The orange glow of the sunset was bleeding into a deep, bruised violet by the time the wind picked up. The mountain air was losing the warmth of the afternoon and turning sharp and dry. Vane stayed seated on the grass with his back against the stone base of a sundial. The silence left by the twins' departure was a physical weight, a sudden vacuum where laughter and wooden sword-clashes had been just moments before. Valerica was still beside him. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and her eyes were fixed on the distant, jagged horizon where the lights of the capital were just beginning to flicker like fallen stars.

Vane looked at her from the corner of his eye. If he'd been the same boy who'd crawled out of the Oakhaven mud, he'd be calculating exactly how to exploit the look of peace on her face. When he'd first arrived at Zenith, that was the only plan he had. He'd seen her name on the roster: Valerica Sol. He had used Target Analysis on her when he saw her in the lower Villa after orientation. It had shown that her Authority was EX-rank, the same as him. The very pinnacle. Back then, she wasn't a girl. She was a shortcut. He'd viewed her as a tool, a [Celestial Heart] that he could copy to get stronger.

But the plan had cracked. It had started with the long, silent nights in the Old Gymnasium and the way Isole had quietly shared her mana-rations when she thought he wasn't looking. It had deepened when Ashe had thrown herself into a supersonic blur just to keep a monster from touching his back. Most of all, it had changed before because of Senna. The General had beaten the "Rat" out of him and replaced it with a commander's soul. He didn't just want Valerica's power anymore. He wanted her to stand at the top with him. He cared for her in a way that made his previous calculations feel like a betrayal. He watched the way her violet hair caught the fading light, and for the first time, he felt a genuine hesitation about the secret he was carrying.

"You're doing that thing again," Valerica said. Her voice cut through the twilight with a quiet familiarity. She didn't turn her head, but her violet eyes were sharp. "You've got that look you get before a Practical. Like you're measuring the distance to a target's throat."

Vane let out a slow, steady breath. He could feel the Low-Sentinel mana in his core. It was stable, heavy, and responsive. There was no point in hiding the truth anymore. Not here, and not from her. But as he opened his mouth, the words felt like they were coated in lead. How do you tell someone whose family represents the pinnacle of Imperial order that your entire life is built on a desire to tear a piece of that order down?

"I didn't come to Zenith to be a student, Valerica," Vane started. He picked a blade of mountain grass and turned it over in his fingers, watching the way his new, crystalline mana made the edges of the grass shimmer. "I came because the man I'm looking for is an Imperial Knight. He's a Sentinel, maybe even a Justiciar by now. In Oakhaven, we didn't get to see his medals. We just saw what he did when he thought no one was watching."

Valerica turned to face him now. The playful arrogance from the afternoon was gone, replaced by a still, quiet focus that made her look years older. "What happened in Oakhaven, Vane? You never talk about it."

Vane leaned his head back against the cold stone of the sundial. "It was only five months ago. It feels like a lifetime, but the calendar says five months. My mother, Helena, had just finished scolding me for holding my fork like a shovel. She always hated the way I ate. She told me I was a frog in a well who thought the circle of sky was the entire universe. She wanted me to be better than the mud we lived in."

He paused, the memory hitting him with the force of a physical blow. He could still smell the copper tang of the melting iron.

"Then I felt the gates melt," Vane said. His voice dropped into a low, flat register. "The iron just... turned to liquid. This knight, Gareth, walked into our courtyard like he was taking a stroll in a park. He was hunting a fugitive, some low-level rebel who'd supposedly hidden in our district. Gareth didn't say a word to us. He didn't ask questions. He didn't even draw his sword."

Vane's fingers tightened around the grass until it snapped. "He just stood there and unleashed a Radiant Arc through the center of our home. He wanted to clear the building in one go. My mother was still inside. She wasn't a mage. She was just a woman who wanted her son to use a fork properly. She was collateral damage. An ant stepped on by a giant who didn't even bother to look down."

Valerica's breath caught in her throat. She knew the Radiant Arc. It was a signature of the high-tier Solar arts, a focused wave of energy that didn't just burn; it erased.

"I screamed at him," Vane whispered. "I dug her out of the rubble with my bare hands while he was adjusting his cape. When I yelled that he'd killed her, he didn't even look at me. He just said she was 'in the way' and kept walking. That was the moment I realized that being a 'frog' was a death sentence. I buried her in a muddy hole and I left. I found Senna, and I told her I wanted to be a blade."

The silence that followed was heavy, filled only with the rhythmic thrum of the manor's mana-pumps. Vane felt the old anger in his marrow, but it wasn't the wild, screaming rage of his childhood. It was something more dangerous. It was a cold, Sentinel-grade intent. He looked at Valerica, expecting to see the distance of a noble who couldn't understand a peasant's grudge.

Instead, he saw her trembling. Not with fear, but with a suppressed, vibrating fury.

"His name is Gareth," Vane said, the name tasting like ash. "He's a Knight. I've been running toward him since the day I buried her."

Valerica reached out. Her hand hovered in the air between them for a second before she firmly gripped his arm. Her skin was warm, a sharp contrast to the biting mountain wind that was beginning to whip around the sundial. She didn't say anything at first, her thumb tracing a small, grounding circle over the fabric of his sleeve.

"I thought I could just use you," Vane admitted, finally meeting her eyes. He felt the weight of the confession like a physical burden being lifted. "I thought I'd get close to the Sol family, use your Authority to bridge the gap in my rank, and move on. That was the 'Rat' in me. I viewed you as a tool for my debt."

He managed a weak, self-deprecating smile. "But then I met the squad. You, Isole, Ashe. You're not assets. I realize now that if I go to the capital alone, I'm just going to be another body in the mud. Gareth would crush me before I even reached his shadow. I'm not that boy anymore. I'm a Sentinel. And I'm your partner."

Valerica looked at his hand, then up at his face. The way she looked at him wasn't about rivalry or academic standing. There was a blossoming, fierce loyalty in her gaze, a nascent heat that was beginning to burn through her noble reservations. She didn't pity him. She respected the monster he had become to survive that light. She saw the "King of Puddles" who had reached Rank 4 while the world was trying to bury him.

She stood up and pulled him with her. The sun was completely gone now, leaving them in the silver glow of the manor's exterior lamps. She looked like a goddess of the peaks, her violet eyes burning with a regal, uncompromising fire that rivaled her father's. She stepped closer, her presence overlapping with his until the cold of the mountain was entirely forgotten.

"Gareth is a Knight," Valerica said, her voice regaining its authoritative edge. "He's protected by Imperial law, the weight of the throne, and a network of knights who don't care about the truth. A commoner, even a Sentinel, can't touch him without being executed by the Justiciars before the body even hits the floor."

She gripped his hand, her fingers locking with his in a pact that felt more binding than any academy contract.

"I'll help you."

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