The academy's demonstration hall smelled of wax and old maps, of polished wood and the faint ozone that clung to tide‑light. Banners hung from the rafters—Alliance colors, unit sigils, the neat seals of donor houses. The Trials that morning were not private exercises but a public showcase: cadets would demonstrate controlled activations, teams would run coordinated resonances, and field officers would grade not only technique but temperament. Director Sethi would attend. Contractors would watch from the gallery. The air tasted like scrutiny.
Arjun arrived with the mentorship circle at his back. Captain Rhea moved through the room with the economy of someone who had seen too many novelties and fewer miracles. Lina's basilisk‑vine curled around her wrist like a patient question. Harun's construct clicked in a steady rhythm. The Astraeon Veil at Arjun's throat felt like a small, steady compass; the halo of glyphs behind his eyes was folded but alert.
The schedule put him in the middle of the program: not first, not last. That placement was deliberate. Early demonstrations warmed the crowd; late ones left impressions. Middle acts were where judges compared steadiness against spectacle. Arjun had practiced the micro‑stitch until the naming ritual felt like muscle memory. He had practiced widening and narrowing the corridor, anchoring edges with a Golem‑bond, routing medics through with a Phoenix‑root. He had not practiced being watched by a room full of people who measured his future in ledger entries and contracts.
The first cadet went up and the hall applauded politely. A wyvern‑scout traced a ribbon in the air and the crowd leaned forward. Then a contractor team demonstrated a heavy anchor that hauled a mock crate through a simulated breach. The liaison who had watched the canal extraction sat in the gallery with a neutral face and a dossier that never left his lap. Ishaan Rao stood near him, arms folded, watching with a fox‑like smile that was almost friendly.
When Arjun's turn came the hall quieted in the way a room quiets when someone begins to speak. He stepped onto the practice tiles with the Golem‑bond at his side and the Phoenix‑root medic waiting behind the marked line. Captain Rhea's eyes met his for a fraction of a breath and then she gave the nod that meant proceed.
He named the stones. The Astraeon Veil unrolled a narrow corridor of starlight across the tiles, a ribbon that hummed and swallowed sound. The crowd murmured; a few trainers scribbled notes. The corridor held as the Golem‑bond pressed the edges and the Phoenix‑root medic moved a stretcher through. The demonstration was textbook until a sharp, metallic pop echoed from the gallery.
A cutter had been fired into the corridor's seam.
The stitch shivered. For a breath the ribbon thinned to a thread. The hall's murmur rose into a collective intake. Arjun felt the fatigue like a hot weight behind his eyes. The mind‑screen flashed a warning: stamina critical. Fatigue trace deepening. He could collapse the stitch and let the demonstration fail. He could step back and let the Golem‑bond hold while the medics improvised. The contractor liaison in the gallery smiled with the practiced patience of someone who had seen many cadets break.
Arjun did not think of applause. He thought of the maintenance crew in the canal, of the child's toy, of Captain Rhea's question about holding a stitch under pressure. He widened the corridor by a careful fraction, a surgical expansion that cost him a visible thread on the mind‑screen. The ribbon steadied. The Golem‑bond grunted and held. The Phoenix‑root medic guided the stretcher through. The cutter's sparks fizzed harmlessly along the corridor's edge.
Someone in the gallery shouted. Director Sethi rose from his seat with a slow, deliberate motion. The contractor liaison's smile tightened. Ishaan Rao's eyes flicked to Arjun with something like respect and something like calculation. The demonstration ended with polite applause and a ledger entry that would be filed under both commendation and caution.
Backstage the instructors swarmed with efficient questions. Captain Rhea's voice was low and precise. She did not praise him for the spectacle. She asked instead about the seam: who had fired the cutter, whether the shot had been sanctioned, and whether the corridor had left any lasting resonance on the tiles. The Phoenix‑root medic checked his hands and reported a faint bruise on the corridor's seam where the cutter had grazed. The mind‑screen logged a new fatigue marker and a small corruption thread that would need healing.
The contractor liaison did not wait for the debrief. He found Arjun in the corridor between practice rigs and offered a card with the same neutral politeness as before. "You held under interference," he said. "Houses value that. We can put you on a payroll for a season. Learn to stitch under fire and get paid for it." His tone was casual, but the implication was sharp: skip the ladder, buy experience.
Arjun folded the card into his palm and felt the halo on his mind‑screen flare. He had refused once. He had refused twice. The card in his hand felt heavier now, like a coin that could buy a different life. He thought of Captain Rhea's mentorship circle and the reflective entries that thinned fatigue threads. He thought of the contractor's dossier and the way Director Sethi had watched the demonstration with a hand at his chin.
Before he could answer Ishaan stepped forward. "You did well," Ishaan said, voice low enough that only Arjun could hear. "You held a stitch and kept people in it. That's rare. If you ever want to learn how to hold a stitch and make it pay, find me. If you want to learn how to hold a stitch and keep people safe, keep Captain Rhea." Ishaan's smile was a map of choices.
The debrief that followed was formal and public. Director Sethi praised the technical success and noted the unsanctioned interference. He asked pointed questions about security and contractor oversight. The liaison answered with the practiced language of risk and reward. Captain Rhea answered with the language of ethics and maintenance. The room listened and filed the answers into different mental ledgers.
That night the academy's corridors hummed with aftertalk. Some cadets whispered about the cutter and the possibility of sabotage. Others argued that the contractor had staged the interference to test cadet resolve. Lina found Arjun in the practice yard and did not ask about the liaison's card. She asked instead whether he had felt the stitch leave a scar.
"It did," he said. "A faint bruise on the seam. The mind‑screen logged a corruption thread." He showed her the halo's faint red line. She frowned and then, with the blunt kindness she always used, said, "Then we heal it. We write the entries. We practice. We don't let someone else decide what your stitch is for."
Arjun wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that the academy's slow ladder would hold him and that the cards in his pocket would remain just that—cards. But the demonstration had changed something. Director Sethi had seen a public success and a public risk. Contractors had seen a useful skill. The liaison had left a card that would not be the last.
He sat on the academy roof that night and watched the city breathe. The tide‑light along the canal pulsed like a slow heart. The Astraeon Veil's halo moved in a rhythm he was beginning to understand. He opened his mind‑screen and wrote the reflective entries the Phoenix‑root medic had recommended: about the cutter, about the contractor's smile, about the small, stubborn certainty that had brought him to the academy. Each entry eased the fatigue thread a little. Each entry made the halo steadier.
Below, in the courtyard, cadets argued about tactics and ethics. Above, the sky was a thin sheet of indigo threaded with faint circuit lines that looked like old electric tang. Arjun folded the liaison's card into a drawer and closed it without ceremony. The world beyond the academy would not wait forever, but neither would he rush into a stitch that would leave scars. He had held a corridor under public fire. He had learned that spectacle and steadiness were different currencies. The climb would be faster now, and the choices would be louder.