The infirmary of the Academy of Wardens smelled of antiseptic, lavender, and the copper tang of repressed panic. It was a beautiful room, lined with white marble beds and floating crystals that hummed with healing light, but the beauty did nothing to dampen the sounds of misery.
Aris Valerian sat on the edge of Bed 42. He was swinging his legs.
To his left, a boy from Sector 3 was sobbing into his hands, muttering about tentacles in the water. To his right, a girl was screaming silently as a medic reset the bones in her shattered arm. Across the room, Jareth—the Golden Elite who had tried to fire the cannon—was being restrained by two orderlies as he thrashed against his straps, screaming that the statue had blinked.
Aris watched it all with the detached interest of a scientist observing microbes in a petri dish.
He checked his pulse. Sixty beats per minute. Steady.
He looked at Jareth's terrified face. He understood, intellectually, that he should feel sympathy. Or perhaps worry that Jareth might remember him throwing the knife. Or even fear that the orderlies might come for him next.
But there was nothing. The chemical cocktail that produced fear—the adrenaline spike, the cold sweat, the tightening of the gut—had simply been removed from his physiology. It was as if someone had gone into the settings of his brain and toggled the "Survival Instinct" switch to OFF.
"Mr. Valerian?"
Aris turned his head. A medic stood there, holding a clipboard. She looked tired, her white uniform stained with someone else's blood.
"Yes," Aris said.
"Your vitals are... unusual," she said, tapping the crystal hovering above his head with a frown. "Your cortisol levels are non-existent. You just came out of a high-mortality simulation. You should be in shock. Most of the survivors are currently sedated."
"I process stress internally," Aris lied. It was a smooth lie, delivered without a tremor, because he no longer feared being caught lying. "Is Renna okay?"
"The girl from Sector 4? She's stabilizing. Acute stress reaction, but physically fine. She'll be discharged to the dorms in an hour." The medic narrowed her eyes at him, a flicker of unease crossing her face. "You're too calm, kid. It's unsettling. You look at that boy screaming like he's a piece of furniture."
"I grew up in the Static Zone," Aris said, swinging his legs again. "We get used to noise."
The medic didn't look convinced. She looked like she wanted to run a psych evaluation, but the screaming girl next to them needed pain meds, and triage took priority over creepiness.
"Fine," she sighed, signing his discharge papers with a sharp scratch of her quill. "Here. Your dorm assignment. You're in Block D. That's the Commoner Wing. Don't wander into the Alpha Blocks, or the seniors will skin you."
"Understood."
Aris hopped off the bed. He felt light. Efficient. He walked out of the infirmary, moving through the chaos without flinching. A gurney rushed past him, carrying a student with void-burns; Aris didn't step back, he simply pivoted his shoulder three inches to let it pass, maximizing his movement economy.
He walked out into the Academy proper for the first time.
If the Static Zone was a tumor, the Academy was a jewel. It was a sprawling campus of white stone and gold filigree, floating on a massive island of rock that hovered high above the cloud layer. Bridges of hard-light connected the towers. The sky above was a perfect, brilliant blue, regulated by the Chronos Core to be eternally sunny.
Aris shielded his eyes. To anyone else, it was paradise. To him, it felt sterile. Too bright. Too perfect.
He reached into his pocket and touched the iron compass. It was cold now, dormant. The needle was spinning lazily, no longer locked on anything. He didn't know what had happened in the void—why the dragon had gone back to sleep, or why the System had accepted his "fear" as payment. He just knew he had survived.
He checked the map on his discharge paper. Block D: The Warrens.
He began to walk. The campus was segregated by design. The path to the Alpha Blocks was paved with white marble and lined with statues of heroes. The path to Block D was gravel, winding down toward the shadowed underside of the floating island.
As he walked, he passed groups of students who had bypassed the Selection due to noble birth or high-tier recommendations. They wore pristine uniforms with gold braiding. They laughed, ate fruit that looked real, and practiced dueling with wooden swords.
Aris walked right through the middle of their practice yard.
"Hey!"
A boy with a silver crest on his chest stepped in front of him. He was tall, holding a wooden practice sword. "This is a reserved zone, Scavenger. The servant's path is around the perimeter."
Aris stopped. He looked at the wooden sword. Then he looked at the boy's throat.
Threat Assessment.
Weapon: Blunt wood.
Stance: Amateur. Too wide.
Opening: Left knee, throat, solar plexus.
Aris didn't feel the urge to apologize. He didn't feel the urge to fight, either. He just felt... bored.
"The perimeter path adds four minutes to the transit time," Aris stated flatly. "I'm tired."
The noble boy blinked, clearly expecting fear or subservience. "Are you deaf? I said move, or I'll beat you until you can't walk."
Aris tilted his head. "If you swing that, you'll overextend. I'll step inside your guard and break your wrist. It's inefficient. Let's just pretend you intimidated me and I ran away."
The boy's face went red. "You little—"
He swung the sword.
Aris didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. He watched the wood arc toward his head. He calculated the speed. He stepped six inches to the left.
The sword whooshed past his ear, ruffling his hair.
Aris didn't counter-attack. He didn't break the boy's wrist. He just kept walking while the boy was off-balance, stepping past him as if he were a lamppost.
"You missed," Aris said over his shoulder.
He left the noble sputtering in shock behind him. Aris frowned as he walked away. That had been... risky. A normal person would have flinched. A normal person would have been scared.
I need to learn how to fake it, he realized. If I don't act human, they'll realize I'm something else.
He reached Block D. It was a brutalist concrete slab hanging off the edge of the island, overlooking the infinite drop of the clouds below. It smelled of damp stone and unwashed bodies.
He found Room 404 at the end of a flickering hallway. He scanned his wristband, and the heavy metal door slid open.
The room was a cell. Two bunk beds, a single narrow window, and gray walls.
Renna was already there. She was sitting on the bottom bunk, hugging her knees to her chest. She had showered, but she was still shaking.
"Aris," she breathed when she saw him. "You're here."
"I'm here." He threw his meager pack onto the top bunk. "Did you get processed?"
"Yes," she whispered. "They... they gave me a class. Technomancer Class I. It's a support role. What did you get?"
Aris looked at his wrist. The System interface flickered in his mind, the red text hidden from everyone else.
[Class: The Anchor]
[Cover Identity: Kineticist (Friction Manipulation)]
"Kineticist," Aris said. "Low tier. I just move things a little bit."
Renna looked at him, really looked at him, and shivered. "Aris... outside, in the hall... I heard the others talking. They said you walked through the Noble Yard. They said you stared down a Valmont heir and didn't even blink."
"He was slow," Aris said, sitting on his bunk.
"It's not about him being slow," Renna said, her voice trembling. "It's about you being... empty. Your eyes... they don't look like they care if you live or die anymore."
Aris touched his face. He felt the skin, the bone. But she was right. Inside, there was just silence.
"We survived, Renna," he said softly. "We're in the Academy. We have food. We have a roof. The rest... the rest is just noise."
"Is it?" She lay down, pulling the thin gray blanket over her head. "I don't think I can sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see that dragon."
"Then keep them open," Aris said.
He lay back on the hard mattress of the top bunk, staring at the concrete ceiling. He pulled the Book of Tethers from his pocket.
He needed to write this down. He needed to remember that he was supposed to be afraid of the nobles. He was supposed to be traumatized by the dragon.
He opened the book to the second page.
Entry 2:
I am at the Academy.
I have lost the ability to feel fear. This is a tactical advantage, but a social liability.
Note: When someone swings a sword at you, you are supposed to duck, even if you know they will miss.
I need to practice shivering.
He closed the book.
Outside the window, the fake sun began to set, painting the sky in colors that were too vibrant to be real. Aris watched the light fade, listening to the rhythmic ticking of the Chronos Core echoing through the floorboards.
Tick. Welcome to hell.
Tock. Try to fit in.