CHAPTER 143: FIRST PICK [2]

They moved to the long table where a sheet of bark lay pinned there. Seven names were carved into it.

Torren, Veyra, Kaelin, Soren, Lorn, Harrick, and Mirra.

Clayton touched each name once, and then he finally spoke his mind. He didn’t dress it up, he kept it plain.

"Lorn," he called.

She met his eyes.

"You are our calm. You are our hands when we break. If I take you, the city’s pulse may slip. If I leave you, we live even if we bleed".

"I know," Lorn said. She didn’t take offense; no hurt, only truth.

"You stay," Clayton said.

"Good," she replied. "I prefer to save, not to test gods."

A few smiles eased the room.

"Mirra," Clayton said. "You’re our second healer. You’ve become an anchor. We need you here with Lorn. If both healers leave, one bad day ends us."

Mirra inclined her head. "I will hold the clinics. I will keep the children alive."

"Harrick," Clayton went on. "You are a wall. When lines bend, you make them straight. You can teach a street to be a spear."

Harrick looked at the map and then at Clayton. "If you say ’stay,’ I won’t argue."

"I’m not done," Clayton said. "You’re also steady in a fight that keeps moving. You don’t break. In a trial, that matters."

Harrick said nothing. He let the words sit.

"Kaelin," Clayton said. "You are shadow. Trials are traps and angles, and you can find the seam and break it. Without you, we walk into teeth."

Kaelin’s mouth tugged up. "You always make it sound romantic."

"It isn’t," Clayton said. "It’s filthy work. That’s why you’re good at it."

Kaelin’s grin widened.

"Soren," Clayton continued. "You are discipline. When panic snaps at our heels, you make people stand. You do not miss steps. You do not waste swings. Trials break the sloppy. You are the answer to that."

Soren gave one slow nod.

"Veyra," he said. "You are reach. You kill what we can’t touch. You see what others miss. You can stop a heart across a room. You’re also our best trainer. If I take you, our archers grow slower."

Veyra’s gaze didn’t waver. "If you need me to go, I go. If you need me to stay, I stay. Decide."

"I will," Clayton said, voice steady.

He looked at Torren last. "You are fire and force. You break doors. You cut paths. You carry people through walls. You are my Sporelink. When I surge, you surge. When I falter, you don’t."

Torren rolled his shoulder. "You make it sound like I’m useful."

"You are," Clayton said. "You won’t like it, but it’s true."

Torren snorted.

Clayton took a breath. He looked at all of them again. He saw old scars, he saw new strength, and most importantly he saw a city behind their faces.

"We take five into Trial III," he said. "Me, and four more. Today, I choose the first."

No one spoke.

He set Regalia down. The weapon hummed softly, like it too listened.

"Some of you need to stay," Clayton said. "If I empty the heart, we die here and win nothing there. Lorn stays, Mirra stays. One of Harrick or Veyra stays, maybe both. Kaelin is almost certain, Soren is almost certain."

He paused. "Torren is not optional."

Torren lifted a brow. "That so?"

"It is," Clayton said.

"Then say it right," Torren told him. "Pick me."

Clayton turned the bark sheet. He carved a small root-sigil next to Torren’s name. "Torren," he said. "First pick."

Silence, and then a low breath moved around the table, like a wind through leaves. It was right and everyone felt it.

Torren tapped the sigil with a knuckle. "Good. I was going to invite myself anyway."

Veyra shook her head, amused. Kaelin smirked. Soren’s mouth twitched like he had almost smiled.

Clayton lifted his eyes to Torren. "You’ll start transition tonight. You hand Green Wardens day-to-day to Harrick while we’re gone. He’ll run the squads. You’ll drill your second to run the drills while you prep packs for a long stay. We leave clean, no loose ends."

"Done," Torren said.

"We also test Sporelink bandwidth," Clayton added. "I want to know how far I can reach you in a blind zone. We may get split."

Torren’s grin thinned. "We won’t."

"We may," Clayton said, calm and firm. "We test anyway."

"Then we test," Torren answered.

Clayton nodded once as the choice settled in his chest like a stone that fit.

They didn’t announce the trial to the masses. Not yet.

Clayton believed in truth, but he also believed in timing.

At dusk he walked the market paths with Lorn at his side. He asked the growers what they needed, he asked the millers where grit caught in the gears.

He bent to listen to a boy explain a game with seed pods and coins. The boy never knew he spoke to the man who cut down Korrath.

At the clinic, Mirra was teaching even as she healed. Three young women watched her hands as she wrapped a burn. "Pressure, then paste, then root strip," she said. "No more. No less."

At the wells, Harrick checked the braces and the scuppers. He ran a thumb along a seam and frowned. "Too loose," he told the worker. "We fix it now, not tomorrow."

On the roofline, Veyra stood with four archers. She talked them through breath and release and let-go and quiet eyes. When one flinched at a bad shot, she only said, "Again," and the girl steadied.

Between chimneys, Kaelin hopped a gap and set a small shadow mark under a ledge. If you didn’t know to look, you never would.

At the south gate, Soren held a drill at a simmer. "You are not swords," he told the young fighters. "You are doors that do not open unless I say."

The city was learning to breathe and stand and fight without a shout.

When darkness fell, Clayton climbed the Spire alone.

He stood in the open air and watched the glow of flowers and lamps. The Heartseed pulsed behind him. He could feel the city under his palm without touching it. It was not perfect, but it was better than it had been. It could hold.

He closed his eyes and let the Protocols hum through him.

Three to five. He would take five.

One chosen, three to go.

He found Torren where he always was at night: in the yard, beating sparks out of iron with the flat of his axe to keep his wrists strong.

"Walk," Clayton said.

They took the narrow stair along the outer skin of the Spire. The wind was cool. The city murmured below like a big animal sleeping.

"You’re first," Clayton said, though both of them knew.

Torren rolled his shoulder. "I’ll hand over the Wardens to Harrick. I’ll finish the beacon frame with Kaelin. I’ll run the squads through fire, null, and stampede twice more. I’ll pack rations for ten days. Then I’ll pack rations for twenty."

"Pack for thirty," Clayton said.

Torren grunted. "You think the Trial will hold us that long?"

"I don’t think," Clayton said. "I prepare."

Torren looked at him sidelong. "And the others?"

"I haven’t carved the marks yet," Clayton said. "I’m close. I know the shapes. I need one more day watching them move. I need to see who holds this place when I step back, then I choose."

Torren nodded. "You want my take?"

"I do," Clayton said.

"Kaelin," Torren said without pause. "He finds seams. Trials are seams, let him go."

Clayton didn’t argue.

"Soren," Torren went on. "He gives shape. Trials twist, but he won’t. He should go too."

Clayton said nothing.

"Veyra..." Torren exhaled. "If we leave her, our archers grow wrong. If we take her, our edge at range turns sure. I want her with us, but I won’t say it to sway you."

"It already sways me," Clayton said.

Torren huffed a laugh. "Then pretend you didn’t hear."

"Noted," Clayton said.

They reached the upper ledge and stood in the wind. For a time they didn’t speak. The Spire thrummed under their boots as the city glowed and breathed.

Torren finally said, "You’re thinking about failure."

"I’m measuring it," Clayton said. "If we fall, Lorn keeps the pulse and Mirra keeps the blood, while Harrick keeps the streets. Veyra, if she stays, keeps the sky. Soren, if he stays, keeps the lines. Kaelin, if he stays, keeps our eyes."

"And me?" Torren asked.

"You are the push when the door won’t open," Clayton said. "In a trial, that’s not optional."

Torren’s grin faded into something quieter. "Fine."

Clayton turned to him fully. "We leave soon. Not tomorrow. Not next week, but soon. You have three nights to finish what only you can finish. Use them."

Torren held out his forearm. Clayton gripped it. The Sporelink pulsed warm between them, a living thread.

"First pick," Torren said.

"First pick," Clayton answered.

And then, they let go.

...

By midnight the Rootsite had settled.

The market fires dimmed, the clinic lights softened, and the wells sighed. Patrols moved along the walls in pairs, steps steady, eyes open. A Night Spire far to the west flickered once as Kaelin sank a beacon root; then the glow steadied and folded into the network pulse.

In the Spire, Clayton sat cross-legged beside the Heartseed. Regalia lay across his knees. The Mythprint hummed in time with his breath.

He saw five shapes moving through a maze. He saw doors that weren’t doors, and he saw teeth in the floor. He also saw a room that lied.

He saw himself push, he saw Torren break, and he saw Kaelin slip. He saw Soren hold, and he saw an arrow fly and decide a room.

He opened his eyes. ’One chosen. Three to go’.

He stood, slid Regalia to his back, and stepped into the hall. Tomorrow he would watch, he would measure, and he would decide.

Tonight he had done enough.

The Rootsite would hold.

And when the Third Trial opened its throat, Clayton Hunt would walk in with fire at his heels.