The handle clicked. The door swung open and Caedern slipped in as if he owned the room. Writ rose to her feet the moment he entered.

  He cast her a sidelong glance, delighted, “no hug today?”

  Her answer was flat, unbending, “no.”

  A chuckle slid out of him, “poor boy. I thought this would’ve been a touching reunion. Nine months apart. One would expect something warmer,” he paused, voice lilting with amusement, “funny thing. He might’ve let something slip. Once. Twice. Enough to catch notice. Or maybe it was nothing at all, just idle talk dressed up by eager ears.”

  The words were tossed so lightly she couldn’t catch whether they were meant as truth or trap. Yet they pressed under her ribs, where worry tried to bloom. She should have warned the team not to probe, not to ask so openly. That had been a mistake. A dangerous one.

  She lowered her voice until it was sand-flat, “is that so.”

  His grin widened, teeth flashing, “cold as ever.”

  Her pulse skittered, but nothing reached her face. Whatever Caedern thought he saw, whatever he thought he knew, she wouldn’t hand him more. Not him. Not Accord.

  He tilted his head, “I could tell you what he’s been through these past nine months.”

  Her reply came clipped, almost bored, “why would I care?”

  A lazy shrug, “hard to say. They say certain names lingered on his tongue after the mission. Yours, perhaps. Or perhaps I misheard,” he clicked his tongue, “tragic, really, if it turns out you never spared him a thought.”

  Junior. Saying her name aloud? Was this another of Caedern’s games, half-lies sharpened into bait? If Junior had been foolish, or naive enough, to let it show, then any calmness she saw in him now could be nothing but the Accord’s correction burned into him.

  Or perhaps none of it happened, and Caedern was simply stirring the pot to see what surfaced. That was his nature.

  So she shrugged, let silence stretch between them, eyes level on his as though nothing he said carried weight.

  He leaned back, satisfaction curling at the edge of his mouth, “I could also tell you what comes next for him.”

  Her tone sharpened, “and what do you imply?”

  “Oh, my. Feisty,” he laid a hand over his chest in mock concern, “I only worry about your... relationship, that’s all.”

  She mirrored him with calculated indifference, “we happened to share an objective at the same place. Nothing more.”

  “Nothing more?” His smirk cut deeper, “so no one covering for anyone else? No one bending reports?”

  “You heard him yourself,” she said, as steady as stone.

  Caedern hummed, noncommittal, eyes narrowing in assessment, “very well. Let’s just say I believe you.”

  He held her in that sharp, unblinking stare. Writ answered with a slow exhale, the picture of boredom, as though his scrutiny couldn’t touch her.

  “Tomorrow. Fourteen hundred. Tiran’s. You know the drill.”

  “Understood.”

  “Dismissed.”

  She gathered the clipboard from the table, movements measured, and turned toward the door.

  As she reached it, his voice followed, casual as a knife grazing skin, “don’t forget. You still owe me a debt. You can dissolve it by accompanying me for a session.”

  She halted. Didn’t turn, “I remember. No, thank you.”

  “Good. Sad you refuse me that much, though,” his smile was audible, “have a nice day.”

  Writ continued her steps and left the room. The corridor wasn’t empty. Eyes followed her, the kind that never missed a flicker, but she kept her gaze steady, her stride even. Clipboard tucked beneath her arm, mask intact. To the lobby, the doors, the world beyond the Accord’s walls.

  But her thoughts clung to what had been said.

  The next report would be worse. Caedern had all but promised it. They would press Junior into the frame, hold his attachment to her against him, against her. They would look for cracks, for cover, for lies. Reports were never records. They were tools. And tools always cut someone.

  And what then? For her. For Junior.

  By her feet reached the inn, her thoughts had already turned toward the report. Words she might use. Details she might trim. What to include, what to bury. As if the shape of her sentences could shield Junior from the weight of Accord’s scrutiny.

  She could only hope they wouldn’t treat him too harshly. He had grown too far, too fast, to be wasted. Surely Accord could see that. Surely.

  Unless she had already signed his sentence the moment she tried to shield them. When his nerves slipped in the pod, when she took the fault on her own shoulders.

  If that sealed his fate...

  She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to keep breathing.

  Whatever she wrote, whatever shape her sentences took, she hoped it would be enough. She wished the Accord’s eyes weren't already elsewhere, weighing outcomes she couldn’t touch.

  Maybe the choice had been made already. Maybe it was being made right now.

  And her report was only the paper trail they’d leave behind.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Shadow Accord’s POV

  [Shadow Accord Voice Relay — Secure Channel Initiated]

  Signal stabilizing...

  Participants connected: Gale (Verdict Wings), Tiran (Harbringer), Drenna (Black Quill), Caedern (Judge).

  Gale: Look, I agreed to lend him for your project, but I want to pull him out now.

  Drenna: Why would we permit that?

  Gale: Because what you’re doing goes far past what I was told. He was supposed to sit through a single judge session. That was it. No one said anything about what comes after.

  Caedern: At the time, we hadn’t decided the next stage. Now we have.

  Gale: Exactly. And that’s why I want him back before you run him through it. I won’t risk breaking him when he’s just- (he stops short) ...when he’s finally steady.

  Tiran: Find another plea. That won’t move them. Believe me, I’ve tried.

  Gale: You know how rare he is. Someone who can bridge me and Glyphfire without choking on their own nerves? They’re always buried in jargon we can’t follow. He’s one of the few who can translate that into language we can actually use. I don’t find one like him every year. I’d rather not watch that progress unravel.

  Tiran: Same. I’d rather not lose mine either. Bail her out. End it here.

  Caedern: Getting sentimental, both of you? (chuckles)

  Tiran: You’ve already tested enough. And you didn’t even manage to stay on script.

  Gale: I don’t care if you continue the project. But not with him. This project wasn’t even about him to begin with.

  Caedern: What do you say, Drenna? (mocking) They’re getting loud.

  Drenna: (long sigh) Unless one of you plans to escalate this, it stands.

  Gale: ...The Head signed off?

  Drenna: Apparently.

  Tiran: Which is why I’m even here, wasting my breath.

  Gale: He’s young. Barely graduated. Can’t you file for an exception? Just this once.

  Drenna: Not with me. If you want to plead, send it higher.

  Caedern: Good luck with that.

  Gale: (quietly) ...I should’ve never agreed.

  Tiran: Welcome to the club.

  Caedern: So we proceed?

  Drenna: Yes. And stay on script, Caedern.

  Caedern: (smirks) Can’t promise.

  Drenna: (another sigh)

  Gale: ...Then send my appeal to the Head.

  Caedern: You like him that much?

  Gale: I value what he’s become. I won’t watch it wasted.

  Caedern: You’re too soft.

  Gale: (bitter laugh) No. You just don’t understand.

  Drenna: Three days. If no appeal comes back by then, we continue.

  Caedern: Now that sounds fair.

  Gale: ...Fine.

  Tiran: Agreed.

  [Relay Terminated — Secure Channel Dissolved]

  975910 (Junior)'s POV

  Everleigh Complex, Duchy of Quorne, neighboring Brandholt City

  They’d released him back to Quorne, out from under Brandholt’s Hall of Accordance, yet it didn’t feel like release. The city’s air was thinner, the sky wider, but the walls followed him still. Every step down the street carried the weight of borrowed ground, as if the pavement might dissolve if he walked it too freely.

  They didn’t often let him out, not even into Quorne Duchy. The complex had its own perimeter, its own choke points and ident-stations. Guards at every thresholds, their presence a quiet reminder. He was permitted, not free.

  Today’s leave had been only to answer the summon, the trial of a mission that refused to stay buried. He had thought, briefly, of stopping by the market afterward, buying small trinkets for the other mates in his unit. Something to prove he had stepped beyond the gates. Something to pass the time. But the trial burned that thought out of him. His mind were too full for souvenirs.

  The Everleigh Complex loomed ahead, gates shut tight beneath the Accord’s sigil. Polished metal set into stone, gleaming in the dusk. Not Quorne’s crest. Not the old heraldry that still marked the city walls or the duke’s halls.

  It had been this way for as long as he could remember. The histories said Accord had bought the land outright more than a century ago, paying the Quorne family a sum so vast the duke of that time declared it a “business decision, nothing more.” Those words lived on in records, etched neat into the archives, still quoted by teachers and clerks as if repetition alone could make them true.

  And yet, rumors clung, they always did. How could the Accord have gathered that much wealth, that fast? Not even a decade had passed since its founding. Some said foreign gold had bankrolled it. Others, quieter still, insisted Quorne had never truly let go of the reins, that the sigil carved into the gates was only a mask.

  Junior pressed his ID stone to the ident-station and stepped inside, the scanners humming their approval. The Accord’s mark hung over his head as the gate shut behind him, sealing him back into ground the public swore no longer belonged to the duchy.

  That collar.

  He hadn’t known until today. It hadn’t been there the first time they met. Not when they dismantled the trap side by side. Not even when they’d shared silence that should have weighed heavier than words on the top of the watchtower.

  Seeing it now, metal gleaming against her throat, settled there as if it had always belonged, made his chest tighten, ache. He hated it. Hated that he had no right to tear it away, no strength to change what it meant.

  Everyone in the Complex knew what the collar meant. The word for it was whispered with the same hush as curses. A leash for rogue shadows. Too dangerous to leave loose, too valuable to discard.

  When had they locked it onto her? After Relay Nine? Had she taken the fall as the leader, even when the fault wasn’t hers?

  Fane had been too loud, arguing as if volume could make the truth stick. Reck too soft, unable to stop her as her pair. And him, too nervous, too clumsy. His hands had shaken, and the pod had bloomed early, wrong, before it was planted.

  Why had she carried all of it on her shoulders? Why hadn’t she left the blame where it belonged?

  She had spoken to him coolly, as if nothing had changed, as if chains were a weight she could carry without bending. But he had seen the drag in her breath. The exhaustion at the corners of her eyes.

  He should have said something more. Sorry. Thank you. Anything. But there had been no space for that. Not with the Judge’s eye pinning their every movement, not with mirrors hiding watchers he could not see.

  So he had chosen carefully. That question. The one off the record. The one that had lived in his mouth from the moment she walked into the room. A way to tell her Reck and Fane were alive, somewhere beyond the Bronze Concord.

  He had no idea if she thought of them. Of him. But he wanted her to know. And he knew the Accord would never tell her, just as they had told him nothing, keeping him blind.

  He had only learned because he had pushed. Because he had slipped a Glyphfire trial potion into a containers nearly identical to Gale’s usual flask. Because Gale had 'mistakenly' taken it, and the mistake had 'accidentally' forced an answer free.

  Not his fault, he’d told himself. Gale’s mistake, not his.

  Still, the truth had come through, and it had been enough to craft a hint he could slip past the Judge’s net. He only hoped his wording had been clean enough. That it hadn’t added weight to the collar around her neck.

  He thought of the judge’s robe on her shoulders. Of how the Judge’s eyes had watched her more than him. How she had questioned him, as if she were not the one whose leadership had been compromised.

  Why? Why would they let her interrogate him? What did that gain the Accord?

  He had so many questions. Too many. And not a single answer would come.

  Now, silence was all he had.

  He curled his fingers tight, pressing nails into his palms until the pressure steadied him. Breathed once. Twice. Told himself it wasn’t the end. That there would be another chance, another time, another crossing of their paths.

  And when it came, he wouldn’t waste it.

  He would tell her. He would make her understand. That he hadn’t forgotten, that he hadn’t stopped caring.

  If the Accord didn’t break them first.

  If the threads of their paths were ever permitted to cross again.