The first person from Nexus to see me wearing Celcium colors was Arkad.
His reaction was disappointing.
He laughed.
Not politely.
Not once.
He stopped in the middle of the competitors' corridor, looked at the blue-white band around my arm, then bent forward with one hand on his knee.
I waited.
Several students passed between us.
He continued.
"Finished?"
"No."
"Take your time."
"I hate you."
"That is reassuring. For a moment I thought my letter had repaired everything."
That finally stopped him.
His expression changed.
Only a little.
"I read it."
"So I assumed."
"You're still an ass."
"Balthazar mentioned."
"He was being generous."
Arkad wore Nexus training gray with the Academy insignia fastened at the shoulder. His sword had been replaced by the tournament-approved practice weapon carried across his back.
He looked older than he had outside the gate.
Which was ridiculous.
It had been days.
Perhaps people aged quickly when I stopped supervising them.
An unpleasant possibility.
Arkad glanced toward the gathering hall behind me.
"So it's true."
"What?"
"You're competing."
"If Celcium discovers another administrative technicality before the opening ceremony, perhaps not."
"I mean against us."
"Yes."
He nodded.
No outrage.
That bothered me more.
"Fine."
"Fine?"
"You told me not to hold back in your letter."
"I told Xavier."
"You wrote something similar to me."
I had.
Arkad stepped past.
Then stopped beside my shoulder.
"I won't."
He continued down the corridor.
No reconciliation.
No dramatic threat.
Only information.
I preferred it.
Mostly.
The joint briefing hall had been designed to produce rivalry before anyone entered the arena.
Each academy occupied a separate section.
Different colors.
Different banners.
Different instructors pretending not to measure the size of the other delegations.
The public tournament grounds lay beyond the hall, and even through the thick stone walls I could hear the crowd settling into the galleries.
Catington enjoyed academic competition with disturbing enthusiasm.
Apparently watching teenagers solve equations lacked sufficient violence, so civilization had added obstacles.
Leonie was already seated with Oren near the front of the Celcium section.
She pointed to the empty chair beside her.
"Late."
"Thirty seconds."
"Late."
I sat.
Oren leaned toward me.
"You saw Nexus?"
"Yes."
"Awkward?"
"Arkad laughed at me."
Oren considered.
"That seems healthy."
Before I could answer, movement in the opposite section caught my eye.
Xavier.
He had seen me.
No mistake this time.
Not through a gate.
Not in a letter.
Me.
Celcium band.
Competition uniform.
He stopped speaking to Zack Ryder.
Zack followed his gaze.
The combat instructor looked at me once, gave absolutely no visible reaction, and returned to adjusting Xavier's shoulder guard.
Excellent man.
Xavier did not look away.
Neither did I.
Then Anata sat down between our lines of sight.
Possibly deliberate.
Possibly not.
With Anata, probability was a dangerous hobby.
A few seats farther down sat Balthazar.
Not in competition gear.
Academic support badge.
He lifted a folded page.
I knew what it contained without reading it.
Éthérite.
Twenty series.
Still unsafe.
He pointed two fingers at his eyes and then at me.
I frowned.
He mouthed:
No ideas.
I almost laughed.
Eulalie stood with a small Nexus medical delegation near the side wall.
She had received my letter too.
Our eyes met.
She gave one nod.
Nothing else.
Knowing that I understood my words had hurt her was apparently not the same as being forgiven for choosing them.
Reasonable.
I disliked reasonable consequences.
The tournament official stepped onto the central platform.
Conversation died.
"First trial. Ashcourse."
A map illuminated behind him.
Not Gaia.
An ordinary mana projection generated by the arena's control lattice.
Professor Ordan would have appreciated the distinction.
The course ran through nearly twelve kilometers of artificial terrain built across Celcium's outer competitive grounds and the old western quarry.
Stone corridors.
Wooded sections.
Water channels.
Collapsed structures.
Three elevated checkpoints.
The official continued.
"Each academy fields three competitors."
Leonie touched my arm.
"Us."
I knew.
Across the hall, Nexus's names appeared.
Xavier Duverger.
Arkad Sol.
Anata LeeRoy.
Of course.
Oren exhaled through his nose.
"You know them."
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Very."
"That sounded ominous."
"It was autobiographical."
The official explained the scoring.
Every team had to pass all three checkpoints.
Missing a checkpoint meant disqualification.
Finishing positions produced the largest score.
Additional penalties applied for triggering marked lethal-simulation traps, abandoning a teammate inside a restricted hazard zone, or deliberately interfering with another team outside designated contest areas.
The traps could restrain.
Disorient.
Slow.
Drain limited amounts of mana through regulated arrays.
Nothing designed to cause serious injury.
Still enough to lose.
"You may assist teammates," the official said.
"Carrying another competitor across the finish line is permitted. Carrying them past a checkpoint does not excuse that competitor's failure to activate the marker personally."
Good rule.
Made martyrdom inconvenient.
Then came the section I cared about.
"The course contains physical mechanisms, mana-triggered mechanisms, false indicators and inactive decoys."
I looked at Leonie.
She was already looking at me.
Ground Resonance.
"Do not trust it," she whispered.
"We haven't started."
"You're already thinking about it."
Unfortunately true.
The official continued.
"External communication is prohibited after the start signal. Academy staff may not advise competitors."
Zack crossed his arms.
Caelum did the same on our side.
For several hours, adults would be forced to watch young people ignore all their training without being allowed to intervene.
The true spirit of education.
"Final rule," the official said.
"The Ashcourse changes every year. Previous maps are useless."
A murmur spread.
Leonie smiled.
I noticed.
"You like that."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because Nexus scouts aggressively."
Across the room, Anata was whispering to Xavier.
Leonie added:
"So do we."
Fair.
The lights behind the official shifted.
Twenty minutes until start.
The room immediately became noisy again.
Xavier stood.
Then began walking toward me.
That ended several conversations nearby.
Leonie noticed.
"Friend?"
"Yes."
"Problem?"
"Yes."
"Do you want me to—"
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
She raised an eyebrow.
I corrected.
"I'll handle the conversation. You handle the race."
She accepted that.
Progress apparently survived occasional inspection.
Xavier stopped in front of me.
His eyes went first to the Celcium band.
Then my face.
"It suits you."
"Don't insult me."
"I meant the uniform."
"Exactly."
Arkad arrived behind him.
Anata followed at a distance that implied deniability.
Nobody embraced.
Thank God.
Xavier lowered his voice.
"Your letter was terrible."
"I've received mixed reviews."
"No, the first one outside Nexus was terrible. The new one was just short."
"I was experimenting."
His mouth almost moved.
Almost.
Then he looked toward Leonie and Oren.
"Your team?"
"Yes."
"Good?"
"Yes."
Leonie could definitely hear us.
Her face said nothing.
Xavier nodded.
"Then don't do anything stupid trying to prove something."
I stared.
"That sentence belonged to me."
"You lost custody."
Arkad laughed again.
Anata finally approached.
She looked at the Celcium band.
Then said:
"Your remanence question is better now."
No greeting.
Perfect Anata.
"You saw the request?"
"Balthazar showed me your permitted summary."
"I thought you hated information sharing."
"I hate careless information sharing."
Important distinction.
"Anything from Nexus facilities?"
"Nothing I'm discussing before a tournament."
Fair.
She glanced at Leonie.
Then at Oren.
"Good luck."
Arkad stared at her.
"What?"
"Sportsmanship."
"We're competing against them."
"Yes."
Arkad looked personally betrayed.
The official called five minutes.
Xavier stepped back.
I remembered the last line I had sent him.
And I will not either.
He remembered too.
"I won't hold back," he said.
"I would be offended if you did."
"Raymond."
"Yes?"
He hesitated.
For perhaps one second.
Then:
"Don't read me like you used to."
He walked away.
I stood there.
Arkad followed.
Anata did not immediately.
She watched Xavier return to the Nexus line.
Then looked at me.
"He's serious."
"I know."
"No."
Anata shook her head.
"You think that means he has a surprise."
"Doesn't it?"
"It means he doesn't want this to become another test you designed for him."
She left before I could answer.
Efficient woman.
Leonie came to stand beside me.
"You look annoyed."
"I am surrounded by personal development."
"Terrible condition."
Oren joined us.
"Can we focus on not losing?"
An inspired suggestion.
The starting field held eight academy teams.
Twenty-four competitors.
Celcium occupied lane four.
Nexus lane five.
Of course.
The first section ahead looked almost insultingly simple.
Broken stone ground climbing toward a narrow gate in a wooden wall.
Scattered posts.
Shallow pits.
Nothing moving.
Which meant everything was suspicious.
Leonie crouched beside us.
"First checkpoint is three kilometers. We stay within visual contact until the terrain opens."
"Formation?" Oren asked.
"Raymond front by five meters. Me center. Oren rear."
I looked at her.
"Why me?"
"You detect."
"And if the detection lies?"
"Then you learn quickly."
Comforting.
"If I call stop?"
"We stop unless I see why it's wrong."
Captain.
Still.
Good.
Across the starting line, Nexus arranged differently.
Arkad front.
Anata center.
Xavier rear.
I frowned.
Xavier was faster than Arkad.
Why put him behind?
Chessmaster began offering explanations.
Protection.
Counterattack.
Observation.
Delayed acceleration.
Then I stopped.
Don't read me like you used to.
The start horn fired.
Arkad exploded forward.
So did half the field.
Leonie did not.
"Wait."
Three teams passed us.
I stared at her.
"Two seconds."
The leading runner hit the first stone rise.
Nothing.
Second.
Nothing.
Third.
A wooden barrier snapped out of the ground and caught his entire team behind a temporary mana wall.
Leonie ran.
"Now."
We moved.
Nexus had waited too.
Anata's decision, perhaps.
Or Xavier's.
Didn't matter.
The first hundred meters became a mess of people discovering that speed and progress were not identical.
I opened Ground Resonance lightly.
The course returned in fragments.
Packed soil.
Embedded stone.
Wooden mechanisms below.
Mana channels created interference like bright noise across the field.
I pulsed.
Closed.
Pulsed again.
A hollow region beneath the right side.
"Left."
Leonie followed.
Oren too.
Another team stayed right.
The ground dropped beneath them into a shallow restraint pit.
Good.
We gained distance.
Pulsed again.
Three metal anchors ahead.
One active mana current.
I slowed.
"Middle is trapped."
Leonie looked.
"What kind?"
"Can't tell."
"Then don't classify."
We shifted right.
A Celcium competitor from another unit chose middle.
Nothing happened.
I frowned.
We passed.
Still nothing.
Leonie glanced at me.
"Decoy."
"Apparently."
"Your sense reads mechanisms."
"Not intention."
"Remember that."
I disliked education when delivered at speed.
The course entered the wooded section.
Light changed.
Ground Resonance improved immediately once we left the densely warded starting field.
Roots.
Competitors.
Stone.
A moving mechanism ahead.
I pointed.
"Pressure line. Twenty meters."
Leonie looked at the vegetation.
"No."
I almost continued running.
"What?"
"False."
"How?"
"Branches."
I saw it a moment later.
The mechanism below the ground was real.
But the narrow shrubs above it grew undisturbed.
No maintenance path.
No signs of repeated activation.
An old mechanism.
Inactive.
Or a decoy installed without surface trigger.
"We go through," she said.
"Wait."
"Raymond."
The pulse was clear.
Metal.
Mana residue.
Something under us.
"It exists."
"So does the bridge we passed. Existing isn't active."
She stepped onto the line.
Nothing happened.
Oren followed.
I stood for half a heartbeat too long.
Then crossed.
Still nothing.
Leonie did not look back.
I had spent days teaching myself how to hear the ground.
The tournament had required fifteen minutes to remind me the ground could tell the truth and still mislead me.
Wonderful.
We reached the first climbing wall fourth.
Nexus arrived almost beside us.
Arkad grabbed the first hold.
Xavier didn't.
He moved toward Anata instead.
She had stopped at the wall base.
Why?
Her ankle?
No.
She was looking upward.
I saw the problem.
Several holds bore faint mana marks.
Probably penalties.
Arkad was already halfway up.
"Arkad!" Anata called.
He stopped.
Xavier crouched.
Anata stepped onto his joined hands.
He launched her upward.
She caught a clean hold above the marked line, climbed two movements, then lowered a cord for them.
Slower initially.
Safer.
More coordinated.
Xavier was last up.
He looked across the wall.
Directly at me.
I had expected him to take the lead.
He had chosen support.
Not because I had taught him.
Because he had decided to.
Leonie slapped my shoulder.
"Move."
Right.
Our turn.
Oren established a temporary brace with one of his compact wards.
Leonie used it as a step.
I followed.
No elegant trick.
Just climbing.
At the top, the course split into three paths.
A high stone ridge.
A narrow ravine.
A wooden suspended route crossing a water channel.
A sign displayed only one instruction:
ALL THREE ROUTES REACH CHECKPOINT ONE.
Leonie looked at me.
"Read?"
Ground Resonance.
I pulsed.
High ridge: poor return, mostly stone.
Ravine: excellent ground contact, several mechanisms.
Wooden route: almost useless to me.
Chessmaster assembled the obvious answer.
Ravine gave me information.
Probably fastest if we managed the traps.
"We take the—"
Leonie raised one finger.
I stopped.
Progress.
She looked at Oren.
"Preference?"
"Ridge. My barriers are stable on fixed stone."
Then at me.
"Ravine."
She looked down the wooden route.
"My choice is wood."
I frowned.
"Why?"
"Because Celcium built the course."
"That is not normally a reason to trust something."
"They expect specialists to choose what suits them."
Oren looked between us.
"So the route that suits none of us may be less targeted."
I studied the wooden bridge system.
Uncertain.
Ground Resonance almost useless.
My gravity control might help balance but not reveal triggers.
Leonie's spear offered little advantage.
Oren's fixed wards would be awkward on suspended sections.
I hated the route.
Which strengthened her argument.
Nexus reached the split behind us.
Anata examined the three.
She looked toward the ravine.
Then at me.
And smiled.
Very slightly.
She knew exactly which one I wanted.
"Ridge," she told Xavier.
I blinked.
They took the ridge.
Not the ravine.
Again.
Not what I expected.
Leonie was already stepping onto the first suspended beam.
"Decision."
I looked once more at the ravine.
Ground Resonance showed me mechanisms.
Information.
Possibility.
Control.
The wood route gave me very little.
I stepped onto the wood.
The beam moved beneath my weight.
Oren followed.
Behind us, two other academy teams selected the ravine.
The first twenty meters were clean.
Then the entire wooden structure shifted.
Not collapsed.
Rotated.
The bridge tilted sideways as hidden counterweights released.
Oren grabbed a rope.
Leonie dropped low.
I increased gravity around my boots instinctively.
Wrong.
The beam dipped harder beneath the added weight.
"Release!" Leonie shouted.
I did.
Too late.
One support rope snapped free from its locking bracket.
The section beneath Oren dropped half a meter.
He slipped.
His hand caught the edge.
Leonie turned.
I moved toward him.
The bridge twisted again.
Below waited only a regulated safety net several meters down.
Falling wouldn't kill him.
It would cost time.
And perhaps the checkpoint.
Oren tried to pull himself up.
The beam shifted under Leonie.
I had enough gravity control to stabilize one side.
Maybe.
Ground Resonance gave almost nothing through wood and rope.
Behind us, somewhere inside the ravine, a horn sounded.
Penalty.
One of the teams had triggered something.
Ahead, the first checkpoint bell rang.
Someone had already reached it.
Leonie looked at me.
"Can you stabilize us?"
Chessmaster produced three possibilities.
The first risked Oren.
The second risked Leonie.
The third required trusting a structure I could barely read.
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
Chapter Seventy-Six returned.
Oren knew his body better than I did.
"Can you hold?"
He looked up from the edge.
"Eight seconds."
"Leonie?"
She examined the rope system.
"Don't stabilize the beam."
"That was my best line."
"I know."
She pointed above us.
"Make that heavier."
A counterweight hung inside the opposite support frame.
I understood.
Not the bridge.
The mechanism controlling it.
Better information.
I shifted gravity.
The counterweight dropped.
The bridge began rotating back toward level.
Five seconds.
Oren pulled.
Leonie grabbed his forearm.
Three.
I caught the rear of his harness.
Together we dragged him onto the beam.
The structure slammed level.
All three of us lay there for a second.
Oren breathed.
Leonie looked at me.
"Still want the ravine?"
"Yes."
She laughed.
Then the checkpoint horn sounded again.
This time from the ridge.
Nexus.
Xavier had reached it first.
I rolled onto one knee and looked through the trees.
For half a second I could see him standing at the distant marker while Arkad and Anata arrived behind.
He turned.
Even from there, I knew he had found me.
He raised one hand.
Not a wave.
Two fingers.
Then pointed forward.
Keep coming.
I smiled despite myself.
Leonie stood.
"Raymond."
"Yes?"
"We're currently losing."
I got up.
"That does ruin the moment."
We ran.
The second section of the Ashcourse opened ahead, descending from forest into the abandoned quarry.
Stone pillars.
Broken ramps.
Artificial fog already beginning to rise between them.
Ground Resonance returned strongly beneath my feet.
Too strongly.
The first pulse showed six mechanisms.
The second showed nine.
Then twelve.
I slowed.
"That can't be right."
Leonie heard.
"What?"
"The quarry is full of active structures."
"Traps?"
"I don't know."
For once, I said it immediately.
She looked ahead.
Nexus had already disappeared into the fog.
Somewhere inside, metal struck stone.
Then another sound.
A competitor shouting.
The checkpoint official behind us called:
"Second sector active! No retreat beyond marker!"
A blue-white boundary ignited across the ground behind our feet.
Oren looked into the fog.
Leonie lowered her spear.
I opened Ground Resonance one more time.
The quarry answered with dozens of clean, deliberate signals.
Too clean.
Someone had designed this entire section to speak through the ground.
And some of what it said had been built specifically to lie.
I closed the sense.
Leonie looked at me.
"What now?"
Ahead of us, hidden by fog, Xavier was already choosing without me.
I adjusted the Celcium band around my arm.
"Now we learn which parts of the course don't need me."
Then we entered the quarry.