The Triangle didn't like surprises.
It tolerated talent. It tolerated violence. It tolerated ambition so long as ambition stayed inside approved lanes—rankings, merits, factions, controlled conflict.
But it didn't tolerate unpredictability.
And lately, unpredictability had started to seep into the academy like hairline cracks in a foundation—quiet, invisible at first, until you stepped wrong and felt the floor shift beneath you.
Dreyden felt it before anyone else did.
Not because he had some instinctual sixth sense, or a hero's intuition.
Because he paid attention to the things that weren't supposed to happen.
A request that took too long.
A locker assigned twice.
A match bracket that reshuffled after confirmation.
And then—this morning—the first real sign that the Triangle had moved past watching him and started building a cage.
He saw it in the training wing.
The practice circles were the same. The terminals were the same. The instructor voices were the same.
