[POV Liselotte]

  Exactly one day had passed since I woke from that three-day lethargy. One day of herbal soup, of the insistent attention of royal physicians who could find no physical anomaly in me, and of constant visits from Leah, who seemed determined not to leave me alone even long enough to breathe. However, by the time the sun began to sink behind the towers of Whirikal on the fourth day, I felt that my muscles no longer weighed me down. The headache had vanished, repced by a mental crity that bordered on the supernatural.

  But there was something else. Something I could not expin to them.

  Inside my chest, right where mages say the mana core resides, I no longer felt a pond of energy. I felt an ocean. An ocean roaring in silence, a constant pressure begging to be released, as if my veins had become too narrow for the torrent now trying to flow through them.

  I waited until night fell completely. I listened to the changing of the guard in the corridors and the silence that settled over the guest wing. Chloé had fallen asleep in the adjoining room; her breathing was steady and deep, a sign that she had finally lowered her guard upon seeing me "recovered."

  I put on my adventurer’s outfit, the worn leather I preferred a thousand times over the castle’s silks, and slipped out through the window. It was not difficult; my training as an adventurer and my natural agility allowed me to descend the stone fa?ade into the rear gardens, avoiding the Royal Guard patrols. I needed space. I needed solitude.

  I headed toward the royal family’s private training field, an area surrounded by high stone walls and shielded by thick trees that would hide any fsh of light. Reaching the center of the fine-sand arena, I stopped. The night air was cool, but to me it felt warm.

  "All right, Lotte… or Edward… or whoever I am right now," I whispered to myself, closing my eyes. "Let’s see what Tiara left inside me."

  I inhaled deeply, searching for that link to magic. Before, to summon ice, I had needed to concentrate, to visualize the molecur structure of cold, to channel mana from my core into my limbs and project it with conscious mental effort. It was like opening a heavy faucet.

  This time, I only thought it.

  There were no chants. No abrupt gestures. Just the pure will for the ground in front of me to freeze.

  In a blink, a dry thundercp ripped through the arena. It was not a thin yer of frost; it was an explosion of crystalline ice spears that burst from the ground, rising three meters into the air, so sharp they cut the moonlight. They were a blue so deep they looked like solid sapphires.

  I stared at the structure. My lungs were not burning. My core did not feel empty. On the contrary, it felt as though the energy I had just used was barely a drop in the ocean I sensed within.

  "At will… literally," I murmured, extending a hand toward one of the spears.

  When I touched it, I felt an immediate connection. The ice was not something I "created" and cast into the world; it was an extension of my own being. With a single thought, I made the three-meter spear disintegrate into fine snow dust that floated zily in the air before vanishing.

  I decided to try something more complex. I closed my eyes and visualized an area fifty meters around me. I did not want to attack; I wanted dominion.

  "Freeze."

  The effect was instant and terrifying. There was no progression, no trail of frost spreading outward. In a millisecond, every grain of sand, every bde of grass, even the leaves of the nearby trees were petrified in a yer of absolute ice. The air itself seemed to crystallize, forming tiny fkes that fell in a sepulchral silence. The world around me had stopped. Pure stasis.

  I felt a surge of power so immense that my hands began to tremble, not from weakness, but from overload. I remembered Tiara’s words in the dream, her voice echoing in the corners of my memory with a warning that now took on a physical meaning.

  "Your current body can only release a fraction at a time to avoid disintegrating… You have the seed, but your human form is the limit."

  I clenched my teeth and forced the ice to retreat. The effort of containing the power was far greater than releasing it. I felt a sharp sting of pain in my forearms, a sign that my mana channels were burning. Tiara had not been exaggerating. The blessing she gave me was the power of a pnet, a force meant to shape continents and halt tides, crammed by force into the body of a sixteen-year-old girl.

  "It’s like trying to fit a volcano inside a gss bottle," I said, breathing hard as the field returned to normal. "If I try to release everything I feel right now… I’ll simply explode. There will be nothing left of Liselotte, nor of Edward. Just a burst of white energy."

  I sat down on the cold ground, hugging my knees. The magnitude of the task ahead was overwhelming. Gaia and Liliath, the false goddesses, pyed with this world as if it were a chessboard, and Tiara had turned me into the piece capable of flipping the table. But having the ultimate weapon meant nothing if the wielder destroyed herself using it.

  "Physical training," I concluded, looking at my hands. "It’s not just about magic. I need this body to be a worthy vessel. I need stronger muscles, nerves that can withstand the pressure, endurance that challenges human limits. If I want to protect Leah from what’s coming, if I want to awaken Lyre… I cannot afford to be fragile."

  I stood up, feeling a new determination take hold. The dream with Tiara had been the catalyst that broke the seals on my potential, but the rest depended on me. This world’s magic system was based on study and technique, but what I had now was something primordial. It was a legacy from my former world, a gift from Earth to its exiled child.

  I began to run around the arena. I did not use magic to enhance my steps; I wanted to feel real exhaustion, the limits of my lungs. I ran until sweat soaked my clothes, until my legs burned and my heart hammered against my ribs. Each time I felt I was about to stop, I visualized the rift in the quarry, the hateful face of Priest Sis, and Tiara’s smile.

  "One more step," I forced myself to say. "For Leah. For Lyre. For Earth."

  Hours passed. I practiced combat movements, combining physical attacks with minimal bursts of ice to improve my coordination. I discovered I could create ice daggers as dense as steel in fractions of a second and dissolve them before they touched the ground. I could alter the air temperature around me to create shields of thermal pressure. The potential was infinite, but the restriction was always the same: my own body sent warning signals every time I tried to draw more energy from that inner ocean.

  When the first light of dawn began to tint the sky a grayish hue, I stopped, exhausted but satisfied. My clothes were soaked and my hands scraped raw, but the pressure in my chest felt a little more banced. I had begun to widen the "gss bottle."

  "Training at this hour, Lotte?"

  I jolted violently, instinctively summoning an ice stake that stopped millimeters from the newcomer’s throat.

  Ronan stood there at the entrance to the arena, wearing his usual guildmaster’s cloak and an expression that mixed awe with deep mencholy. He had not flinched at the threat of my ice.

  "Ronan… I’m sorry," I said, making the stake vanish at once. "I didn’t hear you arrive."

  "Your senses are sharp, but you were too focused on yourself," he replied, stepping closer and observing the remnants of frost still decorating the ground. "I’ve seen many mages in my life, Lotte. I’ve seen archmages of the Royal Tower perform astonishing feats. But what you just did… that ease in manifesting the element without a single word… that’s not something learned from books."

  I remained silent, unsure how much he had seen.

  "You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to," Ronan continued, stopping beside me. "I know that since you woke up in that quarry, something has changed in you. Your presence is… different. Heavier. As if you’re carrying something far greater than this castle."

  "I just want to be strong enough, Ronan," I replied, looking toward the mountains. "Strong enough for what’s coming. The Church, the rifts… I feel like time is running out."

  Ronan nodded, pcing a heavy hand on my shoulder. "An adventurer’s instincts rarely fail. If you feel the world accelerating, it probably is. But remember, Lotte, even the hardest ice shatters if it has no flexibility. Don’t destroy yourself in your pursuit of power."

  "I won’t," I promised. "I have too many reasons to stay standing."

  "I know. Leah is one of them," he smiled. "Go back inside before the princess wakes up and sends the entire guard looking for you. And Lotte… if you ever need an opponent who won’t break easily for your training, you know where to find me."

  "Thank you, Ronan."

  I returned to my room as the sun peeked over the horizon. As I climbed back up the wall, I felt that the Liselotte who had entered the castle after the ceremony was a different person from the one now returning. I was no longer just a protector. I was a warrior with the blessing of a pnet and the mission to overthrow goddesses.

  I y down just before Chloé knocked on my door. I closed my eyes, feeling the ocean of energy within me, now a little calmer.

  "Prepare yourself, Lyre," I thought before falling asleep. "Because your true spirit is about to awaken, and I will be the one to clear the path."