The figure on the rim froze, young, near Soren's own age, skin pale as a peeled almond under the black lacquer half-armor. Not a merc. Academy issue, unmistakable even in the dark: the segmented plates, the blue band at the collar. The helmet's visor was up, face as blank as a chalkboard, no anger, no nerves, just the bone-white focus of someone trained to take the first move and survive the second.

Soren did not speak. He waited for the kid to talk, or attack, or blink.

The kid attacked.

The first strike didn't aim to kill. It was a tap, a test. Soren parried, then let the next blow through just far enough to gauge the intent: fast, but not reckless; trying to measure, not to end.

Soren engaged, two passes, then three, enough to see the rhythm. The other's blade was lighter, his stance built for riposte, not breakage. Soren let the kid push, then turned the momentum and swept low, catching the shin and dropping them both to the dirt. The kid recovered instantly, swept a leg, and nearly caught Soren under the chin with an elbow.

The noise brought the others up: Seren first, then Lira, both moving with the kind of alertness you only saw in water-starved animals. Seren closed in, hands bare, eyes hunting for the right second to intervene.

The kid, to his credit, pressed his advantage, driving Soren back to the firepit, each move faster, more desperate. He caught Soren's wrist with a lock, twisted, and nearly forced the blade free.

Seren slammed into the kid's flank, drove them sideways, then pinned the arm with a knee. The kid hissed, tried to wrench free, then went absolutely limp. Soren saw the calculation, how the fight went from plan to improvisation in two heartbeats.

They wrestled him over, face in the dirt, and Soren put a knee in the small of his back. The kid's breath was ragged, but he didn't scream. Seren found a knife at the belt, tossed it aside.

Lira hovered, scanning the edges. "He alone?"

No answer needed. Soren checked the horizon, no shadows, no movement. "Looks like a runner," he said. "But armed."

Seren jerked the visor off. The kid had a sharp face and a shorn head, spit in his eye and a trickle of blood at the lip.

"Name," Soren said.

The kid spat, then said, "Doesn't matter soon."

Soren pressed harder. "Try me."

The kid's eyes flicked up. "If you're Vale, you're not supposed to be alive."

Soren almost laughed. "That makes two of us."

He checked the uniform again: crest at the breast, the double-circle of Cirel's division. Soren searched memory, came up empty. "They send you to kill us?"

The kid's mouth twisted. "They sent me to watch."

Seren twisted the kid's arm until the shoulder cracked. "Then watch this," she said, and wrenched it tighter.

Soren caught her wrist. "No. We keep him."

She bared her teeth, but let go.

Soren rolled the kid upright, patted him down. No poison, no second blade. Just a packet in the inner sleeve, a folded sheet, wax-sealed in black with the Academy's sign. Soren broke the seal and skimmed the contents.

It was a death order, but not like he'd seen before. The language was bureaucratic, detached: "Terminate with prejudice if compromised. Observe until such point as directive is unfeasible. Primary: Lethren. Secondary: containment of subject C.V."

He looked up. "You're not here for me. You're here for the Lady."

The kid shrugged, then grimaced as the motion lit up the busted shoulder. "She's more valuable if you lose."

Soren's mind ran the angles. "And the rest of us?"

"Doesn't matter. If you win, you're a knife to their throat. If you lose, just another failed asset."

Seren straightened, face hard as obsidian. "Let's just kill him."

Soren shook his head. "No. He's proof."

Lira: "Of what?"

Soren looked at the kid. "That the test was real. And that we're not meant to survive it."

The kid laughed, then coughed, blood flecking his teeth. "You think you're clever. You're just the last rat on the ship."

Soren considered, then said, "I've been called worse."

He motioned Lira to bind the kid's wrists, then set him against the inner wall, where the embers could keep him from freezing.

Seren knelt, eyeing the kid with a predator's patience. "If you move, I'll break the other arm."

The kid just grinned, eyes never leaving Soren's.

He left them like that, then walked the perimeter, feeling the interval between dangers shrink with every hour.

At dawn, they moved. Jannek was gone, Kale reported him bled out in the night, the wound finally overtaking what bravado remained. They buried him shallow, marking the spot with a circle of stones.

The kid, whose name, Soren learned, was Rehn, walked ahead of them now, wrists bound but steps light. He gave directions freely, even offered advice: "Stay off the crest here, the wind carries sound." Or, "If you need water, there's a spring two ridges west." It was almost helpful, but nothing about him felt safe.

Lethren showed no reaction to the development, only kept her eyes fixed ahead, as if the loss of a team member was a rounding error on the way to Meridian.

The world leveled out into a broad plain, the city visible at last, a spire of glass and iron, wrapped in fog and the promise of old power. Soren felt the air get thinner, the tension inside him matching the line on the horizon.

They stopped at the edge of a small rise, the last buffer before the approach. Lira and Liane vanished to scout the perimeter, Seren took up security detail on the kid, and Soren sat, letting the cold settle into his bones for one last time.

He looked at the map. The black square was less than a day away. He wondered, as he always did, if the plan was to finish, or if the plan was to see what would stop him from finishing.

He closed his eyes, then opened them to the thready light of morning.

Seren joined him at the overlook, the kid sprawled at her feet. "We're close," she said.

Soren nodded. He flexed his hand, feeling the ache in the wrist, a dull echo of the hunger in his chest. "You trust the twins?"

Seren looked down the line, watched Lira and Liane move in perfect, mirrored silence. "They want to live. That's enough."

He watched the kid, who was chewing a strip of bark and smiling, eyes never resting. "He's more dangerous than the mercs."

Seren shrugged. "He's a survivor. Like you."

He grinned, but the humor didn't stick.

A hawk circled above, casting its shadow over the plain. Soren watched it, then traced the route with his eyes, all the way to the spire, where the Academy would be waiting, scorecards in hand.

He stood, sword at the ready. "No more shadows. No more tests. We finish this today."

Seren's lips curled at the edge. "And if it's another trap?"

Soren considered. "Then we spring it first."

He led them down the rise, through the scrub and the last outwash of old snow. The city grew with each step, and the dawn snapped white and true over the world.

He did not look back.

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