Ranvir was late for his meeting with his friends in the free study period before Tether. There was, however, a good reason for it though. He’d gone to get Kirs.

A slow clap ensued the moment the three boys noticed him, and he quickly picked up the pace to close the distance. Looking over his shoulder to make sure no one else was looking at them.

There was other activity in the surrounding fields, sounds of struggle rung out in the distance as students fought dummies with all their might. Most of them were second year, or higher, judging from the displays of power, which made sense since the first years didn’t have a class.

“Did you want to show us a girl?” Grev asked. He was standing next to Sansir, making him look unusually short. “I’m not sure how this helps our training.” He nudged the taller, gangly youth in the side. “Maybe this was a mistake after all?”

Ranvir sent a long look in Grev’s direction, then shook his head. “I had to get Kirs because she’s going to be important for our training.”

“How?” Sansir asked.

“What kind of training?” Esmund jumped in before Ranvir could even attempt to answer Sansir.

“We’ll get to that.” Ranvir raised a hand to stave off Esmund. He shared a glance with Kirs as he got ready to explain how she was going to be assisting them, like she’d been helping him.

Of course, it wasn’t as benevolent a partnership as it might seem at first glance. She would still gain a lot of useful knowledge for her own research moving forwards. Not to mention that she would likely write her own book on most of the knowledge they’d gained together. More subjects were only a good thing for her.

Ranvir quickly explained their current project, and how she would handle the data they would accumulate similarly. At first Kirs seemed a little overwhelmed meeting three new tethered who each held varying degrees of eagerness for the upcoming training.

“We’ll start with the simple stuff.” Ranvir began. “We’ll measure the biggest and then the smallest effect you can make. After that, she’ll ask some questions about what your tether looks like. We’ll move on from there to actual exercises, agreed?”

Sansir nodded, already moving to sit down for his tests.

Esmund let out an enthusiastic, if confused, whoop but also sat down.

Grev rolled his eyes and remained standing.

“We’ll start with you, then.” Kirs said. Ranvir noticed how she squared her shoulders and steeled herself before approaching Grevor. “Smallest first.” She said.

“Are you sure about this Ranvir?” Grev asked, looking sidelong at Kirs.

“Don’t listen to him.” Kirs said, some anger slipping into her voice. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he needed help to find his shoes in the morning. That’s what comes after night and before midday, if you were confused.”

Grev looked at her for a long moment, then stretched his hand out. His brows furrowed in concentration and a line of light appeared on his hand, barely about the length of two finger joints. It wasn’t bright enough to blind—not even when Ranvir looked straight at it—and it looked absolutely strange to see a light simply hanging in the air, just bright enough to discern, but blatantly coming from nowhere.

Despite himself having been around tethered every day for nearly three months, a small flicker of awe matching the golden light grew in Ranvir’s chest. Grev growled in frustration after a little more than a minute by Ranvir’s count, and the light disappeared.

“Do you mind if they know the results?”

Grev shook his head. “That’s fine.”

She nodded. “1 minute and 20 seconds, 4,7 cm.”

“Is that good?” Grev asked, sounding slightly annoyed with himself. Kirs shrugged in reply. Ranvir did his best to keep his face neutral. He didn’t know how much training Grev had done for control, but it seemed like a decent result. Not that he had a lot of information to go on.

Kirs finished her notation. “You biggest effort. We’ve found that going up the forearm gives the most regular result, since you can remain as close to you skin as possible. We measure by length not by area, unfortunately.”

Grev nodded. This time, his entire face knitted into a frown. A line of light bloomed on Grev’s wrist, growing rapidly until up the forearm until it reached his max capacity. It wasn’t a lot brighter than his previous effort, but the size was definitely bigger.

Ranvir didn’t bother counting this time, expecting Grev’s results to be within thirty seconds with a bit of variety.

“12,1 centimeters for 39 seconds.”

Ranvir frowned, but bit back a comment. Maybe light was just different. The limit could be determined by the type of tethered. Maybe generators and manipulators had different results. Then again, they were both manipulators.

“Is that good?” Kirs turned to look at Ranvir. He knew what she wanted to know. A bead of cold blue hesitation rose into his throat. Should they tell them? That wouldn’t be so smart. Grev was already outperforming him. But this was his training. How could he stand by this training if he wouldn’t stand by his results?

Something to be proud of. Even if it’s a small thing. Ranvir bit his lip and nodded to her.

“Ranvir’s last recorded measurements were 4,6 cm for 1 minute 30 seconds and 10 centimeters for 30 seconds. Your largest manipulation is better than Ranvir’s, but he has more control over his smallest.”

Grev frowned, shooting a glance at Ranvir. He couldn’t read that look, he just had to hope his light wielding friend wasn’t upset about it.

“How did you know I was a manipulator?” Grev asked. “Does this test tell you?”

“No, Ranvir did.” Kirs let a little smirk onto her face. He hadn’t noticed, but some of the tension had dropped from her shoulders during the test and she seemed more relaxed. “Now, it’s your turn.”

Esmund was halfway to his feet before she finished speaking, and he realized she was talking to Sansir. He let out a long breath and sat back down.

Ranvir stifled a chuckle. “You’ll get your turn.” He’d told Kirs to keep Esmund for last, partly because he wanted his friend to at least attempt to learn some patience. But also because he feared Es might demoralize the others into not trying their best. He didn’t know what their results would look like, after all. He just had a vague idea that they were pretty talented, but Esmund could’ve been the best of any other year.

They ran into an unusual problem when Sansir generated his smallest effort. It was a tiny piece of ice that happily sat on his hand, vapors drifting off it in the summer heat.

“How long will that last?” Kirs asked, looking up from the timekeeper.

“A couple minutes.”

Kirs cocked her head. “Are you sustaining it?”

“No, I don’t have to.” Sansir replied. “I’m not a manipulator… But the test isn’t for manipulation.” Pausing for a moment, he turned his hand, letting the tiny ice shard drop into the grass. “This should work, though it’s not great.”

Then his brow knitted together in true concentration. Tiny wisps of mist started rising from his hand, which hid what Sansir was doing from Ranvir and Esmund. Occasionally, Ranvir caught glimpses of something not quite snow falling to the ground and evaporating.

Esmund leaned back and forth, trying to look around Sansir’s hand and see what he was doing. In his efforts, he was letting out tiny whines of complaint. Ranvir hushed him quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder out of habit. Esmund stilled, somewhat calming down at the familiar action. Though he still let out an occasional sound of annoyance.

Kirs was frowning too, when Sansir stopped his efforts. “4,8 cm for 1 minute and 15 seconds. Now for your largest creation.”

Sansir took in a deep breath, then turned his arm once more, causing Esmund to let out a whine of complaint. The tall ice generator shot a look at the two of them out of the corner of his eye. Then he pointed to the back of his arm. “Over here.”

She shot him a long look before her eyes flickered to Esmund. Rolling her eyes, she walking around his arm. Sansir let out a quiet grunt and rime manifested in line along the hairs of his forearm. He didn’t ramp up to the biggest he could make, instead he started at full size and maintained it. Vapor blossomed from the line of frost, the steam falling away in the breeze. Even if it didn’t look like Sansir was doing much, his face made it clear he was putting in effort.

“What’s he doing?” Esmund asked, looking up at Ranvir, who still had a hand on his shoulder.

Ranvir lowered his brows in thought, a free hand coming up to touch his chin with the back of a finger. “Maybe he’s generating cold and not ice. Like the line is essentially doing double duty as a measuring point, and it’s where water froze onto them.”

Esmund nodded along.

The tiny shards of ice on Sansir’s arm turned to water and he let his arm drop, shaking it out and he letting out a groan.

“12,2 for 30 seconds.” Kirs noted, frowning as she towards Grev. “We might have to make you go again after Esmund, depending on his time.”

“Why?” Grev asked, skeptically.

Kirs took a deep breath, then spoke slowly, dragging the words out as if to a child. “Because Ranvir’s—and now Sansir’s—max were both 30 seconds. The change in time for you might just be a light thing, but it could be something else.”

Grev rubbed a hand over his face before pinching the bridge of his nose and letting out a long breath. “Fine, I’ll try again.”

“You wanna go now?” She asked, turning to him fully. He nodded, stretching his arms to the side.

“Come on!” Esmund complained, jumping to his feet. Kirs turned to look, not at him, but at Ranvir, her eyes questioning.

Instead of replying, he turned to his short friend. “Can you even make a stable warp manifestation?”

Es turned a mostly playful glare at him. “Of course I can.” He waved away Ranvir’s question, like he’d been stupid for asking. “Probably. It wouldn’t even be that hard, I think.”

“One that she can measure?” Ranvir asked, noticing Kirs turning back to Grev as they talked. They were interrupted before Esmund could reply to Ranvir’s question.

This time, when Grevor conjured the line of light above his arm, it wasn’t dull and faded. A luminous slash of white-gold light stung their eyes. Kirs winced as she stretched out the measuring stick. A ruler, he corrected himself mentally. Her eyes narrowed into slits to look through the painfully bright light. Mentally Ranvir started counting, realizing she might need the support on this one.

From the corner of his eye, Ranvir saw Esmund’s wide-eyed stare at the brilliant light, his eyes visibly watering.

On his twenty-seven count, Grev failed the effort, and the light died.

“I got thirty seconds.” Kirs looked at Ranvir for his number. Clearly she wasn’t confident she hadn’t been distracted.

“Twenty-seven, but I started late.” Ranvir replied.

“12,4 centimeters for 30 seconds. Notably more bright, too.”

“My turn! My turn!” Esmund jumped from foot to foot, his voice loud with excitement.

“Alright then.” Kirs said with a slight smile. Once she had reorganized her notes, she walked over to Es. “Show me what you got, smallest first.”

Esmund cracked his neck back and forth, rubbing his hands together. An atmosphere of of calm settled over him. It had a similar effect to waking up on a winter morning and realizing the first snow had fallen and all you could see for miles in every direction was pure, undriven snow. Ranvir felt bubbles of yellow and blue joy rise.

Ranvir was already embracing the pressure, though he had gotten no images from his friends’ previous exertions, and yet now he felt a flash of a hill made of knives, razors, swords, and sharp edges. It all seemed to move in an uninterruptible storm of slashes, stabs, and slices.

Unconsciously, he took a step back from his friend. Es held out a hand on it, formed a slash of generated warp. The other times Ranvir had seen Esmund use his ability, warp had been moving too quickly to be easily visible. He didn’t even realize it had a color until he saw it waiting eagerly on the palm of his friend’s hand.

Though color wasn’t quite the right description. It seemed to be a cut of many colors, all rolling across one another, constantly changing.

It filled Ranvir with a shivering and ragged pale gray trepidation over a healthy core of a deep dark fear.