The air was thick with pine and dusk. Long blades of light cut between the trees, laying gold across the leaf-litter like coins. Riley stepped off the gravel path and kept walking until the Academy's chatter thinned into the soft hiss of wind in branches.
If Selanne wanted to strike from the shadows, then Riley would meet her there.
They were waiting.
Selanne stood at the center of the clearing like a bored sovereign with a grievance, chin tilted, sleeves immaculate. Her usual pair of shadow-silent friends hovered behind her—cool eyes, perfect posture, cruelty worn like perfume. One familiar fire-thriver boy in his crimson-accented uniform with restless hands that twitched for flame, and two unfamiliar boys flanked them: one with crimson accents, the other in navy, eyes bright with the kind of eagerness that only appears when someone thinks they'll be allowed to hurt something.
Six against one.
She had other reinforcements. And that... Riley hadn't expected.
"Brave." Selanne's mouth curved. "Or stupid."
Riley kept her voice level. "Just tired. Of rats pretending to be queens."
A flicker in Selanne's eyes; the smile sharpened. "You came alone?"
Riley didn't answer. Her pulse answered for her.
Shit.
The fire thriver moved first. A palm opened and light bloomed—the hot-orange hiss of flame. Riley's body reacted without asking her permission. She dipped under the arc, pivoted, hooked her heel to his ankle, and shifted her weight just enough to redirect him. His flame spat into bark, charring a scar that smoked in the cooling air.
"Stop dodging like a mouse in a basket!" Selanne snapped.
"Better a rat," Riley said between clenched teeth, "than an ant queen who needs termites to bite for her."
Wind sliced. The second boy's macht whistled past, biting splinters from the trunk where Riley's shoulder had been a blink earlier. Her ankle—still swollen from the stairwell—screamed at every turn. The Shadowleaf balm had blunted the worst overnight, but balm wasn't bone or tendon. Pain lit up her joint like iron pulled from a forge.
She kept moving.
Quicker than thought. Side-steps and feints her mind didn't fully own, a language her body spoke without asking for words. Cuts stung into being along her forearms from wind-edges she almost—almost—didn't dodge. The flame kept missing by inches. But exhaustion was a tide, and she could feel it rising. Her body, especially her sprained leg, had been screaming at her to stop long ago.
Her boot slid on damp earth.
The flame flared—
"That's enough."
The voice wasn't loud, yet it split the clearing cleanly. Heads turned as if yanked by a string.
A figure slowly moved forward from behind the tree line. Cloaked. Hood drawn low. The long fall of her hair slipped from beneath it—platinum blonde. Silvery glints beneath the golden strands reminded Riley of Nave's. For a heartbeat, the cloak shifted and Riley glimpsed the scarlet embroidery on the uniform beneath.
The group froze. Not because a blast of power pinned them, but because presence did. The newcomer stepped forward without hurry, gaze unbothered, like this entire spectacle was beneath a yawn.
"You really think six-on-one is impressive?" she asked, examining her nails as if the answer bored her. She still walked slowly, brushing past Riley, then past the thriver boys, straight to Selanne.
Selanne recovered enough to speak. "We weren't—she came to us—"
"Hm." The hooded girl's head tipped, unconvinced. "Try it again, and I might actually care enough to step in properly."
It wasn't a threat.
It was a promise.
When the girl had been close to Selanne, something taut and brittle crossed Selanne's face. Recognition? Riley couldn't name it, but she could feel the shift—like the ground had simply decided to stop cooperating with Selanne's feet.
And then Selanne went for the blade she thought would cut deepest.
"You might not play hero," she said sweetly, "if you knew how this vulgar little thing flirts with your fiancé."
The word snagged reality.
Fiancé?
Riley's breath stumbled. A rumor threaded through dormitory whispers flickered in her head—the Desillix heir was engaged. Arrangements. Alliances. Names she'd never bothered to memorize.
The hooded girl's reply was soft, almost amused. "If you're going to lie, at least make it interesting."
Selanne's mouth tightened. "People talk."
"They do," the girl agreed, gaze flat as a blade. "And you're very fond of making them. But don't use me to excuse your cowardice. If your quarrel is with her, pick it in daylight and pick it alone."
The boys looked at each other. The wind thriver's hand dropped first. The fire thriver's flame guttered down to a sulk. Whatever power the baited word was supposed to summon, it didn't show.
Selanne held the stare one second longer than was wise. Then, with a last poisonous look at Riley, she turned. "We're leaving."
They peeled away into the trees, posture intact but victory gone soundless.
Riley's strength sank out of her at once. Her legs buckled and the world blurred.
She didn't hit the ground.
Hands—steady, startlingly gentle—caught her. The hooded girl crouched, voice clinical and certain. "You're lucky. Swollen, not fractured."
Light swelled in her palms, a soft green-yellow that pulsed like breath. It sank into Riley's skin, warmer than any bath, deeper than any balm. The ache in her ankle dissolved as if unknotted by invisible fingers. Relief hit so hard it made her dizzy.
A second wave slid over the small cuts on her forearms. The stings cooled. Blood vanished. The skin smoothed to unmarked.
Riley stared. Not even Shadowleaf could do that. Not in seconds.
She lifted her gaze to the shadowed face. Beneath the hood, that long hair gleamed again, almost the exact shade that had made Nave's name so easy to remember.
"You..." Riley's voice rasped. "Who are you?"
The girl stood, brushing her cloak as if dust had dared settle on it. "You'll find out soon enough." A brief pause. "You stand out. Violet hair. First-year. Easy to notice."
She hesitated, then added with airy indifference, "Stay off stairs tonight. And ice, if you can be bothered."
She turned and was simply... gone. The forest took her without a sound.
Riley sat very still, ankle whole, pride more battered than her body, the word fiancé ricocheting through her chest like a loose stone. She thought of Raya. Of the stairwell. Of how cruelty picked corners instead of open squares.
And now—of a hooded girl with healing light and platinum-blonde hair, who treated Selanne like a fly and Riley's pain like a task.
Whoever she was, she had changed something. Not politics. Not the whispers.
Something in Riley.
A string had been cut; a different one tied.
---
Elaris did not look back until the path narrowed to old stone under old ivy. The last of the sun balanced on the Temple spire. In that thin light her hands still remembered warmth—the small ache that followed healing when she didn't bother to ration it.
She'd meant not to interfere. Truly.
She had told herself that curiosity was not a command.
She was just checking on the freshman girl. She was really supposed to only check on her.
But the violet-haired girl had walked into the clearing alone, and Elaris had never had much patience for animals that hunted in packs.
Selanne's bait scratched at memory, and Elaris allowed herself a small, private smile. Fiancé. As if the word were a trigger hidden under her ribs.
Nobles married function, not feeling. She had understood that at twelve, accepted it by fourteen, outlived its sting by sixteen. She wore the engagement like a cuff—ornate, annoying, useful. Riel's courtesy toward her made the cuff feel lighter. If anything, she was fortunate enough to be betrothed to her childhood friend—one who treated her with respect and courtesy. Even without love.
So, no. Selanne's line had nothing to catch.
Elaris turned down a colonnade where the stone drank light and coolness gathered. She already knew where she'd find him. He treated time like a map and placed himself exactly where it made sense to be found.
He stood beneath the second-floor arch that overlooked the east quadrangle, papers in hand, shadow bent long across the tile. The wind lifted the edge of his uniform coat, catching on the Desillix emblem like a spark caught on iron.
"Riel," she said, voice even.
His gaze flicked up, weighing, cool. "Elaris Von Kleiv."
He always used the full name when he wanted her attention sharpened, as if to remind them both of the roles stitched into their collars. She met it with a light lift of brow. Message received.
"I saw something," she said, arms folding loosely. "In the mock forest. You know... the one that hasn't been used in decades."
"Mm."
"A group that enjoys corners and numbers." She tilted her head, as if picking a splinter from memory. "Six on one. Violet hair. First-year. She moved well for someone with a bad ankle."
He stilled. Very slightly. It would have been invisible to most. Elaris watched subtlety for sport.
"Name," he said.
"Vyrilleya Vreisz." The syllables were clean in her mouth. "The one you keep pretending you don't look at."
A pause. The corner of his mouth did not move. His eyes did.
"This isn't a game, Elaris," he said quietly.
"You're speaking to the wrong hobbyist," she replied. "I'm not the one who plays."
Another beat of silence stretched thin as glass.
"Is she hurt?" he asked.
"Not anymore." Elaris allowed herself the smallest nod. "I fixed what could be fixed quickly. But I dislike inefficiency. If you intend to let this continue, do warn me. I'll start charging."
"That won't be necessary."
There it was. The shift in temperature that meant he'd made a decision. The air around Riel never crackled, never flared, but it cooled—a frost that moved across a room without a sound.
She watched it settle. Approved, though she would not say so.
"Selanne?" he asked.
"Who else." Elaris turned her wrist, studying light on skin. "And her ornamentation."
He didn't sigh. He rarely wasted breath on sentiment. "Thank you for telling me."
"Thank you for making me need to," she said dryly.
He almost smiled at that. Almost.
Elaris leaned a shoulder to the stone and looked out at the lawn where the last of the evening practice squads were tramping in twos. A clasp of voices carried, then faded. She felt the familiar weight of her cuff—ornate, annoying, useful—and let it be.
For a long second neither spoke. Then:
"Elaris," he said.
She glanced over.
"Don't put yourself in the middle again."
She let the silence open, then set it aside like a book she didn't care to finish. "Then end it."
He held her gaze. Nodded once.
She pushed off the pillar. "Good night, Riel."
"Good night."
She left him there, looking like a decision in a doorway. The arch cut his shadow in two and stitched it back together on the other side.
By morning, the story would move to different lips. But for tonight, Elaris allowed herself one small, useless indulgence: the knowledge that she had not walked past a six-on-one and done nothing.
Curiosity was dangerous.
So was contempt.
And sometimes, usefulness wore both faces.