RUST AND AETHER - The Bear Instructor

Morning on the eastern slope of

Morning on the eastern slope of

Ascendant came with a heavy, wet fog that smelled of cold resin and damp slate.By the third bell, four hundred young men and women stood assembled inside the

They all wore identical, freshly issued cadet tunics of dark green wool, tied at the waist with undyed hemp sashes.The hall itself was vast—a cavernous stone pavilion supported by twelve cedar pillars, each as thick as a wagon.

High above, the vaulted timber ceiling lost itself in drifting threads of morning mist that seeped through the clerestory vents.Julian stood near the middle ranks, flanked by

Caleb on his left.

Mercer stood three paces to their right, his bruised face looking slightly yellow under the gray light, keeping a very careful three-foot buffer between himself and

Julian.”Look at them,” Caleb whispered, nudging

Julian with a elbow that felt like a fence post. “Half the noble kids brought private cushions to stand on so their boots don’t touch the damp flagstones.”Julian glanced across the hall.The social geography of

East had drawn its lines within ten minutes of entering the room.

On the far side, near the elevated instructor’s dais, stood a tight cluster of eighty cadets—the well-born heirs from the regional towns.

They stood in crisp, uncreased tunics, their posture straight, their noses pointed slightly toward the rafters.At the center of that group stood

Lyall.Cassian was seventeen, slender, and unnaturally pale, with delicate, almost feminine features framed by long, raven-black hair tied back with a dark silk ribbon.

He didn’t speak to the cadets around him; he simply stood with his hands folded behind his back, his narrow, dark eyes fixed on the empty instructor’s desk with an expression of quiet, cold detachment.”That one in the front,” Vanya’s voice purred softly in

Julian’s mind, her spirit-fire giving a faint, warm twitch near his ribs. “The pale boy with the silk ribbon.

He’s already opened two meridian channels.

Aether feels like stagnant pond water—smooth on the surface, but full of rotting leaves underneath.””A classic secondary-line heir,” Kaelen added smoothly. “Calculated posture, immaculate grooming, completely devoid of genuine martial spirit.

Give me five minutes with a wooden cane and

I could cure his arrogance.”Before

Julian could reply, the heavy double oak doors at the back of the hall didn’t just open—they slammed inward against the stone walls with a deafening

BOOM that shook dust from the cedar rafters.The chatter of four hundred teenagers died instantly.Heavy, deliberate bootsteps echoed across the flagstones.

Thump.A man stepped out of the fog-drenched doorway and strode toward the dais.He didn’t look like an instructor of an eight-pin martial sect.

He looked like a mountain bear that had squeezed itself into an oversized green wool robe, then decided the robe was too tight and ripped the sleeves off at the shoulders.Barnaby “The

Bear” Jakes was easily six-foot-six, with shoulders broad enough to block a double door.

His chest was the size of a beer keg, covered in a coarse, dark brown beard that reached halfway down his belly, tangled with dried salt and bits of pine bark.

Across his bald skull ran a pale, jagged scar that disappeared behind his left ear, and his bare forearms were thick as fence posts, matted with dark hair.He smelled strongly of roasted venison, stale ale, and wet dog.Barnaby didn’t climb the steps to the raised wooden dais.

He walked right past it, swung a heavy oak chair around with one hand, and dropped his massive frame into it with a creak that sounded like a dying tree.He picked up an unpainted wooden mug from the desk, took a long, noisy gulp of sour ale, and wiped his beard with the back of a hairy forearm.Then, he looked at his four hundred cadets.His small, bloodshot eyes swept over the green-robed crowd slowly, lingering for a second on

Lyall’s group, then on

Mercer’s yellowing jaw, and finally resting briefly on

Julian.Barnaby opened his mouth and spat a thick streak of dark tobacco juice right onto the pristine white flagstones in front of his chair.”Trash,” Barnaby barked.His voice didn’t just echo; it hit the stone pillars like a physical slap, gravelly and deep enough to vibrate through the cadets’ boot soles.A few of the noble heirs in the front rank flinched, their eyebrows shooting up in outrage.”Four hundred fresh, bright-eyed, useless litters of farm-pigs,” Barnaby continued, leaning his elbows on his knees, his massive hands dangling between his legs like iron hammers. “I’ve been teaching at

Ascendant for twenty-two years.

I’ve seen duds,

I’ve seen weaklings, and

I’ve seen pampered city lapdogs who cry when their fingernails break.

But this… this is officially the most pathetic pile of scrap the

Order has dumped in

East since the

Frost of ’08.””Sir!” A tall cadet in the front rank—a well-born youth named

Felix, ranking #107—stepped forward, his face flushed with indignation. “We are officially recognized

Initiate cadets of the

We passed the same four stages as the other houses!”Barnaby didn’t even look at

He merely raised a single, bushy eyebrow.”Oh, did you pass?” Barnaby grunted, taking another noisy sip from his wooden mug. “You think because some tired old proctor stamped your token with a wooden block that you’re warriors?

Listen to me, you little worm.

Central got the top fifty prodigies.

North got the hunter heirs with ancient bloodlines.

South got the wealthiest martial clans.

East?”Barnaby grinned, showing a row of large, yellow teeth.

It was a terrifying, feral expression.”House

East got the leftovers.

The sweepers, the duds, the rejects, and the boys whose fathers couldn’t afford a big enough bribe to get them into

Central.”A furious murmur rippled through the four hundred cadets.

Lyall’s thin lips pressed into a tight, pale line.”A primitive form of psychological provocation,” Kaelen observed in

Julian’s skull, his tone dry as parchment. “He is deliberately wounding their fragile vanity to forge a collective identity through shared hatred.

Extremely crude.

A proper master would use dignified shame.””Crude?” Vanya laughed in

Julian’s head. “Look at their faces,

They want to bite his nose off!

I love this fat brute!

He knows exactly which nerve to kick!”Julian kept his face impassive.

He could see what

Barnaby was doing, but he could also feel something else.

Beneath the crude insults and the smell of stale ale, the giant instructor radiated a subtle, terrifying pressure—an invisible wall of

Aether that hung over the hall like a thousand-pound stone block waiting to drop.Barnaby set his mug down on the desk with a heavy clack.”In two days,” Barnaby said, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling growl, “the

Order holds the monthly

Two thousand cadets.

Fifty ring stages.

The results determine which house gets the prime spirit-pills, the fresh meat rations, and the top-grade technique manuals for the next four weeks.”He paused, sweeping his bloodshot eyes over the furious crowd.”The other four houses think

East is a garbage dump,” Barnaby grinned, tapping his thick fingers against his knee. “And frankly, they’re right.

So here’s my expectation for you lot in two days…”He held up two thick, hairy fingers.”Two matches,” Barnaby said. “Out of fifty total bouts, if this miserable house manages to win two individual matches against the other houses,

I’ll personally buy a keg of honey-mead and drink it out of my own boot.

If you win fewer than two…

I will make you sweep the entire eastern slope barefoot in the snow every morning at three a.m.”Felix, the cadet who had spoken earlier, clenched his fists tightly. “Two matches?

Jakes, you underestimate us!

We can take the top three spots!”Barnaby turned his gaze toward

Felix, then slowly let his eyes drift over to

Cassian, and finally to

Julian.”Rankings on a wooden token don’t mean a damn thing when someone’s trying to drive an iron boot into your ribs, boy,” Barnaby rasped, standing up from his chair.As he stood to his full height, the invisible wall of

Aether pressure around him suddenly dropped by three inches.BOOM.Four hundred cadets groaned in unison as a sudden, heavy weight slammed onto their shoulders.

A dozen weaker cadets in the back row dropped straight to their knees, gasping for air as the air was forced from their lungs.Julian felt his knees flex, the flagstones beneath his boots creaking softly under the sudden downward pressure.

He tightened his lower core, the

Seed spinning once to anchor his frame, keeping his spine rock-steady.

Caleb grunted, his thick neck muscles bulging as he held his ground through pure physical stubbornness.Barnaby noticed

Julian’s steady posture, a tiny, fleeting flicker of interest passing through his bloodshot eyes before he smoothed his expression back into an ugly, scowling grimace.The giant instructor turned his back on them, walking toward the rear exit of the hall.”Dismissed, trash,” Barnaby shouted over his shoulder. “Get to the mess hall and eat your porridge.

You’ve got forty-eight hours before the other houses come to break your teeth.”