"I sent your father the report," Markus said, over the broth's steam. "He's been informed. Tier 1 foundation, on schedule."
Something settled in Rosalind's chest that had nothing to do with the protein she'd been demolishing for the past ten minutes. Most of what she had in her life had arrived as a gift — the tutors, the elixirs, the carefully managed cultivation timeline her family's resources had built around her from birth. This was different. The ache in her joints and the new density in her bones belonged to her in a way the rest of it never quite had.
She had earned this one.
"Your ninth birthday is in three weeks," Markus said. He set his glass down. "I'm not a sentimental person, but milestones are worth marking. Is there anything you want from the next phase — a specific technique, a particular focus, anything you've been waiting to ask for?"
"I want the schedule accelerated," Rosalind said. She met his eyes directly. "Not for the birthday. Because of the timeline."
He waited.
"The void affinity isn't passive," she said. "You've told me this from the first week — it's corrosive by nature, and the correction you did six months ago only holds as long as my physical foundation keeps pace with it. I don't want to be a half-finished structure when I Awaken. I want to be ready." She held his gaze. "Push me harder. I can take more than the current schedule is giving me."
He was quiet for a moment, the specific quiet of someone genuinely weighing a request rather than performing consideration of it.
"That's not a small thing to ask for," he said. "Channel hardening — the next phase — is going to be considerably more uncomfortable than what you've done so far. We're not just building structure anymore. We're testing the structure's limits, deliberately, in a controlled setting, so we know where it holds and where it doesn't before your Awakening puts that question to the test under conditions we can't control."
"I understand."
"I don't think you fully do yet," he said, without unkindness. "You will by this evening. That's not a threat. It's just accurate." He considered her for another moment. "I'll send your father an update on the accelerated timeline before we start. He should know the intensity is increasing, not just the pace."
"I'd rather he heard it from you," she said. "He worries less when it comes from someone he trusts to be honest about the risk."
He nodded. This was, he thought, the correct instinct in her — not concealment, the opposite of it. She wanted her father informed because an informed parent was a steadier one, and a steadier parent made the whole arrangement more sustainable, not less.
He sent the update before they left the table.
The training hall's star-pattern walls lit faintly as they entered, the ambient response to Markus's presence that had become familiar over six months.
"Sit," he said, gesturing to the prayer mat.
She sat.
"The body is the cup," he said. "Your mana channels are the pipes. Right now they're closer to clay than diamond — functional, but not built for the pressure your full Awakening is eventually going to put through them. Today we start testing where the clay gives, so we know exactly what needs reinforcing before it matters."
"How do we test it."
"By having you draw more than you're comfortable drawing, in a setting where I can monitor exactly what's happening in your channels and intervene before anything actually fails. This isn't pushing you until you break. It's pushing you until we find the edge, and then working from there."
She nodded.
"This part requires a private space the way the meridian correction did," he said. "Same protocol as before — notify your security detail, same classification reasoning. I want eyes off the readout while we work, not eyes off you."
"I'll brief them," she said, already composing the message.
The confirmation came back within the minute, the same short acknowledgment as every previous session: aware, standing by, no need to respond unless the duration ran long.
"Reach further than your eyes can take you," Markus said, once Nagini's domain had folded quietly around them. "Feel the ambient mana in the air. The pulse in the plants we brought in for this. Everything around you is carrying a current — stop looking at the world and start feeling what it's actually doing."
Rosalind closed her eyes.
"Mana has a character," he said. "Calm, like a stream. Or sharp, agitated, depending on what's feeding it. The void affinity reads all of this as something to consume rather than something to coexist with, which is exactly the problem we're solving. If you can't tell the difference between mana that's safe to draw on and mana that's going to fight you on the way in, you'll never have real control. You'll just have raw output."
The plants in the corner of the domain, gentle a moment ago, sharpened under the intent he was directing into the space — not malice, simply demonstration, showing her what agitated mana felt like against calm mana so she had a reference point.
"I feel it," she said; her brow furrowed with concentration rather than distress. "It changed. It was warm. Now it's—sharper."
"Good," he said. "That's the discrimination starting to develop. Now: I want you to draw from your core at a higher rate than feels comfortable. Not to the point of collapse — to the point where it's genuinely difficult, and you tell me when it gets there. I'm reading your channel integrity continuously. If anything in the structure starts to give in a way that isn't supposed to, I'll stop it before you feel it."
"You'll know before I do."
"That's the whole reason I'm watching instead of just telling you to push through alone," he said. "Difficulty is the point today. Damage isn't."
She drew.
The mana moved through her channels at a rate well beyond her usual draw — not pleasant, the genuine strain of a system working past its established comfort, her breathing tightening with the effort of sustaining it. He watched the channel integrity readout continuously, the specific resolution his spatial sense provided letting him see exactly where the structural stress was concentrating and how close it was running to the threshold he'd calculated as safe.
"You're at about sixty percent of what I'm willing to let you run today," he said. "How does it feel."
"Like my bones are full of static," she said, through gritted teeth.
"That's the channel walls under load. Hold there. Don't push further yet — I want this level sustained for two minutes before we go higher."
She held it.
He counted the time, watched the readout, and called the increase when the structural data confirmed she had margin left.
They worked through three escalating intervals before he called the session.
"That's enough for today," he said. "You're at the edge of productive difficulty. Past this point we're not building anything — we're just causing fatigue that costs you recovery time without buying you progress."
She was breathing hard, but conscious, alert, present.
"Nagini," he said. "Bring us back."
The domain dissolved. The Annex's ordinary light returned.
"You did well," he said. "That's a real increase in tolerance from this morning's baseline. Two more sessions like that this week and we'll be ready to push the next interval."
"It worked," Rosalind said, still catching her breath. "I could feel it — the difference. By the third interval it didn't feel as sharp as the first did."
"That's exactly what we want to see. Your system adapting in real time, not just enduring."
He had a recovery compound ready — a measured dose, the kind appropriate to genuine but controlled exertion, not the kind that suggested anything had gone wrong.
"Rest for an hour," he said. "Then eat again. Your body needs the material to consolidate what we did today."
She nodded, accepting the compound.
"Same time tomorrow," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Same time tomorrow," he confirmed.
He sent a second message to the Emperor's office before he left the hall — the honest accounting of the session, the readouts, the margin maintained, the plan for the coming week. The kind of report a parent could read and know exactly what his daughter had been through and exactly how carefully it had been managed.
That was the part of the arrangement he had no intention of changing.