Steven’s POV
I had wanted today to be better.
That was the first thing I thought as I stood in the middle of the field with smoke curling around my shoes and heat still trembling through my hands.
Not anything deep.
Not anything brave.
Just that.
I had wanted today to be better.
Yesterday, I had said it to Aqua like it was something solid. Like the words could stand between me and the truth long enough for the morning to change its mind.
Tomorrow might be better.
I had wanted to believe that.
I had needed to believe that.
And for a while, when I first reached the field, I almost did.
The morning had started clean.
Cool air.
Damp grass.
Fresh targets.
A quiet field waiting for me like it had no memory of how many times I had already failed inside it.
I told myself that was good.
A reset.
A chance.
One more day to prove I was not just burning myself out.
One more day to make the work mean something.
So I started carefully.
No wild blasts.
No revenge sitting in my hands.
No anger pretending to be discipline.
Breath first.
Core second.
Fire last.
I tried to do it right.
I really did.
I stood in the center of the clearing, lowered my shoulders, and breathed until the tightness in my chest loosened enough for the core to answer without me grabbing for it.
The Beast Core pulsed beneath my ribs.
Hot.
Restless.
Mine.
At least, it was supposed to be.
I pulled slowly.
Heat rose through my chest, then shoulder, then arm, then wrist, then palm. A flame opened above my skin, small and bright, controlled enough that I should have felt proud of it.
I compressed it.
Held it.
Released.
The first strike hit the target cleanly.
Centered.
Steady.
A good hit.
The kind that should have meant I was learning.
I lowered my hand and waited for the warmth to come back.
That was the part I had started to hate.
The waiting.
The quiet after the fire left me.
The place where growth should have returned.
For one second, it did.
A faint warmth brushed the inside of my chest and moved toward the Beast Core like it knew where to go.
My breath caught.
There.
Then it thinned.
Slipped.
Vanished before it could settle.
I stood very still.
My hand stayed half-raised in front of me.
The smoke from the target curled upward in a thin black line.
“No,” I whispered.
Not again.
My fingers twitched toward the necklace beneath my shirt.
For one weak second, I wanted to blame it.
The metal.
The chain.
The strange thing I could not remove.
It would have been easier.
Cleaner.
Something outside of me. Something foreign. Something I could point to and say, There. That’s why I’m failing.
But my hand stopped before it touched the pendant.
No.
That was too easy.
The problem did not feel like it was sitting on my chest.
It felt lower.
Deeper.
Under my ribs.
In the place that was supposed to make me Salvatore and somehow still did not know how to hold what I gave it.
My Beast Core pulsed once.
Hot.
Hollow.
Wrong.
My throat tightened.
Maybe that was the truth I had been avoiding.
Maybe the core was the problem.
Maybe I was the problem.
I had lived eighteen years as human. Eighteen years without training, without cultivation, without anyone teaching my body what it was supposed to become. Other people from the Four Families probably grew up with this. They probably learned before their power had to be dragged awake by grief, fire, and a necklace I still barely understood.
Maybe their cores grew with them.
Maybe mine had been forced open too late.
Maybe it had awakened crooked.
The thought made something cold move through my stomach.
I reset before it could swallow me.
Breath.
Core.
Heat.
Hands.
Release.
The second strike landed clean too.
Wait.
Almost.
Nothing.
Again.
Third strike.
Fourth.
Fifth.
Each one controlled.
Each one better than it would have been days ago.
Each one useless in the same exact way.
By the tenth release, sweat had started sliding down the back of my neck.
By the fifteenth, my wrist ached.
By the twentieth, the target looked like it had been marked by someone who knew exactly what he was doing.
That should have made me feel good.
Instead, I stared at the burns and felt something inside me begin to sink.
I was getting better at fire.
That was the problem.
Not worse.
Better.
My aim had sharpened. My control had improved. I could make the flame smaller, cleaner, brighter. I could hit the same spot again and again if I wanted to.
I could do damage beautifully now.
But none of it became what I actually needed.
The warmth never stayed.
The growth never settled.
The core never deepened.
The fire obeyed my hand and ignored the broken place under my ribs.
A bitter laugh slipped out of me.
It sounded strange in the empty field.
I shook out my arm and changed the drill.
No release this time.
Holding.
Maybe I was letting the power leave too fast. Maybe the problem was that I was treating fire like something to throw instead of something to cycle. Maybe growth needed me to keep the heat close long enough for my body to understand it.
That sounded reasonable.
I liked reasonable.
Reasonable meant I still had something to try.
So I opened a flame in my palm and held it there.
Small.
Steady.
Bright.
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My fingers trembled slightly from the heat, but I kept my hand still.
I sank my awareness deeper, past the flame itself and into the thin connection between the fire and the Beast Core.
Not outward.
Inward.
I breathed through it.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
For a few seconds, the world narrowed to three things.
My hand.
The flame.
The pulse beneath my ribs.
Then I felt it.
A faint current moving back toward the core.
Not much.
Barely anything.
But real.
My chest opened around it so suddenly it hurt.
“Yes,” I breathed.
The current reached for the Beast Core.
The core answered.
Then something inside me failed to hold it.
The current scattered.
The depth vanished.
The flame lurched too high, flaring wild and bright above my palm.
I cursed and closed my fist, crushing it out before it could spread.
Smoke slipped between my fingers.
For a moment, I could not move.
That was not nothing.
That was not me being impatient.
Something had started.
Something had almost worked.
And then my own core had let it go.
My hand pressed against the center of my chest.
“What is wrong with you?” I whispered.
The words came out before I could stop them.
Then I realized I was not sure whether I was talking to the Beast Core.
Or myself.
My breathing turned shallow.
I stared down at my hand, then at the smoke-stained grass, then toward the targets waiting across the field.
For one second, I thought about leaving.
Walking straight home.
Telling Aqua everything.
Telling Fang.
Saying the thing I had been circling around for days.
Something is wrong with me.
But the field stood around me.
The targets waited.
And some stubborn, stupid part of me still whispered that maybe I could prove it first.
Maybe I could fix it first.
Maybe I could find the exact answer before anyone had to see how badly I needed one.
So I stayed.
I trained harder.
Not smarter.
Harder.
I moved through every drill I knew.
Release.
Hold.
Compression.
Movement.
Turn.
Aim.
Wait.
Almost.
Nothing.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The sun climbed higher.
The coolness burned out of the air.
My shirt soaked through.
My arms grew heavy.
The targets blurred at the edges if I stared at them too long.
I drank water.
Then trained again.
Because stopping meant thinking.
And thinking meant admitting.
So I did not stop.
Not until my body finally made the decision for me.
The last sequence broke halfway through.
My stance slipped.
The flame in my palm flared too wide.
I tried to compress it anyway, but my focus cracked, and the fire burst outward in a jagged blast that slammed into the nearest target and split it down the center.
The sound tore through the clearing.
The ward shimmered at the far edge.
Smoke rolled over the grass.
I stumbled back one step.
Then another.
My knees almost gave.
I caught myself with one hand braced against my thigh, breathing hard enough that it hurt.
Too loud.
Too rough.
Too honest.
The target burned in front of me.
The air smelled like smoke and scorched wood.
My core pulsed beneath my ribs.
Same as before.
No deeper.
No fuller.
No closer.
Something inside me went very quiet.
Not peaceful.
Finished.
I lifted my head slowly and looked at the ruined target.
All that effort.
All that control.
All that anger.
All that fire.
And none of it stayed.
The truth finally stopped circling me and stood directly in front of me.
I could burn more.
I could aim better.
I could hit harder.
I could hold a flame longer than I used to.
But I was not growing.
Not the way I needed to.
Not the way I should have been.
And if my Beast Core had awakened wrong, if it had spent too many years buried under a human life it was never meant to live, I had no idea how to fix that.
I did not even know how to prove it.
A laugh slipped out of me.
Small.
Empty.
Almost worse than crying.
“What am I doing?”
The question fell into the smoke.
No one answered.
I slowly straightened, every muscle protesting.
A small tremor moved through my fingers before I could hide it.
That tiny weakness felt worse than the ruined field.
Because it made everything obvious.
I had spent days turning grief into fuel and calling it discipline.
I had pushed too hard, ignored too much, shut out the people trying to help me, and all I had to show for it was more fire, less peace, and a body that was beginning not to trust me anymore.
A sad excuse for training.
That was what this had become.
Not because I had done nothing.
That would have been easier.
Because I had done too much of the wrong thing and kept expecting the right kind of result anyway.
I walked to the bench and sat down harder than I meant to, forearms braced on my thighs, head lowered.
The field hummed quietly around me.
No Fang.
No Aqua.
Just me and the ugly honesty of my own thoughts.
The weakness under my ribs had not gone away.
It felt loose and wrong there, like something had half-shifted and then gotten stuck.
Maybe if I had been calmer, I would have taken it as a sign.
A threshold.
Some change getting ready to happen.
But out here, after days of anger and force and trying to bully myself into becoming something I was not ready to be, all it felt like was warning.
I dragged one hand over my face and sat there longer than I meant to.
And for the first time since all of this started, I let myself stop dressing it up.
I did not need one more drill.
I did not need one more target.
I did not need another round of pretending tomorrow was going to fix what yesterday had already shown me.
I needed real help.
Structure.
Guidance.
Someone who knew enough to tell me whether my Beast Core was damaged, delayed, blocked, or just being forced in the wrong direction.
Someone who could look at what was happening without carrying all the fear I had wrapped around it.
That thought sat in me for a while.
Heavy.
Humiliating.
True.
I did not want to need that.
I hated needing that.
But hating it was not changing anything.
I looked toward the tree line at last.
Toward the house hidden beyond it.
Toward Aqua.
Toward Fang.
Toward the two people I had been worrying and wearing down while telling myself I was doing all of this for the right reasons.
The guilt of that landed differently than the rest.
Softer.
Deeper.
Because it was not just me burning myself out anymore.
Aqua had been carrying the worry every day.
Fang had been forced to stand back and watch me become harder and more reckless than I should have.
And maybe the ugliest part was that I had known they were worried and kept going anyway.
I sat there one second longer.
Then I pushed myself to my feet and went back to the house.
---
By the time I stepped through the back door, the quiet inside hit me almost as hard as the field had.
The house smelled warm.
Tea and something buttery from the kitchen.
Ordinary.
Safe.
The kind of ordinary I had stopped knowing how to sit inside without resenting a little.
Aqua looked up at once.
I did not know exactly what she saw on my face, but it was enough.
She did not rush me.
She did not start asking questions before I could breathe.
She only watched me for one second too long with that soft, careful worry she wore when she was trying not to press too hard.
That nearly broke the rest of me.
I crossed the living room and dropped onto the couch, head falling back against the cushion, one arm thrown over my eyes.
It did not hide anything.
My body still felt overused.
My core still felt wrong.
And now, with the field finally behind me, I could not even pretend I did not know why.
Aqua came in a moment later.
I heard her set something down on the coffee table.
Tea, probably.
Then the couch dipped slightly beside me.
Not right against me.
Just near enough to be there.
For a little while, neither of us said anything.
Then she asked softly, “Was it worse today?”
I let out a breath through my nose.
Worse.
Better.
Same.
None of those words felt right.
“No,” I said finally. “Just frustrating.”
Aqua did not answer right away.
That was the problem with her sometimes. She knew how to leave silence open until the truth started making noise inside it.
I rubbed both hands over my face.
“It’s not a big thing.”
The lie came out tired enough that even I did not believe it.
Across the room, Fang lifted his head.
I pointed at him without looking.
“Don’t.”
He stayed still.
Aqua sat near me, not close enough to corner me, but close enough that I could feel her there.
“Steven,” she said softly, “you came in looking like you could barely stand.”
“I’m standing now.”
“You’re sitting.”
“I got tired of standing.”
Her mouth moved like she almost smiled, but the worry stayed.
That made me feel worse.
I leaned back against the couch and stared at the ceiling.
“I’m not saying everything’s fine,” I muttered. “I’m just saying sitting here talking about how not fine it is doesn’t exactly make me better.”
“No,” Aqua said. “But pretending it is only frustration is not making you better either.”
My jaw tightened.
I hated how soft she sounded when she was right.
I looked away.
For a second, the words sat behind my teeth.
Maybe my core is wrong.
Maybe I’m wrong.
I swallowed them.
No.
I was not saying that.
Not out loud.
Not to her.
Not to anyone.
“It’s just not working,” I said instead.
Aqua went quiet.
That was all I gave her.
It was still more than I wanted to.
Her hand rested on the cushion between us, not touching me.
“What part?”
I laughed once.
No humor in it.
“The important part.”
She did not push.
That somehow made me angrier.
Not at her.
At myself.
At the field.
At the stupid targets.
At the fire that kept obeying just enough to make me look like I should have been proud.
“I can hit harder,” I said. “Aim better. Hold it longer. Whatever. The fire listens when it wants to. That’s not the problem.”
“What is?”
My hand curled against my knee.
“I don’t know.”
That was the safest truth.
Small enough to survive.
Big enough to hurt.
“I just know it’s not turning into what it’s supposed to.”
Aqua’s face softened, and I looked away before that softness could do anything to me.
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, “I think you may need more help than Fang and I can give you.”
There it was.
The thing I had known she would say eventually.
My chest tightened so fast it almost felt like anger.
“I don’t want help.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean it.” I sat forward, elbows on my knees. “I don’t want someone coming here just to take me on like I’m some hopeless case.”
“You are not a hopeless case.”
“You don’t know that.”
The words came out too fast.
Too sharp.
Too honest.
Aqua stilled.
I hated myself immediately.
I dragged a hand through my hair and looked down.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know.”
That made it worse.
I let out a low breath.
“I just don’t want someone looking at me like they already know I’m going to be a waste of their time.”
Aqua’s voice softened.
“Steven, needing guidance is not the same as being hopeless.”
“It feels close enough.”
There.
That was too much truth already.
The room settled around us.
Warm.
Quiet.
Unbearably gentle.
Aqua shifted slightly beside me.
“Then we do not ask for someone to fix you,” she said. “We ask for someone to look at the training. That is all.”
I gave a tired, humorless laugh.
“That sounds like the same thing with nicer words.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But nicer words are all I have if you will not let me use the true ones.”
I looked at her.
“And what are the true ones?”
Her eyes softened in a way that made my chest tighten.
“You are exhausted,” she said. “You are scared. And you are trying to turn pain into progress before it burns through you.”
I looked away first.
Because if I kept looking at her, I might have had to admit she was right.
“So what?” I asked. “We call Fredrick and tell him I’m bad at being what I am?”
“No,” Aqua said. “We call Fredrick and tell him you need training.”
I stared at the floor.
Need.
That word sat wrong in my chest.
But not as wrong as it had before.
Maybe I was too tired to fight it.
Maybe I had already lost the fight in the field and just needed someone else to say it out loud.
I let out one long breath.
“Fine.”
Aqua waited.
I hated that she knew there was more.
“Call him,” I said. “But don’t make it sound pathetic.”
“I won’t.”
The answer came soft and steady.
I believed her.
That almost made it worse.
Before she could rise, I spoke again.
“Aqua.”
She looked back at me immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
The words felt clumsy, but they were real.
“For worrying you,” I said. “For all of this. For making you watch me do that to myself and acting like I was fine.”
Something in her face softened all the way then.
“Oh, Steven.”
She moved before I had to decide whether I wanted her to.
Only close enough to wrap her arms lightly around me.
A small hug.
Gentle.
Careful.
But full of enough relief and worry and affection at once that I felt the truth of it harder than if she had cried.
I let myself lean into it.
Only for a second.
But enough.
“I was worried,” she admitted softly.
“I know.”
Her hand smoothed once between my shoulders before she pulled back.
Then she stood and went to the kitchen counter where Fredrick’s card waited near the small stack of papers she kept too neatly arranged.
I stayed on the couch, elbows on my knees, staring at the floor like I was not listening.
I was listening to every breath.
Fang remained near the edge of the room, quiet enough that his silence felt like another person sitting beside me.
Aqua glanced back once.
I gave the smallest nod I could manage.
She made the call.
“Fredrick,” she said softly, “I hope I am not disturbing you.”
A pause.
“No. Nothing has happened. Not exactly.”
My jaw tightened.
Not exactly.
Great.
Even the truth had to walk carefully around me now.
Aqua continued, voice still gentle, but steadier than mine would have been.
“Steven has been training very hard, but I do not think the way he is training now is helping him stabilize.”
Another pause.
Her eyes moved toward Fang.
“Fang was helping him,” she said carefully. “He still wants to. But Steven has started taking most of it into his own hands.”
I looked up at her.
She met my eyes for half a second.
Sorry, her face seemed to say.
I looked away first.
Wonderful.
Now I was the injured animal everyone had to discuss gently from across the room.
Aqua listened again.
“No, he is not injured,” she said. “Exhausted, yes. But not injured.”
That was generous.
I felt injured in every place that did not show.
Fredrick must have said something else because Aqua’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
“Your son?”
That made me look up.
His son?
Fredrick had mentioned having one before. A son in college. That was about all I knew.
Aqua listened, and something careful moved across her face.
“He is close to Steven’s age?” she asked.
A pause.
Her gaze slid toward me.
I hated how quickly my stomach tightened.
“No,” she said gently. “I do not think it should be a problem, Mr. Worth.”
That was not comforting.
That sounded like someone had just asked whether I would make it a problem.
I leaned back against the couch and stared toward the dark window above the sink.
Fantastic.
Apparently, tomorrow came with an audience.
Aqua listened a moment longer.
“Yes,” she said. “Tomorrow is fine.”
Another pause.
“Thank you, Fredrick. I appreciate it.”
Then she ended the call.
I waited until the card touched the counter.
“His son?” I asked.
Aqua turned back toward me.
“Yes.”
“Great.”
The word came out flat.
Aqua’s expression softened. “Steven—”
“No, that’s perfect,” I said, leaning back against the couch. “Send someone around my age to come look at me like I’m some hopeless case he has to take on.”
“I do not think that is why Fredrick chose him.”
“Then why?”
“Because he believes his son is the best person for the job.”
I looked toward the window again.
My reflection stared back faintly.
Tired.
Smoke-stained.
Not exactly impressive.
“We’ll see,” I muttered.
Aqua came closer, but she did not touch me yet.
“Steven.”
I kept my eyes on the window.
“I said we’ll see.”
For a while, neither of us said anything.
Then Fang shifted near the edge of the room.
I looked toward him at last.
Not long.
Just enough.
Black scales.
Yellow stripes.
Still as a shadow with eyes.
And maybe because I was finally too tired to keep treating every silence like a weapon, I let the truth of that sit there too.
He had worried.
He had tried.
And I had shoved him out because it was easier than letting him be right.
For a second, neither of us moved.
Then I exhaled once.
“Friends?”
The word sounded rougher than I meant it to.
Fang lifted his head.
His gaze stayed on me just long enough to make me feel mildly ridiculous for asking.
As if you needed to ask.
Some of the tightness under my ribs shifted.
Not gone.
Just eased.
I nodded once.
Fair enough.
Aqua came back to the living room then and rested one hand lightly on my shoulder.
That touch, too, was careful.
As if she knew I was only just beginning to come back to where touch could reach me again.
I leaned into it anyway.
Only a little.
But enough.
The truth of everything still hurt.
My mother was still gone.
My father still existed.
Paris still waited somewhere ahead like a wound I had not touched yet.
And now Fredrick’s son was coming tomorrow.
Someone close to my age.
Someone trained.
Someone trusted.
Someone who probably knew exactly what his body was supposed to do and how to make it obey.
I hated that the thought already bothered me.
I hated more that I could not stop thinking about it.
But something had shifted tonight all the same.
Not the grief.
Not the rage.
Only this:
I had finally stopped lying to myself about what came next.
I needed help.
And whether I liked it or not, it was coming tomorrow.