They ate in the lazy way of tired people: Kara with her notes as a plate, Jax stealing the softest bits from everyone with the sleight of hand of a man who had grown up at a crowded table, Ronan cutting bread with a soldier's precision, KrysKo chewing slowly as if he were reminding himself to do it.
When the last cup was emptied, Ronan set it down and said what they were all thinking. "We keep our mouths shut until we know who's listening."
"Agreed," Jax said. "But I reserve the right to complain about it constantly."
Kara reached to the center of the table and set her vial of river-blue tincture there, the glass catching lamplight like a small captured sky. "For Lio," she said. "And for whoever sent him."
"For Lio," Ronan echoed.
KrysKo looked at the vial, then at each of their faces. He extended his hand, palm down. Ronan's hand stacked on his, then Kara's, then Jax's after a theatrical sigh that fooled no one.
"Silence," KrysKo said.
"Until the right question," Kara amended.
"Until the right pressure point," Jax said.
"Until the right enemy," Ronan finished.
The bell did not ring. The promise stood without it.
When they finally lay down, the storm had thinned into a steady, patient rain. KrysKo took the watch by the door. The corridor was dark enough to make its own choices. The system drowsed like a cat that refused to admit it slept. For a while, nothing happened. For a while, that felt like victory.
Then the floor under his feet vibrated.
Not much. Not enough to wake the others. The faintest tremor, like a giant clearing its throat underground. KrysKo set his palm to the flagstones. Heat bled through—subtle, periodic. A heartbeat far below the University, deep in the bedrock where the first lattice had been sunk.
What are you? he asked the dark.
The dark did not answer. It didn't need to. The tremor came again, a fraction stronger, and the bell, as if insulted by the competition, gave a single small, involuntary sound somewhere high above—metal against metal, not quite a note.
KrysKo stood, every sense open, every instinct arguing with every other. He could wake Senn, and turn a tremor into a war. He could wake Kara, and turn a tremor into a wound. He could wake Jax, and turn a tremor into a device. He could wake Ronan, and turn a tremor into a blade.
He did none of those things.
He stood at the threshold and chose the other weapon he had been learning.
Patience.
Below the towers, something rolled in its sleep and turned toward the University's heart. Above, the bells kept their lie.
KrysKo watched the seam where stone met door and let the night cross it without raising its voice.
Morning would come. When it did, Cohort Nine would train. They would eat. They would speak to no one who asked the wrong questions in the right tone. They would walk the map of their prison and make it a country. And when the thing below the University woke all the way—whatever it was, whoever had built it, whichever hands had tuned it to ring the bells without touching them—they would be ready to move.
He could feel the decision forming far away, as if the future were another room and someone had just opened its door.
The system's warm voice stayed silent, because some lessons are learned at the volume of breath.
KrysKo leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, not to sleep, but to listen harder. The tremor came one last time, faded, and left a ghost of itself in his bones.
He smiled into the dark, a small, dangerous thing.
"Noted," he said.
The University did not answer. It didn't have to. The rain kept its own counsel, and in the highest tower, a single window turned red and then dark again, as if an eye had closed after making up its mind.
Chapter 8 — Part 2: When Bells Lie
Dawn slid over the University like breath on glass—warm, brief, uncertain. Mist clung to the upper bridges, turning every tower into an island adrift in pale vapor. The great bells had not yet spoken, and so the campus held that early stillness that belonged only to the truly devoted or the truly haunted.
Cohort Nine moved through their morning drills in the eastern yard, where the stone tiles were still wet enough to reflect ghosts. The place had once been a dueling ground, then a parade floor, and now—depending on who you asked—an open-air classroom or a graveyard for young ambition.
KrysKo moved without speaking. Sweat beaded down his spine, the morning air cold enough to turn each drop into a shiver before it fell. His scarf lay folded neatly on the wall beside him, his bronze gauntlets strapped tight. Kara watched from a bench beneath a stunted sycamore, notes open on her lap, quill forgotten. She had seen him fight before—had even bled beside him—but never like this.
This was not battle. This was precision. A sculptor carving the air.
Each movement spoke of restraint. His body held something that wasn't entirely human anymore—too measured, too patient. When he pivoted, his hair caught the light like polished obsidian, falling in dark ribbons around his face. His eyes were half-closed, seeing something far beyond the stone yard.
He turned on the ball of his foot, body folding into the curved rhythm of Capoeira. The old ginga swayed through him like an unbroken current—ancient and alive. His left hand cut a circle, open palm tracing an invisible arc. His heel snapped up and landed soundless against the side of the training dummy. The impact wasn't what mattered—it was the grace. Kara found herself holding her breath.
His system whispered through his blood like a low tide.
Observation mode active. Cross-analysis: Style Veyne Flow (Drakari Root). Warning: neural strain 0.3 percent. Proceed?
"Yes," he murmured.
The air folded around him. A low, rolling sway turned lethal in its inversion. His heel cut through the second dummy's chest, denting the alloyed ribcage. He exhaled through the strike, quiet and deliberate.
Then the voice came—deep, patient, familiar. Adaptation recorded, KrysKo. Your body learns because it listens. Do not hurry the listening.
The warmth of the words rippled through his mind. The Morgan Freeman tone—half mentor, half ghost—had softened over time. It no longer commanded; it conversed.
Behind him, Jax's laugh cracked the silence. "You two flirting again, or should I start charging rent for the silence?"
KrysKo straightened. Jax had dragged half the Mechanum yard's tools into the sunlight: reinforced exo-gauntlets, tuning rods, a portable field charger humming faintly beside his boots. He always looked like chaos barely held together by optimism.
Ronan approached from the colonnade, moving like a shadow that had learned manners. His coat brushed the ground; his jaw and throat glimmered faintly with scaled etchings that shimmered when the light found them. The Drakari blood in him was more art than curse, but it showed when he fought—or when he was angry.
"You're early," KrysKo said.
Ronan's mouth tilted in a small smile. "Habit. I don't sleep well with bells nearby."
"You mean those tolls?" Jax rolled his shoulders. "They're the only civilized sound this place makes. I'd kill for an alarm that doesn't sound like a dying ox."
Kara shut her notebook. "You'd still ignore it."
"Fair." Jax grinned and turned to KrysKo. "All right, Prototype. You've been doing ghost dances for hours. Time to spar with something that hits back."
KrysKo's gaze shifted to Ronan, who only lifted one brow.
"Both of you," KrysKo said simply.
Jax blinked. "Together?"
"Together."
The three of them moved to the center of the yard. Kara stayed on the bench, her heart thudding. She had studied anatomy, triage, battle rhythm, but this was something else. Mestre Yal had once said: Combat reveals more truth than confession. She was about to believe him all over again.
The spar began without signal.
Jax attacked first, as engineers always did—testing force, direction, yield. His gauntlets flared blue-white as kinetic channels snapped open. He pivoted, striking the ground with a low arc of compressed air meant to stagger.
KrysKo stepped into it. His heel cut through the pressure line before it stabilized. The wave dissipated harmlessly, scattering dust.
"Noted," Jax muttered, eyes narrowing.
Ronan moved next—fluid, almost too fast to track. His first strike was a feint; the second a hook meant to test KrysKo's shoulder joint. KrysKo caught the wrist, turned with it, redirected the momentum, and released before countering. His system purred: Scan complete. Drakari Hybrid Combat (Riverroot Variant). Efficiency: 81 percent. New fragment learned—Serpent Turn.
Ronan slid back, landing catlike. Jax used the window, charging forward with twin blows. The ground cracked under his boots. KrysKo met the hits with his forearms, twisted, and used the energy to pivot. Sparks flared as bronze met steel.
Ronan laughed softly. "He redirects everything."
"Always," Jax said between breaths.
"Because he's learning to be water," said the inner voice.
The rhythm shifted. Three bodies moving like an equation—mechanical power, hybrid grace, adaptive center. KrysKo was no longer fighting them; he was weaving between them, reading angles before they existed. Kara's nails dug into her palms. It was beautiful. Terrifying. Sacred.
When it ended, it wasn't because anyone won. It ended because the ground itself cracked, old sigils lighting faintly where their footwork had worn them thin.
Ronan straightened first. "You learn too fast," he said.
KrysKo's eyes glinted gold. "No," he said softly. "I remember faster."
For a moment no one spoke. Even the mist seemed to pause before moving again.
By noon, the University had come alive—banners lifting, bells marking lectures, courtyards rearranging with slow mechanical grace. Cohort Nine's new quarters lay near the observatory ruins on the southern edge, closer to the canyon walls. It was said the air tasted older there, as if remembering the world before the towers.
Inside their makeshift hall, the four gathered around a long table forged from old ship hulls. The metal still smelled faintly of ozone. Jax was elbows-deep in schematics, muttering. "All right, I got clearance for a new charge dispersal unit. Maybe this one won't melt my boots."
"Doubtful," Kara said without looking up, though her lips curved faintly.
Ronan cleaned his blades with small vials of Drakari resin, movements deliberate. KrysKo watched the ritual. "You're not from their cities," he said.
"No. My mother said cities teach noise before they teach language. I learned silence first."
"A better teacher," KrysKo murmured.
"All this philosophy before lunch," Jax groaned. "I'm dying here."
Kara tossed a berry at him.
He caught it midair. "Proof I've got faster reflexes than our prototype."
KrysKo flicked a pebble from the tabletop. It hit Jax square in the collarbone.
"—Ow. Point taken."
"Ten," KrysKo said.
"Ten what?"
"More pebbles next time."
Kara laughed, a sound that cracked the tension like sunlight through glass. Even Ronan smiled—barely. Then the bell tolled.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then stopped.
The third note hung too long.
Kara's head lifted. "That's wrong."
"Bell resonance failure?" Jax offered, too hopeful.
Ronan's pupils narrowed to vertical slits. "No. That's a call."
The courtyard outside filled with uneasy sound—footsteps, murmurs, the metallic groan of tower joints adjusting. Students clustered under archways. Professors pretended calm as they shepherded groups inside.
Cohort Nine followed the sound toward the tower. The bell loomed through mist, old bronze gone black with oxidation, its great tongue still quivering from the strike.
Halfway there, a voice called their names—Professor Halden, Mechanum scholar, sleeves stained with oil and chalk dust. "Cohort Nine! Good, you're still here." He looked pale, his hands gripping a ledger too tightly. "Field call postponed. Administrative review pending."
"Why?" KrysKo asked.
Halden hesitated. "Because the message you brought back wasn't complete."
Kara's chest tightened. "The courier's fragment?"
He nodded. "The archivists decrypted part of it this morning. It wasn't addressed to the Wardens. It was sent to the Council of Shadows."
Even Jax stopped smiling. "We have a Council of Shadows?"
Ronan's voice dropped. "We weren't supposed to."
Halden's gaze flicked toward the tower's hollow arches. "Whatever that bell means—it isn't calling students. It's calling them." He lowered his voice. "Go back to your quarters. That's an order."
KrysKo didn't move. His system whispered: Unregistered auditory frequency detected. Signal origin—upper resonance chamber. Encryption tier: unknown.
He watched the tower for a long moment before nodding. "Understood, Professor."
As they turned back toward the southern path, the bell gave a final, hollow sigh—metal cooling after confession.
Evening came down slow, drawn in long strokes of violet over the University spires. Rain began again—first as mist, then as patient drizzle that filled the stone channels with silver threads. The bells had stopped, but their echo lingered in the marrow of the air.
Cohort Nine stayed in their quarters, restless. The room was a mismatched inheritance of older times: one wall of polished glass, one of stone, a slanted ceiling that hummed faintly with contained energy. Kara sat by the hearth, parchment open, though her ink dried mid-sentence. Her eyes had been following KrysKo for the last ten minutes, the way his body barely seemed to touch the ground as he moved. He was quiet even when he wasn't.
He sat cross-legged now, eyes closed, bronze gauntlets resting beside him. The light from the hearth painted long, shifting lines across his face. Sometimes she thought she could see something flicker beneath his skin—like veins of light trying to remember their own shape.
You listen for silence differently tonight, said the inner voice. It had the weight of a father's patience, the kind that invited truth instead of commanding it. What do you hear?
"Fear," KrysKo said softly. "And decision."
Every calm is a test, the voice replied. The world doesn't stop to let you prepare—it watches if you prepare while still moving.
KrysKo's breath came slow, measured. "Then I'm being watched constantly."
Yes, the voice said with faint amusement. And not only by your enemies.
The fire popped. Kara startled, her thoughts scattering. She closed her book with unnecessary care and looked up at him. "You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"The quiet-talking thing. Your face goes somewhere else when you do it."
He tilted his head slightly, like a bird learning a new sound. "Was I loud?"
"No," she said, a little too fast. "That's what's unnerving."
Something flickered through his eyes then—almost a smile. It didn't reach his mouth, but it softened him in a way that made her chest ache.
Outside, thunder began to roll across the hills, low and deliberate. Ronan stood by the window, arms crossed, the lamplight catching the faint shimmer of the scales on his neck. "It's starting again," he said.
"The weather?" Jax asked without looking up from the pieces of his gauntlet spread across the table.
"No. The feeling."
"The what now?"
"The hum," Ronan said. "Like the walls are listening."
KrysKo opened his eyes. "They are."
The room went still.
---
Above them, high in the tower, the storm drew its own maps across the glass. Lightning crawled through the fog like veins through marble. Inside, a single lamp burned, revealing the Vulture seated at his desk. He never paced; men like him didn't need to. His stillness did the work for him.
Across from him stood Warden Aria Senn, cloak damp, posture knife-straight. "You called," she said.
"The bells did. I merely attended."
"You shouldn't have access to those protocols."
"And yet," the Vulture said, "here we are."
The lamplight showed the narrow geometry of his face, the hands too steady, the eyes like pieces of old obsidian. A black binder lay open before him. The name across its cover was written in silver so faint you had to lean close to read it: Project KrysKo.
"You're dredging ghosts," Senn said.
"Ghosts are just data that refuses to forget," he replied, tone like silk over glass. "And yours, Aria, are particularly articulate."
"He's a student. That's all."
"Is he?" The Vulture traced one finger along the binder's edge. "A student who survived the Silence's residue. Who adapts faster than his programming predicts. Tell me, when was the last time the bells rang for the living?"
Senn didn't answer.
"Continue to observe him," the Vulture said softly. "Quietly. The Council of Shadows will require a report. And, Aria—make sure his companions stay alive. They're not merely his friends. They're his containment."
"Containment," she repeated. The word tasted like betrayal.
He didn't respond. He simply turned the binder around so she could see the inner page. There was no paper inside—just mirrored alloy reflecting her face back at her, alongside text that rearranged itself as she looked.
> PROJECT KRYSKO — STATUS: REACTIVATED
Primary Subject: O'Ruadhraigh, K.
Secondary Observations: Kara Myles (Healer-class), Jax Marrow (Mechanist), Ronan Veyne (Hybrid anomaly).
Directive: Maintain proximity. Initiate Phase Two upon breach indicator.
The Vulture smiled without warmth. "Upon breach indicator," he said, almost fondly.
Outside, thunder rumbled again, echoing through the spires like a heartbeat.
---
Midnight arrived quietly. Rain slid down the glass in threads, rhythmic and slow. Kara had fallen asleep upright, notes still open across her knees. Jax snored softly under his pile of schematics. Ronan sat near the door, awake but still, his breathing too measured to be called rest.
KrysKo rose. He moved to the center of the floor, his steps soundless. He knelt, placed both palms on his gauntlets, and whispered: "Audit."
The world folded. Light filled the air in thin, ghostlike layers.
Audit protocol engaged.
User: KrysKo O'Ruadhraigh. Prototype Class, Level: 8. Synchronization: 92 percent. Neural Pathways Active: 3 of 4.
The familiar voice came through, deep as ocean and twice as calm. You've walked a week in silence, KrysKo. Let's see what the silence has taught you.
The holographic sphere rotated before him—sigils turning like stars.
> Strength: 22 → 23 (+1)
Agility: 20 (+2 set bonus) → 21 (+1 natural)
Endurance: 20 → 21 (+1)
Intelligence: 17 → 19 (+2)
Perception: 19 → 20 (+1)
Charisma: 12 → 12 (stable)
Luck: 10 → 11 (+1)
Willpower: NEW ATTRIBUTE — Initialized at 16
Evolution node approaching. User choice required at Level 10.
KrysKo studied the numbers. They were becoming meaningless—just metrics for something his bones already knew.
"You hide your growth well," the voice said.
"I have to. They see strength. They shouldn't see the cost."
And yet Kara looks at you as though she already knows.
He hesitated. "She feels," he said finally. "I calculate."
Then perhaps one day, you'll learn her mathematics.
The system's light dimmed. Capoeira Mastery: 84 percent. Integrated Fragments: Serpent Turn, Iron Flow. Dual Harmony compatibility: preliminary.
You are no longer avoiding death, said the voice. You are beginning to write its language.
A faint sound broke his focus. He turned. Ronan stood in the doorway, arms folded, gaze steady. "You talk in your sleep."
"I don't sleep."
"Still talk," Ronan said, stepping closer. "Who's Morgan?"
KrysKo blinked once. "My teacher."
Ronan's smile was small, tired. "Figures."
They stood together a while, listening to the storm.
"You ever feel like this place is watching?" Ronan asked finally.
KrysKo tilted his head. "It is. Everything watches. Only some admit it."
"Yeah," Ronan said. "That's what scares me."
---
Morning came cold and washed clean. The rain had left mirrors in the cobblestones, so every step looked like it belonged to another world. Cohort Nine met again in the courtyard beneath the same twisted sycamore.
Jax arrived first, rubbing his temples. "If one more bell rings at the wrong hour, I'm pulling the clapper out and using it as a weapon."
Kara laughed. "I'd heal you—but only after you fixed it."
She turned to KrysKo. "You were up again."
He didn't deny it. "I learned a new rhythm."
"Another fighting style?"
"Not fighting. Balance."
"Show me," she said.
He did. A breathing form—slow, circular. Capoeira's sway softened by the stillness of Drakari meditation. Each inhale seemed to draw the world toward him; each exhale released it with intention. The mist bent slightly around him.
Kara mirrored him. Her breath caught the light in a faint shimmer. "That… felt different."
"It's nothing," KrysKo said, though his voice carried warmth he didn't mean to show.
Ronan watched them both. "He's evolving."
"Yeah, well," Jax muttered, "the rest of us are trying not to combust."
"Then watch him," Ronan said. "He's learning for all of us."
Kara studied KrysKo. "You're different," she said.
He met her gaze. "So are you."
For a heartbeat, something fragile passed between them—something human. Jax coughed loudly. "Okay, adorable, but some of us have work to do."
"Some of us," Kara said, cheeks pink, "have emotions to process."
"And some of us," Ronan added dryly, "are going to have to make sure the Wardens don't notice either of you doing either."
Laughter rose, quiet and imperfect, but real.
---
That night, the mists returned thicker. The bells began again—three tones, drawn-out and low. Only KrysKo heard the undertone beneath them: a resonance that wasn't metal or wind.
You're listening again, KrysKo.
"Always."
Then hear this.
The tone cracked into static. Then came words—distorted, half-human, half-machine. Project KrysKo—Phase Two initiated.
His veins lit in bronze, pulsing once like distant thunder under skin.
"KrysKo?" Kara murmured from her cot, half-awake. "You okay?"
He dimmed the light along his arms until it faded. "Yes," he whispered. "Go back to sleep."
He didn't move again for a long time.
In the highest tower, the Vulture stood beside the great bell, gloved hand resting on its cold bronze skin. The sigils carved into it glowed faintly in answer. Resonance Lock—Phase Two Active.
"Wake up, little soldier," he murmured. "The experiment has resumed."
He drew one thin line beneath KrysKo's name in the mirrored binder. Status: Active.
System log flickered somewhere in the dark: User: KrysKo O'Ruadhraigh. Synchronization: 92 percent. Projected pathways: Adaptive Warrior. Silent Vanguard. Resonant Core. Unknown.
You can feel it, can't you? said the voice inside him later that night.
"It's growing louder."
That's not danger, my son. That's destiny clearing its throat.
"Then I'll answer."
Not yet. Let the bells lie a little longer.
The sound of rain swallowed everything.
Morning found Cohort Nine together again—tired, wary, but whole. Kara's vial of river-blue tincture sat in the center of the table like a heartbeat. Jax's tools hummed softly. Ronan leaned against the doorway, silent as a prayer.
KrysKo stood at the window, watching his reflection. The face looking back at him wasn't done becoming.
He turned toward them, the word leaving him quiet but certain.
"Train."
Because whatever waited behind those bells—whatever Phase Two meant—he could already feel its footsteps on the edge of the world.
Outside the University walls, dawn came late and colorless, seeping through the mist like a memory that refused to fade. The first bells of morning rang clean this time—no distortion, no omen—yet everyone felt the lie beneath their clarity. Cohort Nine stood at the outer gates, packs sealed, rings charged, eyes drawn toward the gray sprawl of the Ashrun canyons beyond the ridge. The air smelled of rain and iron and decisions. Behind them, the towers exhaled steam like sighs; ahead, the road twisted down into stone and shadow.
No orders. No escort. Just a destination and the quiet understanding that nothing waiting in those canyons would resemble a test.
KrysKo adjusted the strap across his shoulder, the bronze seams along his forearms flickering once like a pulse. Kara met his gaze, nodding once. Jax rolled his shoulders and muttered something about not dying before lunch. Ronan only touched the hilt of his blade and looked to the horizon.
"Phase Two," KrysKo murmured, the words too soft for the others to hear.
And as they descended into the stone corridors of the Ashrun canyons, the wafer in his pocket pulsed one last time—slow, patient, waiting for something that still had no name.