, or I will show him the price of his disrespect."

"He knows it's not your real name, Typhon. He's just trying to keep us safe. Remember?"

Typhon says nothing, but I sense resignation through the tether.

"Right," I say. "Oceanus."

"To them," Beck says.

We all clatter our glasses together. And though the mood is celebratory all around us, I worry the relief we all feel is only temporary. Tomorrow, I'll still be unbound. I'll still have to figure out how to navigate my time here without revealing that deadly secret to anyone. I'll still know Bastian and Raith know exactly what I am and Malakai wants me dead.

Across the dining hall, I catch a glimpse of Rector Voss watching our table, his expression unreadable. As our eyes meet, he gives me a slight nod, his lips curving into a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

Something about his attention makes the hair on my arms stand up.

"Your heart rate has increased," Typhon observes. "What troubles you?"

"I don't know. Just a feeling." I shake my head and turn my attention back to my food. Soon, I'll need to figure out how I'm going to keep myself and the people I care about alive.

But for today? For one brief moment, I can allow myself a moment to feel relief.

We all did it. We all fucking survived.