Night settled over the arena like a held breath.

  The sun had long since vanished beyond the Academy spires, replaced by rings of artificial light embedded into the stone walls. They cast harsh white illumination downward, leaving the upper tiers in shadow. Only first- and second-year cadets remained now—those too invested, too obsessed, or too afraid to leave.

  This was no longer an evaluation.

  It was a reckoning.

  Wanuy stood at the edge of the ring, scythe resting against his shoulder. Blood had already soaked into the wrappings around his ribs and left thigh from the earlier fight. His breathing was controlled, but shallow. Every inhale burned.

  Across from him, Fortuna waited.

  Barefoot. Still.

  Her skin bore bruises from Sierra’s strikes—faint purples blooming along her ribs and shoulder—but she stood as if they didn’t exist. The light curved around her oddly, shadows refusing to sit where they should.

  In the stands, Arata watched with clenched fists, Lyra beside him, silent. Nebula stood near the barrier, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

  And higher still, partially obscured by darkness—

  Magister Kohler observed.

  His golden eyes reflected the arena lights like distant stars.

  Nebula raised her hand.

  “Final Mid-Sem Duel,” she announced. Her voice echoed longer than it should have.

  “Cadet Wanuy. Cadet Fortuna.”

  She paused.

  “Begin.”

  ***

  Wanuy moved first.

  No flourish. No hesitation.

  The scythe carved forward in a low arc, aimed to cripple—hooking toward Fortuna’s ankle with practiced precision.

  The blade should have connected.

  Instead, a crack split the stone beneath Wanuy’s leading foot.

  Not deep. Not dramatic.

  Enough.

  His balance shifted half an inch off-center. The scythe passed cleanly through empty air.

  Fortuna stepped back—not hurried, not evasive.

  Just… where she needed to be.

  Wanuy adjusted instantly, pivoting into a reverse swing. The scythe’s haft slammed toward her ribs—

  —and struck a loose fragment of slate that hadn’t been there a second ago.

  The impact jarred his wrists, sending a sharp vibration up his arms. Pain flared, fingers spasming.

  Fortuna’s counter came fast.

  Her elbow drove into Wanuy’s sternum.

  The blow landed cleanly.

  The shock rippled through bone and cartilage, knocking the air from his lungs in a violent burst. His vision narrowed as pressure surged inward, ribs screaming.

  He staggered back, boots scraping.

  She followed.

  A kick to the thigh—precise. The impact compressed muscle and nerve together, sending a spike of numbness down his leg. His knee buckled.

  Wanuy barely twisted aside as her heel skimmed his jaw.

  The near-miss still rattled his skull, vibration traveling through teeth and inner ear, throwing off his equilibrium. He tasted blood.

  The crowd was silent now.

  Wanuy planted the scythe into the stone and used it to haul himself upright.

  “So that’s it,” he muttered, breath ragged. “Luck.”

  Fortuna tilted her head. “You say that like it’s small.”

  He attacked again.

  This time faster. Smarter.

  The scythe danced—high feint, low hook, spin into a sweeping crescent meant to herd her into the barrier.

  Each strike almost landed.

  Each time, something went wrong.

  A loose strap on his grip snapped at the worst possible moment.

  A tremor from a distant generator ripple traveled through the floor just as he planted his foot.

  A flare from the arena lights blinded him for half a heartbeat—long enough for Fortuna to slip inside his guard.

  Her palm struck his shoulder.

  The impact wasn’t heavy—but it was perfect.

  The force traveled through the joint and into the collarbone, sending a grinding jolt through bone. Something cracked. His arm went partially numb, scythe dropping from his fingers.

  Fortuna didn’t pause.

  Her knee drove into his abdomen.

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  Wanuy folded around it, bile and blood surging up his throat. He felt cartilage give. His body hit the ground hard, the shock traveling up his spine and into his skull.

  For a moment, he couldn’t move.

  Fortuna stood over him, shadow falling across his face.

  “Yield,” Nebula said sharply.

  Wanuy coughed, spitting blood onto the stone.

  “No.”

  He pushed himself up on one elbow.

  Something in him shifted.

  Not desperation.

  Understanding.

  He reached out—not with muscle, not with resonance—

  —but memory.

  The Veins answered.

  The air thickened.

  Not with pressure. With weight.

  The stone beneath the arena darkened, veins of dull silver surfacing like scars reopening. The light flickered.

  A presence rose.

  Not a body.

  A moment.

  A memory torn loose from the world.

  A battlefield long dead bled into existence behind Wanuy—shadows of fallen soldiers, half-formed, flickering like reflections in broken glass. The echo of a scream that had already ended pressed into the air.

  The crowd gasped.

  Kohler leaned forward slightly.

  Fortuna took a step back.

  For the first time, her certainty wavered.

  Wanuy stood, scythe reforming in his grip as the memory anchored itself to him. His voice was low, steady, carried by something older than sound.

  “Death isn’t an end,” he said. “It’s a record.”

  He swung.

  The scythe passed through Fortuna’s shoulder—

  —and the memory followed.

  Her body jerked violently as the echo of a blade that had killed a man decades ago overlapped with her present. Pain exploded through her nervous system, borrowed agony slamming into flesh.

  Blood sprayed.

  She cried out, stumbling.

  Wanuy pressed forward, relentless now, every strike carrying the weight of something that had already died. Cuts opened along Fortuna’s side, her thigh, her arm—wounds that shouldn’t have existed, but did.

  She was bleeding heavily now.

  Breathing hard.

  But luck—

  Luck does not abandon its chosen.

  Wanuy’s foot caught on nothing.

  The memory flickered.

  The Veins pulled back.

  The battlefield dissolved mid-swing.

  The scythe lost weight.

  Fortuna moved.

  Her fist struck Wanuy’s jaw.

  The impact was brutal.

  Bone vibrated violently, the force traveling cleanly through the mandible into the skull. His brain rattled inside his head, vision detonating into white noise. His balance vanished.

  He hit the ground hard, consciousness tearing at the edges.

  She followed with a heel to the ribs.

  Something snapped.

  Pain flooded everything.

  Wanuy tried to rise.

  His body refused.

  Fortuna stood over him, blood dripping from her fingers, chest heaving.

  She raised her hand—

  —and then stopped.

  Wanuy looked up at her through blurred vision and smiled.

  Not triumphant.

  Complete.

  “I get it now,” he whispered.

  Nebula stepped forward. “Wanuy—”

  “The only thing permanent,” he said, voice shaking but sure, “is death.”

  He exhaled.

  “And the memories of the dead.”

  His head fell back against the stone.

  Unconscious.

  The barrier dropped instantly.

  “Winner,” Nebula announced, voice tight, “Cadet Fortuna.”

  The arena erupted—not in cheers, but in fractured noise. Medics rushed in, lifting Wanuy carefully, blood pooling beneath him.

  Fortuna stood alone in the ring, shaking, victorious—and for the first time, exhausted.

  In the stands, Arata felt the Veins go still.

  Kohler smiled.

  Not with satisfaction.

  With recognition. He finally had two good cadets in the new batch.

  Two truths had been proven that night.

  Luck could bend the world.

  But death—

  Death would eventually devour it.

  ...

  The sirens rang.

  Once.

  Twice.

  And then stopped.

  Arata did not hear them.

  He floated in that half-sleep where pain had learned to speak softly—no sharp edges, only a dull, spreading ache that wrapped around thought itself. His body felt distant, heavy, like it had been assembled incorrectly and left that way overnight.

  The third siren never came.

  That was what woke him.

  Silence.

  Arata’s eyes snapped open.

  For a moment he didn’t know where he was. The ceiling above him was unfamiliar—too low, too bare. Then the ache in his ribs caught up with him, and memory followed like a delayed echo.

  The duels.

  Wanuy.

  The scythe.

  The way the Veins had gone quiet.

  He tried to sit up.

  Pain answered immediately.

  It bloomed across his chest and shoulder, a hot, nauseating pressure that made his breath hitch. His right arm protested with a deep, grinding throb, muscles stiff and uncooperative. The bandages across his torso were damp, not with blood, but with the faint medicinal sting of coagulating gel.

  “—shit,” he muttered, voice hoarse.

  He swung his legs off the bunk anyway.

  The floor was colder than he expected.

  Across the room, something groaned.

  “Don’t,” Wanuy’s voice croaked. “If you’re thinking of standing, don’t.”

  Arata looked up.

  Wanuy was in the opposite bunk, half-sitting, half-slumped against the wall. His torso was wrapped tight in layered bandages, one shoulder immobilized with a brace that looked more structural than medical. His face was pale in the morning light, dark circles etched deep beneath his eyes.

  One side of his jaw was swollen.

  Arata blinked. “You’re alive.”

  Wanuy let out a weak, humorless laugh. “Barely. Medics said that counts.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, both breathing shallowly, listening to the distant sounds of the Academy waking properly now—boots on stone, doors sliding open, voices rising in disciplined cadence.

  They were late.

  Arata glanced toward the wall chrono. His stomach sank.

  “…We missed both sirens.”

  Wanuy followed his gaze, then winced as he shifted. “Yeah. I figured.”

  Neither of them moved to correct it.

  For once, the world could wait.

  Arata leaned back against the bunk frame, careful of his ribs. “Nebula’s going to kill us.”

  “She watched me almost die last night,” Wanuy said. “I think we’re on borrowed time already.”

  That earned a small, tired huff of a laugh from Arata—short, careful, cut off before it could hurt.

  “How bad?” Arata asked.

  Wanuy considered. “Cracked ribs. Dislocated shoulder. Internal bruising I’m not supposed to joke about. You?”

  “Jaw still buzzing. Leg goes numb if I stand too fast. And my arm feels like it belongs to someone else.”

  “Classic.”

  They shared another quiet stretch.

  The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and old metal. Sunlight filtered through the narrow window in thin bars, dust motes drifting lazily—completely unaware of how close the night before had come to killing one of them.

  Arata broke the silence. “You scared me.”

  Wanuy didn’t deflect it this time.

  “Good,” he said softly. “That means you were paying attention.”

  Arata frowned. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.” Wanuy shifted carefully, eyes unfocused as if replaying something only he could see. “I scared myself too.”

  Arata hesitated. “When you… pulled that memory out of the Veins.”

  Wanuy’s fingers tightened slightly against the edge of his bunk.

  “I didn’t know I could do that,” he admitted. “Not like that. It wasn’t power. It was… recognition. Like the Veins already knew what I was reaching for.”

  “And now?” Arata asked.

  Wanuy looked at him then, really looked.

  “Now I know what death actually is,” he said. “Not an enemy. Not a weapon. A constant. The only thing that doesn’t lie.”

  That sat heavy between them.

  Arata swallowed. “She beat you anyway.”

  Wanuy smiled faintly. “Yeah.”

  A pause.

  “But she didn’t erase it,” he added. “That matters.”

  Footsteps approached down the corridor.

  Measured. Familiar.

  Arata sighed. “That’s Nebula.”

  Wanuy closed his eyes briefly. “Tell her I died heroically in my sleep.”

  “Not happening.”

  The door slid open.

  Nebula stood there, arms crossed, expression unreadable—until her eyes flicked to the chrono, then back to the two of them.

  “…You missed both sirens,” she said flatly.

  Wanuy raised a hand weakly. “In our defense—”

  “No,” she cut in. “Don’t.”

  She stepped into the room anyway, gaze sweeping over bandages, braces, half-upright postures. Something in her jaw tightened.

  “…Med clearance?” she asked.

  “Conditional,” Arata replied.

  “Threateningly conditional,” Wanuy added.

  Nebula exhaled slowly. “Get dressed. Slowly. You’re excused from drills, but Kohler wants a report by evening.”

  Arata’s pulse spiked. “Both of us?”

  Her eyes lingered on Wanuy. “Especially him.”

  Wanuy opened one eye. “Figures.”

  As Nebula turned to leave, Arata called after her.

  “Hey.”

  She paused.

  “…Lyra,” he said carefully. “Is she—”

  Nebula didn’t turn around.

  “She’s back,” she said. “But she’s not okay.”

  The door slid shut behind her.

  Silence returned.

  Wanuy stared at the ceiling. “We should’ve stayed unconscious.”

  Arata lay back against the bunk, pain flaring in quiet protest.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Probably.”