The morning after the escape from Valche's estate bled into the sky with a dull, bruised hue. Clouds hung low over Veltaris, pressed against the rooftops like a second ceiling, heavy with the threat of rain but unwilling to let it fall. The air felt taut—strained like stretched cloth—too warm for the season. Izen walked through the Merchant's Row district with his collar turned up and his hands buried deep into the folds of his cloak, keeping his face down.
The streets hadn't yet come alive. Vendors were still assembling their carts and awnings. Some brushed the damp from their tables, while others muttered curses into the fog. Izen moved unnoticed. A shadow among thicker shadows. He didn't dare return to the Academy just yet. Not until his pulse stopped kicking behind his ribs.
He couldn't get the list out of his head.
Six names. Six.
And Kaelith's among them.
He ducked into a broken archway beside a closed fishmonger's stall. The brick behind him was wet and flaked at his touch. The alley was narrow enough that he could see clear to the other side, where a rusted iron gate led to the canal path. He crouched there, letting the quiet settle into his bones.
His breath fogged in front of him.
Why her?
She had never struck him as dangerous. Quiet, yes. Secretive, certainly. But dangerous? Not in the way the others on the list were. Daelo Aven was known for hosting private blood-duels on his estate's roof. Brek Two-Tongue ran half the informant rings near the harbor. But Kaelith? She fed the stray cats behind the dormitory kitchen. She barely spoke. And yet… she watched. Always watched.
Always waiting for something.
The last few lessons at the Academy had started to shift in tone. Before, they'd been about conditioning. Drills. Knifework. Codebreaking. But now, everything had a new undercurrent. Instructors began speaking in hypotheticals. What would you do if your mission target was a friend? What if your contact lied? What if your mentor betrayed you?
And always that same refrain: There are no sides. Only decisions.
He hadn't thought much of it at the time.
Now, it tasted like foreshadowing.
By late morning, he'd made his way back to the lower east wing of the Academy grounds. The rear gate had no guards posted—standard for this time of day—but he climbed over the garden wall anyway, boots sinking into damp moss as he dropped down behind the herb sheds. The smell of crushed mint and wet earth hit his nose.
He waited another ten minutes before moving.
Caution was no longer a luxury. It was survival.
The Academy was a cathedral stitched into a fortress. High halls built from blackstone and red-veined granite. Ivy ran down parts of the walls like veins. In the morning light, the building looked less like a school and more like something left behind by a dead god.
Students were already scattered across the courtyards. Some trained with wooden staves under the gaze of instructor Volen, while others stood by the stone fountains whispering about last night's storm. Izen kept to the far paths, following the shadow of the west wing until he reached the library steps.
There, Kaelith was waiting.
She stood with her back to him, arms folded behind her, eyes scanning a loose cluster of pages held by twine. She wore her uniform half-unbuttoned, as she often did—always slightly disheveled, like she'd just stepped out of a windstorm. Her silver-white hair caught the light like frost on glass.
Izen stopped six paces behind her.
"Good morning," he said quietly.
Kaelith didn't turn. "You didn't sleep here last night."
"No."
"You were on assignment."
A pause.
Then she added, "You were followed."
The stone in Izen's chest dropped lower.
He closed the gap between them until he could hear the faint ruffle of paper between her fingers. "You always speak in statements. Never questions."
"That's because I'm usually right."
She looked at him then. Not with warmth. Not with suspicion. Just that same unreadable calm. Like a lake you couldn't tell the depth of.
"There's something I should ask you," Izen said.
"Then ask."
But he didn't. Not yet.
Instead, they sat together on the edge of the stairwell, watching birds circle above the southern tower. Kaelith handed him part of the document she'd been reading—a half-declassified record of a failed assassination during the border riots six years ago. A name at the top caught his eye. Instructor Volen.
So. Even the instructors had bodies buried under them.
Especially the instructors.
"Why are you reading this?" he asked.
Kaelith shrugged. "I don't like surprises."
That made him laugh. A short, hollow thing. "Then you're in the wrong school."
Kaelith smiled faintly.
For a long time, they didn't speak. The sky had begun to break apart, sun threading between the clouds in pale gold beams. Voices drifted from the mess hall windows behind them. The scent of boiled root and grilled venison.
Izen looked down at the paper in his lap and asked, softly, "Would you kill me if they told you to?"
She didn't answer immediately.
But she didn't say no.
Later that afternoon, the second part of their "practical" lesson resumed.
It was a drill disguised as a lesson—"Target, Terrain, and Time." A mock operation with rules, time limits, and scoring. Instructors stood overhead with signal horns, watching students deploy into the training fields. They were to locate a hidden target within the artificial ruins and extract a message from a secured lockbox.
But this time, the groups were chosen randomly.
And Kaelith was paired with Izen.
The ruins stretched across the southern ridge of the Academy grounds, bounded by dry riverbeds and half-collapsed towers. Ivy crept up the stonework. Moss layered the floor in soft green carpets. The walls had once belonged to a watchpost centuries ago—now, they were a playground for the next generation of killers.
"Clock starts," barked Instructor Serren, blowing the horn.
Izen and Kaelith moved immediately, ducking beneath an archway into the second chamber. He could hear shouts in the distance as other groups scattered through the ruins.
"We don't have to win," Kaelith said as they ran. "Just don't lose badly."
"Lys doesn't believe in second place," Izen replied, half-smiling.
They found a narrow path between two collapsed beams and slid down an incline into a semi-enclosed hollow. There, tucked into a pile of bones and dirt, was the lockbox—small, iron, marked with an Academy crest. But as Kaelith reached for it, a dart whistled past her shoulder and embedded into the wood beside her.
Izen tackled her to the ground instinctively.
Another pair—Cassin and Morlen—emerged from the broken arch above. Morlen was grinning, his bow already nocked again. "Sorry, love," he called. "Guess it's your unlucky day."
Cassin dropped a small vial to the ground. Smoke burst upward in a sudden white plume, obscuring everything.
Izen rolled behind a stone pillar, coughing. Kaelith had already vanished into the mist. He could hear footsteps pounding around him, the scrape of steel, the grunt of a body hitting the floor.
Then—
Silence.
The smoke cleared.
Kaelith stood over Morlen, his blade at her feet, his hand bleeding.
Izen stood between her and Cassin, dagger drawn. But Cassin didn't move. She only looked between them, narrowed her eyes, then turned and walked away without a word.
They retrieved the lockbox and returned.
Instructor Serren didn't say anything as they handed it in. He simply checked a box on his slate and nodded.
But Izen noticed something in his eyes.
Not approval.
Not even interest.
Something else.
Something colder.
That night, in the safety of his dormitory cell, Izen sat cross-legged beneath the single candle allowed for each student. The coin was in his palm again—the spiral on its face catching the flicker of flame. He turned it slowly between thumb and forefinger.
There was something in him. He didn't know what to call it. He didn't know how to reach it. But he knew it was real.
Time didn't bend around him.
It breathed.
And somewhere in the folds of that breath, someone else was watching him.
Waiting for him to see it.
Not just the Academy. Not just the missions. Something deeper.
A pattern.
A shape.
A purpose.
He closed his eyes.
And in the silence between seconds, the world shivered.