The second victory changed things.
I could see it in the way candidates looked at me now—not just curiosity, but something closer to respect. Fear, even. A plant mage who could make the arena itself grow had stopped being a novelty and started being a threat.
Vance noticed too. "You're making enemies, you know. Every time you win, someone else adds your name to their list."
"I didn't come here to make friends."
"No, but you came here to survive. And surviving gets harder when people are watching." He nodded toward the high seats, where the Five had been sitting. "They're watching now. All of them."
I knew. I could feel their attention like a weight on my shoulders.
---
The messenger found me that evening.
She was young, maybe fourteen, with the plain robes of a Academy servant and eyes that held no curiosity at all. She handed me a sealed note and waited.
I broke the seal. Inside, written in elegant script:
Candidate White,
You have demonstrated unusual abilities. I would speak with you. Come to the Observatory Tower at the ninth hour. Come alone.
—L
L. There was only one person it could be.
Light. The Hero. The one chosen by the Goddess herself.
Vance read over my shoulder, his face going pale. "You're not going, right? Tell me you're not going."
"I'm going."
"Roy—"
"He wants to talk. That's all." I folded the note and tucked it away. "If he wanted me dead, he wouldn't send a note."
Vance didn't look convinced. Neither was I, really. But curiosity was a stronger force than fear.
---
The Observatory Tower rose from the Academy's highest peak, a spire of crystal and stone that caught the last light of the setting sun. The climb was long, the stairs endless. By the time I reached the top, my legs burned and my core throbbed with the effort.
He was waiting.
Light stood at the tower's edge, looking out over the Academy grounds. He was young—my age, maybe younger—with brown hair and unremarkable features. Nothing about him suggested power. Nothing except the way the fading light seemed to gather around him, soft and warm.
He turned as I approached, and I saw his eyes. They were ordinary brown, but behind them was something vast and calm, like looking into a clear sky and realizing it went on forever.
"Roy White." His voice was gentle. "Thank you for coming."
"You're the Hero."
A faint smile. "I'm a boy who was chosen. The Hero is something I'm still learning to become." He gestured to a bench near the edge. "Sit with me. Please."
I sat. The view was breathtaking—the Academy spread below, the dragon-mountain rising behind, the first stars appearing overhead.
"I watched your matches," Light said. "Both of them. The way you fight... it's not like anything I've seen. You don't overpower. You don't outlast. You invite. You ask the world to help you, and it does."
"I talk to plants."
He laughed softly. "You talk to plants. You talk to stone. You talk to seeds that have waited centuries for someone to notice them." He looked at me, and his gaze was too kind, too understanding. "Do you know why the Goddess chose me?"
I shook my head.
"Because I was ordinary. C-rank potential. No family. No future. She looked at me and saw someone who would never be tempted by power, because power had never been an option." He paused. "You remind me of myself. Before."
The weight of his words settled on me.
"I'm not—"
"I know what you're not. I also know what you are." He reached into his robe and withdrew a small, leather-bound book. "This is a journal. Like the one you carry, but older. It belonged to a Greenwarden, one of the last. She wrote about a boy who could talk to plants, who grew his own path when the world gave him none." He held it out. "I think you should have it."
I stared at the book. "Why?"
"Because the darkness coming is greater than any of us. The Five—we'll fight it. We'll probably die fighting it. But someone needs to survive. Someone needs to remember what came before, so that after, there's something left to build." He pressed the journal into my hands. "You're not a hero, Roy. You're something rarer. You're a gardener. And gardeners outlast empires."
I didn't know what to say.
Light stood. "Be careful. There are those who would use you, control you, break you to fit their purposes. The collector was just the beginning." He looked toward the Academy below. "Someone high in these halls is playing a dangerous game. They've noticed you now. They'll come for you eventually."
"Who?"
"I don't know yet. But I'm watching." He smiled again, that gentle, sad smile. "We'll meet again, Roy White. When the real darkness comes. Until then... grow well."
He walked away, leaving me alone with the stars and a dead woman's journal.
---
I didn't sleep that night.
Instead, I read.
The Greenwarden's journal was older than Kaelan's, the pages fragile, the script faded. But the words... the words burned.
"The Sylvan Circuit is not the only path. It is one of many. We who tend the green have always known that life finds a way. Roots grow through stone. Seeds wait centuries for rain. Forests recover from fire. Resilience is not about strength—it is about patience, connection, and the will to endure."
"The boy I met reminded me of this. He had no power, no potential, no future. But he had roots. Deep roots, invisible roots, reaching into places even I could not see. I gave him a seed. Not of a plant—of an idea. The idea that being ordinary was not the same as being weak."
"I wonder what grew from that seed."
I closed the journal, my hands shaking.
The Greenwarden had met someone like me. Centuries ago. Someone with no potential, no future, but with roots reaching into darkness.
Someone who had planted a seed.
And that seed had grown into... what? Kaelan's research? The Sylvan Circuit? Me?
The questions spiraled, endless and unanswerable.
Dawn found me still sitting, the journal in my lap, the first light painting the sky in shades of gold and rose.
---
Mira found me at breakfast. Her face was harder than usual, her eyes shadowed.
"I confronted my father."
I set down my bread. "And?"
"He denied everything. Said the caravan was a mistake, a rogue trader using our family's name. He promised to investigate." She paused. "He was lying. I could see it. But I couldn't prove it."
"So what now?"
"Now I watch. Wait. And if he's involved..." Her hand drifted to her sword. "I'll deal with it."
Vance appeared, sliding onto the bench beside us. "Third round's been announced. Team combat—all remaining candidates against a single enemy. Some kind of construct the Academy's been building for months."
"A construct?" I asked.
"A golem. A big one. They want to see how we work together, how we handle a threat that doesn't play by normal rules." He grinned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Also, it's a spectacle. The nobles love spectacles."
I looked at Mira, at Vance, at Dorn and Elara approaching with worried faces.
Party 147 had survived two trials together. We'd faced monsters, assassins, and our own fears. Now we'd face a golem in front of the entire Academy.
And somewhere in the shadows, someone was watching. Waiting.
The gardener had grown.
Now the real tests would begin.
---