Reality snaps back.

  The clearing reforms around me with brutal solidity. Metal ground. Twisted spires. Witnesses frozen in tableau of horror and awe. Everything exactly as it was, as though I never left, as though the Karesh board and the Praeceptor and the cube-headed students scattered across infinite darkness were fever dream rather than revelation.

  But my torq still vibrates.

  And white light pours down from the false sky.

  Narrow and unwavering, it bathes me where I stand, and when I shift my weight against the metal ground, the light follows. Tracks me. Pins me in place like a specimen under glass.

  The Labyrinth is watching.

  I have been Marked.

  My gaze moves instinctively to the others.

  Raven Five stand nearest. Stagger, Wren, Flint, Ash, Edge. Each of them jerks backward as though struck by a sudden impulse, kirans snapping up in uncertain hands. Light-spears level without coordination, armored grips tightening around polished shafts. They do not know what they are aiming at, only that something has changed.

  Beyond them, the Bound Blades tense as one.

  No one advances.

  "What happened?" someone asks.

  The voice comes from my right. One of the Bound Blades. Torren, perhaps, or Vex. I cannot tell without turning, and I find I do not want to look away from the light that tracks my every movement.

  Before I can answer, Lias does.

  The boy's voice cuts through the clearing in a rush of breathless excitement, words tumbling over one another, edged with hysteria that scrapes against my nerves like broken glass. Blood seeps through the robe across his shoulders, darkening the fabric with each breath, but he does not seem to notice. Does not seem to care.

  "He has been marked," Lias says.

  His eyes are too bright. His grin too wide. The combination creates something grotesque, joy wearing the face of a boy whose back still weeps crimson through gray cloth.

  "A Primarch."

  He laughs. Winces as the movement pulls at his wounds. Laughs again.

  "They will come now. The others. To challenge him. To see if he is worthy."

  His laughter fractures into something wet and unsteady.

  I look away.

  The sound of his voice scrapes at something inside me I do not want to examine. Exultant. Cracked. Unmoored. He sounds like a man who has witnessed a miracle and cannot decide whether to worship or flee.

  I glance at the Armigers.

  Twelve-year-old boys encased in armor too heavy for frames still growing into themselves. Children playing soldiers because the Labyrinth demands it, because Empire demands it, because the entire structure of Malkiel's power rests on the foundation of youth sacrificed to ambition.

  They watch me with expressions caught between fear and awe.

  When my classmates come, and they will come, these children will die trying to defend ground that is not theirs to hold. They will throw themselves against enemies they cannot match because duty demands it, because training demands it, because they have been shaped into weapons that do not know how to stand down.

  None of that will matter when the Optimates come.

  The thought arrives clean and cold:

  What are Armigers against Optimates?

  Six-year-olds with Skathrith empowered Semblances. Purpose-built. Perfected. Bugs waiting to be crushed beneath a heel.

  I cannot allow it.

  "Leave," I say.

  The word is quiet, but it carries.

  I turn my attention to the Bound Blades first. "You are dismissed. All of you."

  For a moment, no one moves. The silence stretches, filled only by the faint hum of kirans and the distant groan of settling metal.

  Then the Bound Blades react.

  They do not question. They do not argue. They withdraw from the village with disciplined speed, melting back into the twisted iron forest beyond the clearing. Torren and Vex move first, followed by Caine and Lark, then Shade with his tear-streaked face and haunted eyes.

  I watch them go.

  This is the correct decision, I tell myself.

  But even as I think it, another thought intrudes:

  If they go, who will witness?

  The question tastes of strategy. Of calculation. Of using children as legitimizing tools. I hate that it arrived so easily. Hate that some part of me weighed their lives against their utility and found both wanting.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  I hate that it arrived so easily.

  Hate more that I cannot dismiss it as irrelevant.

  "We will stay."

  The voice comes from my left.

  Stagger.

  I turn, surprised despite myself. The youngest of Raven Five. The smallest. The one who trembles when danger approaches and speaks in whispers when he speaks at all.

  "What?" I ask.

  Stagger shifts his weight, clearly uncomfortable with being the one to speak, but he does not retreat. His gaze flicks to the others, then back to me.

  "You saved us," he says. "We owe you."

  Edge's jaw tightens. His voice comes sharp: "We owe the Skathrith-bonded nothing."

  But he does not move to leave.

  Stagger continues, quieter now. Looking at Flint. Waiting for contradiction that does not come.

  "Raven Five pays its debts."

  The rest of the team exchange awkward looks. Unease. Doubt. Something like fear. But no one contradicts him. No one steps away. No one breaks formation to join the retreating Armigers.

  They remain.

  Raven Five watches me with expressions caught between fear and determination. Five children in armor. Five soldiers who have not yet learned that some battles cannot be won.

  They will die here.

  The thought arrives with terrible clarity.

  But if I send them away, I will be alone again. And somehow that seems worse. My fingers tremble for an instant, then I force them to stillness.

  The choice sits ugly in my mind.

  Protection or use.

  Mercy or strategy.

  I hate that the calculation exists at all.

  "You understand what you are choosing?" I ask.

  Flint answers. His voice steady despite the trembling in his hands. "We understand."

  "When they come. The Optimates." I let the words hang between us. "You will not be able to help. You will only be able to watch."

  "Then we will watch," Wren says.

  I look at each of them in turn.

  Stagger. Small and trembling but refusing to yield.

  Wren. Quick-eyed and calculating, already assessing angles and exits.

  Flint. Steady as stone, bearing the weight of command on shoulders too young for the burden.

  Ash. Silent and solid, a wall of flesh and discipline.

  Edge. Defiant to the last, his sneer firmly in place even as fear flickers behind his eyes.

  Children. All of them children.

  But if they are children, what does that make me? I am even younger than they are, all the Optimates in this trail are. We are only six.

  "Stay hidden," I say finally. "Do not engage. Do not interfere. If things turn dire and you see an opportunity to run, take it."

  Stagger nods. Relief and fear warring across his young features.

  "We will not run," Flint says quietly.

  I do not argue.

  I recognize the look in his eyes. The same stubbornness I have seen in my own reflection. The refusal to yield that transcends reason and approaches something like religion. Arguing with that kind of conviction is pointless. I know. I have tried.

  A thunderous crash splits the clearing.

  One of the towering metal spires tears free from its base and slams into the ground. The impact sends vibrations rippling outward, black particulate matter erupting into the air like ash from ancient fire.

  Another spire follows.

  Then another.

  My hand moves instinctively toward the space where the Skathrith hovers. Raven Five drop into defensive formation, kirans snapping upward, armor plates clicking as they brace for attack.

  I look up.

  Binah is moving.

  Invisible strings lash outward from her hands, braided light slicing through metal as though it were paper. Structures collapse under her assault, dragged inward, stacked, torn apart. She is not building so much as closing in, reshaping the village into something else entirely.

  The air distorts around her. Space itself seems to recoil, bending subtly away from the violence of her motion. Where she passes, reality wrinkles like cloth pressed by invisible weight.

  I have seen her like this once before.

  The box-shaped chamber. The green liquid seeping down the wall. The sound of her fists slamming again and again into unyielding surfaces as she tried to escape.

  This is worse.

  That rage had been desperate. Confined. The fury of something trapped, something fighting against constraints it could not break.

  This is expansive. Purposeful. Shot through with something darker than fear. Something edged with malice and certainty that makes my skin prickle with unease.

  But also something else. Preparation.

  The tension in my shoulders eases slightly.

  Raven Five stare at me.

  They cannot see her.

  To them, the destruction has only one source. Buildings tearing themselves apart at my approach. The ground trembling in answer to my presence. Structures collapsing and reforming according to will they cannot perceive.

  They think I am doing this.

  I say nothing.

  I do not correct them. What would I say?

  No, it is not me. It is the ghost-girl only I can see, reshaping reality according to knowledge she should not possess, preparing defenses against threats she has not named.

  The explanation would not comfort them.

  Would not comfort me.

  Metal screams as Binah works. The village collapses and reforms, transforming from scattered ruins into something approaching defensive architecture.

  A barricade.

  She knows something.

  The certainty settles into my bones.

  She has seen something I have not.

  The thought should comfort me. Should make me feel protected, guarded, watched over by something that possesses knowledge beyond my own.

  It does not.

  Because Binah does not look at me.

  That can only mean one thing. Deceit. Concealment.

  Above, the false sky watches. Below, the metal ground trembles.

  And somewhere beyond the twisted iron forest, the first challenger is already moving.

  I can almost feel them through the mark I bear, the light that tracks me, the designation I have been given.

  They are coming.

  The image of Penelope surfaces unbidden.

  Standing atop her mound of corpses. Reflections scattering like mercury, each one killing with perfect efficiency. Gray robes darkened with blood that was not hers. Blue eyes cold and certain, meeting mine across dimensional distance without surprise, without doubt.

  She knew what she had to become. Made the calculation without hesitation.

  Classmates. Other first-years. The Mere's uniform marking them as children the same as her.

  She killed them anyway.

  Is that what I must become?

  The question sits heavy in my chest.

  Twelve hours to defend the title. Twelve hours of Optimates coming to test whether I am worthy. Each one empowered by a Skathrith. Each one trained for violence. Each one willing to kill for advancement.

  I think of Castor's blood in the water. His Skathrith screaming as mine fed. The taste of ash and copper flooding my mouth as power rushed through me, intoxicating and immediate.

  I refused to finish him.

  Chose weeping over doctrine. Chose mercy over the clean kill that would have simplified everything.

  Penelope would not have hesitated.

  I watch Binah work, invisible strings tearing through metal, reshaping the village into defensive architecture I do not understand. Behind me, Raven Five stand in uncertain formation. Children in armor.

  They will watch me fight.

  They will see what I choose to become.

  Or what I refuse to become.

  The white light continues tracking my smallest movement. Marking me. Designating me. The Labyrinth's attention fixed and unwavering.

  I can be like Penelope. Efficient. Ruthless.

  Or I can choose another way.

  The thought feels like prayer and desperation in equal measure.

  I do not know if mercy has a place in the Labyrinth. Do not know if refusing to kill will mean my own death, will mean Raven Five watching me fall because I could not do what was necessary.

  But I know what I saw in Castor's eyes when I refused to finish him. Know what I felt when the hunger coiled in my stomach and I said no to the completion it demanded.

  I know what I chose then.

  The question is whether I can choose it again. And again. And again, for twelve hours, while the Labyrinth watches and judges and the white light tracks my every movement.

  The metal ground trembles beneath my feet.

  The first challenger is close now.

  I will be ready.

  Or I will not.

  But I will not become what Penelope has already chosen to be.

  Not today.

  Book One of Shattered Empire is now complete on Patreon.

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