Down on the sunken arena floor, the two girls circled one another with the slow, deliberate patience of predators, and the entire first-year section leaned forward as one, breath held, watching a match that had, for the last several minutes, refused to tip decisively toward either side.
"Careful now, that one's fast—"
"They're both fast, that's the whole problem—"
"OH COME ON, hit her already!"
The commentary rippled up and down the stone benches in scattered, overlapping bursts, and it was into this noise, cheerful and entirely unbothered by the tension gripping everyone around him, that a new voice inserted itself.
"Jalim the great, would you look at that footwork! I haven't seen anything that clean since the entrance exams!"
Sashah glanced sideways, unimpressed, at the boy who had settled himself uninvited onto the bench beside her. He was grinning, broad and easy, sandy hair mussed from what looked like an entire morning of enthusiastic head-scratching, and he extended a hand toward her with the casual confidence of someone who had never once considered the possibility of being unwelcome anywhere.
"Osmandas Kollem," he said. "Pleasure. You're Sashah, right? I heard you scored top marks on the theory exam. Jalim the great, that's impressive, most people can barely pass that thing awake."
"I am," Sashah said, not taking the offered hand, her attention already back on the arena below.
Unbothered, Osmandas withdrew his hand and simply beamed wider, entirely undeterred, and turned his attention instead toward Alderen, seated further along the row with his usual composed, unreadable stillness.
"And you must be Alderen. Heard plenty about you too. Quiet type, huh? Jalim the great, I respect that. Strong, silent, and mysterious. Very dramatic."
Alderen offered nothing more than a brief, polite nod, his eyes never leaving the fight below, and Osmandas, rather than taking the hint every reasonable person might have taken, simply scooted himself closer, apparently delighted by the challenge of a conversation that refused to cooperate.
It was Typhoen who finally broke, several seats down, unable to resist any longer.
"You're loud," Typhoen said, not unkindly, though there was an edge of genuine annoyance beneath it. "Has anyone told you that? You're loud."
"Constantly," Osmandas said, entirely pleased by the observation. "My mother says it every morning. My tutors said it every lesson. Jalim the great, even my own dog looks tired of me sometimes. But hey, quiet people need someone to balance them out, don't you think? Otherwise this whole academy would just be everyone staring meaningfully into the middle distance all day."
Despite himself, a short bark of laughter escaped Typhoen before he could stop it, and Osmandas seized on that opening with the delighted speed of a man who had clearly built an entire personality around exploiting exactly such openings.
"See! Loud, but correct. Come on, budge up, tell me everything. What's your technique? Actually wait, don't tell me, let me guess. Something aggressive. Something with a lot of shouting involved. Jalim the great, you have the energy of a man who solves problems by hitting them very hard and very loudly."
"That's..." Typhoen paused, genuinely startled. "That's actually not far off."
"I have a gift," Osmandas said, entirely without modesty. "Reading people. It's practically a technique in itself, though the academy doesn't seem to recognize it as one, which, frankly, I think is a real oversight on their part."
"A gift for reading people," Sashah repeated, dry, not looking away from the arena. "Is that what we're calling it."
"What else would you call it?"
"Nosiness."
"Harsh," Osmandas said, though he looked more delighted by the insult than wounded by it. "I prefer 'enthusiastic curiosity,' but I suppose we can agree to disagree. Jalim the great, you're sharp, aren't you? I like that. Most people just laugh politely and let me keep talking."
"Most people," Sashah said, "haven't figured out yet that ignoring you doesn't work."
"It really doesn't," Typhoen agreed, though there was no real bite left in it now, some of his earlier irritation having softened into something closer to reluctant amusement. "Trust me, I tried for the first two minutes."
"And failed spectacularly," Osmandas said, grinning. "As all reasonable men eventually do."
Alderen, still watching the arena, allowed the faintest ghost of a smile to touch the corner of his mouth, gone again almost before it arrived, though not quite fast enough to escape Osmandas's notice entirely.
"Ha! There it is. I knew you had a face under there somewhere." Osmandas pointed, triumphant, as though he'd just won some private contest only he had been aware of. "Jalim the great, I was starting to think they carved you out of the same stone as this arena."
Down below, the two girls broke apart briefly, chests heaving, circling again, the crowd's noise dipping into a low, anticipatory hush before rising again as they closed the distance a second time.
Below them, the arena erupted into sudden motion, both girls closing the distance between them in the same instant, a flurry of strikes and counters too fast for most of the crowd to properly follow, and a fresh wave of noise rolled up through the stands, gasps and shouts tangling together into one continuous roar.
"THERE we go!" Osmandas half-rose from his seat, fists clenched with excitement. "Jalim the great, now THAT'S a fight! Look at them go, neither one giving an inch—"
"Sit down," Sashah muttered, "you're blocking half the arena."
"Apologies, apologies." He dropped back down, though his energy hadn't diminished in the slightest, his eyes still bright with the same unshakable enthusiasm he seemed to bring to absolutely everything. "I just appreciate a good even match, you know? Not enough of those around anymore. Everyone's either hopelessly outclassed or so overpowered it's barely a contest. Reminds me of the old stories. Jalim the great fought like that, supposedly. Never against anyone weaker than him, always someone who could actually push back."
Typhoen leaned in slightly, curiosity overtaking his earlier irritation. "You talk about him a lot."
"Family thing," Osmandas said, waving a hand. "My grandfather used to tell stories about him every winter. Kind of stuck with me, I suppose." He grinned again, sudden and bright. "Anyway, speaking of families—" his gaze drifted, easy and unguarded, toward Alderen, "—you're a Von Guzstav, aren't you? Heir to the general out west? Jalim the great, I heard your father's still fighting battles the empire pretends aren't happening. Must be strange, carrying that name around here while he's out there doing the actual work of it."
The words landed into a silence that arrived far faster than the ones before it.
Alderen's expression did not change. That, more than anything, was what made the shift so unmistakable — the particular, careful stillness of a man holding something very tightly behind an unbothered face, his jaw set a fraction too rigid, his eyes, a deep and striking amethyst, fixed on Osmandas with an intensity that hadn't been there a moment ago.
Typhoen laughed.
It came out delighted, bright, entirely too pleased with itself, and he leaned back against the stone bench with the satisfied air of a man who had just been handed something he'd wanted for a very long time without having to lift a finger for it.
"Oh, this is good," Typhoen said, grinning wide. "Go on, Osmandas. Ask him about his grandfather too, while you're at it. I'm sure that one's an even better story."
"Typhoen." Alderen's voice came out low, controlled, though something beneath it had gone taut as wire.
"What? I'm just enjoying the show." Typhoen spread his hands, all mock innocence. "It's not every day someone manages to crack that composure of yours without even trying. Took me a week of actual effort to get half that reaction out of you, and here's a stranger doing it with one sentence."
Sashah went very still.
She said nothing, but her sharp, assessing gaze fixed on Alderen and stayed there, studying the controlled tension in his jaw with a curiosity that had little to do with Typhoen or Osmandas at all.
'There it is again,' she thought, watching him. 'That same thing from last night.'
She'd only gone out for air, nothing more, restless and unable to sleep, and had run into him quite by accident along the quiet garden path ahead of the dormitories. He'd said perhaps a dozen words to her in total. And yet something in the low, even way he spoke, something in that same controlled stillness he wore now, had gotten under her skin far more easily than it had any right to, leaving her oddly unsettled long after she'd returned to her room.
'Why does he provoke something in me so easily,' she thought, 'when he barely has to try.'
"I really didn't mean anything by it," Osmandas said, glancing between the three of them, the first flicker of genuine uncertainty crossing his easy features. "I just heard he was out west, that's all, I didn't know there was—"
"There isn't," Alderen said, cutting him off, smooth and even, though his amethyst eyes had not once left Osmandas's face. "Typhoen simply enjoys entertainment at other people's expense. It's one of his more consistent qualities."
"Only when it's earned," Typhoen said, still grinning, unbothered.
Below them, unnoticed now by nearly everyone in that section of the stands, one of the two girls finally broke through her opponent's guard.