Five titles. Each one a scar from a different fight, a different choice, a different version of the game I'd been playing since the System dropped me into a dead boy's body and said perform.
The Glass House one still stung. Kimiko's face when she'd looked at me across the breakfast table, that specific maternal sharpness. She'd always been able to read me better than I wanted.
The Gardener's Bane was new enough that I was still feeling out its edges. The moment I'd driven the silver knife into the Arborist's chest and felt the Garden exhale. Every plant on the Atoll sometimes turned slightly toward me when I passed them now. Jacob had noticed but attributed it to a behavioral anomaly in the Academy's botanical maintenance schedule. I hadn't corrected him.
I scrolled to the Ensemble.
ENSEMBLE:
Natalia Kuzmina — [Rank 10: Covenant] | Title: The Psychic Sovereign | System Symbiosis active | SP generation: tripled
