A ripple of murmurs spreads through the arena.

  Advanced.

  On the first day.

  I do not react.

  But something shifts all the same.

  Three names. Same cohort.

  Three pieces placed deliberately.

  Not coincidence.

  Design.

  The dormitory is quieter than before.

  Ward-lanterns cast a low amber glow along the corridors. Laughter echoes faintly from lower floors, but North Tower feels contained. Watching itself.

  Elmyrra stands by the window when I enter.

  Of course she does.

  Her star map has changed again. New silver threads link constellations that were separate this morning.

  “You did well,” she says without turning.

  “So did you.”

  “I was not evaluated.”

  “You are always evaluated.”

  A faint exhale, almost amusement.

  I set the training daggers down carefully. My muscles hum, not from exhaustion from restraint.

  “Advanced Cohort,” I say.

  “Yes.”

  “You knew.”

  “Yes.”

  No apology. No pride.

  Just certainty.

  I sit on the edge of my bed. “Before today?”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Yes.”

  The honesty unsettles me more than secrecy would have.

  “Did he know?” I ask.

  “Lucian?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  I look up sharply. “You told him?”

  “No.”

  She turns slightly, moonlight tracing the edge of her profile.

  “He observes patterns. Your placement was statistically inevitable.”

  I let that settle.

  “Zhearyn expected it too,” I murmur.

  “Elmyrra does not concern herself with expectation,” she says softly. “Only trajectory.”

  “And what trajectory am I on?”

  She studies me in silence.

  “You fight like someone who refuses to be underestimated.”

  That isn’t what I asked.

  “My ice,” I say carefully. “It looked different.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did the faculty notice?”

  “Yes.”

  The directness steals the air from my lungs.

  “But they do not understand what they saw,” she continues. “Uncertainty delays action.”

  I narrow my eyes slightly. “You’re very calm about that.”

  “You are not in immediate danger.”

  Immediate.

  The word lodges.

  I stand and move toward the window, needing the air.

  The academy stretches below us in pale stone and shadow. High towers. Warded bridges. Quiet courtyards.

  Somewhere out there, I feel it again. That awareness.

  Not from within the tower, from beyond it.

  “You feel it too,” Elmyrra says quietly behind me.

  I don’t turn. “Feel what?”

  “The recalibration.”

  That isn’t what I meant.

  But I don’t correct her.

  Instead, I say, “Why were you assigned to me?”

  She doesn’t hesitate.

  “Because your magic does not sit at surface level.”

  I wait.

  “And because it will.”

  My spine stiffens.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” she says evenly, “that what you demonstrated today was restraint.”

  I say nothing.

  “You are not singular,” she continues. “And neither am I. That is why proximity was required.”

  Required, not suggested.

  Placed.

  “You speak like this was inevitable,” I say.

  “It was.”

  Silence stretches between us.

  I consider telling her.

  About the depth beneath the ice.

  About the cold that sometimes hums like something alive.

  About the way my power feels less like winter and more like pressure beneath frozen water.

  I consider it, then I don’t.

  That doubt remains mine.

  “I don’t know what you think you see,” I say instead.

  “I know.”

  Not dismissive, patient.

  “I will not force understanding on you.”

  She returns to her star map.

  A pause.

  “Lucian noticed,” she adds quietly.

  My jaw tightens. “Noticed what?”

  “That you limited yourself.”

  Of course he did.

  “And he said nothing.”

  “He rarely intervenes unless required.”

  That should reassure me.

  It doesn’t.

  Outside, a cloud passes across the moon.

  For a moment, the tower across the courtyard falls into deeper shadow.

  And in one of its upper windows—

  A flicker.

  Gone before I can be certain.

  I narrow my eyes.

  “What is it?” Elmyrra asks.

  “Nothing.”

  But it wasn’t nothing.

  It felt like observation. Deliberate.

  I step back from the window.

  “Today wasn’t rivalry,” I say quietly.

  “No,” Elmyrra agrees.

  “It was positioning.”

  “Yes.”

  I look at her.

  “And if I choose not to play?”

  Her expression softens, just slightly.

  “Then the board will play around you.”

  That answer settles deep.

  Uncomfortable.

  Accurate.

  We say nothing more.

  The ward-lanterns dim further as the tower settles into night.

  And as I lie awake long after Elmyrra’s breathing evens, one thought refuses to quiet:

  If proximity was required then someone, somewhere is waiting for what I have not shown yet.