CHAPTER 15: WEIGHT OF A NAME (2)

Classes sat in the morning like small stones on a streambed. We moved from one to the next. Mana Theory quizzed a room on the differences between aura reinforcement and internal darkflow—one compresses like a fist, the other settles like sand. Circlework sketched the base glyph set every proper mage must be able to draw with their eyes closed and their wrist tied to a post. I took notes. The old Armand’s handwriting was elegant, precise, and full of habits I’d never had. I used it anyway; the hand you’re given is the hand you learn to use.

In Sabre Forms a tall boy named Ren—yesterday’s evaluator—demonstrated a clean fourth entry and then a cleaner exit when his partner tried to turn it into a mess. He saw me when we traded places in the line and offered a nod that belonged to a man who valued work over rumor. I returned it, then ran the drill with a focus that had little to do with impressing anyone and everything to do with keeping timing honest. Anchor Step pulsed in my heels when foot and floor met; the current sat where I asked and left when I told it to. The instructor’s eyebrows climbed a hair when my guard didn’t wander as it used to.

Between periods, the Compass coughed. "Small note: you thanked the kitchen boy. You returned a tray. You did not take space that was offered as a test. You did not perform penitence. No speeches. These are all correct."

’I’m not asking anyone to clap,’ I thought.

"Correct again," it said. "Also: your list of people to face begins with Ariadne. Followed by three names I can fetch from the ledger of your past life’s worst afternoons if you want a study guide."

’Later,’ I thought. ’Saintess first.’

Ethics and Accords met in a bright room with sun that made dust look holy. Liora stood at the front with the kind of composure that tells you she has earned every inch of the ground beneath her. Two bands sat loose on her wrist and clicked softly when she gestured. Dorian stood at the back like a well-made column. The benches filled slowly with those who had reason to be there and those who wanted to watch people who had reason to be there.

Liora’s blue eyes brushed the room, landed on me for a breath, and then moved on like a mother choosing not to scold a child for being early. "Accords are promises with teeth," she said. "We will talk about how to make them without losing fingers."

We did. She walked us through simple bindings and complicated harm. How intent matters and how it doesn’t. How a leash breaks clean when you lie to it. When the hour closed, she caught me with a small motion of her hand. It wasn’t a summons. It was a door that happened to be open.

"Mr. Valcrey," she said when I approached. Her voice carried the steadiness of a person who didn’t have to raise it to be heard. "Thank you for keeping your summons out of sight."

"They listen," I said.

"Make sure they continue to listen," she said. "And make sure others learn to trust that they will."

"I will," I said.

"Good," she said. Her eyes stayed on mine not as threat, not as comfort. As a weight you choose to carry because you want to be the kind of person who can.

When I stepped back into the corridor the day had moved from pale to proper. The academy’s sound had set into its day song: papers fluttering, chalk biting slate, leather drying on a rack, water in a trough telling you it exists.

I found a quiet corner of the rear quad and worked the Anchor Step until breath and foot and floor loved each other. I drilled sabre entries until the blade and my wrist agreed about whose idea it had been. I had Marrow heel beside me in Shade and pop out only when I said out, then back when I said shade, until the leash felt less like a careful balance and more like a rope that wanted to hold. Hollow rode a draft above the eaves and settled to my palm without rattling, a little cleaner each time.

’Stronger,’ I thought, and the word didn’t mean numbers. It meant rhythm. It meant choosing which muscles to listen to and which to ignore. It meant not flooding the cold just because I could. It meant timing the pulse to contact and not to feeling. It meant making Steel a thing that didn’t care what weapon I was holding because the weapon was always a piece of me.

The Compass, pleased, resisted the urge to applaud. "Two lanes," it reminded me. "Power and people. Today you worked the first without insulting the second."

’I’m going to do both,’ I thought. ’Today.’

A bell rang collared and polite. Third bell had passed; fourth was looking for a chair. The corridor outside the Valcrey rooms held the same cool air as the morning, but it felt different now that I had decided how to spend the rest of the day.

Ariadne came down the hall with the same spear-straight posture, the same measured stride. Her sworn a step behind, eyes forward. She saw me and didn’t change speed. The air between us felt like rope that had been pulled too tight for too long.

I stepped off the wall and into the middle of the corridor, then stopped three paces short—not close enough to corner, not far enough to pretend accident.

"Ariadne," I said.

Her eyes flicked to mine. Gray, like mine, but colder, as if they had learned that warmth is a currency you do not spend on men who humiliate you in public. She stopped because courtesy, not because she wanted to.

"Armand," she said. The syllables were carved square and clean.

My mouth wanted to say a dozen things. The old Armand’s instincts tried to rise—a quip, a sneer, anything that would turn this into a theater piece where he won by speaking more loudly. I let them pass under me like a wave. Breath first. Four in. Hold two. Three out.

’I didn’t do the harm,’ I told myself, and then: ’They don’t care. The face did. The name did. If I want to live here, I carry it.’

"I’d like to speak," I said. "Privately, if you’ll allow it."

Silence liked the corridor. It took the first seat it could find and made itself comfortable.

Her jaw worked once as if weighing words on the false scale of what might be fair. Then she tipped her head one notch toward the door on her left. "Five minutes," she said.

Behind my ribs, my heart adjusted itself in my chest like a man settling a pack that he knows will be heavy and worth it.

’First step,’ I thought. ’And then the next. And stronger, all the while.’

I held the door for her.

The room beyond waited.