The fire hissed and popped on the rim as the sky bled from black to bruised violet. Toren flipped the last flatbread with a flick of his wrist, caught it bare-handed, and dropped it onto the stack. Mira poured tea into four tin cups. Vel sat cross-legged on a rock, braid hanging over one shoulder, watching the horizon like it might try something.

  Kael sat with his knees drawn up, trying to look normal.

  It wasn’t working. Every time he laughed at Toren’s terrible jokes, his heels lifted an inch off the stone before settling again. The Aua was humming so loud he could feel it in his teeth.

  Toren noticed on the fourth lift.

  “Quit teasing the sky, glowstick,” he said, tossing a scrap of bread that bounced off Kael’s forehead. “Save it for when we actually need it.”

  Kael rubbed the spot, cheeks hot. “It’s not on purpose.”

  Mira handed him a cup. Steam curled between them. “Today it will be,” she said softly. “Drink. Then we start.”

  They finished breakfast in quiet, the only sounds the crackle of fire and the wind scraping the canyon walls. When the cups were empty, Toren stood and stretched until his spine popped.

  “Rule’s simple,” he said, brushing crumbs from his hands. “You fall, you climb back up and try again. No one catches you. Sky’s a jealous bastard. Doesn’t share.”

  Vel rose in one fluid motion. “Ready?”

  Kael’s heart hammered so hard he felt it in his soles.

  He nodded.

  They dropped to the Pit floor together.

  Morning was spent on the simplest thing in the world: standing still and trying to leave the ground.

  Kael closed his eyes. Breathed the way Mira had taught him weeks ago (slow, deliberate, counting the space between heartbeats). He pictured the starlight pooling under his bare feet like warm water.

  He jumped.

  Nothing.

  He landed with a flat slap of skin on stone.

  Toren barked a laugh. “That was sad. Again.”

  Again.

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  Again.

  Again.

  By the fiftieth try he managed a trembling hop that lifted him the width of a coin before dumping him back down. The impact rattled his teeth. Vel didn’t smile, but her eyes softened a fraction.

  By the hundredth, he hovered for half a heartbeat (ankles clear of the ground) then crashed hard enough to skin both palms.

  Toren kept count out loud, cheerful as a butcher.

  The sun climbed. The canyon turned into an oven. Sweat poured off Kael in glowing streams. His legs shook. His lungs burned. Every failure felt heavier than the last.

  At noon he screamed at the sky, fists clenched, Aua flaring wild and white.

  He shot upward a full body-length, wobbled like a drunk bird, and plummeted. The impact drove the breath from his lungs in a white cloud.

  He lay on his back staring at dead stars that hadn’t moved since the world broke, chest heaving.

  Vel crouched beside him, voice barely above the wind.

  “Stop pushing. It’s not a door you kick open. It’s breathing. Just breathe, Kael.”

  Mira sat nearby, knees drawn up. “The space between heartbeats,” she reminded. “That’s where the sky lives.”

  He closed his eyes. Listened to his own pulse.

  In.

  Hold.

  Out.

  Hold.

  The Aua quieted. Curious, almost gentle.

  He stood again.

  This time he didn’t jump.

  He just… let go.

  The starlight gathered under his soles, warm and patient.

  His heels lifted.

  Then his toes.

  One foot off the ground.

  Two.

  Three.

  He opened his eyes.

  He was floating.

  Arms out for balance, heart hammering, he hovered a full three body-lengths above the Pit floor. Ten endless seconds. The canyon was silent except for the wind and Toren’s stunned, delighted grin.

  Then gravity remembered him.

  He dropped like a stone, knees buckling, but he was laughing when he hit.

  Toren whooped so loud it echoed off both walls. Mira’s hands flew to her mouth. Vel’s nod was slow, proud, final.

  The rest of the afternoon was forward motion.

  They moved to the longest stretch of the Pit. Toren drew a line in the dust with his toe.

  “From here to the far wall. Glide, don’t fall.”

  First attempt: Kael shot forward like a startled colt, ten stumbling paces through the air, then crashed in a tangle of limbs.

  Second: fifteen paces, landed running.

  Third: twenty-five, arms spread, laughing so hard he almost forgot how to land.

  By the time the sun bled orange across the rim, Kael stood on the lowest ledge (six body-lengths up), barefoot, glowing soft and steady.

  Toren, Mira, and Vel waited below, small figures against the broken floor.

  Kael looked down once.

  The height should have terrified him.

  It didn’t.

  He stepped off the edge.

  No panic. No force.

  Just breath.

  The starlight caught him the way an old friend catches a falling child.

  He glided.

  Slow, graceful, thirty body-lengths across the Pit, toes barely skimming the air. The canyon walls caught the last light and threw it back in silver sheets. For one perfect stretch of heartbeats the world was nothing but wind and quiet and the taste of sky on his tongue.

  He landed running, light as dust, and didn’t stop until Toren’s huge arms wrapped around him and lifted him clear off the ground again.

  Mira reached them a second later, laughing through tears. Vel’s hand settled on the back of Kael’s neck, steady and warm.

  Toren set him down but didn’t let go.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, voice rough, “we teach you how to fight up there.”

  Kael looked up.

  He smiled, small and fierce and unafraid.The sky finally had room for him.