The Academy felt heavier than usual.
The fourth month neared its end, and while snow still clung stubbornly to the stone railings and shaded corners of the Nexus, the true chill came from the tension curling through the halls. Not panic. Not dread. Just something unspoken—like the hush before a storm breaks.
Anya Virell noticed it every time she passed through a common space. Conversations dropped when she walked in. Eyes followed. Some lingered with curiosity. Others with challenge. And a few with something harder to read. Wariness, perhaps.
It came with the territory of being the top-ranked first year from the preliminaries. And worse—it came with being named a Student Representative.
That title meant more than most people understood. She wasn't just a liaison. She was expected to have insight. Influence. Awareness of everything from internal shifts in power to the undercurrent of personal drama that threaded through the Academy like fault lines beneath polished marble.
Today, those fault lines were humming.
She moved through the library atrium, not pausing even as students turned to glance. Her thoughts were elsewhere. The new votes would open in another month, true—but that wasn't what had her on edge. No, something else had caught her attention. Something quieter.
She found the boy exactly where she expected—at the edge of a study hall near the northern alcove, pretending to be asleep but twitching slightly whenever someone passed.
"Marek."
His eyes opened at once. Not startled. Just… caught.
"Representative Virell," he said, voice dry. "To what do I owe the honor of being tracked down like a rabbit?"
"You're a long way from the southern dorms," she replied, ignoring his jab. "And I hear you've been asking questions."
Marek stretched, slow and theatrical, then stood with casual indifference. "I ask a lot of things. Keeps life interesting."
"You've been asking about the incident at the secondary gate last week," Anya said quietly. "That's not public knowledge."
His mouth twisted into a half-smirk. "Then maybe someone should check their security wards."
She stared. He didn't flinch. Not surprising. He'd scored eighth in the preliminaries. Kael might've drawn more eyes thanks to the duel performance, but Marek had been consistent, dangerous, and unnervingly hard to read since day one. A rogue element. One that acted like he belonged in a different year altogether.
"You're not worried," she said finally. "That what you're sniffing around could make someone disappear?"
"Depends who tries." He glanced away for a moment, something flickering in his expression—brief and raw. "You think this place is what it says it is, Anya?"
She didn't answer immediately.
The Academy didn't lie. But it didn't always tell the truth, either.
She shifted her weight. "I think it's earned the right to be more than one thing at once."
He gave a soft laugh. "Poetic. You should write that on your tombstone."
"You should stop pretending you're not scared," she replied coolly. "And start acting like someone who actually wants to survive here."
Marek's smile didn't reach his eyes. "We all want something. Some of us just know it won't come by waiting politely."
He turned and walked away before she could answer.
Anya stood there for a long moment, pulse a little faster than she wanted to admit.
There was a reason she'd tracked him down. She'd seen his name attached to one of the earlier challenge suggestions in the first vote cycle—a brutal one. Too tactical to be dismissed as noise. It had started gaining traction before the vote closed last month.
And now?
Now there were whispers that someone—or something—had entered the Nexus without approval.
Unverified, of course. The kind of rumor only heard behind locked doors or late-night sparring halls.
But it was spreading.
Anya left the library with her thoughts tight around her ribs.
She'd volunteered to serve. She believed in the Academy. But she also knew that this place ran on more than structure and score sheets. It ran on secrets.
And some secrets had a heartbeat.
---
By the time the fifth month opened its arms to the slow bloom of frost-streaked mornings, the Academy had settled into a rhythm — one pulsing with urgency beneath its calm surface. The first snowfall had come and gone weeks ago, painting the rooftops and training grounds white before melting into a hard-packed chill that clung to the stone paths.
Now, focus had shifted. With the competitions for the next tournament locked — Trial of Echoes, Siegecraft, and The Gauntlet Ascendant — attention turned toward the second phase of voting: the criteria. Students who had submitted grading metrics in the past weeks were watching the tallies rise and fall with restless eyes. Some walked between classes glued to shimmering interface crystals, others whispered strategies in the dining halls, trying to predict which criteria would define the year's most important trial.
Anya Virell wasn't whispering. She was listening.
She stood at the edge of the south training field, arms folded, eyes narrowed against the low winter light. Her silver hair — pulled tight in its usual braid — caught the glint of afternoon sun like frost threading through ice. Around her, first- and second-years practiced their formations, their movements stilted by cold and nerves.
Across the field, Kael stood with Rys, both of them reviewing something on a shared voting screen — subtle, quiet, not drawing attention. Kael's expression was unreadable, as always, though Anya noticed the way their hand flicked a little at the corner when Rys said something too flippant.
She wasn't sure if they'd voted yet. Kael didn't always telegraph their decisions — which, oddly, Anya respected.
"You're staring," came a low voice beside her. It was Eliah, arms slung across the fence rail, chewing on a piece of dried root. "Thinking of switching sides?"
"I don't have sides," Anya said flatly.
Eliah smirked. "Could've fooled me. You always have that face when you're about to do something political."
Anya ignored him.
Instead, she tapped her fingers lightly against the interface crystal embedded in her bracer and brought up the current public tallies. As expected, Trial of Echoes was leaning heavily toward psychological precision and emotional endurance — a brutal combination. Siegecraft had tactical planning and material efficiency as front-runners. And for The Gauntlet Ascendant, it was between spell harmony and environmental manipulation.
She didn't trust any of them. Too safe. Too familiar.
Too easy to manipulate.
"The same cliques always get their picks through," Eliah muttered, clearly reading over her shoulder. "This place pretends to be fair, but it's all sway and shadow."
"That's why I haven't submitted yet," she replied. "Let the others reveal their cards."
He raised an eyebrow. "You're not worried someone'll submit something better first?"
Anya's lips curved faintly — a smile so slight it vanished as quickly as it came.
"No," she said.
Across the field, Kael looked up suddenly. Their gaze met hers — just briefly — but it was enough. Anya inclined her head, the barest nod, and Kael returned it before turning back to Rys.
They weren't close. Not exactly. But there was a kind of wordless alliance growing there. They'd both seen the underbelly of this system already — Kael from the bottom ranks, and Anya from the sharpened peak of expectation.
And both had reasons to win that weren't just about staying enrolled.
"I'm heading to the archives," she said, stepping back from the rail.
"Still looking into that rumor?" Eliah asked, glancing sidelong.
Anya didn't answer.
Because yes, she was.
There had been whispers — shadows flickering along the periphery of official channels — about someone tampering with the previous vote. Not enough to change the results, maybe, but enough to test the limits of the system. If it was true, it meant the Academy's foundation wasn't as stable as everyone liked to pretend.
And if there was instability?
She intended to be the first to find the crack and decide whether to seal it — or pry it open.
As she walked, the crystal in her bracer vibrated once. A new criteria submission had been published — anonymous, but popular enough to rise into visibility.
Anya paused. Tapped it.
> Suggested Criteria for The Gauntlet Ascendant:
Resilience Under Compounding Pressure
It was elegant. Difficult to fake. And increasingly relevant.
She scrolled again, studying the name of the submitter.
Not anonymous.
Kael Adair.
Anya stared for a long moment.
Then she closed the interface and kept walking, the faintest smirk tugging at the edge of her mouth.
Maybe this year's tournament would be more interesting than she thought.