The dining hall felt smaller than it had the week before — not because the room had shrunk, but because the air had.
Marble that had once echoed laughter now swallowed sound. Light slid across the long table like a witness, indifferent and cold.
Crassus stood at the head with the easy smile of a man who had watched a thousand hands reach for a coin.
Across from him, Dean Ancelot sat like a weathered monument — stern, watchful, hands folded as if to contain an old hurt.
The five students took their places one by one, each step making the silence denser.
"By now," Crassus said, his voice smooth as silk, "I trust you have decided."
The pause that followed was long enough to unmake a heartbeat.
He looked at Slitah first — eyes soft, almost solicitous.
"Your father's record. The law degree. Justice restored. You taught us all that family is a debt honored by action. What will you do?"
Slitah rose with a tremble in his hands.
The confession left him before pride could reassemble itself.
"I accept."
The sound of his acceptance landed in the hall like a stone.
Trisha's mouth opened and closed. Eghosa lowered her face.
Ancelot's fingers tightened — a small, private storm.
Crassus smiled the way one smiles at a completed calculation.
"One burden eased," he murmured.
Velibrum was next. Crassus turned toward him with the patronizing patience of a noble asking to be pardoned a favor.
"Velibrum — you who have known hunger for renown and yet now covet rest. Why claim a life of peace if not because you have earned the coward's price?"
Velibrum laughed, but it had no joy.
"I have fought for other people's dreams long enough," he said. "If peace is the price, I'll pay for it."
He signed. The paper's whisper was small, but it changed him into a man who had traded legend for a cottage.
Leonard stood without hesitation when his name came.
He did not speak of nostalgia — he spoke of duty: the names burned into his memory, the night his house fell, the vengeful image of a child too young to carry a sword.
"I will take it," he said. "I will find House Falken and pull it back from ruin."
Crassus inclined his head.
"Power begins with a bargain," he said softly, as if reading the line from some inevitable play.
Trisha's turn felt like a severed breath.
Crassus's courteous inquiry fell against her like a ripple on iron.
"Miss Prefect," he said smoothly, "a villa, resources, and a knighthood. Safety, prestige — why spurn comfort when it stands before you?"
Trisha met his eyes, her tone even but her heart unquiet.
"The cure to Tuminucs isn't among your gifts," she said quietly. "And a title won't give it to me. Everything you offer means nothing if the one person I'm fighting for still dies."
Her voice didn't tremble — it just hardened.
"Comfort that empties your reasons is not mercy — it's a cage."
Then she tore the paper.
Gold fragments drifted down like dying light, and for a heartbeat, no one breathed.
Crassus's eyes found Eghosa last.
He watched her the way a watchmaker studies a mechanism — patient, certain, curious.
"And you?" he asked. "A villa, a choice of discipline, a steady future. What will you do, child?"
Eghosa felt every pair of eyes press into her.
Her voice came soft but steady.
"My brother will manage the house. If I leave now for comfort, I will never forgive myself. I will not take your offer."
She tore her page as Trisha had.
Crassus clapped once — polite, slow. The sound echoed like a metallic bird alarm.
"You are fascinating," he said. "So two roaches remain."
He turned toward Ancelot then, with mock solemnity.
"You tore yours. A noble gesture. But tearing a paper is a simple thing. The choices that follow are the true test. Tell me — what would you have your students be?"
Ancelot rose.
He had no theatrics, only the quiet gravity of someone who had stood at too many crossroads.
"I would have them be honest," he said. "I would have them be dangerous in the right way. I would have them keep their hands clean of easy bargains that kill the soul."
Crassus smiled a little wider, something like amusement glinting through something colder.
"Then let the trial begin," he murmured, and stepped back as though a curtain had dropped between private sins and public consequences.
Outside, the world held its breath.
Thunder threaded the city's light — a small, natural drumbeat marking the end of leisure and the beginning of fate.
They were left with torn paper and decisions that would settle like dust — some to be swept away by honor, some to sink into the ground.
In the hush after Crassus left, Ancelot spoke low, voice carrying only to those closest.
"Rest," he said. "Tomorrow, they test what you have reclaimed. Sleep — and remember why you first took up a blade."
They filed from the hall one by one, the weight of the day folding them inward.
The villa felt empty and full at once — empty of the easy noise that had swallowed them, and full of a new, hard attention.
That night, Slitah lay awake and saw his father's face behind his eyelids — the accusation, the hunger for clearance, the image of a man who could not sleep because his name had been fractured.
He thought of the legal books he would study, the long hours speaking in courtrooms to clear stolen names.
The thought filled him like light. The decision came quietly, like a tide: he would sign, and pull his father from the dirt.
Velibrum imagined the sound of nights without calling alarms.
He imagined weddings and children and waking to calm.
In his mind, a small, honest future unrolled. He had put his sword into the world to be a hero once; now he wanted the right to be merely a man.
He folded the paper in his hand and felt the weight of it become enough.
Leonard replayed the ruin of House Falken — the smoke and the running feet and the walls stripped of tapestries.
The promise of locating what remained of his kin was a map back to dignity.
His jaw set. He would sign to rebuild the past.
Trisha stared at the discarded paper, then at the memory of her mother's thin chest and the word Tuminucs — a cruel, merciless illness that stole futures like thieves.
A knighthood would not by itself cure the disease, nor could status bring a miracle.
The offer had no cure, no hope — just comfort, and that was not enough.
She had chosen meaning, even if it cost her everything.
The choice burned, but she felt its rightness in her throat. She did not sign.
Eghosa's hands trembled when she lifted the paper.
She had called her brother, and he had spoken like the man he was — steadier than she felt.
He offered no orders, only the brother's shelter: "You choose, and I'll bear what must be borne."
That freedom unfroze her.
She had wanted relief for her family, yes — but not in exchange for the shape of her soul.
She would not sell herself.
She would not sign.
Dawn came with the thin, metallic air of a city that had watched deals and betrayals and had learned to expect both.
The students gathered again at the long table.
Crassus returned with a smile like a small ceremony.
He took in the group, counting like a man checking a ledger.
"Well?" he asked. "Decisions, please."
Slitah stepped forward first, his hands steady.
"I accept," he said. "For my father."
Velibrum signed without flourish.
"I accept. For peace."
Leonard's signature was precise, like a blade finding a seam.
"I accept," he said. "For House Falken."
Trisha rose when her name came and spoke with a voice that had been tempered.
"I refuse," she said simply. "If comfort is the cost, I will not buy it."
Eghosa's hands were dry as she handed the paper back to Crassus.
"I refuse," she said. "I will not trade my attempt for a consolation."
Crassus's smile did not change; he bowed with the air of a man who had expected both outcomes.
"Fascinating," he said. "Two souls remain unbowed — and three have chosen their paths. Each of you will face your consequences."
He folded his hands behind his back and stepped away.
The students watched him go, eyes fixed on the air where his shadow had been.
Ancelot rose slowly and approached them, every step an unvoiced sermon.
He looked at each face — at Slitah with his new, paradoxical hope; at Velibrum's tired resolve; at Leonard's burning aim; at Trisha's serene refusal; at Eghosa's quiet certainty.
"Remember this," he said, voice low enough to be a secret.
"You did not give up because you were weak or because you were mercenary. You chose, and choices bring consequences. Train for them — whatever they might be. Your hands must be ready."
Beyond the closed doors of the villa, the city rolled on: banners, markets, and the small cruelty of commerce.
But inside, something sharper had been set in motion.
Crassus had left them pieces to measure their souls — some had sold, some had held fast. The road ahead would not be equal.
As the sun climbed, a distant bell began to toll — the summons.
The trials would start in hours.
They dressed, they strapped blades, they mapped the spaces where they would have to fight not just for points, but for identity.
Ancelot stood with his cloak thrown back, and for a moment he looked at Trisha and Eghosa like a man who had seen the edge and chosen to stand on it.
"Come," he said. "Go show them the kind of people you are, not the kinds of bargains you were offered."
They walked out together — a band of broken and mended wills.
Behind them, the torn gold-ink papers lay scattered on the table — promises unkept, bargains refused and taken — and the villa seemed to inhale, readying itself for what would come.
The world outside had changed as well.
Men in red coats waited; the eye-seal left its quiet mark.
Somewhere, the mastermind's chamber hummed.
Crassus's whisper of satisfaction lingered like a debt in the air.
"Master," he said, bowing low, "did you predict that two would defy your design?"
The reply came soft and certain, smooth as ice:
"I predicted everything that mattered."
Tall, silver-haired, and calm, the young man stepped into the light — green eyes reflecting nothing but intent.
His robe, a hybrid of Roman command and Eastern grace, flowed around him like night woven in silk.
In his hand, a children's book rested — open, unread.
"Gather Cairn and Melissa," he said. "The competition has begun. Let's put on a show."
---
At the competition grounds,
Eghosa and Trisha stepped forward into the light — not yet knowing whether the day would make heroes of them, or unmake them entirely.
Behind them, Slitah, Velibrum, and Leonard watched from the stands — the best they could offer after forfeiting the competition.
Around them, nobles filled the seats, banners shimmered, and the air grew heavy.