Karael woke before the alarm.

  His body had learned the rhythm faster than his mind wanted to admit. Pressure sat low and dense in his chest, contained and quiet, but the cost of the previous rotations had not faded with sleep. His wrists ached dully. His shoulders felt heavy, as if something were still resting on them.

  The slate chimed anyway.

  Revised schedule.

  He did not need to read it twice.

  Shorter recovery window. One rotation removed from the buffer and folded directly into deployment. The language was clean and final, marked compliant under updated doctrine thresholds.

  Ownership had teeth.

  By the time Karael reached staging, Marr was already there.

  Ilyen stood near the edge of the hall, spear resting upright against his shoulder, posture relaxed in a way that had nothing to do with ease. His eyes moved constantly, tracking timing, posture, the subtle signs of strain doctrine did not record.

  “You’re early,” Marr said.

  “So are you,” Karael replied.

  Marr nodded once. “I put in for a delay.”

  Karael’s chest tightened slightly. “And.”

  “It was approved,” Marr said. “Partially.”

  That word mattered.

  They stood together as venters moved past them, some familiar, some new, all carrying the same tight focus that came from knowing they would be used again before their bodies were ready.

  “How much,” Karael asked.

  “Two hours,” Marr replied. “It used to be four.”

  Karael exhaled slowly. Pressure stirred in response, testing containment before settling again. “That won’t change much.”

  “No,” Marr said. “It will change something.”

  They did not say what.

  The first deployment came before Karael’s muscles had fully warmed. He moved through it cleanly, containment precise, pressure engaged only at impact and withdrawn immediately after. No bloom. No visible instability.

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  Doctrine would have been satisfied.

  By the time the second alarm sounded, the cost had begun to surface. Not dramatically. A fraction slower on the turn. A slight delay in suppression that he corrected before it showed.

  The third engagement folded into the second without pause.

  Venters vented openly, heat blooming hard and fast. One man collapsed outright, dragged clear and replaced without comment. Another kept fighting despite a twisted knee, venting through the pain until the engagement ended.

  Karael contained.

  Pressure did not rebel. It obeyed. That was almost worse.

  The rebound came later, sinking deeper into bone and tendon, spreading instead of spiking. His gauntlets hissed more often now, bleeding away excess that should not have been there yet.

  He felt it accumulating.

  Between rotations, Marr approached him again. His voice was low, steady. “You’re late on suppression.”

  “I can compensate,” Karael said.

  “I know,” Marr replied. “I asked for another adjustment.”

  Karael looked at him. “And.”

  Marr’s jaw tightened slightly. “It’s under review.”

  That was new.

  The next rotation began anyway.

  An officer passed close enough that Karael caught the words spoken into a slate. “Asset utilization must remain consistent.”

  Not survival. Utilization.

  Doctrine had changed its language.

  The fight itself blurred. Karael remembered motion, impact, containment held through strikes that should have forced a vent. He remembered the sound of stone cracking under someone else’s release. He remembered the weight in his chest growing denser, pressure settling into a shape that resisted full suppression longer each time.

  By the end of the rotation, his hands were shaking.

  Not visibly. Not enough for doctrine to flag.

  Enough for Marr to see.

  They cleared the floor and regrouped in staging. Recovery teams moved efficiently. Slates were updated. No one lingered on individual outcomes.

  Marr stood beside Karael, close enough that no one else could hear him speak.

  “You’re degrading faster,” he said.

  Karael nodded. “I know.”

  “I can slow it,” Marr said. “A little.”

  Karael met his eyes. “At what cost.”

  Marr did not answer immediately. He looked past Karael at the hall, at the steady movement of bodies preparing to be used again.

  “At mine,” he said finally.

  Another slate chimed.

  Revised schedule.

  Again.

  Karael read it once and felt something cold settle beneath the pressure in his chest. Recovery windows reduced further. A provisional override applied. The notation was brief, justified under updated efficiency doctrine.

  Marr looked at the slate longer than necessary.

  “This one,” Karael said quietly, “you didn’t ask for.”

  “No,” Marr replied. “I didn’t.”

  They stood there as the next alarm sounded, closer than before.

  Karael flexed his fingers and felt pain flare, sharp and immediate, before settling back into the deeper ache that had become constant. Pressure responded sluggishly now, no longer snapping cleanly into suppression.

  The erosion was not sudden.

  It was methodical.

  “Marr,” Karael said.

  “Yes.”

  “If they stop listening to you.”

  Marr’s expression did not change. “Then I stop being useful.”

  Karael swallowed. “And me.”

  “You’ll still be useful,” Marr said. “That’s the problem.”

  The alarm called them forward again.

  Karael stepped into line, pressure contained by habit more than ease, and understood something with uncomfortable clarity.

  Marr was no longer a shield.

  He was a margin.

  And margins, under doctrine, were always the first things to be trimmed.