Ranvir found himself being closely examined by Master Vigo. The teacher circled him like a watchful bird over a not-quite-dead animal, his eyes and senses locked on the student.

“Master?” Ranvir asked tentatively turning to look at the circling man.

“I can’t tell…”

Ranvir stifled a smile, “Tell what, sir?”

“Don’t play coy with me, Ranvir.” Vigo stopped to look him dead in the eye, “Ayvir ratted you out. I know you’ve advanced.”

“Oh…”

“But I can’t fucking tell,” the master grumbled. “There’s something, but even on close examination it’s difficult…” he straightened to look Ranvir in the eye. Behind Master Vigo the rest of the was class split into sparring arenas, except for Esmund, Sansir, and Grevor. They stood off to the side while Ranvir was being examined, surprisingly, Dovar was with them as well, usually he was in a different class. “You’re going to be doing something interesting today,” Master Vigo proclaimed waving for the others to join them.

Curiously, Ranvir noted the four fifth-years that followed behind, alongside Master Stjarna.

“What’s going on?” Grev asked worriedly, his eyes lingered especially long on the healers following behind them.

“Something interesting,” Vigo said leading them to a huge arena. It was square unlike the normal round ones and about five times as big. The limits were delineated by long lines of unnatural obsidian stretching up to knee-height. “Today, you’re going to be fighting each other,” he turned to his students, and Dovar, “All at once.”

The group exchanged glances with each other before Esmund spoke up, “That doesn’t sound safe.”

Vigo snorted, “It’s not. That’s why they’re here,” he nodded to Master Stjarna and his students, “But it’s going to be valuable lesson. It’s going to be chaotic, terrifying, and very much like real war. Get in.”

Reluctantly, except for Grev who was worryingly enthusiastic, the group stepped over the obsidian border and into the arena. It was packed ice, ridged in an odd way Ranvir had never seen before. It was obviously not something that happened under normal conditions, but his boots didn’t slip on the surface. In fact, he felt as balanced as he ever did.

As he walked over to one of the corners, he realized he wouldn’t be able to keep the entire arena within his field over view without literally standing on the railing and leaning back. Shit, this is going to be hard.

He only vaguely remembered his fight yesterday. Once he’d advanced his memory seemed to get slippery, though, he was certain that he’d accidentally attuned to pocket-spaces while advancing, simply by holding the pocket-space as he advanced. He’d been pretty out of it and hadn’t even realized he’d done anything at first. It was only when he started calming down that he realized all that had happened. When he was laying in his bed tossing and turning that he realized he was now a Veil, like Sansir and Grev.

Ranvir entered tether-space. He’d done quite a few times since that morning, he’d done it nearly a hundred times during tether class alone. The space looked no different. It was still this weird space hovering in the middle of emptiness, surrounded by an obscuring fog. The tether, mainly composed of three parts, still spun lazily through the center forming a loop. But the scale was entirely different.

If Ranvir conjured a hand to grasp the tether now, he would find it much smaller than before. Instead of massively out-sizing the tether, each finger would only be slightly thicker around than each of the strings. His tether had turned into a rope proper, no longer the thread it had once resembled.

He quietened for a moment, sensing for the disturbance.

What had once rocked the entire space, making him feel unbalanced now barely caused a stutter. If Ranvir wasn’t specifically looking for its impact, he wouldn’t have found it. Part of him wondered if the flaw had come from how close he was to advancing, though a greater part of him dismissed the idea outright.

The flaw came from something else, something fundamental, that had been covered up but not quieted by his advancement. He suspected if he advanced again the flaw would be too choked for him to sense.

Ranvir heard Master Vigo yelling through the haze of tether-space and embraced the pressure. Tension came rushing in as Ranvir became aware of his surroundings. His Veil lay swept around him, like a child wrapping his dad’s over-sized coat about him. Instinctively, Ranvir spread it out, letting it blossom to its full size. He knew it spanned 4.67 meters. That meant it was a bit smaller than Sansir’s Veil when he’d first advanced, but on par with Grev’s, though they’d had to measure their distances.

“Four,” Master Vigo called out bringing Ranvir’s attention back to what was happening. “Three,” the arena was big enough that he couldn’t reach any of his friends with his Veil, even fully extended. Likely, Es was the only one with any sort of reach at all, “Two,” Ranvir hefted his hammer as he scanned his friends. Who would make the first move, he’s gaze halted briefly before nodding in acknowledgment. “One,” there was only one real answer, “Go!”

Ranvir spun closing his eyes as ten seconds worth of saved and hidden light exploded across the arena, blinding everyone but him and Grev. Curses filled the air as Ranvir turned around, immediately ducking an ice ball that came within a hair’s breadth of knocking him out.

Apparently, seeing wasn’t a requisite for throwing around power. I should’ve seen that coming, Ranvir cursed himself, I’m not the only one that can predict Grev’s behavior.

He ran towards Sansir, but barely made it two steps before he had to deflect another ice ball, a beam of light and caught Es’ poorly thrown spear from out of the air, this is going to be a shit-show.

Ranvir continued his approach on Sansir, but before he reached him Dovar appeared. Smoke rose him body in thin tendrils, streaming from his collar and sleeves especially. They only got entangled briefly, the smoke tethered trying to push Sansir out of the arena before he dipped out.

Ranvir tried to keep track of him, but Dovar was soon lost in the chaos. Something about him obscured Ranvir’s senses making him impossible to track. Instead, Ranvir turned his attention back to Sansir only to find the tall ice tethered rushing him. Ranvir threw his spear moments before another light flashed across the arena.

Ranvir heard curses from multiple fronts as more than one person fell over. For a moment he noted a fifth person clearly to his senses, Dovar showing up clearly for a second before vanishing again.

Ranvir engaged Sansir while they were both blinded. He tracked his target through the slight limp as Sansir’s leg that had been hit by the spear touched the ice oddly. Unfortunately, the chaos of the battlefield had grown to the point that Sansir’d had his back to Grev during his last outburst.

While Ranvir was mostly able to track him through his extended senses, it was clear to him that Sansir could still mostly see. They exchanged a few blows, mostly missing, while Ranvir blinked away the stars that filled his vision.

He recovered just in time to see Dovar’s shadowy form appear again, engaging Sansir one more time. Instead of trying to butt in, Ranvir turned his attention to the person approaching him.

So he got another handful of light thrown in his face.

“Shit!” Ranvir cursed, throwing up a barrier of hardened space at ankle height. He was rewarded with Grev running full tilt into it. The light tethered fell on his face, Ranvir imagined his blond hair bouncing as he collided with the ground, though I can't fucking see it!

Ranvir engaged, though he had to dodge a blast of something. It came from far enough away that he could only assume it was Es’ warp, and it gave Grev enough time to get to his feet.

Ranvir prematurely struck out with his left hand, noting how Grev didn’t try to dodge. Blinking and backing away, he tried to make himself seem more blind than he was. Grev strode forwards confidently, so Ranvir swung with a backhand. Shrinking the space between his hand and Grev’s face was a little difficult but his awareness within Veil was up for it.

Ranvir’s knuckles split as he hit the blond student across the face, hitting teeth. Ranvir then swung down hammering his quad muscle with the hammer, causing the leg to seize up.

Grev howled in pain as someone appeared next to him. The smoky form lifted the light tethered and threw him from the arena before Ranvir could even react. Ranvir stretched the space between himself and Dovar, causing his opponent’s grab to just barely miss.

Warp flew between them followed by enough ice to bury a city. Ranvir only barely managed to hunker down against a wall of hardened space before the ice threw him from the arena.

When he looked up, his vision finally fully recovered, Dovar was nowhere in sight again. Instead, he saw Sansir once more coming towards him. This time, however, Sansir wasn’t as easy a read as he’d been earlier. Most of Ranvir’s tether-sense collided with Sansir’s presence, fully invested in his Veil.

He could still read him somewhat, though nowhere near as well as before.

Ranvir, in an attempt to overcome this loss, attuned to the beat of the world, his already sharp senses gaining a razer’s edge. Sansir slowed, readying his axe for a blow, though more importantly, the fingers on the handle were twitching. His grip wasn’t strong enough to maintain a contest hold.

Ranvir pinched off as much snow as he could from around him, however, this was Sansir’s generated material and his will was directly opposed. But it slowed both down enough that they met each other in melee.

A shade entered the fight, already grabbing Sansir’s wrist. It twisted and hauled throwing the ice tethered fast.

Ranvir backed off, but the shadow was on him in a moment. Ranvir fought him off with space, shrinking, stretching, even opening the remains of the snow he’d taken from Sansir on the shadow’s head. He kept away for nearly a minute, before Dovar caught him.

Then, he too was flying through the air. He landing was cushioned by the mostly fresh snow fall from the day, so he only mildly lost his breath. He looked up to find Dovar standing victorious in the arena, all the others already thrown out.

He didn’t even use a weapon… Ranvir realized with a sigh.

“Esmund, Sansir, and Ranvir?” a new voice asked. Ranvir turned to find an administrator approaching the arena. “It’s you? Good, good. There are some people from Rime’s Shadow here to see you.”

What? Ranvir’s thought was echoed by a groggy Esmund who was slowly sitting up.

“Rime’s Shadow… Ahh, there’s uhh, a Master Tore, Gunnor, Frey—“

Mom and Dad? Ranvir’s mind stuttered to a halt as the administrator named both of Esmund’s parents and all of his sisters, followed by someone Ranvir didn’t know.