Chapter 154: Chapter 154: Academy’s Entrance Phase Two [4]
My gaze locked on Laila’s.
The word Failhung in the air like a verdict that had already shaped the next hour.
Staff had already closed the distance, two on the left, one on the right, professional spacing that said removal protocol without needing the word spoken.
The hall watched. Observation boxes watched. Somewhere in the ranks, Giselle’s indifference felt less like disinterest and more like a lens.
Underestimating me?
Even when support is rare, this is how they are going to treat me?
Something about Laila had been ticking wrong since the moment she dropped from the ceiling.
Not the volume or the test with biscuit.
Not even the way she sorted people into wheat and waste with a glance.
It sat under the skin, a low wrongness my class recognized before my mind finished naming it.
Dense core. Old channels. Power that had shaped people like Draven and still walked into halls like this as if the floor belonged to her by habit.
The system didn’t ask permission.
And something I have been trying to control so hard started creeping back.
[High-density core detected]
[Target: Laila Thornsworn — Provisional classification: SS signature]
[Absorption pathway: Available]
[Estimate: Significant yield — Regulation risk extreme]
[Prompt: Initiate Core Drain?]
[Warning: Public environment. Cover integrity critical. Anchor channels unstable under hostile observation.]
Heat crawled behind my eyes.
Not the clean regulation heat from Jenna’s sessions.
This was the hungrier part of the class that did not care about hard tracks or Empress optics or the fact that draining a proctor in the middle of Inverse Intake would end more than a test.
My vision sharpened.
The edges of the hall went too precise.
I felt the bracelet on my wrist as a cold ring that suddenly mattered less than the shape of the power standing three paces away.
[Urge threshold rising]
[Host ocular signature: Shifting]
[Yellow saturation: 12% ... 19%]
[Recommendation: Abort visual tell. Reassert baseline.]
I didn’t move.
I also didn’t look away.
The yellow was coming whether I wanted the hall to see it or not, slow, almost impossible to catch unless you were already staring into my face the way Laila was.
A fraction of the old voice, the one that had spoken through me in the dark, sat at the back of my throat and tasted like opportunity.
Take it.
She called you empty.
Show her the power inside you.
If you can weaken her, the empress will not proceed with your execution.
You’ll be too important to be killed.
Do it. Do it. Do it.
Gianna moved first.
A voice, clear enough to cut the procedural quiet without needing volume.
"Is this how the academy works now?"
Laila’s attention flicked, not startled, recalibrating.
The staff hesitated a half-second because the person speaking was Everheart, already flagged for optics.
Gianna did not soften it.
"Taking pride in raiders like Draven, who spends half his broadcasts with his mouth on someone else’s support and still gets called inevitable, while rejecting my support because he prefers the anchors he actually trained with? That’s the standard?"
A ripple went through the nearest ranks.
Someone sucked in a breath.
Rei was already at my other shoulder, not touching, present in the way a blade is present when it has not been drawn yet.
"Lawless," a proctor started.
Rei ignored him.
"You asked him who he is without us," she said, bright and ugly and precise.
"Cute question. Try asking what this hall is without people who will actually stand in a pocket when the tether opens. You want flexible linking? Fine. Put it on a slate under observation. Don’t dress a loyalty test as a fail because he wouldn’t gamble a stranger’s core in front of a hundred recording panes."
"This is not a debate," Laila said.
"It became one the second you turned a completed assessment into a public dissection," Gianna answered.
Her telekinetic markers did not rise.
The words were enough.
"He answered the scenario. He answered your hypothetical. He refused to contaminate a random contact because he understands what shared load actually costs. And your response is to call him empty and move staff in like he’s already a removal case."
Rei’s mouth curved without humor.
"Also, for the record, secondary is not ’convenience.’ Secondary is the one who opens a vein when the angle requires it and still shows up for overlapping presence the next morning. If you’re going to inventory him, inventory accurately."
The murmurs were no longer small.
A cluster near the five-and-two team had gone still.
The hulk-built support was watching with open interest. Even the girl with two male supports had turned fully, as if the argument itself were part of the exam.
Laila’s blue eyes returned to me.
The system pulsed again, opportunistic.
[Ocular shift: 24%]
[Host: Suppress or Escalate]
I forced a breath through my nose and dragged the yellow back by inches.
The bracelet warmed once against my skin, restriction hardware doing the only job it could in a room full of witnesses.
It settled, resentful, behind the ribs where Gianna’s anchor sat like a counterweight.
"Staff," Laila said, without looking at them, "hold."
They held.
She studied the three of us as a single problem now, not a support with two attachments.
When she spoke again, the disappointment was still there, but it had been joined by something more practical, calculation that had decided the spectacle of a hard removal would cost more than it bought.
"Everheart. Lawless. You are not the examinee."
"We’re the unit," Gianna said.
"Dual filing is already on the board. If you mark him for rigidity, you mark the structure we registered under. Own that in front of the boxes. Try explaining to the empress how a guild-trained support was rejected because his answer doesn’t satisfy my curiosity."
Rei added, lighter, meaner, "Or keep pretending preference is the same as inability. The grid will sort it faster than a speech."
Silence held for a long second. Somewhere above, an observation pane adjusted its angle with a soft mechanical note.
Laila’s gaze cut back to mine one last time, searching for the flicker she had almost seen and could not quite name.
"Then," she said, reluctant in the way of someone conceding terrain rather than a point, "we will see about the tests."
A beat.
"Whether you can really do anything apart from sticking with your anchors."
The staff eased a half-step back. Repositioned into the posture of people who would be watching the next phase very carefully.
My pulse was still too fast.
Gianna’s shoulder brushed mine, deliberate.
"Breathe."
"I am."
"Your eyes," Rei murmured, almost too quiet for anyone else.
"Fix them."