While the academy roared with cheers and cracking wood, Sergeant Marek did not watch the fight.
He watched Major Grant Burton.
From the edge of the upper balcony overlooking the sparring yard, Marek stood motionless, arms folded loosely behind his back. To anyone glancing up, he looked like a supervising officer observing cadet discipline.
He wasn't.
He was waiting.
Below, Max and Ned clashed — earth surging, telekinesis snapping through the air — but Marek's eyes weren't on the sand.
They were on Grant.
Major Burton stood near the instructors' platform, posture immaculate, expression unreadable. He didn't react to the blows. Didn't flinch when the ground cracked or when Max lifted himself mid-air.
He simply watched.
And when the fight reached its loudest peak — when attention narrowed to the circle and nowhere else —
Grant stepped away.
Subtle.
Deliberate.
Marek's jaw tightened.
Beside him, Sergeant Cassie didn't look up from the yard.
"He's moving," she murmured, barely parting her lips.
"I see it."
They waited three seconds longer — long enough not to be obvious.
Then they separated naturally from the balcony's edge and descended opposite stairwells.
Grant didn't head toward the barracks.
He headed inward.
Through the inner corridors of High Rise, past polished stone and banners bearing the crest of the Academy of Champions. His boots echoed cleanly across marble. No rush. No hesitation.
Cassie emerged from a side passage just as Marek crossed behind a column.
They didn't walk together.
They drifted within sightline of each other.
Grant turned left — toward the administrative wing.
Cassie exhaled slowly. "He's not going to his office."
"No."
He wasn't.
He stopped outside a tall double door guarded by two officers in admiral blue.
Marek's eyes narrowed.
Admiral's quarters.
The doors opened.
Grant entered without knocking.
The doors shut.
Cassie moved first this time, veering casually toward a nearby alleyway lined with narrow vertical windows. Vines crept up the outer stone here — decorative, carefully maintained.
She rested her hand lightly against one.
The leaves responded.
Subtly.
A tendril slid upward, slipping between the edge of stone and window seam.
Inside, shapes moved.
Marek positioned himself beneath a balcony overhang where the acoustics carried slightly better.
Through the thin living conduit Cassie controlled, faint sound travelled.
"…unnecessary attention…" Roxi Burton's voice.
Calm. Controlled.
"…contained," Grant replied. "The cadets are frightened. That works in our favour."
Silence.
Cassie's eyes flicked to Marek.
"…Max?" Roxi asked.
A pause.
"He performed adequately."
Not praise.
Assessment.
"And the others?"
"They remain useful."
The vine twitched faintly.
Cassie frowned.
"Useful," she mouthed.
Roxi's voice lowered — too faint to catch clearly.
Grant responded more clearly.
"The Guild is not dead. You know that."
Marek's pulse slowed.
"…careful what you imply," Roxi said.
"I imply nothing," Grant answered. "I prepare."
Silence again.
Then footsteps.
Cassie withdrew the vine instantly.
The door opened.
Grant stepped out alone.
His face was unreadable.
He didn't look left.
Didn't look right.
He simply walked.
Toward the outer gates.
Marek and Cassie exchanged the smallest glance.
Then followed.
High Rise's inner gates opened at Grant's silent signal.
The outer wall loomed ahead — massive, iron-reinforced, torches flickering against rain-dark stone. Beyond it, the forest waited.
Grant passed through.
The gates shut behind him.
He did not take the main road.
He veered right.
Toward the treeline.
Cassie slowed.
"That's outside protocol."
"Yes."
They couldn't follow openly beyond the gate.
So they didn't.
Marek stepped closer to the stone edge of the wall and pressed his palm lightly against it.
Water answered.
Moisture pulled from the air, from the ground, from the moss clinging to the lower stones. A thin sheen slid outward, pooling along the forest floor beyond the wall like a shallow, invisible stream.
He closed his eyes.
The water extended his awareness.
Cassie crouched, pressing her fingers into the earth where ivy roots snaked outward beyond the boundary.
The forest responded.
Not loudly.
Not eagerly.
But it responded.
They followed Grant through borrowed senses.
Step by step.
He walked only a few dozen feet past the wall.
Then stopped.
Silence.
Rain filtered lightly through leaves.
Wind shifted branches.
Then—
Another presence.
Cassie felt it first.
Not through roots.
Through instinct.
Something wrong in the undergrowth.
Marek felt the water tremble.
A shape detached from the trees.
Hooded.
Still.
Too still.
Grant did not step back.
He did not draw a weapon.
He waited.
The hooded figure moved forward just enough for faint light to brush the edge of its face.
And for a split second—
Yellow eyes.
Not torchlight reflection.
Not human.
They glowed.
Cassie's breath caught silently.
Marek's hand tightened slightly against the stone.
The figure said something.
Too quiet to carry through water or root.
Grant responded calmly.
Measured.
A negotiation.
No hostility.
No fear.
The hooded figure extended a hand.
From beneath the cloak, something passed between them.
Small.
Dark.
Metal?
Organic?
They couldn't see clearly enough.
It fit into Grant's palm easily.
He closed his hand around it without hesitation.
The figure stepped back.
The yellow eyes flickered once more beneath the hood.
Then the forest swallowed it.
Gone.
Just like that.
Grant remained standing there for several seconds.
Alone.
Still.
Then he turned and walked back toward the wall.
As if nothing had happened.
Marek pulled his hand away from the stone.
The water dispersed.
Cassie withdrew her roots.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The gate opened again.
Grant re-entered High Rise.
Unruffled.
Composed.
Untouched by rain or conscience.
The gate shut.
Cassie straightened slowly.
"You saw it."
"Yes."
"Those weren't human eyes."
"No."
They stood in silence, watching Grant disappear into the inner city.
Cassie crossed her arms. "He's meeting something beyond the wall."
"Yes."
"Something that isn't military."
"Yes."
She looked at him sharply. "You're going to say it."
Marek's jaw set.
"The M.C.G. Never died."
The wind shifted.
Rain began again, light and cold.
Cassie exhaled slowly. "If he's coordinating with them…"
"…then the threat isn't outside the walls," Marek finished.
"It's inside."
They stood there a while longer.
Then Cassie asked quietly,
"What do we tell Smith?"
Marek's gaze remained fixed on the inner city.
"The truth."
"And the cadets?"
His expression hardened slightly.
"They're already in it."
He turned at last.
"We move carefully now."
Behind them, the academy still roared faintly with the echoes of Max's victory.
But beyond the wall—
Something had stirred.
And it had yellow eyes.