Vikram came home three days later, and the conversation Varun had been bracing for never really happened.
There was no lecture.
No sitting him down at the table the way Varun had half expected, no list of rules laid out one by one.
Just a long look across the kitchen, tired in a way that had nothing to do with the border assignment, and a short silence before Vikram finally said, “I always knew this couldn’t stay contained forever.” He didn’t sound angry saying it.
He sounded almost relieved, like a weight he’d been carrying alone for two years had finally been set down somewhere he could see it properly.
“I’d rather it happened like this you choosing the moment than by accident, somewhere I couldn’t help you with at all.”
That was most of it.
Varun turned it over more than once in the days after, waiting for the rest of the conversation to arrive late, the way bad news sometimes did.
It never came.
His father simply started treating the guild-restricted file like one more thing they managed together instead of one more thing Varun had to hide alone, and that, it turned out, was the whole conversation.
The academy was a different problem entirely.
Tobias found him before first period, which wasn’t unusual anymore what was unusual was that he fell into step beside Varun without any of the old assessing look at all.
“I filed my report,” Tobias said.
“Left out the part where I got disarmed in four seconds.
Descriptive licensing, I’m calling it.”
“Generous of you.”
“I’m an extremely generous person.
Ask anyone.” He glanced sideways, something almost like a smile pulling at his mouth.
“You’re still an idiot for going full output after the match was already called.
You do know that.”
“I’ve been told.”
“Good.
Somebody should keep telling you.” He said it lightly, but there was something steadier underneath it than there’d been in two weeks of careful suspicion the sound of a question that had finally gotten answered, even if the answer had turned his whole world upside down to arrive.
Wren caught up to both of them a few steps later, took one look at Tobias walking next to Varun instead of circling him, and said, “Oh, we’re doing this now?
Rivals-to-friends?
That was fast.”
“We’re not friends,” Tobias said.
“We’re absolutely friends,” Varun said.
“We’re friendly rivals,” Tobias said, with the air of a man drawing a very important legal distinction.
“There’s a difference.
I still intend to beat you eventually.”
“You’re welcome to try.”
“I will.
Repeatedly.
Possibly daily.” He said it like a threat and meant it like a promise, and Wren laughed loud enough that a passing instructor glanced over.
Practical that afternoon looked different than it had all term.
Tobias fell in beside Varun at the drill line instead of across the yard the way he usually staked out his own space, and didn’t bother pretending it was a coincidence.
“Spar with me,” he said.
“Properly this time.
No cohort tradition, no audience deciding what it means.
Just want to see what it’s actually like when neither of us is managing the other one.”
“You sure?
Last time didn’t go great for you.”
“Last time I didn’t know what I was fighting.
Different problem entirely.” He rolled his shoulder, loose.
“Also I’d like to lose on purpose fewer times going forward, so.
Educational interest.”
Varun called Stormfang Alpha, and this time, with nobody left to fool, he didn’t bother holding anything back to a believable shape.
Tobias came in fast, wind trailing his blade in the same familiar crescents, and for a while it was just that two people who already knew exactly what the other one could do, testing it honestly instead of around each other.
Halfway through, on a whim more than a plan, Varun let the blade go and called Wolfy out whole instead no trick to it this time, no ambush waiting, just a white alpha wolf trotting out onto the practice floor in broad daylight like it was the most ordinary thing in the world, because as far as this particular yard was concerned now, it basically was.
Tobias didn’t even flinch anymore.
“Still weird,” he said, adjusting his stance to face an opponent with four legs instead of two.
“Never going to not be weird, honestly.”
He says that like I’m not right here, Wolfy said, amused, loud enough this time for both of them to hear it.
“You are right there.
That’s the weird part.”
Wolfy came at him low and fast, all muscle and momentum, and Tobias met it with a grin more than a guard, laughing through the impact when the wolf’s shoulder caught his and sent him sprawling into the dirt anyway.
“Rude,” Tobias said, from flat on his back.
Educational, Wolfy said.
You wanted honest.
That’s honest.
By the time the instructor called the session, Varun had used the blade, the bolt, and Wolfy’s own weight and speed in the same match without once thinking about which version of himself he needed to look like doing it, and something about that just being allowed to actually fight the way he actually could, in front of someone who already knew felt lighter than two weeks of careful math ever had.
“Ask you something,” Varun said afterward, once they’d both caught their breath.
“Your Gale Step.
Is that part of your actual ability, or something else.”
“Something else.
Bought it two months ago, first real coin I had worth spending since my ability actually woke up.” Tobias said it plainly, no embarrassment in it at all.
“It’s called an Innate Art.
Most abilities only do what they do mine moves fast and cuts clean, and that’s the whole shape of it, no more, no less.
Innate Arts are extra.
Techniques somebody else already figured out and locked into a usable form, sold or found or occasionally won off somebody who doesn’t need it anymore.
You don’t grow into them.
You just learn to use one, the way you’d learn a spell out of a book, except the book only works if your ability can actually hold the shape of what’s written in it.”
“So anyone could theoretically buy one.”
“Anyone with the coin and an ability compatible enough to run it.
Gale Step wasn’t cheap, and it costs me plenty every time I use it that’s why I only had the one in me during our match.
Most people my rank have zero.
A few have one.
Having two is either extremely wealthy or extremely lucky, usually both.” He shrugged.
“Guild sells the common ones outright.
Rarer stuff you find in dungeons, or off contracts, or you just never see at all unless someone decides to part with it.”
“Sounds expensive.”
“Sounds like most things worth having.” Tobias glanced at him, curious now instead of suspicious.
“Why.
Looking to buy one?”
“Maybe.”
“You’d need to know what you’re compatible with first.
Doesn’t do much good buying a fire-based Art if your core ability can’t actually carry fire.” He said it like advice, not a challenge, and Varun filed it away carefully, the way he filed most things worth remembering.
The rest of practical gave him room to try something he’d been circling since the split-bolt trick two weeks ago not another accident this time, but something built on purpose.
You said imagination’s the actual limit, Varun said, private, while the rest of the cohort ran drills across the yard.
I want to test that properly.
Not another lucky split.
Something I actually design.
Go for it.
I’ll tell you if the material’s fighting you or if you’re just doing it wrong.
He started from what he already had the thin controlled thread, the split that curved and met itself and tried to imagine something that used the meeting point instead of just producing it.
A single point of concentrated charge, held steady instead of releasing on contact, building instead of discharging.
The first four attempts fizzled out before the two threads even finished curving.
You’re rushing the meeting point, Wolfy said.
You built the split clean.
Now you’re trying to force what happens after it before you’ve actually decided what you want that to be.
“What do I want it to be.”
That’s not a question I can answer for you.
That’s the whole point.
Varun tried again, slower this time, holding both threads open longer before letting them curl toward each other, picturing the meeting point not as an end but as a held breath a small, tight knot of charge instead of a discharge.
The fifth attempt held for nearly a full second before collapsing into ordinary sparks.
The sixth held a full two seconds, small and bright and clearly still building, before it finally released all at once a compressed burst that cracked the air rather than just cutting it, loud enough that Wren looked over from three lanes away.
“What was that.”
“Working on something.”
“Working on it loudly, apparently.” Wren didn’t push further, which was becoming its own kind of trust between them, and went back to her own drill with a small, interested glance thrown back over her shoulder.
That’s actually something, Wolfy said, and there was real warmth in it, no teasing at all.
Rough.
Unfinished.
But something.
Give it a few more weeks and that stops being an accident you can sometimes reproduce and starts being a technique with your name on it.
I’d like that.
Having something that’s just mine.
Not just Thunder a real first attack, not just the blade carrying a bolt because that’s the only trick I know.
You’re already halfway there.
That’s rarer than you think, for someone who’s had this bond two years and only two weeks of actual control.
By the time Varun got home that evening, sore in the same familiar way and quietly pleased with himself in the same familiar way, Riya was in the kitchen finishing something that smelled like it had gone slightly too long on the stove.
“Question,” Varun said, dropping into the chair across from her.
“Do you have an Innate Art?”
Riya raised an eyebrow.
“Where’s this coming from.”
“Tobias has one.
Bought it two months ago.
Costs him every time he uses it.” Varun shrugged.
“Wondered if you had something like that too.”
“No.” She said it simply, no wistfulness in it.
“They’re expensive, and the ones actually worth having are rarer than expensive, and I’ve never had spare coin lying around that wasn’t already going somewhere more useful.
Dad might know more about the actual market for them he’s dealt with guild contracts long enough to know what’s worth the price and what’s just expensive for the sake of it.” She studied him a moment.
“Why the sudden interest.
This about today’s fight?”
“About today’s everything, probably.”
“Ask Dad, then.
He got back an hour ago.” She nodded toward the hallway, then added, almost as an afterthought, gentler than her usual tone: “He’s not upset with you, you know.
Whatever you’re still bracing for.
I think he’s just tired of being the only one who knew.”
Varun found his father in the study, a stack of guild paperwork half-finished in front of him, and didn’t waste time working up to the question.
“Innate Arts,” Varun said.
“How much do they actually cost.
And how does someone get one honestly, without just buying whatever’s cheapest.”
Vikram set his pen down, unhurried, and gestured at the chair across from him.
“Depends entirely on the Art and the seller.
Guild-issued common ones minor speed boosts, small elemental amplifiers, that kind of thing run a few months’ hunter wages, sometimes less if the guild’s trying to clear old stock.
Anything actually good gets expensive fast, and anything rare enough to matter usually isn’t for sale at all.
Those come out of dungeons, or off contracts nobody else wanted, or occasionally traded hunter to hunter for something worth more than coin.”
“Tobias said compatibility matters.”
“It does.
An Art’s built around a specific kind of core elemental, physical, whatever the original owner ran on.
Buy one your ability can’t actually hold, and you’ve just bought an expensive rock that occasionally hums.” Vikram studied him for a moment, the particular look he wore when he was deciding how much to actually say.
“You’re thinking about getting one.”
“Maybe.
Eventually.”
“Then earn the coin properly first, and don’t rush the compatibility question guess wrong and you’ve wasted resources you won’t get back easily.” He paused.
“And talk to me before you actually buy anything.
Not because I don’t trust your judgment.
Because the market for these things attracts people who prey on exactly how badly a kid your age wants to be stronger, faster than they can actually manage it.”
“I will.”
“Good.” Something in Vikram’s shoulders eased slightly, like that had been the actual question underneath the question.
“For what it’s worth you don’t need one yet.
What you’ve got is already more than most hunters twice your age ever earn.
Don’t let Tobias’s shiny trick convince you you’re behind.”
Varun thought about the compressed burst still humming faintly in his memory, small and new and entirely his own, and found he mostly agreed.
“I know,” he said.
“I just want to understand what’s out there.
Before I need it, not after.”
Vikram almost smiled at that the tired, real kind, not the careful kind he wore most days now.
“That,” he said, “is a very sensible way to grow up.
Wish I’d been half that patient at your age.”
Varun went to bed that night turning two things over instead of one a technique still rough at the edges, and a father who’d stopped sounding like he was managing a crisis and started sounding, for the first time in two years, like he was simply talking to his son.