The letter read: Vaeliyan, please contact my son for further instructions. High Chancellor Yurimdaal Gleck looks forward to meeting you.

Vaeliyan frowned at the words, reading them twice to be sure he hadn't misread. Who in the hells was this man's son? The Chancellor alone was enough of a problem, but the idea of being dragged into whatever net he cast tightened the knot in his gut. He had a suspicion about who his son might be, a dumb one, but it clung stubborn at the back of his mind. It couldn't be that obvious. There was just no way. And yet, when he tried to think of anyone else, the same name circled back, sharp as a blade. His gaze flicked back across the room one last time. He caught sight of a metal platter on a side table, crushed nearly flat, its surface scarred with deep, parallel grooves. They looked like claw marks; sharp nails raked through steel. The sound he'd heard earlier clicked into place. Justinia had done this, torn through metal like it was cloth, then crushed the platter to hide it. He shook his head. Later. He would deal with it later. For now, he needed air and the sight of his friends. Time to get out of this place forever.

He slid the letter into his belt and followed Ruby's instructions. The narrow corridor led to an elevator shaft that stank of old oil and oxidized blood. The platform rattled under his boots as it climbed, each floor humming past like a heartbeat. By the time the doors opened into the Ugly Mug, the noise of familiar voices rolled over him. His squad was waiting, gathered at the entrance like they'd been pacing the whole time.

"Congratulations," one cadet said, grinning wide enough to split their face. "You did it. So… what did you get?"

Vaeliyan's lip twitched, but he shook his head. "I'll tell you later. Right now, we need to think about tomorrow's class. I've got a feeling it's going to be exciting."

The words did nothing to cool them. They were already buzzing with restless energy, bouncing on their heels, voices tripping over each other as they speculated. Tomorrow promised something new, something fierce, maybe even brutal. But none of them were ready to let him slip away just yet.

"Nope," another cadet cut in. "Forget tomorrow. Tonight, we celebrate. You just finished your fifth challenge. That's no small thing. That calls for a party."

The others barked in agreement, cheers and laughter echoing through the hall. One clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to sting. Another pulled a flask from their jacket and waved it with a grin. The force of their excitement pressed down on him, and despite himself, it warmed him.

Vaeliyan sighed, though the curve of his mouth betrayed him. He wanted rest, silence, nothing more. But he could feel how much this moment meant to them, how much they needed to let the tension bleed out. "Fine," he said at last. "When we get back, I'll tell you what happened. But for now, let's go home. Then we'll drink, and tomorrow we'll see if we're still alive enough to care about class."

Their laughter followed as they spilled into the night together, the victory theirs to share.

When they returned to his estate, Vaeliyan gathered his squad together in the central hall and, for the first time since stepping out of the challenge, spoke openly about what had happened. The air was heavy with expectation, every cadet waiting for the pieces he could finally share. He told them of the test Command had forced him through, of the descent into the ninth lair, of the crushing weight of expectation and the trial that had nearly broken him. He described the unnatural pressure of the descent, the sense that each layer was trying to strip more of him away, and the way Command had stood behind it all as if measuring his breaking point. When it came to Lord B, his words faltered, bound by the restrictions laid on him, but Styll filled the silence. Her voice carried the truths that Vaeliyan would not speak aloud, their bond allowing her to say what he himself was forbidden. Through her, the squad heard what really had unfolded: Barcus's ability to puppet enemies and objects alike, the fact that he was the current Cosmic Breaker, and the fight itself.

When the conversation shifted to Steel, Vaeliyan's tone grew more cautious, more personal. He admitted he wasn't sure when it would happen, but he knew there would come a day when he might not be entirely present. He might be distracted, split between two worlds, or simply absent in ways they could not see. He didn't know how it would function, only that when it came, he would finally see his wife and child in Mara. The words weighed on him as he spoke. Hope flared in him at the thought of reunion, but dread followed close behind. The moment he saw his child with his own eyes, fatherhood would no longer be something abstract, something kept at arm's length by distance. It would become real in a way he could not undo. He would not just be a father in name. He would be one in truth, with all the terror and joy that came with it. He admitted his hands shook a little just thinking about it, because once he held that child, nothing else in the world could ever be the same.

The squad's reaction was immediate and raw. Cheers, laughter, claps on the back, wide smiles that showed just how much they wanted this for him. After months of training, fighting, and bleeding beside him, they had come to understand the hollow place he carried inside. The thought that he might fill it, that he might finally touch the family he longed for, was reason enough to celebrate. They crowded him, voices overlapping, jokes tumbling over congratulations. Even Bastard pressed closer, eyes gleaming, as if he too understood what this meant.

But Vaeliyan was not finished. To everyone's shock, he drew out the letter bearing the mark of High Chancellor Gleck. Even Elian, heir of House Sarn, blinked in disbelief. "My parents run House Sarn, and even they rarely dealt with him directly. I've never seen a letter like this. Gleck does not put his hand to paper without reason."

When Vaeliyan turned the letter over and revealed the message written after Justinia's departure, speculation filled the room at once. They whispered and argued, weighing possibilities, but Jurpat cut them short with blunt certainty. "Why are we pretending we don't know? There's only one answer. Unless we've all lost our minds, we know who this is." The room fell quiet, and slowly, heads nodded in agreement. No one wanted to speak the name aloud, but the truth was plain. Gleck could only have meant one person, and the implications were staggering.

They chose not to dwell on it further, not tonight. The decision was made to keep the gathering private, no unexpected invitations, no extra voices. Tonight, would belong only to them. Sixteen cadets, plus Styll, Bastard, Roundy, and House, twenty in total. They wanted it to feel like family, nothing more. They set the wine and food out, laughter rising, the weight of their lives briefly lifted by celebration.

Then Vaeliyan, as if the surprises were not enough, produced a folded set of papers with a grin tugging at the edges of his mouth. "Roundy, House, I've got a gift for you both. We're never going to have to deal with the power union again."

Elian raised a skeptical brow. "And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"It's an industrial zoning deed," Vaeliyan replied, pride in his voice. "My estate is now officially registered as an industrial complex. It means I can run my nano forge at full capacity without worrying about them trying to cut the power again."

He handed the deed over. Elian scanned through it, his expression shifting line by line until his eyes went wide. "Vaeliyan… you don't understand. This isn't just paperwork. Technically, you're your own corporation now. They almost never grant these. Either someone misjudged what they were giving you, or they assumed you'd never grasp what it truly meant."

The rest of the cadets pressed in, curiosity mounting, as Elian continued. "With this, you've been made a competitor in the market. And let's be honest, everyone here knows Vaeliyan is insane when it comes to crafting?" Every hand went up without hesitation, even Bastard and House managing to mimic the gesture in their own ways.

Vaeliyan smirked at the unanimous vote. "Fair enough. I won't deny it."

Elian tapped the deed again, voice firm now. "If you can relocate your estate to Mara and lay claim to the land, this deed shields you from Green Zone legislation. Any industry, any forge, any project tied to your name becomes untouchable. That means the Glass Ocean you fought and bled for would fall under your corporate banner. Mara itself could become a resource tied directly to you. Every creation, every forge, every enterprise, protected."

He lowered the deed slowly, almost reverently. "They've given you far more than they ever intended anyone to hold. With the funds Ryan funnels to you, you could buy Mara outright. You could position yourself higher than any of the Nine. With this contract, the Nine wouldn't remain Nine for long. There would be Ten."

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Elian went further, his voice sharpening as he outlined the full scope of what had just happened. "This is a corporate seal, Vaeliyan. It is not a small favor. It is legal scaffolding. Anything you register under this deed folds into a corporate structure that answers to commerce, not to petty jurisdictional meddling. They thought you would use it for a single forge, a single estate. They did not reckon you already hold a city by right of conquest, or that the Glass Ocean is tied to your claim. Those assets now slide under the protection of this structure. Mara, the Glass Ocean, anything you fold into your company, untouchable by the Green Zone or the Nine."

He let that sink in, then went on with blunt clarity. "They included a corporate seal, which matters more than you realize. It lets you incorporate lands and enterprises into a legal body that shields them. You cannot resell weaponry on the open market under this deed, true. They keep that line in place. But you can produce arms for yourselves. You can arm a legion, equip a Citadel, supply a city. You can build internal weapons, tools of war and industry for your own use, without those assets becoming public trade goods they can seize."

Elian's hands made quick, slicing motions as he paced the implications. "Think bigger. This isn't just a license to run a forge. It is the seed of a corporation. The Nine are nine corporate houses that absorbed noble power through trade and law. You've just been handed the founding charter for a new house. With the credits Ryan will be channeling, you can use to buy land and infrastructure, you could fold Mara into a corporate concern that no regulator can collapse."

He tapped the deed like a gavel. "They did not expect you to have the other pieces. They did not expect you to be conqueror and claimant. They did not expect the Glass Ocean to be on your ledger. If they had, they would not have handed this to you. They cannot claw it back now without triggering a cascade of legal ownership claims tied to corporate law. You hold documents that link Mara and old claims to your name. Show this to Isol and he will laugh, because the legal web will snap shut in your favor."

Elian looked at Vaeliyan hard. "Run the numbers. With Ryan's funds, you buy the land cheap, pay the owners minimal fees and fold them into your company. The Glass Ocean becomes corporate resource. Your forges, your work, Mara, they are corporate assets. The Nine can bray and stomp, but they cannot seize what is registered under your seal without igniting legal storms they do not want."

He paused, then added the sharpest piece last. "And one more thing, and this is political dynamite. If the registry reads Vaeliyan as the owner and DNA links it to Warren, then every asset you hold as Warren and every asset you hold as Vaeliyan collapse into the same ledger. The bureaucracy will treat you as one entity. That means your properties, your claims, your war-materials intended for internal use, everything both names touch, become entangled and protected. They have handed you the sword and the sheath. They made a mistake. They don't know who they actually gave this to."

The squad fell into stunned silence, the weight of his words sinking in. Elian's gaze flicked to Vaeliyan's hands, still gripping the deed. "With this piece of paper, the Nine is truly no more, because with this, the Tenth will rise. And Warren Smith will rise as the head of the House of Smith."

"Dear gods, how am I supposed to sleep after hearing that?" The squad had gone quiet, the air thick with the kind of stunned awe that follows a thing too large to take in at once. Elian was practically vibrating with it. Vaeliyan felt everything at once: Elian's excitement, the others' dumbfounded looks, and a hollowing spike of terror that lived under it all.

If Elian was right, the raw Psyro-glass in the Glass Ocean alone was enough to make his house richer than any of the Nine. The material value was endless even before it was turned it into product. Add Ryan's credits, and suddenly he wasn't buying land, he was buying an industry, the backbone of a kingdom. Then there was the Ark. He had more than a foundation. He had a war chest big enough to build an empire from the ground up.

Every time he stepped into the world, it seemed the world offered him more than he'd asked for. He did not want to be a leader. He wanted to sit with his friends and his family and keep them safe. Power meant protection, yes, but it also painted a target on his back. People could come for him. Justinia had terrified Ruby, and Ruby scared him with the way she could move. She'd asked Ryan to protect him in case something went wrong. The idea of his name becoming the next great house felt like an accusation, not a blessing.

Elian, ever practical, tried to cut through the panic. "Don't worry," he said. "This is why it works. You have a connections. Car runs the bazaar. He can act as your proxy. Take the zoning license to him when you go. Have him start buying land in your name."

Vaeliyan's head spun at the logistics. Elian laid it out like an engineer. "We'll use Ryan's funds. We'll buy parcels cheap, fold them into the company. You won't even have to show your face for a while. By the time anyone notices, the deeds will be filed and too messy to untangle without a scandal. You get a city loyal to you. You will get the funding you need to protect it. And you won't owe the Green anything."

The plan sounded beautiful. Vaeliyan pictured Mara under his banner: forges belching light, the Glass Ocean feeding an economy, artisans and legionaries both loyal to him. He pictured a citadel, and place that could protect the people he cared about. But he also pictured assassins, jealous Houses, a dozen quiet attempts to take his head. He felt squeezed between longing and dread.

"My AI just ran the numbers," Elian said again. "Even if Car takes his time to start the purchases. If this deed is as strong as it reads, the legal scaffolding will do the rest. You may want to speak to my parents about this..."

Vaeliyan breathed out hard. "I don't want to talk to anyone. Not my parents, not High Councillor Gleck, not anyone."

The weight of it settled, heavy and hot. The possibility of a house, a city, a citadel pressed against him like an inevitable tide. He wanted to laugh and he wanted to run. For a long moment he simply stood there, fingers tightening around the deed as if it might bite.

"This is too much," he said finally, and it was the truest thing in the room. The others met his eyes with an odd mix of hunger and fear. They wanted the world to be bigger for him, but none of them pretended it wouldn't also try to swallow him whole.

The room was quiet after Elian's explanation, but it wasn't silence that followed. It was weight. The bond tugged at them, threads that let Vaeliyan sense what they felt even when they held their faces steady. Their unease pressed faintly at the edge of his awareness, like heat waves rising from stone. He knew they could sense his dread and confusion as well. The link made their feelings harder to hide, and it left the air heavy, each heartbeat slower, each breath thick with tension.

Chime was the first to break the quiet, her voice low and edged with worry. "It feels like too much. If you take this, you're not just a cadet anymore. You're setting yourself against Houses that eat cities for breakfast. We've seen what they can do. We've felt their shadow over everything we train for." She looked down at her hands as if trying to measure the cost.

Sylen grunted, rubbing her knuckles in a nervous rhythm. "She's not wrong. You saw Justinia today. If she wanted, she could end us with a thought. If the Nine see you as a threat, we're all corpses before the week's out. That's not paranoia, it's just fact. Their reach is too wide, their power too great." Her voice was heavy, like she was already bracing for blows.

Lessa tilted her head, metal fingers clicking together in a steady, unsettling beat. "But if he joins Verdance, if he ties himself to Justinia, he could become heir to a House already at the table. It would protect him. Maybe protect us too. We'd be inside the walls, not staring up at them. Isn't that worth considering?"

"Protect?" Roan snorted, his laugh bitter. "That's not protection. That's a cage. You hand them your freedom, you're just another piece on their board. They'd own you. They'd own all of us through you. That's not survival, it's surrender."

Fenn's eyes narrowed, sharp and cold. "Ryan isn't better. Ryan is business. If they found out about the Glass Ocean, about the wealth you hold, they'd strip you clean. You'd be nothing but a resource they drained and discarded. They don't care about you, only what you can give them."

Elian's jaw tightened, his voice clipped with restrained anger. "He's right and I'm sorry I even suggested going to my parents. They wouldn't spare you. If they knew what you held, my parents would kill you to take this deed for themselves, rings be damned. They wouldn't understand the bond. They'd think they could tear it apart. They'd try, and they'd kill us all for it including me. You can't trust anyone in that circle to respect what is yours if you cant hold it for yourself."

The bond pulsed faintly, Vaeliyan catching the sharp edge of their fear, their loyalty, their frustration. It wasn't his fear, but he felt it brushing against him, just as they felt the turmoil churning inside him. It was messy, but it was theirs. He stood in the middle of it, the tide of emotions pulling at him, leaving no easy shore.

Xera crossed her arms, glaring at the floor as if it were an enemy. "Then maybe the only path is to build it yourself. Riskier, yes. But it's yours. No House claws in your back, no leash at your throat. If we're going to fall, at least it'll be for our own cause."

Torman let out a long breath, his shoulders sagging as if the weight had doubled. "If you go alone, you paint a target the size of a city on yourself. On us. But if you pull it off… the upside is bigger than anything we've ever dreamed. A House that's ours, not theirs. That's worth bleeding for, even if it's madness."

"Just talk to Car," Jurpat suggested again, more firmly this time. "He'll tell you how it looks from the outside. If it's madness, he'll say it. If it's possible, he'll back you. At least then we'll know we're not walking blind."

The rest added their own thoughts, some reluctant, some fierce. Wesley muttered that a storm like this always came with hidden lightning, while Varnai insisted that chance favored the bold. The twins, Leron and Vexa, simply stared at Vaeliyan in perfect unison, their silence more unsettling than words, though he could feel the tremor of unease behind their calm expressions. Each voice carried a shard of truth, and each shard cut a different way.

None of them wanted to choose for him, but all of them could feel the weight of the choice pressing in. Vaeliyan could feel it too, the bond pulsed with fear, hope, and something rawer that might one day become conviction. A house of his own. A kingdom of glass and storm. Or chains, hidden behind velvet promises. The future pulled in every direction at once, and the weight of it settled on his shoulders alone, heavier than any weapon he had ever carried.

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