CHAPTER 29: FIVE AT ONCE

Nobody moved.

My "All of you. At once." hung over the square like a bell that hadn’t finished ringing. Ward posts thrummed. Fog feathered along the gutter. Laundry lines swayed lazy over cracked stone. The whole place felt like it had leaned in.

I let the weight sit. Not aura. Not some spell. Just the presence you carry when you’ve walked through doors that were trying to kill you. Shoulders loose. Chin level. Breath four in, hold two, roll three out. Internal sank to my heels and waited there the way a good dog does—ready, not excited.

Harlan broke first. Long steel, young lungs—he came quick, tip painting a tidy teaching arc meant to make me retreat and open my chest.

I didn’t give ground. Outside slip, back edge to his guard, a thumb-turn that put his wrists where I wanted them. My sabre tapped the safe mark over his heart. The ward chimed polite. He blinked once, surprised, and I touched his shoulder with mine so his own speed walked him onto the fountain lip. He windmilled, saved it, then lost it. Water took him with a gulping slosh and a splash that dotted the circle.

Gasps snapped, then went quiet in a hurry.

Sennet chose thunder over thought. Mace high, feet square—bad square. I stepped inside the arc before the head dropped. Clinch. Wrist on forearm, elbow over elbow, hip pulse only on contact. The mace bit the bucket Aldric had jammed in the Refuge door and stuck; the door stuck it back. Sennet yanked, the bucket yanked him. I let him feel the lesson load his shoulder.

"Yield if you want that arm tomorrow," I said, calm.

He looked up, saw I wasn’t playing, and slapped his vest. Yellow halo. He backed away red-faced and learning, which is a better color than most.

One of the Voss boys slid a spear in clever and light. Good reach, bad feet. I let the tip whisper leather, rode the shaft with my palm, set his instep with a gentle heel. He stumbled the exact step that put his shin on Marrow’s skull. Marrow didn’t move. I tapped the boy’s shoulder; the ward chimed.

"Place your feet before you decorate them," I said. He flushed and went.

The other Voss boy had blue-white crawling his knuckles and fear at his throat. He threw the sheet wide. Anchor Step gave it to the stones; the puddle by the fountain hissed to steam. I twisted two fingers into his damp cuff, turned his wrist a hair, and his spark scolded its owner. He yelped. My edge kissed his vest; bell.

Four down. The square inhaled and forgot to exhale.

Aldric smiled too wide. Lightning veined his forearms bright. He scraped the bucket free with his boot, sent it skittering, and came fast with lightning’s lie—speed pretending to be line.

He cut high. I wasn’t there. He lanced low. Still not there. Not flair; economy. Shoulders quiet. Hips writing, not scribbling. Breath on the count. Fog licked my boots and then changed its mind.

"Stand still!" he snapped, which is what men say when their hands announce their plans.

Hollow tapped his shoulder with a rib-beak like a rude gnat from a colder book. He flinched a fraction. I stepped into the flinch, caught his wrist bone to bone—thumb to thumb—and sipped Internal only into my fingers. Lightning tried to buck; timing married it to my grip. I stripped his line the way you ease a ring from a swollen hand.

He blew a palm of light into my chest. It should have put me on my back.

Anchor Step put it in the ground.

Steam braided up around my knees. The ward posts deepened their hum like a throat clearing. The crowd made a new sound—between understanding and fear.

"Better," I said. Honest. "But your hand speaks before your shoulder. Fix that."

He surged. I let him have my sleeve and the slick he’d forgotten: Sennet’s spill on the stone. His heel skated a thumb; my foot kissed his. Balance wrote me a goodbye letter. I didn’t throw. I turned. He went down sideways, polite. The flat of my sabre pressed his vest; the ward chimed bright as a small truth.

He froze, color fighting itself under his skin. Fingers twitched for a cheap zap at my ankle.

"Yield," Saintess Liora said. Not a request. A diagnosis.

Aldric slapped his mark. Yellow flared. He sat up fast and then remembered he was supposed to look unbothered.

I stepped back so the whole square could see the picture: boys soaked and steaming; door unblocked; ledger moving. Lyra kept the line steady at Refuge, brass badge bright, hands calm. Pink lived high on her cheeks—command and attention, not romance. When the front cleared she gave me a flick of a look: wary trust. Professional. Enough.

"Next time," I said, for everyone, "pick on someone who can fight back."

That line didn’t belong to me alone. It belonged to the girls who kept books right, to the boys who held walls, to anyone told to smile while someone smarter with less to do enjoyed it.

The ring around us shifted. Not cheers. Something better: the watching turned serious.

"Optional confrontation module concluded," Proctor Pierce called from his balcony like he was reading the weather. "Points assigned. Practicum continues."

The wardlight gentled. The square remembered to breathe. The mannequins began to moan on cue again, like actors coming back from an unscheduled pause.

We went back to work.

Gareth raised knee-high walls to funnel bodies. Pelham pried a cart wheel free and carried a "wounded man" like furniture he didn’t mind. The west-dorm girl drew a ribbon of water along a seam; an ember died obedient. I tore shutters into a ramp so old legs didn’t have to hop. Marrow stayed in Shade unless I said otherwise. Hollow rode a draft and clicked once when a corner lied about its shape.

My killing intent slid back inside like steel to sheath. Not gone; put away. I kept the line where Saints would stop me if I stepped over it. That’s its own kind of safety—you can work to the ceiling without worrying you’ll rip the roof off.

Two rotations later a cradle fell from a second-story as a "pressure event." Cael was across the square before most people understood their feet. He got under it and took the weight like a man who trusted his bones. I met him there and fixed pins with clamps, Internal pulsed only in my fingertips. We didn’t speak. It went where it needed to go. Liora’s bands ticked. Dorian didn’t move and somehow still made the street feel steadier.

Seraphine stood where the light liked her. Portrait calm. Night-quiet eyes. She watched the fight the way a person watches ink dry on a letter they wrote and didn’t like anymore. Ariadne watched like a ledger being corrected. Cael watched like a craftsman cataloguing tools.

At noon the fog bled out of the vents and the fountain coughed one last time. "End of practicum," Pierce said. "Scores in one hour. Top five report to the main court for orders."

"Orders" made a different sound go through the yard. Anticipation, with teeth.

Aldric studied a wall until it threatened to study him back. The boys who’d laughed earlier knew how to look at their boots now. The noble who’d stepped out early had his hands open and empty. Good. He might keep them.

I wiped water from my coat and sheathed the blade. Hollow clicked onto the fountain lip and preened one rib; Marrow slid into Shade at a word. The square thinned into lines and then into air.

I turned to follow my team—and the ward posts along the north wall flickered white. Not blue. White, thin as bone. Cold light crawled under the arch of a door most first-years only know from rumor.

Gate Six.

You could feel the academy take a breath and taste its own teeth.

Pierce didn’t look at me when he spoke; he looked at his slate and let the words find their targets on their own. "Top five report to the main court," he said. "Orders at noon. Gate Six tonight."

The crowd didn’t roar. It fell quiet the way rooms do when a lid lifts and cold air walks out.

Seraphine’s gaze found mine. Polite mouth. Glittering eyes. By sunrise, that look promised, you’ll ask me for help.

Aiadne’s shoulders eased a breath under an invisible pack. Cael straightened without meaning to. Liora looked at the white glow and then at the faces who’d be walking into it. Dorian’s stillness turned into attention without moving a muscle.

Lyra closed her ledger, blew it dry, and tucked it to her chest like the tool it was. She had other lines to move this afternoon. So did I.

"Scores in one hour," Pierce repeated. "Orders at noon."

My hand found the knurled back of my sabre’s guard. Not for comfort. For honesty. The five-on-one had emptied something heavy out of me. The gate had just poured something colder back in.

We had sixty minutes to learn which door the day would open.

And then the day would swallow us.