The team meeting started late, just after dinner, with everyone piled into the main planning room half-full from food and not even trying to pretend they weren't tired. The lights were a little too bright. Someone forgot to mute the background mana hum. And Alex, still leaning back in his chair, just tossed a scribbled map onto the table.
"The note's gone," he said, voice flat. "Destroyed. No copies. You want proof? You don't get any. We work with what I remember."
Pallen gave a low whistle. "Better safe than headless."
"Yeah, well, our new friend Azherk has some very dangerous hobbies. He passed it without any bindings or seals. That tells you enough."
Davor folded his arms, glancing at the loose sketch of connections Alex had drawn. "We finally got a name. Or at least, the finger is pointing in the right direction. Still can't believe it came from him."
"Neither can I," Orin said, sprawled across a pile of mana logs. "Azherk looked like he was watching a comedy sketch the whole time."
"Well," Marell said dryly, "from his perspective, we are the sketch."
They shared a few tired laughs. No weight to them. But it beat the silence.
"So what do we know?" Alex asked. "Let's keep it messy and fast. Who's behind the Day 3 incident?"
"Vice Chairman Gretel Oberhollenzer-Rogger. Not named in anything public. But he's one of the ones who cycles between ritual theory and cultivation support. Tied to some advancement technique that was... definitely not sanctioned," Pallen answered, flipping through a stack of notes. "Used the exam chaos to mask his own breakthrough."
"A forbidden law comprehension ritual," Alex said. "That's what Azherk called it. Nothing clean. Nothing sane."
Orin snorted. "Sounds about right."
Davor nodded. "And the result?"
"Who knows? He got what he wanted. Bodies hit the ground. And he got away with it because it was buried under official success metrics."
Marell frowned. "Still, showing your hand like that... why now?"
Alex looked at the table. "Because now he knows who's willing to notice. And who won't."
The group fell quiet for a bit.
"At least we know what we're looking at now," Marell said, rubbing her temples. "One faction showed its teeth. That means they're willing to fight. And we saw them first."
"And that's the win," Orin added, raising a finger. "Not the kill. The sight."
"We're still prey," Davor muttered.
"Sure," Pallen said. "But now we're prey with maps."
They actually laughed at that one.
Alex leaned back, arms crossed. The pressure wasn't gone, but it was... manageable. The whole thing felt less like drowning and more like treading water with a direction in mind. Even if the shore was on fire.
The rest of the conversation was scattered. Some reports from Kael about minor unrest in the lower rings. A few merchant guilds getting spooked. Some reassignments in the Academy's security layers. But none of it was terrifying anymore. Just busywork. Normal paranoia.
Until Marell dropped the last update.
"Recruitment's almost done. Final list by tomorrow."
Everyone looked up.
"Three of the ones we flagged made it through every stage," she added. "One from the ruins team, one from the mixed-race integration group, and one from that ridiculous performance section."
"The girl with the singing shadow?" Orin asked.
"Yes. Her."
"Weird choice."
"Weird works."
Alex smiled faintly. "Alright. Future's not secure. But it's not dark either. Let's call it progress."
"Barely," Davor muttered.
"Barely is better than before," Pallen said. "And we've got people coming in who might actually help. That's something."
And that was that.
No big declarations. No rousing speeches.
Just tired people, slowly realizing they might actually be building something worth protecting.
✦ ✦ ✦
The news never trickled down to the lower levels of the city. It flew straight through the halls of influence, drifting past gilded salons, noble libraries, and private council chambers—but never once brushed the streets where commoners lived.
No declarations. No condemnation.
Because no one at the top wanted to be the one to move against Gretel. Not when their sons and daughters weren't the ones pulled off the ground. Not when their reputations stayed intact. Not when the perpetrator was a man too close to the real levers of power.
No one dared to say his name aloud. Not in the courts. Not even behind locked doors.
But the silence didn't reach everyone.
In a quiet corner of the fourth tier, a struggling family sat in grief. Their son—eager, hopeful, proud of even passing the first stage of the exams—had returned home after Day 3 with a grin, a slight limp, and excitement in his voice. His mother had made stew that night. He had eaten it while retelling the events, messy and incomplete.
By dawn, his body was slumped on the doorstep. Veins dark. Skin cold. Mana corrupted.
They said it was a collapse. Burnout. Poisoning from flawed internal routing. All technical, all official.
But the mother knew. And she screamed. And no one listened.
Except maybe one or two, who couldn't afford to look away.
Because while the elites calculated risks and shuffled pieces, there were people on the ground who had names. Faces. Friends.
And one of them just died.
Not as a tool. Not as a pawn. Not even as collateral.
But as a kid who had a meal with his mother, then died because someone wanted to break the rules harder than anyone else.
The city kept spinning.
The Academy refined its reports.
The Coliseum carried on.
But somewhere, under the still-burning lamps of Arcana's alleys and the untouched corners of its great towers, something cracked.
Not a war. Not a revolution.
Just the quiet fury of those who remembered.
✦ ✦ ✦
Elsewhere, far from the shadows of grief and plotting, a young man named Rennar Vokh stood at the edge of a training platform, laughing too loudly at a failed spell flare.
He was the third son of House Vokh—a lesser noble family with barely enough influence to hold their territory, but proud all the same. No burden of inheritance. No expectations of greatness. He was the free one. Carefree. Cheerful. Open-spirited.
His coat was wrinkled. His boots unpolished. His jokes relentless.
Until this morning.
Because that morning, his father—who rarely called meetings—had summoned the family. And told them what happened.
That the boy who had died—the one Rennar called brother more than friend—hadn't collapsed from accident or mistake.
He had been murdered. Quietly. Carefully.
And the man responsible was Gretel Oberhollenzer-Rogger.
Rennar hadn't said much since then.
He smiled. He joked. He helped classmates adjust their mana threads. But when his eyes landed on the recruitment board, on the names being approved and passed, his fingers twitched.
He greeted his brothers with a slap on the back. He bowed to his mother with the usual charm. He joked with the servants.
But inside, a fuse had been lit.
The only person who ever treated him like more than a background character—who believed in him when even his own family rolled their eyes—was gone.
Taken.
And Rennar Vokh, the third son with no weight on his shoulders, no status in the courts, and no real reason to fight?
Now he had one.
And someday, someone was going to bleed for it.