For a brief moment, the ring was filled with motion as several people reacted at once. Paladins rushed toward them, some clearly aiming to help the fallen Feron, while others were more aggressive.

  Orion didn’t move. He didn’t need to.

  Seothyn appeared a moment later, a blur sharpening into a crouched silhouette between Orion and everyone else, with one knee pressed to the dirt, his cloak billowing dramatically.

  He didn’t draw steel, as that would have escalated things even further, but the message in his eyes was clear. Nobody was to approach Orion.

  It worked. The paladins, already halfway into the ring, shifted course and headed toward their comrade, standing protectively over him.

  The healer on duty marched in behind Seothyn, raising his hand high. “Away from the circle,” he commanded loudly. “All of you. Now.”

  Someone objected. “He—”

  “Now,” the healer repeated without looking at the man.

  Their eyes flicked to Orion, registering the absence of further aggression, and the tension in the air eased enough to allow people to breathe and think again. The healer knelt beside Feron, and the scent of hot iron filled the air as warm golden light spilled from his hand. His palm hovered just above the wound, and Light seeped into the flesh, encouraging the tissue to heal.

  Just a few seconds later, Feron blinked. He looked down at his shoulder—pink, intact, and slightly shiny—then up at Orion. The shock and exhaustion slowly faded from his face, and he swallowed hard, but he still managed to stand up and even extended his hand.

  “It’s your win,” he said, his voice rougher than before.

  Orion took the hand and squeezed it firmly. “I hope to fight you again in the future. I’m sure you’ll be more prepared.”

  Feron nodded briefly, still grimacing, and walked away. Clearly, he didn’t enjoy losing to someone nearly a decade younger, but he knew better than to make a fuss about it.

  Behind them, Yacob watched the exchange without even trying to hide his calculation. Orion could almost see the gears turn in his mind as he shifted his priorities.

  Poor Jordan, he thought. His friend was likely to be questioned about anything and everything he might know as soon as they were gone.

  The healer shooed everyone back to the pavilion. “Alright, enough sparring for today,” he told the last few lingerers with the authority of a drill sergeant. “If you can’t behave yourselves, it will only lead to someone getting actually hurt.”

  Seothyn deliberately relaxed his stance, but he stayed close to Orion as they rejoined the others, and his fellow Fangs were clearly as tense.

  Kissea caught Orion’s gaze and tipped her head toward the benches, where the other squires sat in awkward silence.

  He didn’t understand her angle at first, since the mood had turned sour. Many of the Vigil looked embarrassed for Feron, and a few looked angry. Even more seemed pensive in a way he didn’t like very much. Leaving now would be better and help prevent the situation from turning into a serious problem, especially if the training accidents were to escalate as they sought revenge.

  But maybe that was the point. She doesn’t want to make it seem like we’re running away.

  He followed her suggestion and went to find Jordan.

  His friend looked genuinely relieved, as if his presence was a rope he could hold onto. “So,” Orion said, as casually as he could manage, “what happened to Thad? Is he also being put through the extra training?”

  Jordan quickly realized he was trying to get things back on track. “Thad got his posting in the Third Order. He was always a wall, you know? They saw that and sent him home for specialized training. He’s gonna be a Brother Bulwark soon enough.”

  “The Third is the defensive one, right?” Orion asked to show he was following along.

  “Right,” Jordan said. “They keep towns safe all through our lands, sometimes alone. It’s hard work, and apparently very boring, until it suddenly isn’t.” His grin didn’t reach his eyes, but there was a real fierceness in his voice. “He’ll be good at it.”

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  “And you?” Ophelia slipped in on Orion’s other side, her tone lightly teasing. “Off to convert the heathens or cut down the wicked?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Jordan groaned. “I haven’t been assigned yet. It’s between Second and Fourth, that’s what the whispers say.”

  “The Second Order is…?” Orion prodded.

  “Very martial,” Jordan said. “They bring the Light into places that resist it, patrol the borders, and engage in major battles when the Vigil is summoned, but are usually pretty chill most of the time. The former embassy leadership came from the Second, which is why things were—” He gestured to the training ground. "—more relaxed."

  “And the Fourth?” Orion let his eyes flick toward Yacob.

  “They are very devout,” Jordan said carefully. “They focus on following the letter of the rites and the proper form of the work. They aren’t necessarily less martial, but definitely more structured. They recruit, train, and maintain a strict code of conduct."

  “Sounds awful,” Ophelia said cheerfully.

  Jordan laughed, then rubbed the back of his neck. “Honestly, I could be happy with either. The Second gets you into the fire more often first, and is a quicker path to power, but the Fourth is known to produce some great leaders.”

  Orion let the rhythm of small talk smooth out the rough edges. He exchanged jokes with Ophelia, listened to Jordan tell some really bad kitchen duty stories, and even got pulled into a debate with a young paladin about whether a blunt sword could be a weapon of mercy or just a slower form of cruelty.

  When the shadows finally stretched toward evening, Kissea stood and dusted her hands off. “We should go,” she said simply. Yacob was already at the pavilion’s edge to offer a handshake—polite and unreadable, like everything else about him—and Jordan hugged both Orion and Ophelia with genuine warmth.

  “Safe road, then. And, Orion… Thanks.”

  “For what?” Orion asked, surprised.

  “For being a good friend,” Jordan answered, earning a sputter of embarrassment.

  “Why didn’t we leave after that guy went down?” he asked Kissea as they crossed the threshold of the Sanctum embassy. “It felt like the right time to get out. We wasted another hour there doing nothing at all.”

  Kissea reached out and lightly smacked the back of his hand. “Think.”

  He rolled his eyes, annoyed, but did as bidden. “Because leaving would have made it look like we were running away,” he said after a moment. “Staying meant we trusted the oath of hospitality, and we didn’t feel threatened on their ground. It was both a gesture of trust and of strength.”

  “That is the essence of it,” she said, amused. “On a deeper level, Yacob was testing us all and deliberately let things reach that level of awkwardness to see how we’d react.”

  Orion grimaced. “Damn, I wouldn’t have expected it from those guys.”

  “Let this be a lesson,” she countered. “Not every member of a faction is the same. And you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself, since he didn’t get what he wanted, given that we played the whole thing as if we hadn’t noticed his intentions.”

  “Is Seothyn in trouble?” Orion asked. They’d said their goodbyes to the Basilisk Fang and Ophelia after leaving the Vigil’s embassy, and the elf had seemed unusually somber.

  “For doing his job?” Kissea snorted, shaking her head. “He’ll probably get a bonus if the Minister knows what’s what.”

  Before he could reply, a familiar pressure pushed against his mind as Yue and Asteria came down the side corridor, apparently deep in conversation.

  Yue looked as composed as ever, and while Asteria’s mouth was a straight line, her hands seemed relaxed, which made him uncoil just a bit.

  “Walk with us,” the Elder ordered, skipping the pleasantries, and led him down into the depths of the building.

  Orion had not yet been to this part of the embassy. The stones beneath shifted to a darker hue, while the air grew thicker, tinged with the scent of iron. The doors there had no decorations, and only a few full moons were carved into the stone.

  At the last turn, two witches with stern eyes stood at attention, guarding an iron gate. Strong wards were layered on top of it, and [Hypotheticism] told Orion that they could withstand as much as tier four spells, though not for long, since those would collapse the entire embassy upon them.

  Beyond the gate, six cells were visible, three of which were occupied. One held a man Orion recognized.

  The coachman hung from his wrists and ankles, not really to cause pain but to make him uncomfortable, as he’d probably been dosed with enough truth-serums to make a dead man talk.

  Dried blood marked the skin where the bindings had bitten, and his face held an empty, defeated look, as if he’d been drained of everything.

  I’m surprised Mom would take me to a place like this. She’s usually much more careful about letting me see the ugly side of the Sanctum, but I guess that’s in the past now.

  Yue paused just inside the doorway, eyeing the man with disdain. “Your suspicion was correct,” she said plainly. “My enforcers picked him up after you flagged him to Pauline, and given how quickly he tried to run, decided to use more force than strictly necessary. It was a good thing, since he had a signal token sewn into the coat hem and a very expensive set of falsifying artifacts in the lining. If they hadn’t stopped him so quickly, he would have disappeared into the crowds and vanished beyond our reach.”

  Orion let his satisfaction show on his face. He was still somewhat discomforted by how close the traitor had gotten to him, but knowing he had done the right thing helped him feel better.

  “Tell me how you knew.” Yue’s gaze remained steady. It wasn’t as hostile as he might have expected, but it wasn’t exactly friendly either, as this was the kind of question that had to be asked, regardless of personal ties or trust.

  Asteria’s hand brushed his sleeve. “Tell her,” she said quietly. She didn’t seem particularly tense, so she probably knew how he’d done it, since he hadn’t hidden his newest accessory.

  He didn’t look at the coachman when he answered. He kept his eyes on Yue and spoke clearly. “I saw his class with my glasses.”

  Her mouth tightened. “We always check outsiders’ classes. It’s the first thing we do.”

  “My method is better than yours, then,” Orion said, resisting the urge to wince at how blunt that sounded. “If your artifacts work as my old ones did, I can see why that would happen. It is the Trait that tipped me off to his real nature,” he explained, though he held back from telling her that he could see so much more.

  Yue’s head tilted slightly. “Traits? You can see those, then?”

  “At his level, it’s child’s play,” Orion replied, deliberately fueling the misunderstanding that the SDGs were limited. “His class is [Sleuther], which already raised my suspicions. But it was the Trait [Smiling Face] that really alarmed me. I don’t know the details, but I got the feeling it was related to hiding his true self, and combined with the rest, it made for a very suspicious profile.”

  Asteria waited silently, but he knew her well enough to see she thought he had done well.

  Yue studied him for a long moment. Finally, she nodded once. “We’ll have to change our methods. In the meantime, you will tell me how you pierced through his Trait.”

  He shook his head immediately. “No.”

  Surprisingly, Yue seemed to understand his reluctance, and did something he really hadn’t expected from her: bargain.

  “I can make it worth your while, Orion. You have until tomorrow morning to give me something, and I’ll ensure you’re paid back in full.” She then pulled a pouch from her robes and jingled it just enough for him to hear the familiar sound of gold coins.

  The offer was very tempting, but there was one issue.

  I didn’t use any method they would understand.

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