The hum always started behind Kael's teeth.
It slid up along his jaw and settled behind his eyes—not pain. Just pressure. Signal. The kind you weren't supposed to notice unless something was going wrong.
He kept still as the sync collar warmed against the base of his skull, letting the filaments thread into his spine. Around him, ten other cadets stood mirrored in perfect formation, their skeletal training rigs humming in lockstep. Class I exo-shells: all edge and restraint, sync-capped, safe.
"Cadet Line, engage Phase One." The chamber's overhead voice was synthetic, scrubbed of identity. Even command had a ritual face here—precise, stripped, absolute.
Kael inhaled once, exhaled through his teeth, and blinked to activate the sync.
The collar blinked green. Baseline achieved.
One beat.
Two.
Three—spike.
The frame moved before his command landed. Not by much. But enough.
The HUD in his right eye glitched. Sync Depth: 6.2.
He froze. The cutoff for Class I rigs was 5.5.
"Virex." A human voice now, stern, Instructor Meros. Watching from the upper control ledge.
"You're bleeding depth."
Kael didn't flinch. "Apologies, Sir-Standard."
"Control your signal. Or I'll remove you from the roster myself."
"Yes, Sir."
He breathed out through his nose and pulled back. Mentally. Deliberately. The collar cooled. The sync field relaxed.
But the feeling didn't.
Inside the frame, Kael still sensed a pull. As if the machine had wanted to go further. Not just follow—but decide.
He didn't let it.
Steam vented from his collar seals as Kael stepped off the training deck and into the decon corridor. The gravity here wasn't real—calibrated by rotation algorithms, steady only if you walked like you belonged.
Outside the viewports, the world loomed.
Not the capital—nothing that bright. Just ice and sky and dead rock. The Sovereignty didn't name this place aloud. The academy's official designation was orbital and clinical, but everyone on base called it Winterhold, whether or not it had ever been official.
The planet below was all pale frost and dusk-light—no seasons, no melt. Just frozen silence stretching across an entire hemisphere. The vaults beneath it, if they existed, were older than anything they'd trained to touch.
Kael peeled off his gloves, steam still curling from his frame joints.
"You hit 6.2 again," said a voice. Tavi. Already halfway out of her rig, diagnostic band glowing on her forearm. Her hair was pulled into a strict high coil, no nonsense.
"I corrected," Kael said, quieter than he meant to.
"You oversynced," she replied, tapping through HUD logs. "That's not a misstep, Kael. That's a pattern. One more curve like that and Meros files you under unstable."
"I'm managing it."
Tavi gave him a sharp look. "No. You're compensating. There's a difference."
He didn't respond. She didn't press. That was their unspoken rhythm.
Further down the corridor, Serin's voice cut through the stillness—issuing a correction in perfect High Speech. He wasn't shouting. He didn't have to. Every word from him was rehearsed, calibrated, expected.
Kael straightened his shoulders and tugged his jacket back on. The fabric clung to his arms, still damp.
"You reporting it?" Tavi asked, without turning.
"No."
"You should."
"I know."
He walked.
The observation deck was nearly empty.
Kael stood at the window, eyes scanning the range floor below. From this angle, the practice arena looked small. His frame sat in launch rest at the edge of the field—neutral, powered down, waiting for the next cycle.
Beyond it, the planet turned slowly beneath them, blue-white and cloud-choked. It never cleared. A slow-motion glacier in orbit.
His collar buzzed softly. Not a sync command. Just… awareness.
The HUD flickered. A diagnostic spike—unauthorized.
Red. Gone.
Kael's fingers twitched. Then stilled.
He dropped his hand to his side and walked off the deck without looking back.
High above, behind mirrored glass in the command gallery, two Sovereign officers watched the same footage Kael had just left behind.
"That's twice in one cycle," one said quietly. His rank chain shimmered gold across the black of his uniform. His voice was calm. Controlled. Lethal.
"Cadet Virex is approaching lattice-reactive sync," the aide said. "Early taper. Frame didn't override, but it… listened."
The officer nodded once.
"Flag the data. Delete the spike."
The aide hesitated. "Sir?"
"We don't want it becoming precedent."
"Understood."
He turned to go. "Leave the monitor live. If he cracks, I want to see it happen."