Chapter 3 – Thresholds (Part 5)
The first bell tasted of copper and breath. Mist clung to the flagstones and made the low arches sweat. The sky-dome gathered light without brightening, holding it like a promise it didn't want to break too soon.
KrysKo stood outside Scentwarden Hall with Kara to his right and Jax to his left. The building was small as a chapel and twice as solemn. Its door was Drakari stone—river-dark, carved in spirals that meant patience, bargain, teeth.
Jax nudged the brass lozenge beneath KrysKo's scarf. "Two clicks," he whispered. "Not three. Three reads like panic-bath."
Kara gave her satchel strap a final, needless pull. "They're not trying to catch you out," she told KrysKo softly. "They're trying to catch everyone else up. Answer what you can. Don't invent what you can't."
He inclined his head. The warm system-voice drifted in.
You are not a lie, it said, patient as old wood. You are a choice. Answer with the part of you that knows that.
Inside, the hall smelled of smokeleaf and clean clay. A Drakari scentwarden waited, scales of dark basalt, eyes lamplight gold. Aria Senn stood beside him—crown-braid, scars tidy, gaze that missed nothing.
"Candidate Myles. Marrow. O'Ruadhraigh."
Kara bowed properly. Jax bowed like a man who'd practiced not looking like he was making fun of the bow. KrysKo inclined his head: vow's measure.
The scentwarden touched ash, then tongue. "We test for agreement," he said. Drakari Trade came out of him like stones in a slow river. "Scent tells truth of health and harm. Masks tell truth of intention." His head tilted toward KrysKo. "And sometimes—masks tell truth of respect."
Olfactory Audit
They went in order. Kara's breath carried rosemary, iron, clove, and last night's ink. The scentwarden hummed. "Myles line. Healer's hands. Courage."
Jax next: engine-grease, solder flux, adrenaline turning sweet. The scentwarden's nostrils flared. "Mechanum. And a prayer you don't believe in." Jax beamed.
Then KrysKo.
He stepped into the smoke. The brass lozenge plumed its careful lie—salt, faint starch, a clean-laundry ghost.
[SCENTWARDEN PROTOCOL DETECTED] [Ambient olfaction net: ACTIVE] [Human-adjacent profile: 92%. Drakari-detectable nonhuman vectors: HIGH RISK] [Recommendation: enable veil]
He lifted his wrists without being prompted. The scentwarden's eyes thinned to gold slits—interested, not hostile.
"Breathe," the Drakari said.
KrysKo did. The plume warmed. The scentwarden drew in KrysKo's presence like reading a long sentence with no punctuation. The silence went a shade denser.
A single, small chime tapped the air—the scentwarden's throat. "Human," he said, slow. "Smoke. Linen. Iron of old blood." A pause. "And… other."
Aria Senn's weight shifted. "Define other."
The scentwarden considered. "Not Ophilim. Not Architect. Not our river." He inhaled again. "A thread I do not name today."
Kara's fingers twitched at her satchel strap.
Senn's tone didn't change. "Sponsor?"
Kara: "Under Myles charter. I vouch. He saved my life."
Senn's eyes moved to KrysKo and stayed. "What do you call yourself?"
"Student," he said. The word chose him as much as he chose it. "KrysKo O'Ruadhraigh."
"And your intent on University soil?"
"To learn. To keep people living."
Senn and the scentwarden traded a tiny nod. "Law is simple," Senn said. "No live steel drawn inside the walls. No autonomous constructs unsponsored. No blood price on University stone."
"Understood," KrysKo said.
The scentwarden lifted a small bowl of ash. "Mark vow. Not to not be what you are. To be what you are—with mercy."
KrysKo extended his right hand. The scentwarden drew the University braid on his palm with cool, gritty ash. He pressed KrysKo's palm to the stone rim. The ash spiral printed itself.
You didn't lie, the warm voice said. You chose. Good.
The scentwarden set the bowl aside. "Your mask is skill. But skill breaks when wind changes. Learn to be your own smoke."
[NEW SUBSYSTEM UNLOCKED: Scent Profile Editor — v2 (bioadaptive)] [Source: Lunari thread activation threshold met (social ritual + intention alignment)] [Capabilities: modulate baseline volatile profile; mimic limited variants (human, neutral "stone," rain-washed)] [Safety: false-negative lockout engaged on campus; manual override disabled on University stone]
He asked you to be your own smoke, and your bones obliged.
"A prayer," KrysKo said to Jax, who was openly staring.
Aria Senn closed the ledger. "Audit passed. Provisional clearance renewed. Next: field assignment." She tapped the ledger. "We run out of 'as long as we can.'"
Assignment: Cohort Nine
Senn led them into the thin morning light. She pointed to a notice board.
FIELD ROTATIONS — PROVISIONAL COHORTS Escort & Salvage: South Farms Cohort Nine — Myles (K.), Marrow (J.), O'Ruadhraigh (K.) Oversight: Warden Senn Ranger Liaison: Ronan Veyne
Kara made the tight little sound people make when fate and desire agree too loudly. "That's us."
"South Farms," Jax said. "Floodplain roads, bad culverts, worse opinions."
KrysKo filed the name Veyne.
Senn's mouth hardly moved when she almost smiled. "You'll meet him in the east yard. Pack for a day. Walk ready for three. If you draw steel outside our walls, you draw it for someone—not against the first thing that offends your breakfast."
She left them. They packed fast. KrysKo taught the new Scent Editor what rain-washed meant until his chest smelled faintly of April and iron.
In the east yard, a man leaned against a pillar: Ronan Veyne. Mid-thirties, rangy, a day's stubble, and the bead-mark Veyne at his throat. His eyes were a green that had decided to be brown when needed.
"Aria said you don't waste time. Good. The road is a liar. I like truth in the people on it."
Kara found the ritual's rhythm. "Kara Myles. Apotheion."
"Jax Marrow. Mechanum. Emergency miracles on request," Jax said.
"KrysKo O'Ruadhraigh," KrysKo said.
Ronan's brow notched. "You fight?"
"I try not to," KrysKo said. Ronan approved. "We move seed, pipe, and a list of bad ideas the farmers will insist on keeping."
He stepped closer to Kara. "The old healer at South Farms kept your grandmother's recipes like law. If she's still above ground, she'll ask you to prove you can read them with your nose."
"I can," Kara said.
Ronan's gaze returned to KrysKo. "Outside the wall—if steel comes out, it goes back clean, or we talk about why it isn't."
KrysKo nodded. "Understood."
"You—don't blow any bridges we plan to cross," Ronan told Jax.
"I only blow the ones other people forgot to burn," Jax said.
Two bells marked the ready. Aria Senn met them at the threshold. "Walk quiet. Listen to Ronan. If you kill something, write down why."
Senn's gaze returned to KrysKo for a last second. Her eyes said: No pride. No bait. Not today.
You are walking with people, the warm voice said, pleased. Good.
The Lie of the Road
The first half-mile was a rehearsal. KrysKo ran his awareness out to the hedges and brought it back, like casting a line and practicing the reel.
A mile out, the hedgerow did not breathe right.
KrysKo said, low, "Ronan."
The ranger was already looking. "I have it," he said, waiting.
"Ground scent wrong," KrysKo said. "Urine. Machine oil. Copper."
Kara's face shuttered. "Raiders," she whispered.
Ronan checked his bowstring. "We go single file for the next forty. If someone says down, you make them proud of how fast you learned."
They eased through a bottleneck. A can clinked somewhere it shouldn't have.
[Threat: latent. Anomalies: trip-noise without follow. Advisory: devices or bait. Maintain forward motion in controlled cadence.]
Jax palmed a wire from the road's edge that would have ripped the seed sacks. He pocketed it without a smile.
South Farms lifted out of the low ground: a ring-wall of welded panel and timber. The gate opened. The first face inside the wall was old and familiar: Elowen Myles—line aunt, keeper of jars.
"Girl," Elowen said, hand on Kara's face. "Your grandmother taught you your nose?"
"She did," Kara said.
Elowen looked at the wagons. "Set your pipe there. Your seed here. And your opinions in that corner where they won't hurt anyone."
Jax laughed. KrysKo liked Elowen at once.
Ronan's voice stayed low. "We unload, we listen, we look at the fences. If anything large has been testing them, it will have left questions. We answer."
KrysKo's gaze had already found the questions: scrapes on timber at the wrong height; hair snagged on a nail; a track in the mud that had too many toes.
Capacity, the warm voice said. It meant we brought enough of ourselves.
Aria Senn's signature mark on the field ledger winked up at him from the cart bench. He set his palm to the page beside Cohort Nine.
Ronan Veyne slung his bow. "Let's work," he said.
The day opened like a gate.