CHAPTER 8: NOT A CORPSE

Daylight punches my eyes. The ledge outside the dungeon is crowded.

Two wardens in dull steel stand by a humming ward post. A proctor in a black cloak with ink stains on the cuffs. First-years in blue coats, packed tight for a better view. At their front is my twin.

Ariadne Valcrey. Eighteen. Black hair braided tight with a thin silver ribbon. Gray eyes like mine, only colder right now. Straight nose, sharp lines, posture like a yardstick. Academy blue trimmed in silver. White gloves. Her mouth is a flat line that means she is keeping the rest of her face from saying too much.

To her left stands Cael Veyron. First-year. Common-born. Dark brown hair that will not lie flat. Hazel eyes that miss nothing. Plain academy blue, no house crest. Standard sword on his hip, worn like it belongs there.

Near the proctor are the Saintess and the Saint—students like us, but in white-gold sashes over their blues.

Saintess Liora Anselm has flowing platinum blonde hair, a few wisps loose at her temple. Clear crystal blue eyes. A tiny ink smudge along her right thumb like she was grading or cramming before she came. Pale metal bands sit loose on her wrist and tap softly when she moves.

Saint Dorian Kest is tall and spare. Ash-blond hair cut short. Blue-gray eyes. Hands loosely laced in front of him. He looks as if he could stand still for an hour and forget to breathe loud.

The proctor lifts a palm. "Hold," he says, dry and calm. "Nobody moves."

"Stay," I say.

My bone hound sits at once. I named him Marrow. The bone bird—Hollow—lands on a shard of rock and stills. The leash humming in my chest is a rope, not a wire. It feels steady.

The ring of students whispers. "He fell last night." "Undead." "Is that a dog?" "It’s bones." "Gross." "Cool."

"I’m not a corpse," I say. "Today."

The proctor squints at me, at the summons, back at me. He is thin, with ink on his cuffs and a quill still parked behind one ear. "Armand of House Valcrey," he says. "You fought outside the school boundary. You fell into a dungeon. You forged in the wild. Any of that sound wrong?"

"No," I say. "That’s right."

His words pull yesterday back into order.

The west steps in afternoon sun. Cael telling me not to use first-years as props to win an argument. Me telling him first-years should learn to stand before someone meaner makes them. Ariadne arriving with her sworn, already angry because of my last disciplinary letter. My mouth picking the worst line it knows. "Spare, stay out of this." Her flinch. Cael’s shove. My shove. Boys, stone, an audience. A heel sliding on grit near the ward post. A rope coming down. A ward flaring. The rope snapping on a shard and slapping back empty. Ariadne shouting my name like it mattered. Then cold, dark, a cave, and a blue screen that talks.

Saintess Liora steps forward. "Stand easy," she says. Her voice is steady, the kind that tells you the room will be fine.

She holds her hand a few inches from my sternum. A soft, clean light washes through me, then through Marrow and Hollow. It looks for rot. It finds none.

"Beast bone only," she says. "No human ash. No corruption."

Dorian nods once. That small motion clears half the tension around us.

A first-year who had two fingers on a stick of dispel chalk lets go and tucks his hand in his pocket like he meant to warm it.

Ariadne takes one step toward me. The crowd quiets without being told. Up close, I can see the sleep she did not get and the way she will not let me use that as a blade.

"You humiliated our house last month," she says. "You humiliated me yesterday. You almost died and made it everyone’s problem. Do not speak to me."

The old Armand would have laughed and made it worse. I do not.

"I won’t argue with what you remember," I say. "I’m sorry for the brother you had."

Her gray eyes flick for the smallest moment. Relief shifts under anger and hides again. She steps back beside her sworn. Her jaw stays locked.

Cael’s voice comes from the edge. "You lived."

I look at him. He stands like he doesn’t notice the space his presence creates. Dark hair. Hazel eyes. Calm face. "We both did," I say. "Let’s keep it that way."

The proctor clears his throat because rules are a blanket for men like him. "By statute," he says, "both duelists will submit statements before sundown. Armand of Valcrey will undergo a control assessment in Arena One at third bell. Pass and your forging rights continue under probation. Fail and your forging is restricted to supervised sessions. Regardless, you will attend Ethics and Accords under Saintess Anselm until she is satisfied."

Dorian’s gaze rests on me, steady and unreadable. Liora’s is lighter but no less firm.

We start toward the tower. Wardens first. Proctor behind them. Liora and Dorian side by side. Students bunch up in clumps, too close and too loud. Ariadne walks on the outside, back straight as a spear. Cael falls in at the rear where he can see without becoming the scene.

The Compass speaks in my head. It is a blue, translucent screen only I can see, and a dry voice only I can hear. "Two items," it says. "One: shoulders down. Two: you are Tier 2—Adept. Base, not minus. In this empire, Initiate—Tier 1—is peak human. Adept is truly superhuman. If your Internal doesn’t feel that way yet, that’s timing and form, not engine. You are strong. The driver is new to this chassis."

"Noted," I think.

"And breathe before you say anything brave," it adds. "It helps bravery happen in the right order."

We pass the scar on the stone where my heel lost the argument with gravity. The rope still lies there with its burned end tied in an ugly knot. I look away before the sound of Ariadne saying my name last night claws up my ribs.

I set the world straight in my head while we walk. Mana training begins at sixteen. Power is not just tricks; it is an engine. People call it darkflow. The engine is graded in tiers: ten of them. Each tier has three sub-levels—minus (you just arrived and wobble), base (stable), plus (you press the ceiling and brush the next room). The Compass says I am Adept, base. That fits. I can keep two constructs without fuzz if I rotate orders and don’t try to conduct both with one stick. If I pour Internal too long, my fingers still go numb. That is technique, not fuel.

I think of the shove at the steps. The feeling when our forearms met. The weight in Cael’s current. His breath stayed even when mine hitched. He isn’t a "Hero" yet. He is still special. If tiers are engines, he is already past me.

If I had to place him: Tier 3. Artisan.

The tower throws a long shadow over the path. Arena One hums with a clean blue ward line. The gallery above is already full. Students love a show the way cats love warm windows.

"Third bell," the proctor says. "Arena One. Don’t be late."

We file in through the arch. The ward line glows, the seats buzz, and the school leans forward to see what I am.

I stop just inside the shade. "Shade," I say.

Marrow slides into the shadow under the arch and is gone, like bone drawn in ink and then wiped away. Hollow ripples once and sinks into the same patch of dark. The leash hums in my chest—two on the line, tucked, steady.

"Out, when I call," I add.

The dark answers like a held breath.

"Good choice," the Compass says. "City rules prefer you not parade your friends indoors. Also: lunch after, please. You are very heroic when you have blood sugar."

I breathe. I listen to the ward’s hum. I look at the chalk scuffs on the floor. I do not look up at the gallery for my twin. It is not time for that test.

Third bell is not far. The air tastes like iron and old practice.