Lights went out in the dorms. Wards hummed their same steady hum like always. Patrol boots stomped their loud, on-purpose routes so everyone could relax and pretend that loud meant safe.
But Rem knew better.
He still felt the presence from last night at Training Hall C. The careful steps outside the sealed door. The way they didn't knock. The way they just listened. The way Evelyn had pulled him into the dark and whispered, It's already here.
Someone was hunting inside this school.
Not rumor. Not theory. Now.
And on top of that, today he had to fight in public while half the noble class watched to see if he'd fail.
He slept, but not really. He drifted in that half-rest he'd learned in alleyways and dungeon camps, the kind where you're already halfway on your feet when someone breathes wrong.
He dreamed in ugly flashes.
Cracked stone under his blade.
Evelyn in mage-light, hair loose, eyes bright and sharp.
The prince's grin in the lecture hall.
Lucien's perfect smile, all clean edges and poison.
Cecil's voice, the one that had stuck under his skin: Your sword is heavy but your convictions are weak. The strongest carry the heaviest weight.
And underneath all of it something else, colder. Not aura. Not fire. The black pressure he couldn't name. The thing that had turned the Effigy into dust. The thing Evelyn refused to tell anyone. The thing he didn't remember using, but still felt coiled behind his ribs like a sleeping predator.
Wake up, that thing whispered.
No, he told it.
Morning still came.
By first bell, the Academy felt strange. The way streets feel before a fight that everyone pretends isn't scheduled. The halls were a little too clean. Voices a little too low. Eyes moving too much.
They were pretending this was routine.
They'd even written it like routine.
DUEL EVALUATION: L. D'ARCLIGHT vs R. AVERN. OBSERVERS: FINAL YEAR COHORT ONLY. INSTRUCTOR OVERSIGHT: PROF. K. ARDENT. ROYAL PRESENCE: CLEARED.
That last line, in that cold, neat script, made the walls vibrate.
Royal presence. Cleared.
No name. No title. You didn't write "His Highness" on paper for anyone to read. You didn't need to.
By midday the whispers were everywhere.
He told the prince to sit down like he was nobody.
He doesn't even have aura.
He's not from any House. He's just some street thing they dug up.
They say he almost killed an Association instructor with a mining tool.
Who's backing him. Is it House Verran. Is it the river clinic. Is it someone else.
By early afternoon, Rem wasn't just "the porter from the raid." He'd already mutated into five different stories at once.
Good, he thought. Talk all you want. Talk doesn't break bone.
Steel does.
By the time the posted hour hit, the final-year arena was already overflowing.
The arena sat sunk in the center wing like an old coliseum. Stone terraces rose in rings. Every tier was packed with final-years in clean jackets, cuffs buttoned, crests sharp. Staff leaned on the outer railing, some with arms crossed, some with ink slates already out so they could pretend this was official evaluation and not bloodsport. Everyone was here because they wanted to see what happened when you threw oil on noble politics and lit a match.
Rem walked alone onto the sand.
The sound that rolled through the arena wasn't cheering. It was pressure. A single low noise made out of hundreds of throats all at once. That sound people make right before they decide if you're going to be their story or their warning.
He rolled his shoulders. The dagger sat in its low harness across his back, horizontal at his hips. Even at rest it pulled on his spine like gravity was picking a fight.
The arena floor under his boots was layered stone dust and old crack lines. You didn't get a clean floor your final year. You got history.
He felt eyes on him from everywhere. He refused to look for her yet. Not yet.
Another gate opened across the arena.
Lucien d'Arclight stepped out like he was being painted.
Perfect coat. Perfect collar. Pale hair catching the overhead light in some unfair noble way. He didn't carry a weapon you could see. Of course he didn't. Lucien's weapon was always going to be the polished thing you couldn't see coming.
Aura was already curling around him in a clean, controlled shimmer. Not loud. Refined. It sat under his skin like an extra tendon.
That was the first contrast the crowd saw.
Lucien glowed.
Rem didn't.
The noise changed.
Lucien lifted his hand in this graceful little polite wave to the stands. "Thank you all for attending," he projected, voice smooth and clear. "It is my honor to demonstrate before my peers, our instructors, and of course, in the presence of His Highness."
That sentence hit the arena like dropped metal.
A hundred heads turned, just slightly, toward the raised box on the central wall, where the stone railing had been carved a little finer and the mana wards hummed a little tighter.
Rem finally let himself look.
The Imperial Heir sat there. Not on velvet. Just on stone like the rest of them, elbow on the railing. He looked bored in that way that says he is never actually bored. Two guards in lightplate stood a half step behind him and to either side. Behind them, in the shadow of the arch, a man in plain dark clothes watched everything with a stillness Rem didn't like. Not a noble. Not a guard. Professional stillness. Predator stillness.
Evelyn was up there too.
She wasn't sitting.
She stood half a step behind and to the side of the prince, far enough not to imply familiarity, close enough to pass as proper proximity to a high-value target. Hands clasped behind her back. Posture blade-straight. Face calm.
Unless you knew her.
If you knew her, you saw her hands. The way the leather of her gloves had gone tight over her knuckles from how hard she was clenching.
Rem let himself look at her for a single second.
Her gaze snapped down to him in the same second.
That was all they got.
A figure dropped down from the instructor tier and landed on the sand like the ground had agreed in advance to hold him.
Professor Kael Ardent.
Ardent was not young. Not old either. Somewhere in that precise zone where experience stops being "past his prime" and turns into "you should be scared because he's still here." His hair was iron gray at the temples, swept back. His uniform coat wasn't Academy-student black. It was deeper, marked at the collar and cuffs with narrow silver thread that only staff wore. There was a cane in his hand. You could tell by the way he carried it that the cane was a lie his enemies should believe.
He planted himself between Rem and Lucien and spoke without raising his voice. His voice didn't need volume. His voice had weight.
"Final-year duel evaluation. You know the structure. I will repeat it because I enjoy hearing myself talk."
A ripple of polite laughter climbed the stands. It died when Ardent didn't smile.
"Rule set," Ardent continued. "No lethal intent. No deliberate joint destruction, tracheal crush, or orbital gouge. Aura use permitted. Mana use permitted. Spiritual projection permitted inside your own circle. No external familiars, no pre-set glyph arrays, no off-field interference. This is not a street brawl. You will conduct yourselves as representatives of this Academy in the presence of the Imperial Heir."
Lucien dipped his head, graceful. "Understood, Professor."
Ardent's eyes flicked to Rem. "Avern."
Rem nodded once.
Ardent's gaze stayed on him another half second. Measuring. He'd watched Rem fight Leila Solm back at the Association test, even if he'd only heard the official sanitized version. That look said: I don't believe the official sanitized version.
"Very good," Ardent said. "Now. We remember the final condition. The match ends when I call it, when one of you yields, or when one of you goes to sleep. If either of you disobeys me, I retire you from the floor myself and you will not enjoy it."
Lucien smiled. "Naturally."
Rem scratched at his jaw. "Got it."
Ardent's eyes crinkled for half a second, like he approved of Rem not pretending to be polite.
"Marks," Ardent said, and stepped back with his cane.
Lucien glided to his starting point with his aura already humming neat around his wrists and ankles. He moved easy. He was already selling a story: calm, trained noble form versus raw weight.
Rem walked to his own mark and set his feet.
Weight on the balls of his feet. Knees soft. Blade sitting low at his back.
He heard Evelyn in his head.
Center low. Shorter step. Hide the weight. He wants to make you chase him. Don't chase him. He wants you to swing wide. Don't. He wants to humiliate you clean, not break you. Don't give him the clean.
He rolled his shoulders back and breathed.
Above them, in the Imperial box, one of the guards leaned toward the plain-dressed man. The man said something short, calm. The guard listened with a little tilt of his head like he'd heard this before. Rem couldn't hear a word from where he stood. He didn't have to. He understood body language. He stored that.
Ardent lifted one hand.
"Begin," he said.
Lucien moved first, obviously.
Not a rush. Never a rush. Rushing is ugly. Rushing is what you make other people do. Lucien flowed.
His aura skimmed around his calves, pale and tight. His feet barely kissed the ground. He went for Rem's lead ankle, clean and fast, a sweep so tight and pretty it was going to get applause if it worked.
Rem didn't give him the base.
Shorter step.
His body reacted how Evelyn had beaten into him last night. He slid his lead foot a hand's width and turned from his hips. The sweep cut air.
The stands rippled. That tiny gasping sound people make when something they expected doesn't happen.
Lucien did not break flow. He spun off that same leg, sliding past Rem's guard, and thrust a palm for Rem's ribs. His aura flared along his fingers, neat and white-hot.
Rem let it land.
It hit like a hammer wrapped in silk. The pain was a full-body flash. His ribs sparked. His lungs jolted.
He didn't stumble.
Lucien had counted on him stumbling back. Yielding space. Being moved like furniture.
Rem stepped in instead.
Break his rhythm, Evelyn had said.
Lucien's eyes flashed quickest surprise.
Rem moved before his brain had to think about it. He ripped the dagger off his back and brought it up in a tight, ugly arc. No big wind-up. No screaming overhead slash. Just hips, shoulder, wrist. Brutal, economic violence.
Lucien threw himself back.
Too late.
The flat of the dagger skimmed his aura at shoulder level. The weight alone made the air shake.
Lucien's aura, which had looked like a perfect glass shell a heartbeat before, shivered and went ragged for a breath.
Gasps jumped out of the front rows.
Rem heard someone near the railing blurt, too loud, "He touched him. He actually touched him."
Lucien's smile was gone when he reset his stance.
"Heavy," Lucien breathed so low only Rem heard it. "Impressive. Primitive."
Rem smiled without warmth. "Keep running."
Lucien's jaw jumped.
He flashed aura through his boots and vanished sideward in a burst. Rem felt his knee bark as he twisted to track him. The dagger fought his grip, trying to drag his arm wide with its stupid, impossible weight. He corrected. He forced the blade to stay tight to his body like Evelyn said. No wide swings. No openings.
Lucien reappeared on his blind side and whipped a kick at Rem's knee.
Rem dropped his weight half a breath before impact. Pain shot white up his leg. The joint held.
Lucien expected a stagger.
He didn't get one.
Rem punched at him with his free hand.
No polish. Just a brick on a rope.
Lucien leaned out of range by a hair and flashed the crowd a clean little almost-smile like See? I'm untouchable.
Several students laughed on instinct.
Rem heard Evelyn in his head again, calm and furious: Don't let him turn this into theater.
He bit down on the anger.
Instead of swinging again and looking wild, he reset. Center low. He made Lucien work.
Lucien kept talking, because Lucien always needed the sound to sell the picture.
"I admire you for even trying," Lucien said, voice just loud enough for the first rows to hear. "Truly. I do. You have raw physicality. If you had entered with discipline, early, the correct way, instead of letting House Verran drag you in at the end, maybe you could have been something respectable instead of—"
Instead of a leash dog.
He didn't say it out loud. He didn't have to. The intent slid through the noise like a knife.
Rem felt something go cold behind his ribs.
That wasn't for me, he thought. That was for her.
His jaw set.
Lucien blurred in again, aura brightening. He feinted high, then snapped low for the ankle again. Rem didn't flinch on the feint. He slid that same tiny step Evelyn had drilled and dropped his boot.
Lucien's shin met Rem's full weight.
The impact cracked like a mallet hitting a shield.
Lucien's perfect footwork stuttered. For half a heartbeat he was off-balance, not gliding. Human.
Rem did not waste it.
He moved.
He didn't haul the dagger up over his head. He didn't throw his whole spine forward. He snapped his hips and brought the blade down vertical in a tight chop for Lucien's shoulder.
Lucien panicked and caught the flat in both hands, aura bursting along his forearms in a frantic flare.
For one long breath, the whole arena saw it.
Aura against mass.
Trained elegance shaking against something that shouldn't even be moving that way.
Lucien's jaw clenched. His shoulders trembled.
The dagger kept coming.
It pushed through Lucien's aura shielding until metal kissed the outer layer of skin on his forearm. Thin. A single shallow red line bloomed where aura didn't hold fast enough.
Lucien tore himself free with a ragged sound.
Gasps went up in waves.
Not because Rem had cut him deep. He hadn't.
Because Lucien had bled at all.
Because someone like Rem had made him bleed in front of witnesses.
Lucien slid back, breath sharp, and his nice face finally cracked. The polite smile was gone. His eyes had gone cold.
"Fine," Lucien said low. "You want ugly."
He stopped performing.
His aura surged, hard and bright. It wasn't pretty now. It flared up off his skin with enough heat to sting. The air around him crackled. Students in the first row actually flinched back.
Up in the stands, Professor Ardent's grip shifted on his cane. His posture went predator still. He didn't interrupt. Not yet. But he was coiled.
Lucien blurred forward and slammed his palm into Rem's chest with full aura behind it.
That one hurt.
The impact went through Rem's sternum like a bell hammer. His vision blanked out at the edges. Air shot out of his lungs. His back foot slid half a step in the sand. He tasted copper.
Lucien pivoted off that planted hand, swinging around Rem's center and sweeping the leg in the same motion. It was choreographed to look beautiful from above. He wanted Rem on his back, one knee in his chest, dagger fallen away in the dust. He wanted to spread his arms and give the stands a "see how merciful I am" smile.
Rem felt himself start to tip.
This is the part where he humiliates you, Evelyn had said.
No.
Instead of scrambling to catch himself with his free hand, instead of falling how Lucien wanted him to fall, Rem let himself drop forward just far enough to grab weight. He slammed the dagger's point straight down into the arena floor like he was planting a pillar and let the blade eat the force.
The stone under the sand cracked with a sharp, ugly noise. The dagger bit deep and held like he'd wedged a doorstop into the earth.
His balance snapped back under him.
Lucien blinked.
Rem ripped the dagger free in the same motion, twisted his hips, and drove the blunt pommel of the weapon into Lucien's gut.
Lucien folded over the blow with an awful sound that had nothing noble in it.
The arena went dead quiet.
This wasn't how it was supposed to look.
Rem didn't give him time to sell recovery.
He stepped into Lucien's space. No pretty sword arcs. No elegant stances. Just pressure, heavy and relentless. Short shoulders. Tight feints. Ramming force. He bullied Lucien back a step, then another, always in his face, always too close for the elegant footwork to reset.
Lucien lashed out in panic, aura spiking high around his arm. He swung for Rem's head, aiming for the temple in a dramatic finishing blow that would read as clean decapitation to the stands.
Rem ducked.
Low. Faster than he should have been able to move with that much weight on him.
Then he came up under Lucien's center and drove his shoulder forward.
It wasn't graceful.
It was mean.
Lucien's feet left the floor.
He hit the sand on his back.
Rem went with him.
By the time Lucien realized he was down, the dagger's point was already at his throat.
The tip rested just under the jaw hinge. Close enough that Rem didn't even have to lean. A hair more pressure and it would have punched straight into fragile bone.
Silence.
Even the mana lanterns around the arena seemed to hum quieter.
Rem stood over him, chest heaving. Sweat slid down his temple and along his jaw. His ribs felt like someone had beaten them with bricks. His knee screamed. His arms shook from holding that much weight for that long with that much control.
Good.
Pain meant he hadn't drifted.
Lucien lay very, very still.
His aura flickered bright, then tight, then stuttered as panic bled into it. His pupils were huge. His chest hitched.
"Yield," Rem said quietly.
Lucien swallowed. The motion pressed his throat against cold metal. "I yie—"
"Enough," Professor Ardent's voice cracked across the arena.
Rem pulled the dagger back a finger's width and stepped away.
Lucien sucked in air like a drowning boy.
For a long breath, no one moved. No one spoke. The entire final-year cohort sat frozen because they did not have a script for what they had just seen.
Ardent walked between them with his cane, slow and precise. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't angry. He was studying Rem the way a tactician studies a weapon blueprint that should not exist.
"Match concluded," Ardent said, voice carrying clean. "Evaluation complete."
A beat.
"D'Arclight," he said without looking down. "You will report to Healer Marce for that arm and that diaphragm strain. You will claim in public that you slipped your stance early and lost center. You will not claim sabotage, foreign aid, or outside tampering, because you did not lose on trickery. You lost on pressure. You understand me."
Lucien's jaw clenched. "Yes, Professor."
"And Avern," Ardent said, finally looking at Rem.
Rem met his eyes.
"You are going to sit down before your knee quits pretending it's fine and you try to be dramatic about it in a stairwell," Ardent said. "Then you are going to the infirmary. Then you will eat. You will act normal. You will not posture. If I see you posture, I will hit you with my cane in public, and you will cry, and I will enjoy it."
Rem blinked. "Yes, Professor."
A low ripple moved through the stands.
Not cheers. Not booing.
Confusion scrambling to rewrite itself into a story people could carry forward.
Someone near the rail whispered, too loud to hide, "He made Lucien bleed. With no aura."
Someone else: "That blade is illegal."
Another voice, shaking: "Did you feel the floor when he planted it. Did you feel it."
"Did you see His Highness stand. He stood up."
Yeah.
The prince had stood.
That mattered because he hadn't stood for Lucien's pretty opening speech.
Rem looked up.
The Imperial Heir wasn't lounging anymore. He had one hand on the stone railing. His posture had shifted from court-trained relaxation to awake, focused interest. His eyes were locked on Rem like he was trying to figure out how to solve him.
Evelyn was still next to him.
Still perfect. Still expressionless in a way that deserved an award. Anyone else would say she looked bored.
Rem could see her shoulders shaking, just a little, from held adrenaline. Her hands were still clasped behind her back. Her knuckles were white through the leather.
Her eyes were on him.
Something in his chest tightened hard.
He looked away before his face gave that away in front of an entire arena.
Ardent flicked his cane toward the edge of the floor. "Off. Both of you. We're done performing for children."
Rem turned and limped, except he didn't let himself limp. He refused to limp in front of them. Every step from the center of the arena to the archway was a negotiation with his knee. His ribs burned every time his lungs moved. His hands shook from containing that much weight with that much control.
Good, he thought. It means I'm still me.
He reached the shade of the tunnel and sat down hard on the cool stone step inside the arch. The arena behind him erupted. Now that the match was called, voices crashed everywhere at once.
"How did he stop that sweep."
"He doesn't move like a student. He moves like a street breaker."
"Lucien couldn't reset. Lucien always resets."
"He pinned him. He actually pinned him. He could've killed him. He had the blade right there. He could've taken his head off."
"He didn't even use aura. What is he."
"Did you see Professor Ardent watching. Ardent looked interested. I've never seen him look interested."
Rem let his eyes fall closed for a second. He leaned the back of his head against the cold stone.
This wasn't just "I hit him harder."
It was what Evelyn had beaten into him in the dark. Don't chase. Don't let him pace the show. Don't give the crowd the image they're waiting for. Make him work for ground he thinks he owns.
He'd done it.
And somehow that felt better than just smashing Lucien's face in would have.
He opened his eyes again.
The arena floor was chaos in motion. Ardent had a hand on Lucien's shoulder, speaking low, face composed. A healer in soft robes was already moving in with glowing palms. Students leaned over the railing, shouting half-panicked pride sentences down at Lucien, trying to rewrite the story into something that didn't shame their side.
At the same time, in the Imperial box, Rem saw motion.
The guard on the prince's left leaned in, just a little. The plain-clothed man behind them didn't move much at all. His mouth shaped a short line of speech. Calm. Sharp.
Rem had learned to read lips a long time ago. You learn fast when people plot robberies or raids five feet from you and assume you don't matter.
He caught two words.
Signal confirmed.
Then two more.
Phase tonight.
Cold slid through his stomach.
Not later.
Not theoretical.
Tonight.
Inside this school. While the Imperial Heir was in the building. While Eve stood next to him like a blade. While Lucien's pride was bleeding and every noble clique was sharpening their teeth.
Great, Rem thought. Perfect.
He pushed himself to his feet. His knee spiked white. He swallowed the sound before it got out.
He'd made it three steps down the tunnel when a voice cut in from behind him.
"Avern."
Rem turned his head.
The Imperial Heir was standing there in the mouth of the corridor.
Not in the fancy box anymore. Not with horns blowing. Just there. Up close. Smaller than the myth. Sharper than the myth. Seventeen, just like Rem. Seventeen with too much weight hanging off his shoulders and not enough sleep in his eyes.
One guard stood two paces back. The plain-clothed man waited just outside the immediate circle, eyes on the hall. Watching.
Rem straightened as much as his ribs would let him. "Your Highness."
The prince studied him for a beat. Up close, Rem could see it: the way the prince held his jaw like he was used to swallowing whole rooms. The way his shoulders never fully relaxed.
"You are going to stay close to me tonight," the prince said quietly.
Rem blinked. "What."
The prince didn't change tone. "I won't repeat this again in public. So you're going to nod like I'm complimenting your fight instead of giving you an order that technically shouldn't exist."
Rem stared.
"...Okay," he said.
"Good," the prince said. His mouth tilted. The real grin. The one Rem had seen in class when Rem told him to sit because he was making everyone weird. "Also, when you told me that, you were right. I was making everyone weird."
Rem couldn't help it. His mouth twitched. "You were."
"I like you," the prince said, completely calm, like that wasn't a political blade. Then he turned and walked back toward the brighter part of the hall, the guard falling in step like a shadow.
Rem watched him go. "Great," he muttered. "Now I'm babysitting the sun."
He turned again.
And stopped.
She was already there.
Evelyn waited in the tunnel shadow, positioned just so it could be passed off as coincidence. Uniform flawless. Hair perfect. Gloves back on. Face smooth enough to reflect light.
Up close her breathing was still uneven. He could see the tremor in her shoulders that she wouldn't show anyone above sand level. Her eyes were too bright.
Her voice came out low, meant only for him. "Are you insane."
Rem smirked. "You like me, remember."
"Don't," she hissed, sharp, eyes flicking toward the arena mouth where anyone could still see silhouettes. She angled her body like she just happened to be on her way somewhere else. Her voice dropped to a thread. "You let him hit you in the ribs. Twice."
"I've taken worse," Rem said. He rolled his sore shoulder and regretted it.
"That isn't what I'm saying," she said, jaw tight. Her eyes flicked up to his face and in that split second the mask cracked. He saw fear there. Not for herself. For him. She swallowed it fast and went cold again. When she kept talking, her voice was back to smooth. "You didn't take his bait. You didn't over-swing. You didn't give them the idiot show they wanted. You kept your center and you made him work. You forced Lucien d'Arclight off rhythm in front of the Imperial Heir. Do you understand how rare that is. You were not supposed to do that well."
Rem blinked. "Thanks."
"Idiot," she whispered, and he heard how hard her heart was hitting by how the word shook.
She breathed in through her nose, pulled her shoulders back into full House Verran posture like she was sealing a plate back over herself, and her voice turned command-calm.
"Listen. You're done here. You go to the infirmary wing and let them look at that knee before you decide it's fine and tear something. After that, you eat. After that, you go back to your dorm. You keep that dagger on you. You sleep in your uniform. You wait. You do not leave your corridor unless someone I trust comes for you. If anyone else tells you to move, you hit first and apologize later. Understood."
Rem watched her for a long breath. "You think they're coming tonight too."
Her throat moved. "I don't think. I know."
He nodded once. "Good. I was getting bored."
Something in her face snapped like a thin thread.
"Rem," she hissed, and it wasn't anger. It was too raw to be anger. "Do you ever stop. You could have died out there."
He shrugged. "Didn't."
Her jaw clenched. She swallowed whatever else was trying to climb up her throat. When she spoke again, her voice was small enough it barely existed.
"You did good," she whispered.
It hit him like a punch he didn't block.
Before he could answer, she was already gone. Back in the light. Back in perfect noble posture. Back to being the duke's daughter and not the girl who had trained him in the dark and shaken in the shadows for him.
Rem stood alone in the tunnel for a beat, ribs aching, knee on fire, whole body buzzing like he'd just swallowed lightning.
Out in the arena, the crowd had already started rewriting what they'd seen into new stories.
Up top, the Imperial Heir had just told him, Stay close to me tonight.
Evelyn Verran had just told him, You did good.
And in the prince's guard detail, someone had just said, Signal confirmed. Phase tonight.
Rem pulled in a breath and let it out slow through his teeth.
"Alright," he muttered to himself.
"Round two."