“Close your eyes,” Miss Hecca instructs.

  He does.

  Inside, his Astral Vessel comes into focus. He feels the Gates along his spine—six distinct points of pressure, each one humming with its own character. They are open, yes. Only barely, but open. Each Hue pulls as hard as it can, like dogs straining against leashes.

  “You will not cycle yet,” Miss Hecca says. “First, you must learn control.”

  Aster frowns inwardly.

  “Treat each Gate as a dial,” she instructs. “Increase. Decrease. Use fine adjustment.”

  “Start with Earth,” she says.

  Aster hesitates, then reaches inward, touching the Gate’s output. Earth resists. Of course it does. Dense, stubborn, anchoring everything too heavily. He nudges it up, then feels the Vessel grow sluggish, compressed.

  “Too high,” she says. “You want support, not stagnation.”

  He dials it back. Just enough weight to stabilize.

  “Hold it,” she says. “Now Fire.”

  Fire is the loudest.

  It flares in response, eager, impatient.

  “Too much,” Miss Hecca says immediately.

  Aster winces and eases it back. The sensation is strange—like lowering the volume on a scream happening inside his bones. Fire settles into a simmer, heat without surge.

  Wind jitters. Lightning snaps. Water slips sideways, refusing to stay put. Plant weaves through everything, quietly unifying, but not enough to compensate.

  Aster’s breathing slows as he works, sweat gathering at his temples. This isn’t casting. This is listening. Adjusting one Gate throws the others out. Every change ripples.

  Minutes pass.

  Her voice is steady, relentless. “You are not burning energy. You are circulating it.”

  Aster exhales slowly.

  He imagines the Aether being drawn in through the Gates like breath through lungs—collected, filtered, stripped of personality. Fire loses its temper. Water stops slipping away. Earth yields. Wind settles. Lightning hums instead of bites. Plant binds them, quiet and insistent.

  The class is silent.

  Finally, Miss Hecca speaks again.

  “Now,” she says, “bring them closer. Not equal. But balanced. Harmonized.”

  Aster exhales and begins the real work.

  He increases Wind slightly—just enough to allow movement without turbulence. Lightning is throttled down to a hum instead of a spike. Water is coaxed into flow instead of evasion. Plant is encouraged—never forced—to bind the system.

  Slowly, painfully, the six Hues stop fighting for dominance.

  They begin to align.

  The six Hues compress.

  One flow.

  It moves.

  Down his spine. Through his channels. Around his Astral Vessel.

  “Again,” Miss Hecca says. “Increase cycle rate.”

  The flow completes one loop.

  Then another.

  It’s slow. Sluggish. Like pushing mud through glass veins.

  “Potency determines density,” she explains. “Cycles per second determine responsiveness. A strong barrier that moves too slowly will shatter. A fast one with no mass will tear.”

  Aster’s jaw clenches. Sweat beads on his brow.

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  The first attempt collapses halfway through. The flow shears apart, Fire surging ahead, Lightning snapping in protest.

  He grimaces.

  “Again.”

  He adjusts the dials—tiny changes. Barely perceptible. Less Fire. More Plant. Earth steadier.

  Second attempt.

  The flow completes a full circuit.

  Aster inhales sharply.

  A pressure forms. Like invisible lines tightening.

  A tension. A containment. A pressure hugging his Vessel from all sides, like space itself has decided to keep him together.

  It’s weak. Inconsistent. But real.

  The sensation reminds him of a physics lecture he tries to sleep through in high school: current moving through a coil, creating a magnetic field around it.

  A Resonant Field.

  “Do you feel it?” Miss Hecca asks.

  “Yes,” Aster murmurs. “It’s… tense.”

  “Good,” she says. “That tension is potential.”

  “Now increase the cycle,” she commands.

  Aster guides the unified flow forward.

  Down the spine. Through the channels. Around the Astral Vessel.

  Each cycle goes faster and faster until the field stabilises around Aster and feels almost solid.

  Aster opens his eyes, grinning. “I—I’ve got something.”

  “Yes,” Miss Hecca says. “You have the beginning of your Astral Barrier.”

  He cheers, grinning like an idiot. “It’s terrible, but it’s mine.”

  “Let’s test it,” she says.

  He doesn’t even have time to ask how.

  She flicks two fingers.

  The hex hits him like an idea that crawls directly into his skeleton.

  It starts as an itch.

  Then suddenly, everywhere itches.

  Not skin-deep. Deeper. His muscles itch. His marrow itches. His teeth itch inside his skull. Even his thoughts feel itchy, like his brain is wearing wool three sizes too small.

  Aster yelps. “What—what is this—”

  “Minor dermal malediction,” Miss Hecca says calmly. “Non-lethal. Highly motivating.”

  Aster scratches his arm.

  The itch moves.

  He scratches his neck.

  It relocates.

  He slaps his thigh. His ribs itch. He stomps. His spine itches.

  “Oh gods,” he groans, twisting. “My bones are itchy. My bones are itchy.”

  His Astral Barrier flickers wildly, flaring in panicked bursts as the hex digs into his concentration, testing his control, probing for gaps.

  “Maintain flow,” Miss Hecca says. “Balance the Hues.”

  “I’m trying!” Aster snaps, clawing at the air. “It feels like my soul has eczema!”

  “Focus.”

  Aster yelps, stumbling as the resonance collapses almost immediately.

  “This is inhumane,” he snaps, scratching at nothing as the itch migrates into his joints.

  “Again,” Miss Hecca says. “Balance first. Then cycle.”

  He forces himself inward.

  The itch claws at his concentration, a living distraction, but he returns to the dials. Fire down. Earth steady. Wind smooth. Lightning restrained. Water contained. Plant binding.

  It takes longer this time. His hands shake. His breath stutters.

  He does it. Somehow. Through the maddening sensation, he forces the cycles to steady.

  Finally—finally—the flow cycles.

  The Resonant Field snaps back into place, trembling but intact.

  Aster laughs breathlessly. “I did it. It’s up.”

  “Good,” Miss Hecca says.

  She turns sharply. “Student Kesh.”

  A tall boy flinches. “Yes, Miss Hecca?”

  “Attack him,” she says.

  Aster’s smile dies. “Wait—”

  “Non-lethal,” Miss Hecca adds. “Test strikes only.”

  Kesh hesitates, then raises his hand. A compact glyph flares—compressed kinetic force, clean and practiced.

  “Maintain cycling,” Miss Hecca says to Aster.

  The first strike comes fast.

  The barrier collapses instantly.

  Aster is sent skidding across the stone, itch and pain tangling into a humiliating sprawl.

  He groans. “I lost it.”

  “Yes,” Miss Hecca says. “Your cycling destabilized under impact.”

  Second strike.

  Aster barely manages to raise the field in time. It buckles, distorts, and throws him sideways like a rejected equation.

  His chest heaves. His whole body itches. His soul feels raw.

  “One more,” he mutters. “Just—one more.”

  The itch takes up all his attention.

  Instant. Total. Like his nervous system has been replaced with ants carrying grievances. His skin itches. His muscles itch, deep and structural, like the idea of him is allergic to itself.

  His first instinct is to scratch. Scream. Thrash dramatically.

  He doesn’t.

  He closes his eyes.

  The world doesn’t go quiet so much as become irrelevant.

  Breathe in.

  Breathe out.

  The itch screams for attention, but attention is a resource, and he stops allocating it. Let it exist without commentary. Without response. A bad advertisement running in the background of his consciousness.

  He turns inward.

  Six Gates. All open.

  He feels them—not as colours or elements, but as tensions. Competing pressures along his spine, each Hue pulling too hard, too fast, trying to be important. He reaches for the dials.

  Balancing them from scratch, making sure they don’t fail this time.

  The channels begin to hum.

  The flow unifies. Six currents collapse into one continuous circulation, threading the Vessel in a tight, disciplined loop. No spikes. No flares. Potency rises without drama. Cycle rate climbs—steady, even, relentless—like a coil winding itself tighter with every pass.

  The Astral Barrier flickers back into existence, stronger now, humming like a taut wire, thin but coherent, wrapping him in pressure rather than mass.

  “Now,” Miss Hecca says.

  The third strike hits.

  Kinetic force slams into him, brutal and sudden, meant to break ribs, scatter organs, make a point. The barrier bends, bows inward like a held breath, resonance screaming under strain—

  —and unexpectedly actually holds.

  Energy bleeds sideways, diffused along the field, dumped back into the circulation. The itch surges in protest. His focus wavers—

  But just for a split second.

  He grits his teeth. Adjusts the dials mid-impact.

  The field snaps back.

  Aster skids a step, boots carving lines into the floor, but he’s still upright.

  Still breathing.

  Still itching like hell.

  He opens his eyes, grinning despite himself, wild and a little disbelieving.

  “I… blocked it.”

  “Yes,” Miss Hecca says, addressing the class. “I hope his control could inspire and enlighten each one of you with your own Astral Barrier.”

  She looks back at Aster, eyes dark, satisfied.

  “Tomorrow,” she adds calmly, “we will see how long you can hold it while uncontrollably vomiting.”

  Aster exhales, laughing weakly.

  Of course.

  Of course that’s next.