CHAPTER 23: WARDWATER
“Water,” Seraphina Aster repeated, like she was savoring the word.
Lyra’s eyes stayed murderous.
Mina’s symbol still glowed faintly under her cloak.
Roth still looked like the most patient person in the room, which meant he was the most dangerous.
Aster leaned in, voice low.
“Not drinking water,” she said. “Wardwater.”
My stomach tightened.
She tapped the floor with the tip of her boot.
“The academy runs a circulation system under the arena,” she continued. “It washes blood, refreshes barrier runes, and carries mana residue away so the wards stay stable.”
Lyra hissed. “A sewer.”
“A sacred sewer,” Aster said, smiling like she knew that would make Lyra mad. “The academy calls it maintenance. The Crown calls it infrastructure. The instructors call it none of your business.”
Mina’s voice was quiet. “And you call it what?”
Aster’s smile thinned. “A blind spot.”
Roth’s gaze stayed steady. “How do we get in?”
Aster glanced at my cloak.
At the academy crest pinned to it.
“Champions have a ceremonial privilege,” she said. “Ward inspection. Nobody uses it because it’s boring and it smells like wet stone.”
Lyra’s mouth twisted. “So of course it’s useful.”
Aster nodded. “Exactly. Your crest is a key. It will open the inspection hatch. You do not need to fight a guard. You do not need to make a scene.”
My lockbox hummed faintly inside my pack, like it disliked the word key.
“Where?” Roth asked.
Aster pointed, not with her finger, with her eyes.
“Instructor wing washhouse,” she said. “Behind the training halls. There’s a drain sluice door with a star-circle etching hidden under paint. Your crest will light it. The ward recognizes its leash.”
Mina’s lips pressed together. “So the star-circle is part of the ward system.”
Aster’s eyes flicked to Mina, sharp. “It’s part of something. Do not say it out loud in the academy.”
Lyra leaned forward. “Are you helping us because you’re good, or because you’re curious?”
Aster’s smile returned. “I’m helping you because you’re going to do it anyway. I prefer doing it with you alive.”
Then she looked at me.
“And because you have a talent for finding the ugly truth,” she added. “Even when it tries to crawl up your sleeve.”
My system chimed like it hated me.
[SKILL EXP]
Affection Sense +12%
Flirt Deflection +10%
Detective +8%
Lyra made a sound in her throat that was not language.
Mina’s cheeks flushed.
Roth didn’t blink.
I tried to keep my face neutral and failed.
Aster’s eyes glittered. “Tonight. Third bell after dusk. Shift change. Less foot traffic. Take the hatch, follow the warm pipe, and when the channel splits, follow the flow that should not exist.”
I swallowed. “Flow that should not exist.”
Aster nodded. “If you see water moving uphill, you’re close.”
Lyra muttered, “That’s insane.”
Aster smiled. “So are you.”
Mina’s voice went soft. “What are we looking for?”
“Proof,” Aster said, instantly serious. “Not feelings. Not suspicion. Proof you can place in someone’s hand and make them sweat.”
Roth nodded once. “Understood.”
Aster stepped back, then added like an afterthought, “And Kenta.”
I flinched.
She grinned. “Try not to get eaten by a pipe. I would hate to lose a cute champion.”
Lyra and Mina both said, “Stop,” in perfect unison.
Aster laughed like a delighted demon, then waved us out with a flick of her wrist.
“Go,” she said. “Before you combust.”
We left.
Lyra vibrated with rage.
Mina vibrated with stress.
Roth vibrated with purpose.
I vibrated with the terrible realization that my life now involved the phrase sacred sewer.
Pyon blinked onto my shoulder.
…water
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Water.”
We waited until third bell.
Not because patience is fun.
Because academy timing is a blade, and we needed to slip between its teeth.
We ate fast. Checked gear. Left most trophies in the inn and carried only what mattered.
Blade.
Shield.
Symbol.
Heat bracer.
Lockbox.
Seal chalk.
A handful of seal spikes.
One oilcloth roll.
And the academy crest pinned to my cloak like a smiling brand.
Lyra glared at it every time her eyes landed on my chest.
Mina refused to look at it at all.
Roth watched the street like he expected it to bite.
When the light finally dimmed and the academy lanterns took over, we moved.
No parade. No chanting. Just quiet corridors and cadets heading to late drills, sweating and laughing like the world wasn’t poisoned under their feet.
We reached the instructor wing washhouse and the smell hit immediately.
Steam.
Soap.
Wet stone.
The door was closed, of course.
A plaque on it read:
WARD MAINTENANCE ACCESS
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
Roth glanced at me.
I stepped forward and held my crest near the latch.
Nothing.
Lyra snorted. “Maybe it only opens for people who can do speeches.”
“Shut up,” I whispered.
Mina lifted her symbol slightly.
The crest on my cloak warmed, like it recognized another kind of authority.
The lock clicked.
The door eased open.
Lyra stared. “It’s keyed to priestess light too.”
Mina’s voice was quiet. “Or it recognizes Purify.”
Roth slipped in first. Shield up. Always.
We followed.
Inside the washhouse, everything looked normal.
Benches.
Basins.
Drains.
Steam fading into shadow.
Too normal.
My Trap Sense tickled the back of my skull.
Not danger.
Direction.
Detective did the same thing, that subtle tightening that meant patterns were lining up.
We found the drain sluice behind a stack of folded towels.
A plain iron plate in the floor with old paint.
Roth scraped the paint with the edge of his sword.
A star-circle etching emerged.
Mina’s jaw tightened.
Lyra muttered, “Of course.”
I knelt and pressed the crest to the etching.
The star-circle lit faintly.
Not bright.
Just enough.
The iron plate unlocked with a soft click.
Then it slid aside on hidden rails.
A wet breath rose from below like the city exhaled.
Lyra leaned over the opening and made a face. “Yep. That’s a sewer.”
Aster’s voice echoed in my head.
Sacred sewer.
Roth went down first.
Then Mina.
Then Lyra.
Then me.
Pyon blinked onto the ladder rung and followed, ears flat, offended.
…gross
“Agreed,” I whispered.
The tunnel below was not a normal sewer.
It was too clean.
Stone blocks fitted with care. Runes carved along the walls, glowing faintly silver. A narrow channel ran down the center, shallow but fast, and it shimmered like it carried threads of light inside it.
Wardwater.
My skin prickled.
Mina’s symbol glowed in response, and her Purify focus band warmed like it was sensing a wound.
Lyra whispered, “It’s pretty. I hate that it’s pretty.”
Roth’s voice was low. “Move.”
We moved along the walkway beside the channel.
The water sounded normal.
But the runes made the sound feel controlled, like the city built veins for magic.
I hated how smart it was.
I hated how useful it could be.
And I hated the thought of someone turning it into a straw.
My lockbox hummed faintly.
A direction itch.
Downstream was quiet.
Upstream was louder.
We went upstream.
Of course we did.
The first monster encounter came fast.
Not a dramatic roar.
A quiet plop.
Something dropped from the ceiling into the channel.
Then another.
Then six more.
Blue-veined leeches, thicker than the ones we burned on the bridge, wriggled toward us like they smelled MP.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
[ENEMY DETECTED]
Wardwater Leeches
Count: 8
Traits: MP Bite, Sticky Latch
Lyra’s fingers warmed instantly. “No.”
Mina stepped forward, symbol raised.
“Let me,” she whispered.
Purify hit the channel like a flash of dawn.
The leeches sizzled.
But these were in wardwater.
They didn’t dissolve.
They thrashed, trying to reach the runes carved into stone like they could hide inside them.
Roth planted his shield edge into the channel and blocked their path. Simple. Brutal. Effective.
I stepped in and started cutting.
Flat strikes.
Clean taps.
No wasted motion.
Instructor’s Read didn’t feed me technique. It fed me timing.
The leeches moved in pulses.
I cut between them.
Lyra swept a thin heat line down the channel, drying the surface just enough that the leeches lost traction.
They writhed.
Mina Purified again.
This time they dissolved like ash in light.
My system chimed.
[SKILL EXP]
Purify +6%
Controlled Burn +4%
Sword Basics +3%
[SKILL RANK UP]
Trap Sense: F -> E
Lyra looked at me. “Your paranoia leveled.”
“Good,” I muttered. “Maybe it will save us.”
Pyon blinked onto the walkway edge.
…more
Roth’s gaze stayed ahead. “Yes.”
We moved.
The tunnels branched.
A three-way split.
Left channel: downhill, normal.
Center channel: downhill, normal.
Right channel: downhill, normal.
All normal.
Except my lockbox hummed harder near the right.
And Detective did something weird.
It didn’t point at the water.
It pointed at the wall runes.
The runes on the right channel were reversed.
Not obvious.
Just wrong.
Curl direction backwards.
Pull runes, not push.
My stomach tightened.
I knelt and studied the carvings.
Half hidden in the stone texture was a tiny star-circle notch.
My voice came out low.
“This one is siphoning,” I whispered.
Mina’s face went pale. “It’s built in.”
Lyra’s jaw clenched. “So the academy has a straw under its own arena.”
Roth’s voice stayed flat. “Or someone put one there.”
I held my crest near the rune line.
The crest warmed.
The runes brightened.
And the water in the right channel shifted.
Not the surface.
The flow.
It tugged.
Then a thin ribbon of water, no wider than my finger, peeled off from the main current and ran against the flow into a narrow side pipe.
Uphill.
My blood went cold.
Lyra breathed, “That’s impossible.”
Mina whispered, “That’s the clue.”
Roth said, “Follow it.”
We followed.
The side pipe was just wide enough to walk in hunched. The runes glowed dimmer here, older, worn.
The ribbon kept climbing, pulled by something hungry.
Blue beads clung to the pipe edges.
Not dripping.
Crawling.
My Trap Sense pulsed.
Not danger.
Confirmation.
Pyon’s ears flattened so hard they almost vanished.
…bad
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Bad.”
The pipe opened into a chamber under the arena.
And the smell hit like a punch.
Sweet.
Metallic.
Wet copper.
The chamber was enormous.
Stone pillars. Ward runes. A central cistern where wardwater collected, swirled, and drained.
Above, through grates, we heard distant echoes.
Footsteps.
Shouts.
A crowd.
The arena was right above our heads.
And in the center of the cistern sat something that was not supposed to exist.
A column of carved stone rising from the water like a spine.
It was covered in runes.
Most were normal ward spirals.
Some were star-circle notches.
Blue goo crawled up the column like it was climbing a tree.
It reached rune clusters and vanished into hairline cracks.
My lockbox hummed hard enough I felt it in my teeth.
Mina’s symbol flared like it wanted to scream.
Lyra whispered, “That’s a node.”
Roth’s voice went lower. “It’s inside the city.”
I swallowed.
A siphon node under a capital district arena.
That wasn’t a monster nest.
That was installation.
That was feeding.
And the tournament was perfect cover.
Thousands of people shouting, sweating, bleeding, spending mana.
Residue everywhere.
Wardwater gathered it like runoff.
And something in that column drank.
Detective pinged again.
Not subtle.
A finger pointing at the far side of the chamber.
There.
A narrow drain grate.
It wasn’t carrying water out.
It was pulling water in.
Upstream.
I crouched and scanned the grate.
Star-circle etching along the edge.
My stomach twisted.
Lyra’s voice snapped. “We have proof. We leave.”
Mina nodded fast. “We document. We go.”
Roth didn’t move. “We get something tangible.”
He was right.
Words get smothered by smiles.
Tangible makes people sweat.
I unrolled the oilcloth on stone.
Charcoal.
Rubbing.
I pressed it against the star-circle etching and worked fast.
The pattern transferred clean.
Then I took out a small vial and dipped it into wardwater near the column, careful not to touch the blue.
Mina’s Purify band warmed like it wanted to burn the whole chamber to white.
“I hate this,” she whispered.
“I know,” I said.
Then the node pulsed.
Not a visual pulse.
A pressure pulse.
The cistern swirled.
The star-circle on the drain grate flashed.
And something moved in the wardwater.
Long.
Thin.
Fast.
Lyra’s hand ignited.
Roth raised his shield.
Mina’s symbol flared.
Too late.
It snapped out of the cistern like a whip.
A sludge eel, blue-veined, jaw lined with tiny teeth.
It lunged for Mina.
Cover Step triggered before I thought.
I intercepted, blade up, taking the bite on steel.
Teeth scraped my blade and I felt the hiss of corrosion.
Not enough to eat through.
Enough to warn.
[ENEMY DETECTED]
Siphon Sludge Eel
Count: 3
Traits: Corrosive Bite, MP Suck
Lyra fried one mid-leap with a heat lance.
It shrieked and dropped back into the cistern, steaming.
Mina Purified the surface where it landed.
The corruption hissed and retreated.
Roth slammed his shield edge into the cistern lip as another eel tried to climb out, pinning it.
I used Guard Window Strike off his block and drove my blade into its gill seam.
It dissolved into black sludge.
The third eel fled toward the drain grate.
Toward the upstream pull.
My lockbox hummed like it hated that.
Pyon blinked.
The eel vanished from my sight, then reappeared pinned against the stone wall as Pyon body-checked it mid-air like a furious goat.
…no
I stabbed.
The eel dissolved.
Silence.
But the cistern swirled harder.
The node pulsed again.
Like it had noticed us.
Lyra’s voice went tight. “We triggered something.”
Mina’s voice turned urgent. “We leave. Now.”
Roth nodded once. “Now.”
We backed away fast, controlled, no panic.
Because panic makes noise.
Noise gets you buried.
We slipped into the drain tunnel that fed upstream, not back the way we came.
Because Detective was screaming one thing now.
The upstream drain is the real artery.
The moment we entered, the wall runes flickered.
Not off.
Watching.
My lockbox hummed.
Authority interference persists, my brain supplied.
Lyra whispered, “I hate this place.”
Mina whispered, “Me too.”
Roth whispered, “Keep moving.”
We moved.
The drain tunnel climbed.
Not stairs.
Not slope.
A gentle, impossible rise, like the runes rewrote gravity for water and anything brave enough to follow.
We passed old junction chambers with rusted tools. Bone-dry rooms that smelled like old incense.
Then it got worse.
The tunnel opened into a gallery of broken ward pillars.
Some intact and glowing silver.
Some cracked and leaking faint blue.
The blue did not drip.
It crawled.
Against stone.
Against logic.
My Trap Sense screamed.
Real danger.
Then the floor shifted.
Not a trap.
A living thing.
A sludge mat spread across the stone like a rug.
A rug with teeth.
It surged and tried to wrap Roth’s boots.
[ENEMY DETECTED]
Siphon Sludge Mat (Rare)
Level: 33
Traits: Adhesive Spread, Corrosive Film, MP Drain Touch
Weakness: Heat Drying, Purify, Salt Seal
Lyra swore. “Not another floor.”
Mina’s symbol flashed. “Purify!”
Purify hit the sludge.
It hissed.
It didn’t die.
It recoiled, then spread wider like it was learning.
Roth braced, shield down, cutting a lane.
I snapped out seal chalk.
Not Mina’s.
Mine.
Emergency circle. Fast.
I drew a crude ring around the mat’s edge and dropped a seal spike into it.
The ring flared.
The spread slowed.
Sealwork turned terrain into a box.
Lyra roasted the trapped edge with controlled heat, drying it into brittle crust.
Roth stomped the crust and cracked it.
The mat recoiled, dragging toward the cracked blue pillars like it wanted to merge.
Mina Purified the pillar base.
Blue hissed and retreated.
The mat screamed, a wet sound, then died.
My system chimed.
[LEVEL UP]
Mina: 25 -> 26
[SKILL RANK UP]
Detective: E -> D
[SKILL EXP]
Sealwork (exp gained)
Mina exhaled hard, shaky. “I leveled.”
Lyra blinked at her. “In a sewer.”
Mina’s smile was tired but real. “In a sewer.”
Roth didn’t let us celebrate.
He pointed up the tunnel.
“More,” he said.
Pyon’s ears flattened again.
…more
Lyra groaned. “Stop agreeing with him.”
We moved.
Eventually the air changed.
Less stone.
More soil.
More roots.
A faint hint of outside.
The tunnel curved, then widened.
Moonlight.
A grated outlet set into a hillside outside the city walls, where wardwater should have drained into a ravine creek.
Except it wasn’t draining.
It was feeding.
A thin ribbon ran uphill into the grate, pulled by the siphon.
Blue beads crawled along the bars like ants.
Roth tested the iron.
Old.
He wedged his shield edge and pried.
The grate bent enough for us to squeeze through.
Cool night air hit my face and my lungs remembered how to breathe.
Below us, a real creek ran downhill like it should.
For a heartbeat, the world made sense.
Lyra inhaled. “Outside.”
Mina’s voice trembled with relief. “Outside.”
Roth scanned the ravine. “Upstream.”
My lockbox hummed.
Always upstream.
We moved along the creek, staying low, using the slope as cover.
The city lights were behind us now, a distant glow.
Ahead was darkness and the sound of water.
And under that sound, a faint wrongness.
A rhythm.
A heartbeat.
Lyra whispered, “Do you hear that.”
I did.
The creek sounded normal.
Underneath, it pulsed.
Like the water was breathing.
Roth’s jaw tightened. “We’re close.”
Mina’s Purify band warmed.
“Something is feeding,” she whispered.
Then the creek exploded.
A shape burst from the water like a thrown spear.
A serpent.
Not a river snake.
A monster built for drain tunnels and drowned bones.
Thick as a tree trunk. Skin plated with wet stone. Blue slime clinging to its scales like paint.
It hit the bank and coiled, blocking our path upstream.
Its eyes were pale and hungry.
The system slammed a window into my vision.
[ENEMY DETECTED]
Sluiceback Serpent (Elite)
Level: 36
Traits: Pressure Jet, Corrosive Slime, Coil Crush, Mana Bite
Weakness: Gill seam, eye, heat drying, Purify
Threat: EXTREME
Recommended: Level 33+ party of 4
Lyra’s voice cracked. “Level thirty-six.”
Roth’s voice stayed calm. “Formation.”
Mina lifted her symbol, pale but steady. “I can Purify the slime.”
Pyon blinked onto my shoulder.
…fight
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Fight.”
The serpent struck first.
Not a bite.
A pressure jet.
Compressed water fired from its mouth like a blade.
Roth raised shield.
The jet screamed against drakehide, carving a groove and throwing mist.
Roth slid back half a step.
Shield held.
My Guard Window Strike lit.
I moved for the gill seam.
Too slow.
The serpent coiled and whipped its tail.
It slammed my ribs like a log.
Pain flashed.
[HP -72]
Mina’s voice snapped. “Heal!”
Lesser Heal hit me.
Warm light. Fast patch.
My HP surged.
Lyra fired a heat lance at the serpent’s face.
It hissed, blinded for half a second, then shook it off like an annoyance.
Roth used that half second.
He stepped into the coil, planted his shield edge into the serpent’s side, and forced the coil to open.
Like prying a sprung trap.
His shoulders strained.
He held.
“Now,” he grunted.
I sprinted in.
Instructor’s Read didn’t tell me what.
It told me when.
The serpent inhaled.
The gill seam flexed.
That was the window.
I stabbed.
Precision Thrust bit into wet seam.
Blue slime hissed on my blade.
The serpent snapped at me.
Mana Bite.
It didn’t hit my flesh.
It hit my MP.
Cold suction in my chest.
[MP -48]
My vision blurred for a heartbeat.
Mina slammed Purify onto the serpent’s jawline.
Light hit blue.
The slime sizzled and peeled away like burned paint.
The serpent recoiled, jaw smoking.
Lyra raked heat along its body, drying patches into brittle crust.
“Dry it!” she shouted. “Make it crack!”
Roth caught the next pressure jet with his shield, rim segments taking the load. The anti-corrosion coating hissed but held.
The serpent lunged again.
This time it tried to wrap Roth.
Coil Crush.
Roth stepped into it on purpose, shield tucked so the coil caught shield instead of ribs.
The coil tightened.
Stone plates creaked.
Roth’s HP dipped.
Mina cast Lesser Heal on Roth, then snapped up Barrier, trying to keep his ribs from turning into gravel.
Lyra fired heat into the coil seam.
The slime dried.
The coil stiffened.
I saw it.
A brittle section.
I drove a seal spike into the dried slime.
The spike flared, grounding the coil’s mana.
The serpent convulsed.
My system chimed mid-convulsion.
[NEW SKILL ACQUIRED]
Siphon Resistance (Rank F)
Effect: reduces MP loss from drain effects
Finally.
Thank you.
I used the convulsion.
Guard Window Strike off Roth’s block again.
I stabbed the gill seam deeper.
Blue leaked like blood.
The serpent screamed and thrashed, trying to throw us.
Pyon blinked behind it and rammed the tail base, disrupting balance. Not damage.
Control.
Roth shoved with shield, forcing the serpent’s head down toward the bank.
Mina Purified the exposed seam again, burning away blue sludge around the wound.
Lyra heat-lanced the eye.
The head jerked.
The mouth opened for another pressure jet.
I shoved my blade into the mouth line.
Not deep.
Just enough to disrupt.
The jet misfired into the creek.
Water detonated.
Mist filled the ravine.
For one second, everything turned white.
Trap Sense pulsed.
Incoming.
The serpent was going to bite again.
I moved on instinct.
Cover Step.
Intercepting the bite line aimed at Mina.
Steel met teeth.
Mana Bite hit my MP again.
Less this time.
Siphon Resistance softened it.
[MP -22]
Good.
Still awful.
Roth roared, rare and ugly, and slammed his sword down into the gill seam from above.
Not elegant.
Brutal.
The seam tore.
The serpent convulsed.
Lyra poured heat into the tear.
Mina poured Purify into the same wound.
Heat and holy light together.
The blue sludge shrieked like wet glass breaking.
Then the serpent went limp.
It started sliding back toward the creek.
Roth planted his shield and stopped it.
Because if it hit water, it might come back.
We did not allow that.
I stepped in and drove one final thrust into the seam.
The serpent dissolved into black sludge and brittle stone flakes.
Silence hit.
Then the system paid.
[ELITE DEFEATED]
Sluiceback Serpent slain.
EXP +8,900 (party split)
[LEVEL UP]
Kenta: 32 -> 33
Lyra: 31 -> 32
Roth: 31 -> 32
Mina: 26 -> 27
Lyra dropped onto a rock and stared at her hands like she couldn’t believe they still worked.
“That,” she whispered, “was under a city.”
Mina’s voice trembled. “The city is bleeding into that thing.”
Roth wiped his blade, calm as ever, but his eyes stayed sharp.
“We have proof,” he said. “We have a path.”
I pulled the Triad Lockbox out and held it near the creek.
It hummed.
Louder.
The direction itch was almost painful.
Upstream.
Always upstream.
Lyra glared at it. “So it’s not just the arena.”
Mina’s voice was quiet. “It never was.”
I looked back at the city lights far behind us.
A thousand lanterns.
A thousand laughs.
A thousand people celebrating champions while something under their feet drank.
My stomach twisted.
Then my craft brain did the only comforting thing it knows.
It looked at the serpent remains.
Material.
I collected a scale plate and a slime gland into sealed cloth without touching them barehanded.
Just in case.
Just because.
Roth watched and said nothing.
Lyra muttered, “Workshop goblin.”
“Survival goblin,” I muttered back.
Pyon blinked onto a stone near the creek and stared upstream.
…go
Roth nodded once. “We camp. Then we go.”
We found a small hollow above the ravine, sheltered by roots and stone.
Lyra started a fire with controlled heat that barely smoked, like she was spiteful at the concept of being seen.
Mina set a small ward circle with seal chalk. Not a big barrier. Just a warning ring.
Roth sat with his back to a rock and watched the creek like it might stand up and walk.
Pyon curled near the fire, ears twitching, half asleep, still vigilant.
I sat with the lockbox between my feet and stared at the flames.
The adrenaline was gone.
Now there was only exhaustion and the slow, cold weight of understanding.
Lyra broke the silence first, because of course she did.
“So,” she said, voice flat, “the academy is built on a siphon node and they’re using champions as a parade distraction.”
Roth’s voice was calm. “Likely.”
Mina’s hands tightened around her cup. “People cheering above a drain.”
Lyra poked the fire with a stick. “I hate this world.”
Mina glanced at her. “You didn’t hate it yesterday.”
Lyra snorted. “Yesterday it gave us prize money and I could pretend the rules meant safety.”
Roth said, “Rules mean control. Not safety.”
I stared at the lockbox.
“Aster knew,” I said quietly.
Lyra’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”
Mina’s voice was tired. “She knew enough.”
Roth’s gaze stayed on the dark. “She chose to help without being seen helping. That suggests she isn’t aligned with whoever is guarding the drains.”
Lyra muttered, “Or she is and she’s playing both sides.”
Mina nodded slowly. “We can’t trust her fully.”
I swallowed.
I remembered her smile.
Her star earrings.
The word cute.
My stomach did a small, unhappy flip.
“I don’t trust her,” I said quickly.
Lyra’s stare sharpened. “Good.”
Mina’s eyes softened slightly. “Good.”
Roth said, “We use her. We do not become her.”
That sentence settled into my chest like a stone.
I nodded.
“Okay,” I whispered.
The fire crackled.
The creek below pulsed faintly like a heartbeat.
I stared into the flames and pictured the wardwater cistern under the arena. The star-circle notches hidden under paint. The drain pulling uphill like a hungry throat.
Mina spoke softly, almost to herself.
“Wardwater is supposed to protect,” she said. “Someone turned protection into extraction.”
Lyra’s voice went bitter. “And everyone calls it maintenance.”
Roth’s voice stayed flat. “This is how corruption survives. It wears a badge.”
Pyon’s thought came faint, sleepy, but clear.
…upstream
Roth answered without looking at him. “Yes.”
I blinked.
Roth can still hear him on link nights.
Great.
Wonderful.
My mount has a second captain.
Lyra noticed my face and smirked. “He has two dads now.”
“Stop,” Mina whispered, but her mouth twitched.
Roth didn’t react. “Sleep. We move before dawn.”
I should have argued that dawn travel was risky.
I didn’t.
Right now, I wanted movement more than rest.
Movement feels like doing something.
Rest feels like letting the city keep bleeding.
I looked at the lockbox one more time.
It hummed.
Not a loud warning.
A steady pull.
Upstream.
And somewhere out there, beyond the ravine and the academy and the lantern-lit streets, something waited at the end of that pull.
CHAPTER 23: WARDWATER
Something that made water climb.
