“Is it true you tethered an ancient elemental? A water dragon?” a girl asks as we continue toward the water tower.

Typhon continues raging on in my mind, but I’ve become pretty good at tuning him out when I want to.

When I ignore her, the students begin talking among themselves.

“I heard she faced an entire squadron of windborne and lived.”

“I heard Lorkan and Milena Grace were with the windborne. Her dragon fought all of them off.”

“That’s bullshit. No first-year is going to survive facing a windborne. My uncle trained with one of them. Said the woman was a fucking demon.”

“Yeah, well⁠—”

I try to ignore their gossip. Try not to let more images come back to my mind, bitter and unwelcome. But the memory of healing Milena Grace comes anyway. The damp ruin where Lorkan tricked me. Where I stupidly helped the most dangerous unbound in our world’s history revive his greatest ally.

“It was a clever deception,” Typhon says in my mind. “You can be forgiven for falling for it, even if I saw through it the entire time.”

“You did no such thing.”

“I prefer to let my humans make their own mistakes. A learning experience, as your kind call it.”

I grin to myself, then turn to face the aspirants, expression suddenly stern. They all seem so young already. So foolish. So…

“Screwed?” Typhon asks.

“Yeah, kind of.”

“You should all focus on what matters,” I say, silencing them as we pause in front of the water tower. “Surviving. It’s going to take everything you have just to live through this coming year. Worrying about stupid rumors is only going to distract you.”

A girl raises her hand—actually raises her hand.

I suppress a sigh, pointing at her. “Yes?”

“Are we allowed to… well… sleep with other students?”

There are some smiles among the group at her question.

“You’re allowed to do whatever the hells you want here. The only rule is you can’t leave. You’re students of Confluence, now, and you either leave in a body bag or as graduates of your fifth year. As primals.”

I see a few students swallowing visibly and looking around. It’s not new information, but maybe my delivery was a bit…

“Intense,” Typhon suggests. “It’s good. Let them fear you. Nessa Thorne. Tamer of dragons. Resurrector of ancient enemies of human-kind. Lover of the fire-touched, who currently⁠—”

“Typhon?”

“Yes, angry human?”

“Shut up.”

I finish leading the latest group of aspirants to their rooms. They, at least, aren’t offerings. They get to room alone, and they’ll have at least some semblance of protection from instructors. Instead of being not-so-subtly encouraged to kill one another, they’ll be led to believe the academy would rather they don’t.

Small victories.