CHAPTER 422: THIS WAS ALWAYS GOING TO BE ME

"You’ve all read the memo," the teacher continued, their voice calm, each word even, "You know the exam is a realm.

You know the realm is stable, and you know proctors sit inside with you, whether you see them or not.

You also know stability is a moving target when the past remembers itself. So this will not be a lecture. It will be a sorting."

The room shifted the way air shifts when the weather changes. Backs straightened. Pens stilled.

A few students laughed under their breath, that nervous reflex everyone falls back on when they’re told the test has already started and they’re still holding a notebook like it’s a shield.

It wasn’t humor. It was nerves trying to pretend they had control.

"We will start with pairs," the teacher said. "You will not choose your own. Sit where you are. Your partner is the person at your shoulder.

If no one is at your shoulder, you will move to the nearest seat with someone who is not your best friend."

The ripple of complaint came quickly but faintly, a wave that broke before it could crest. Chairs scraped across the floor.

Eyes darted, measuring chances, calculating new alliances. Someone muttered too loudly, and someone else hissed for them to shut up.

The teacher didn’t watch the scramble. They had no need. They watched for the stillness that rose out of it, the few who found their calm when the rest stirred.

That was the measure. That always told more than the protest did.

Evelyn didn’t wait for the scramble to touch her. She reached out, two fingers brushing Ethan’s sleeve as if sealing something already decided.

"This was always going to be me," she said. Quiet, certain, not meant to be questioned. As if the instructor should have known the room’s real order before even asking for it.

"Of course it was," Everly answered, bumping her knee against Ethan’s just hard enough to make it count. Her grin was quick, sharp.

"But if she gets to plan routes, then I get to carry the pack, and nobody argues about it."

Evelyn didn’t even look at her sister, eyes already fixed on the blank wall where she knew the holo-map would appear sooner or later.

"Not planning routes," she said, but the set of her mouth betrayed her. She was already planning them, already plotting lines only she could see.

"We share every decision. We vote when we disagree. He’s the tie breaker."

"He’s always the tie breaker," Everly said, satisfied, as if it had been settled long ago.

Ethan looked between them, his face calm, voice level. "We listen to the proctor before we listen to ourselves," he said.

The words came like something he had already practiced in his head. The twins both nodded at once. It was common sense; they weren’t so proud they’d ignore it.

Sometimes, survival is just knowing when to bow to the order given.

Pairs formed. In corners where chairs didn’t line up neatly, trios gathered. Names were murmured aloud when the teacher began calling the list, not just for the roll but to tie tasks to shoulders.

Point leader for a corridor drill. Supply recorder for a cache that might or might not exist. Small jobs that no one wanted, but small jobs that made the room into a whole.

The simple work pulled them together. It always does.

The teacher moved on when the pieces had settled. "We will walk to the south gate this morning," they said.

"You will not take the clean route. If you think you know the clean route, you will definitely not take it.

You will move as if the floor is watching and the ceiling resents your breath. You will talk the whole time. Not chatter.

Talk. Report to each other what your eyes are doing. Tell your partner what you assume. Keep assumptions small."

A boy in the front row raised his hand, his chin lifted too high. "If the proctors are inside the realm with us," he asked, voice a little louder than needed, "why not let them handle the danger while we handle the exercise?"

The teacher’s gaze slid toward him. Their eyes were kind, but the kind of kind that never bends.

"Because you will learn nothing if you believe help lives in your pocket," they said. "Because help is sometimes two minutes away, the cut lands inside the first minute.

Because you are not here to be walked across a field. You are here to become the kind of person who can walk others across and make it look ordinary."

The boy’s jaw shut like a drawer. He nodded, stiff at first, then easier. The class listened and measured the words. They liked the weight of the answer, even though it pinched.

The doors opened. The hallway stretched out before them like a throat waiting to swallow sound.

The class moved forward, not in parade lines, but in pairs, footsteps echoing softly and unevenly.

The teacher drifted beside them, never leading, never pushing, simply present. At each turn, they gave the command for someone else to call it.

North. Left. Hold. Wait. Count. Move. At each stairwell, another student had to name the danger, and another had to name the easy lies.

At each quiet corner, one voice said, "We assume nothing," and another followed with, "We assume the floor loves to make us fall. "

No one laughed because the hallways were not jokes.

Out beyond the academy walls, the city practiced being calm. Inside the walls, rhythm took root.

Evelyn pointed once, twice, no more, her signals small, precise. Everly tugged Ethan’s sleeve when a light flickered wrong, the kind of wrong she had been taught to distrust.

He nodded, logged it, moved on. They spoke in clipped pieces, never wasting time on who should lead. Leadership in a hallway is a relay. The baton passes with each corner.

By the time they reached the south gate, everyone was still breathing the same way they had at the start. The teacher let them keep the moment, then took it back.