The Valor agent found him on the second day.
Sunny had been expecting it, but not the form it took. He'd anticipated a dead drop or a coded message on his communicator, something impersonal and deniable, the way intelligence tradecraft was supposed to work. Instead, the contact came through the Academy's class registration system, which directed him to an introductory assessment with an Awakened instructor he hadn't selected.
The office was small and windowless, buried in the administrative wing where foot traffic was sparse and surveillance cameras pointed at the corridors rather than the rooms. A man in his forties sat behind a metal desk, lean and unremarkable, the kind of face that slides out of memory the moment you look away. His Academy credentials identified him as an Awakened instructor specializing in theoretical combat analysis.
"My name is Instructor Doran, as far as anyone in this building is concerned. In private, what matters is that I report to the same person you do."
The man's speech patterns were clipped and functional.
"I've been briefed on the broad parameters of your mission," Doran said. "Start from the beginning. The Nightmare."
Sunny gave him the full operational debrief, start to finish. The slave caravan and the poisoning, the kills on the mountain, the temple at the peak. He delivered it in the language Anvil had taught him: sequential and precise, stripped of anything that wasn't actionable.
Doran listened without interrupting. His expression didn't change during any of it, which told Sunny that the man had debriefed operatives before and that nothing in the account registered as unusual for the kind of work Clan Valor did.
"Memories," Doran said when Sunny finished. He had a tablet and stylus and was taking notes in a shorthand Sunny didn't recognize.
"Silver Bell, Dormant rank, a charm that produces sound audible from a great distance. Solemn Oath, Awakened rank, a charm acquired from the soldier I killed in the cave. And Puppeteer's Shroud, Awakened rank, an armor-type Memory from the Tyrant."
Doran's stylus paused. He looked up. "From the Tyrant."
"The Shadow God's blessing killed it. The Memory formed from the remains."
An Awakened-rank Memory from a Tyrant kill was exceptional for any Sleeper, let alone one in their First Nightmare. Doran studied him for a moment, then made his notes and moved on.
"Attributes."
"Fated, Mark of Divinity, Child of Shadows."
"Aspect."
"Hollow Shadow. Divine rank."
Doran looked up from the tablet, and for the first time since the debrief began, his expression shifted. It was a small movement, a tightening around the eyes that most people wouldn't have noticed, but Sunny had spent eight years reading Anvil's micro-expressions, and Doran was not Anvil.
"Divine," Doran repeated.
"Yes."
"You're certain."
"Yes."
Doran set the stylus down and leaned back in his chair. He was quiet for several seconds, processing the information the way a structural engineer processes a load-bearing number that doesn't match the blueprints.
"Continue," he said.
"The Aspect Ability is called Shadow Consumption. The Spell's description says: 'All things cast a shadow. You have learned to take what is not yours.' I haven't finished mapping its parameters. And I have a Shadow Core instead of a Soul Core, which uses something called Shadow Fragments rather than soul shards."
This was true and strategically incomplete. He had not yet mapped the full scope of what Shadow Consumption could do, and the description's ambiguity gave him honest cover for not elaborating. The word "take" could mean any number of things, and until Sunny understood its limits, reporting speculation to Doran would have been worse than reporting nothing.
The Innate Ability he did not mention. Doran hadn't asked about it. He'd asked for the Aspect and its rank, and he'd asked about abilities, but he hadn't asked whether there were additional innate abilities, because standard Aspects didn't have them, and even a well-briefed operative wouldn't think to ask about something that wasn't supposed to exist.
The omission was necessary. If anyone in the organization read the Innate Ability's description, they would see exactly what the Spell had diagnosed, and that understanding would travel upward until it reached Anvil. Sunny could not afford to let the patriarch see the words "something consumed the person you used to be" and recognize himself in them.
Doran's expression had settled into something fixed and careful, the look of a man hearing things he wasn't qualified to evaluate and who knew it.
"Attributes," he said again. "You mentioned Fated. What does the Spell say about it?"
"The description says that I am fated to find myself at the crux of great events, whether I want to or not."
Doran was quiet for a moment.
"Continue."
"Flaw," Sunny said, before Doran could ask. He wanted control over the delivery.
The word landed in the small office like a stone dropping into still water. Sunny had known this moment was coming since the Nightmare ended, had rehearsed it and prepared for it the way he prepared for every critical engagement, and none of that preparation made it easier.
"Clear Conscience," he said. "I cannot lie."
Silence.
Doran looked at him, and something behind the man's careful expression shifted into place. It wasn't surprise. It was something closer to comprehension, the kind that arrives when a picture you've been assembling finally shows you what it's been the whole time.
An infiltration operative who couldn't deceive. Every layer of cover identity and social camouflage that Anvil had built would collapse the moment someone asked Sunny a direct question, and the Spell had arranged that collapse with what felt like deliberate cruelty.
"You cannot lie," Doran said.
"Correct. If someone asks me a direct question, I am compelled to answer truthfully. The compulsion manifests as pain that escalates until I provide a true response. I have some latitude in how I frame the answer, and I'm not required to volunteer information unprompted, but I cannot refuse to answer and I cannot say anything I know to be false."
He delivered this with the clinical precision of a damage report, because that was what it was. The weapon had a catastrophic structural defect, and the handler needed to know.
Doran was quiet for a long time. His stylus lay untouched on the tablet. The screen on the wall cycled through the training schedule, and the fluorescent light hummed, and the silence stretched until Sunny could feel the shape of a decision forming behind the man's careful expression.
"I need to report this," Doran said.
"I know."
"The timeline will be tight. I'll send the report tonight. Expect a follow-up meeting within a few days."
Sunny nodded and stood. The debrief was over. The damage was done, and the only thing left was to wait for Anvil's response.
He reached the door before Doran spoke again.
"Sunless."
Sunny turned.
"The patriarch has invested a great deal in you. A Divine Aspect and the Fated attribute alone would justify that investment, and a Shadow Core that operates outside the standard progression system makes you unprecedented. The Flaw is a complication, but the patriarch is not the kind of man who discards unprecedented assets over a single complication."
It was meant to be reassuring. Sunny recognized the intent the way he recognized all social maneuvers: structurally, from the outside, the way you recognize a lock mechanism without needing to feel its weight in your hand.
"Thank you, Instructor Doran," he said, and left.