Kez didn't hesitate.
He surged at Dan like a switch had been flipped, all that eager devotion turning into violence. He went in hard, shoulder-first, as if he meant to drive Dan into the wall and end it with his hands.
Dan fought back immediately.
Not with confusion. With precision.
His forearm snapped up and caught Kez high on the chest, stopping the first rush. Dan twisted with the impact, redirecting Kez's momentum instead of absorbing it, then shoved him sideways hard enough that Kez's boots skidded on the stone.
"I knew I shouldn't have trusted you," Dan said, loud and flat, for the doorway.
Kez grinned like the word was praise. "Instructor," he barked back, loud enough to be heard, "isn't it an honor. Dying for a cadet. That's what you people preach, right?"
Sine watched, pleased. "Good," he murmured. "Hurry up already."
Kez lunged again, grabbing a fistful of Dan's coat and yanking him toward the vent wall like he meant to choke him out right there. Dan's hand clamped over Kez's wrist and wrenched, hard. Kez made it look like pain, shoulders jerking, face twisted in fanatic glee, but his grip didn't fully break.
He didn't want it to.
He wanted Dan close to the vent.
Dan drove an elbow into Kez's ribs. Real enough to sell it. Kez staggered, then shoved back with both hands, forcing Dan a half-step toward the wall.
The vent cover sat there behind Kez, loosened and crooked, one screw still holding it like a stubborn tooth.
Kez grabbed Dan again, spun with him, and slammed Dan backward.
Dan let it happen.
His shoulder hit the vent cover.
Metal shrieked. The remaining screw snapped with a sharp crack, and the panel bucked inward, then popped free, dropping at an angle to reveal a mouth of darkness breathing cold air.
The sound was ugly and loud.
Perfectly believable as collateral.
Sine's gaze flicked past Kez for a fraction of a second. Not long enough to understand. Just long enough to register that something had broken.
Dan saw the opening instantly.
So did Kez.
Kez kept moving, kept the struggle messy, blocking the vent with his body angle. He shoved Dan again, pretending he wanted his throat. Dan shoved back, forcing Kez a step sideways like he was trying to regain control.
Dan's hand slid into his coat pocket.
Kez felt the shift and pressed closer, making it look like he was trying to restrain Dan. "Die," Kez shouted, fanatic and bright, for the doorway. "Die for the Covenant."
Dan's fingers closed on glass.
For one heartbeat, his eyes met Kez's.
Kez gave him the smallest, quickest nod he could hide inside the chaos.
Dan understood.
He ripped himself free, stepped toward the doorway as if to strike, and flicked two flash vials low past Kez's hip, one after the other.
They hit the stone just inside the threshold.
Glass shattered.
And the chamber detonated into white.
Kez clamped his eyes shut so hard his eyelids ached. Dan did the same. Neither of them had time to cover their ears.
The sound hit next. A brutal, concussive crack that seemed to punch straight through bone. Kez's teeth clicked together. The blue lines in the walls flared brighter through his closed lids, then smeared into afterimages. His balance went unreliable, like the floor had shifted half an inch to the side and refused to move back.
Somewhere near the doorway, a voice barked. Another coughed then a second later, laughter erupted.
Kez forced himself to move anyway, one hand scraping along the wall until he found the vent opening. Cold air spilled out of it. Not a draft. A drop.
He didn't spare Dan a glance. He couldn't afford to. He was already calculating distance, angle, how hard the fall would be, how much it would hurt, whether it would kill him. He swallowed the panic and made it practical.
He tried his best to quickly manifested some mana and shaped a decoy silhouette against the wall where he'd been standing. It didn't move. It didn't need to. In the flash's fading glare it looked like a stunned body pinned in place, a target that had frozen mid-betrayal.
Kez shoved himself into the vent.
Gravity took him immediately.
His stomach lurched as the metal shaft dropped away beneath him. He scrabbled for purchase, fingers finding nothing but cold edges, then he was falling. Air rushed past his ears, loud under the ringing. He tried to tuck his arms in, tried to brace for impact, tried not to think about how far "lower floors" actually meant.
He hit.
Not a clean landing. A brutal slam into the bottom section where the shaft angled, metal biting his shoulder and hip. Pain flared white, then dulled under adrenaline. He rolled, coughing, boots skidding on dust.
Kez heard the scrape at the lip above, then the brief, weightless silence that meant someone had committed. A heartbeat later, a body came down the shaft and slammed into him.
Kez's breath exploded out of his lungs. His shoulder hit the metal wall. His teeth clicked hard enough to sting. The world, already ruined by ringing ears and flashburn, turned into a churn of pain and cold air.
Dan rolled off him almost immediately, controlled even in the collapse, palms finding the floor, knees tucking like he had decided falling was just another procedure. He did not apologize. He did not waste breath.
Kez lay there for a second, trying to convince his lungs to work again.
"Move," Dan said, voice flat, too close.
Kez coughed, dragged air back in, and shoved himself upright. "Get off next time."
Above him, sound echoed down the shaft. Footsteps. Shouts.
Sine's voice carried, sharp with irritation. "Vent."
The vent above them was a vertical throat of metal. The chamber's blue light was a faint glow far overhead, now cut and jittering as shadows crossed it. Footsteps approached the vent lip. They stopped.
The second man answered with a soft chuckle, like he'd been entertained. "That's quite the drop. Let them break their bones down there."
Sine's voice sharpened, irritated. "We go after them."
"No," the second man said, still amused. "Not worth the fall for an instructor and a loud cadet."
Sine bristled. "They heard us. They saw us. We don't leave loose ends."
The second man's tone cooled just a fraction. "I just got the signal that Azik is pulling back." He let the words settle, then added, "There is no point of wasting time behind this."
Kez's pulse tried to settle. Relief nudged at him, tentative.
Dan's posture did not relax. His head stayed tilted, listening like he expected the next word to be a knife.
There was a pause above. Someone else stepped closer. Kez could hear fabric shift, the small sounds of people deciding what kind of cruelty fit their mood.
Then the second man spoke again, gentle as ever. "But it doesn't feel right to just let them go. Let's smoke them out."
Dan moved at the same instant Kez understood.
Dan's hand clamped around Kez's sleeve and yanked him forward. "Run."
Kez didn't argue. His legs were still shaky from the fall, but adrenaline made them functional. He staggered into the maintenance corridor at the bottom of the shaft, a narrow space with pipes and bundled cables running along the walls. The air down here smelled like dust and old metal, sealed for years. It also smelled like a trap.
Behind them, a new light bloomed above.
Orange.
A fireball dropped into the shaft like a small sun.
It did not fall quietly. It roared, and the heat hit before the flame did. The vent became a chimney. Air got sucked upward and downward at once, feeding the blaze. The sound turned into a violent wind.
Kez's eyes watered instantly, even after the flash, even half-blind. "How fast is it coming."
"Fast," Dan said.
Kez pushed harder, boots slipping on grit. The corridor bent left, then tightened. A low section forced them to duck. The metal around them began to warm, subtle at first, then more insistent, like a fever spreading through the structure.
Dan's calm finally cracked in a way that was almost invisible. Not panic. Speed. He was moving faster than his earlier cadence, and he hated that he had to.
"There," Dan said, pointing ahead.
Kez squinted through the dim maintenance strips. A hatch in the floor, rectangular, bolted shut. A ladder well. It looked like a maintenance drop to another level.
Kez dropped to his knees and grabbed the latch.
It didn't budge.
Of course.
Dan crouched beside him, sword gone now, hands free. He placed his palm against the hatch seam and breathed once, controlled, then reached into empty air and pulled out the flat pry tool again. He wedged it into the crack.
The metal was already warming. Kez could feel it through his fingertips. Heat was traveling down the vent behind them like a living thing.
Above, the fireball hit something and spread. The roar deepened. The air in the corridor shifted. It began to pull toward them.
Smoke would follow.
Kez swallowed, forcing his voice steady. "Shit it's coming close, HURRY UP!"
Dan levered the tool harder while gritting his teeth.
The hatch creaked. The sound was small, but it was the sweetest thing Kez had heard all morning.
Kez shoved his fingers into the widening gap and pulled. The metal fought him. His bruised side screamed. He pulled anyway.
The hatch popped free with a metallic snap and swung inward.
A blast of cooler air rose from below, carrying the smell of damp stone and old disinfectant. It smelled like a lower service level, the kind of place that still belonged to infrastructure, not to classrooms.
Dan didn't wait. He grabbed the hatch edge and held it open. "Down."
Kez swung his legs into the well and found the ladder. He climbed down fast, boots clanging despite his best effort. His hands slipped once on a rung, sweaty and shaking.
Dan climbed after him immediately, faster than he looked like he should move, then slammed the hatch above them as soon as his feet hit the lower floor.
The roar of the fireball muffled, but it didn't disappear. The metal hatch above them began to tick as it heated.
They were in a lower service corridor now. Concrete walls. Utility doors with faded labels. A line of emergency lamps that buzzed faintly, spaced too far apart. The air was cooler here, but it had that stale, filtered taste that meant you were still underground and still inside a system that could become an oven if the wrong pipe burst.
Dan moved first. No hesitation, no looking back. He took three steps, then four, putting distance between them and the vent mouth like distance could become a shield.
Kez followed, limping once, then forcing it out of his gait. He wasn't giving the building anything to read. "Is there a place we can hide," he muttered the question, more to himself than to Dan.
Dan's voice was level. "Yes."
They rounded a bend and nearly collided with bodies.
Not dead ones this time.
Three instructors came out of the intersecting corridor in a tight wedge, moving fast and coordinated, the way people moved when they were trained to sprint into chaos. Two wore combat certification bands on their sleeves. The third had a medic sash, already stained. One of them carried a staff that hummed faintly, its head glowing like a coal behind a cage.
All three stopped at once.
Light snapped toward Kez and Dan, not from a lamp but from a spell held at the edge of release. Kez felt it crawl over his skin, measuring him. The staff-instructor's eyes flicked to Dan's face, then to Kez's soot-streaked collar, then to the vent grate behind them.
"Hands," the lead instructor said, voice sharp and tired. "Both of you. Now."
Kez lifted his hands immediately, palms open. He kept them steady. No sudden movements. He had learned enough today to respect people holding magic at the ready.
Dan raised his hands too, slower, controlled, not defiant but deliberate. His sword was gone from sight, stored away. His posture was still too straight for someone who had just fallen down a shaft and outrun a fireball, but his breathing gave him away if you listened close.
The lead instructor's gaze narrowed. "Faculty?" he asked, eyes on Dan.
Dan answered without pausing. "Instructor Dan Kessarin. Space Theory."
The medic's eyes widened a fraction. "Instructor Dan? We couldn't reach you and thought you died when they attacked the teacher's lounge. Are you alright?"
Dan answered with an impassive expression. "Yes."
The lead instructor's spell did not lower. "And the cadet."
Kez didn't flinch at the word. "Kez Jolkev, first year." he said.
The second instructor took a half-step to the side, angling for a view past them. "This corridor is sealed. How did you get here."
Dan's gaze didn't flick. "Maintenance vent. Drop shaft. They sent fire down after us."
That did it. The medic's expression hardened and she looked past them again, as if she could see the flame through concrete.
The lead instructor exhaled once, then finally let his spell dim a notch. Not off. Just not pointed directly at their throats anymore. "Where did you see them last?" he asked.
Kez nodded once. "At the access chamber above. Two of them at least. They chose not to follow. They tried to smoke us out."
The second instructor swore under his breath. He pulled a comm device up, thumbed it twice. Static answered, then a broken burst of voices. He tried again and got only hiss.
"Comms are still garbage," he muttered.
Dan's eyes tracked the comm device, then lifted to the corridor ahead, as if mapping routes. "Where are you moving people."
The lead instructor hesitated, then decided speed mattered more than secrecy. "Reinforced junction E-four. Lower ring. We're sweeping service corridors and pulling anyone alive into the hard points."
He looked at Kez again, assessing. "Where's your ID."
"I think I dropped it somewhere in the vent," Kez answered without any hesitation.
The lead instructor stared at Dan, then at Kez. "You two are covered in dust, smell like vent metal, and you're alive. That's good enough for now." He jerked his chin down the corridor. "You're coming with us. Stay in the middle. If you run, you get dropped."
Kez nodded. "Understood."
Dan didn't nod. He simply moved when they moved, slipping into formation with unsettling ease, like he had done it before, even if his face was still wearing that calm like armor.
As they started down the corridor, the medic fell in beside Kez and spoke without looking at him. "Can you walk."
Kez tested his leg on the next step, then responded with a light tone. "Yeah. I think."
"Good," she said. "Because if you go down, I'm not carrying you. I'll drag you."
"Ah please don't tempt me. My legs are in so much pain that I might just take you up on that offer." Kez responded with a sly smile on his face.
Behind them, far away but getting louder, the building gave a deep groan, and the air carried a faint, rising heat through the vents like something was still searching for them.
Kez didn't remember how long he was walking but soon they reached the end of the corridor.
A heavy door opened ahead, and sound spilled out: a low mass of voices, shuffling feet, muffled sobs, clipped orders. The smell hit too, not smoke, but sweat, antiseptic, damp wool, and the metallic tang of mana discharge.
They entered a temporary safe zone.
It was a wide hall that had once been a storage wing or an underground training annex. Now it was crowded. Students sat in tight clusters along the walls, some with their uniforms torn, some wrapped in blankets, some staring blankly at nothing. A few instructors moved through the groups like shepherds, checking injuries, taking names, marking slates. A pair of senior staff stood near the far end where a barrier lattice shimmered faintly across a reinforced doorway, a translucent plane of mana that made the air ripple.
The hum Kez felt in his teeth was stronger here, steadier. Wards. Real ones. Holding.
Near the center, a row of med stations had been set up with fold-out tables. A cadet lay on one, arm bandaged, face gray. Another student was being forced to drink a thick tonic by a medic who looked like she'd done it a hundred times and hated every single time.
The lead instructor guided Kez and Dan to the edge of the crowd. "Sit. Stay visible."
Kez lowered himself onto the floor near a pillar, back against cold stone. His body finally realized it was allowed to be tired and immediately tried to collapse. He kept himself upright anyway.
Dan stayed standing for a moment, scanning the room with that same measuring stillness. Then he sat as well, a controlled motion, hands resting loosely, eyes fixed forward as if he were listening to the hum of the wards and translating it into numbers.
The noise of the safe hall settled into layers. Low voices. The scrape of boots. The occasional sharp instruction from an instructor that cut clean through the murmur. Somewhere near the med tables a cadet gagged on tonic and a medic cursed under her breath like it was routine.
***
Kez sat there long enough for the ward-hum to become background noise. Dan stayed composed beside him, eyes forward, posture still too perfect for a man who'd just fallen down a shaft and outrun fire.
Kez leaned in a little, voice low. "So, you're taking me to see Verin again."
Dan didn't look at him. "Yes."
"Good," Kez said, like that was a gift. "Then do me a favor. Tell her to un-expel me."
Dan's eyes flicked once. "No."
Kez blinked, then smiled. Not hurt. Not shocked. Just amused, like he'd expected resistance and was ready for it. "Wow. Straight to no. No warm-up."
Dan's tone stayed even. "Your expulsion is not my decision."
"Sure," Kez said. "But you can influence it. You can put in some good word."
"I will not."
Kez let the silence sit for half a second, then shrugged. "Okay, let's play it your way. Why."
Dan finally looked at him. The look was sharp and tired. "Because it is not appropriate."
Kez's smile widened. "Appropriate" He savored the word like it tasted funny. "We just got hunted through vents by psycho cultists and you're still going on about sum 'appropriate'."
Dan looked away again. "Yes."
Kez nodded slowly, like he was considering a difficult math problem. Then he leaned closer, voice dropping into something almost confidential. "Alright. I'm going to say a sentence and you're going to tell me where it's wrong."
Dan didn't answer.
Kez continued anyway. "You, an instructor of the possibly the most elite institution of this world, somehow managed to get door-slammed in the face by me. Then you got assigned to babysit me, but you decided to bring me into a death corridor where I stared death in the face and managed to outwit death. Then not only did I save my own life but also saved the life of an instructor who decided to repay me by using me as a landing pad."
He paused. "And now you're telling me you can't spare one line to Verin that goes, 'He's a disaster but he's useful.'"
Dan's jaw tightened a fraction.
Kez saw it and smiled brighter. "See how the situation looks?"
Dan's voice stayed controlled. "Are we talking about the same person who irresponsibly interrupted my lecture? One who decided that breaking down a door is better than having the patience to wait 10 seconds? One who couldn't sit still in a room and shamelessly nagged their instructor take them to safety? One who doesn't hesitate to loot corpses of fellow cadets in front of their instructor? One who decides to not trust their instructor but instead trust in a risky gamble involving both their lives? Tell me, are we talking about the same person here?"
Kez stared at him for a beat, then let out a quiet, impressed whistle. "Wow, so that's the game we are playing here, huh?"
Dan didn't blink. His voice stayed the same measured flat. "This is not a game. Answer the question."
Kez spread his hands, palms up, like the whole thing was obvious. "Yes. Same person."
Dan's eyes narrowed slightly. "Then why would I 'put in a good word.'"
Kez leaned forward a little. His smile faded, but his eyes sharpened. "Because" he said, "my merits heavily outweigh every crime you just listed."
Dan's gaze didn't move. "That's not very convincing argument."
Kez's smile returned, smaller and sharper. "Tell me what's the purpose of the academy? Is it to train them with discipline and correct their behavior or just keep pruning till you are only left with the one's with best discipline and behavior? What's the point of the academy then? A test can do that as well."
Dan's expression stayed flat.
Kez continued. "If you expel someone on day one, what you're saying is not that he couldn't be disciplined or that his behavior couldn't be corrected. What you're really saying is, 'we don't think we can correct him.' After watching him for a morning."
He lifted a hand, palm up. "That's not discipline. That's quitting."
Dan's eyes narrowed a fraction. "It is not the academy's job to gamble on a liability."
For the first time, Kez laughed out loud. "Oh really? So, what do you call all the cadets that died today?"
A few heads nearby turned at the word. An instructor's voice rose across the hall, trying to calm someone. The ward hum stayed steady, indifferent.
Dan's gaze snapped to Kez. "Lower your voice."
Kez kept his voice low, but there was a bite to it now that didn't need volume.
"You just said it's not the academy's job to gamble on a liability," he said, leaning closer. "So explain the math to me."
Dan didn't move.
Kez held up a finger. "Option one. Those cadets weren't liabilities. They were selected, like you said. Meaning the academy took them in, stamped them as worth training, and put them behind these walls."
Another finger. "Option two. They were liabilities, and the academy brought them in anyway, lined them up in halls, and acted surprised when the halls became a slaughterhouse."
He let his hand drop. "Either way, you don't get to say this place doesn't gamble. It gambles constantly. The only choice is what kind of loss you're willing to accept."
Dan's gaze stayed on him, pale and steady. "You are equating an attack with a disciplinary decision."
Kez's smile turned thin. "I'm saying the disciplinary decision is pretending it exists in a vacuum."
He nodded toward the crowded hall. "Look around. This is what happens when the gamble goes bad. You gather kids in one institution, call it training, and hope the walls hold. Sometimes they don't."
Dan's jaw flexed. "The academy cannot predict every breach."
"Sure," Kez said. "But it can predict breaches happen. Devils happen. Maniacs happen. So when the first response to a 'problem student' is 'throw him out' instead of 'contain and correct,' it's not discipline. It's the academy admitting it only knows how to manage easy cases. Look I'm not making a speech for all the expelled souls. I'm making a case for mine"
He leaned closer, voice quieter. "And don't sell me the 'not worth the gamble' line. Academy already gambled on me by letting me walk these halls. Hell even you gambled when you decided to take me out of Verin's office and you know I pulled my weight in your gambles."
His eyes flicked to Dan's bruised jaw. "What I want from you is simple. Tell Verin that I am worth the gamble."
Dan didn't answer right away. He watched the barrier lattice as it shimmered, as if he trusted it only because it was currently working.
When he spoke, his voice was low and flat. "You are trying to corner me into saying something I do not believe."
Kez's mouth twitched. "No. I'm trying to corner you into saying something that's true. The only reason we're sitting here instead of adding to the corpse count is because my approach worked. Call it gamble or whatever you want but it worked. That proves my worth and reliability."
"That's luck, not skill. It does not make you reliable," Dan said.
Kez shrugged, shameless. "I consider luck a skill. It keeps me alive." His grin sharpened. "Which, again, seems like a pretty important metric today."
"You want me to persuade Verin with your survival?" Dan asked, visibly tired of this conversation.
"I want you to persuade Verin with your testimony," Kez corrected. "Facts, from you. And I expect you to emphasize the parts where I proved my worth."
Dan's jaw tightened. "You are persistent."
Kez's grin widened. "It's one of my best qualities."
A beat of silence passed. An instructor across the hall called out a name. A cadet answered weakly. Someone was crying quietly near the med tables.
Dan spoke again, quieter. "It won't be enough. Verin won't reverse an expulsion because I 'vouch' for you. And I'm not going to beg."
"Don't worry," Kez said, smile bright and indecently calm. "That part's on me."
Dan exhaled like he'd just accepted a cumbersome task. "Do not provoke her."
Kez lifted a shoulder. "I will not be provoking. Goal is negotiation."
Dan stared at him. "Your version of negotiation looks like provocation."
Kez's grin widened again. "That's why it works."
Dan didn't smile. "If you force her hand, she will make an example of you. And I won't be involved in that." His gaze stayed steady. "I'm not getting on her bad side to protect your interests."
Kez nodded once, like he genuinely understood the line. "Fair. I won't drag you into it."
Dan held his stare for a moment, then looked back toward the barrier lattice. "Be careful."
Kez leaned back against the pillar, eyes half-lidded, voice light. "Always am, Instructor."