"Match concluded! Winner: Commander Vorian Grendell!"

  The Herald’s voice boomed across the High Terrace, though it lacked its usual ceremonial punch. It sounded thin, wet, and shaken—the voice of a man fighting a losing battle against his own gag reflex.

  VWOOM.

  The ozone snap of the Rift closing washed over me. The oppressive, violet sky of the pocket dimension vanished, replaced instantly by the manicured, offensive perfection of the Academy Garden and the soft, golden glow of mana-lights.

  I stumbled. My boots hit the pristine white marble, and my knees buckled.

  I didn't fall because of exhaustion. I fell because my brain was still screaming that my legs didn't exist.

  I gasped, my hands flying to my chest. I clawed at the Imperial White tunic, expecting to feel the wet, writhing mass of the swarm, expecting my fingers to sink into a cavity of hollowed-out flesh where my lungs used to be.

  I felt... cloth. Beneath that, solid ribs. A beating heart. Skin that was warm, unbroken, and regrettably sweaty.

  The Rift’s biological reset was absolute, but the memory wasn't. The sensation of my own jaw unhinging to dissolve into a stream of white larvae was burned into my neural pathways with the permanence of a branding iron. I shuddered, a cold sweat breaking out across my back that had nothing to do with the cool evening air.

  The silence in the Garden was heavy. There was no applause. No polite golf-claps from the aristocracy. Even the string quartet had wisely decided to stop playing. The high-born students in the Pit were staring at me and the dark corner of the balcony with expressions ranging from pale horror to open nausea.

  They loved violence. They loved blood. But they did not love that.

  "Murphy!"

  The shout broke the paralysis. My squad was sprinting across the open floor of the terrace.

  Grace reached me first. Her face was flushed, her eyes wide and frantic. She didn't look impressed; she looked like she had just watched a ghost walk out of a grave and offer to fix her toaster.

  "Murphy!" she gasped, reaching out to grab my shoulders. Her grip was tight, desperate, as if she needed to confirm I was actually solid and not a pile of worms in a trench coat.

  "I am intact," I rasped, my voice sounding like gravel in a blender. "The Rift reset the—"

  HURK.

  Finn didn't make it to me. He stopped three feet away, took one look at my face, and doubled over.

  He vomited violently into a pristine, ornamental bush shaped like a gryphon. The sound was wet and loud in the stunned silence of the terrace.

  "Oh gods," Finn choked out, wiping his mouth with the back of his purple velvet sleeve. He didn't look at me; he stared fixedly at the expensive marble. "That... that was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. I watched them eat your face, Murphy. I saw your... I saw your insides turn into outsides."

  He retched again, dry heaving. "I am never closing my eyes again. Every time I blink, I see the larvae."

  "Dreaming about worms wearing my face is going to be the least of my problems," I said, looking at my hands. They were trembling slightly. A lingering tremor from the nerve damage I no longer had.

  Grace shook me, hard.

  "Stop it!" she hissed, her voice trembling with a mix of relief and furious anger. "Why did you agree to that?! You knew what he was! You let him turn you into... into that for a gamble?"

  "It was a calculated risk," I said, gently reaching up to remove her hands from my shoulders. My grip was firm, but I made sure not to squeeze. "I needed to prove we were worth the investment."

  "Worth the investment?" Grace stepped back, looking at me as if I were a stranger. "You were eaten alive! You lost! He turned you into a suit of meat and wore you like a winter coat! What part of that was a win?"

  I straightened my tunic, smoothing out the Sunstrider crest. I felt the phantom itch of the ichor on my wrist—the ghost of the amputation—but I forced my hands to drop to my sides.

  "None of it," I admitted, my voice dropping to the cold, flat register of a Commander accepting a rout. "I calculated the odds. I pushed the engagement. And I lost."

  I looked up at the balcony. Vorian was back in his dark corner, meticulously cleaning his hands with a fresh silk cloth, ignoring the terrified stares of the other Commanders.

  "The terms were absolute," I said quietly. "Resignation. Expulsion. I have to leave the Academy tonight."

  "What?" Finn looked up, his face pale and streaked with sweat. "You... you're leaving? Because of the bet?"

  "A deal is a deal," I said, turning to face the podium where Professor Vex stood.

  The old man was practically vibrating. He stood near the railing, clutching his clipboard to his chest like a shield against competence. He was beaming. In his mind, the trap was perfect. He had finally seen the pest exterminated.

  Up on the balcony, the celebration I expected never came.

  Commander Vorian didn't stand up. He didn't gloat. He didn't even acknowledge the victory that had just cemented his reputation as the Academy's nightmare.

  He sat slumped in his chair, staring at his own hands with a familiar, obsessive intensity. He reached into his robes, produced a fresh, snow-white silk cloth, and began to scrub his fingers again.

  "Commander Vorian," the Herald announced, his voice regaining some of its professional detachment as the shock wore off. "Having sold your rights in the first Draft Rounds... you must now fill your entire squad roster in the final Open Selection phase."

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  I watched Vex. The anticipation on his face was nauseating.

  Vorian stopped scrubbing.

  He didn't speak. He simply reached into the deep folds of his grey wool robes and produced a single, crisp piece of parchment. He took out a pen and quickly wrote the names of his selections.

  A server boy, terrified and shaking, approached the table. He took the paper gingerly, careful not to make skin contact with the Commander—lest he catch the rot—and ran it down the stairs to the Herald.

  Vex leaned over the railing, his smile widening.

  The Herald unfolded the parchment. He paused. He squinted at the writing, then looked up at Vorian, then back down at the paper. His brow furrowed in genuine confusion.

  "Commander Vorian selects for his Lieutenant..." the Herald began, his voice wavering slightly.

  He cleared his throat.

  "Cadet Murphy Sunstrider."

  The silence that followed was louder than the explosion in the Rift.

  Vex’s smile didn't fade; it shattered. He dropped his clipboard. It hit the stone railing with a sharp CLACK and tumbled into the Pit, shattering on the marble floor below.

  "What?" Finn choked out, wiping a string of bile from his chin. He looked at me, then up at the Herald. "Did he say...?"

  The Herald wasn't done. He continued reading from the list, his voice echoing in the dead air.

  "Squad Roster: Grace of House Voss. Vespera of House Wintermoon, Finn Sylas, Pippa of The Vales, Kael of the Iron-Reach..."

  He read the names of every single member of the "Slag Squad." The students Vex had tried to bury.

  "Selection confirmed," the Herald finished, rolling up the parchment. "Squad 13 is... drafted."

  Finn let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "We're in?"

  Grace stopped glaring at me. Her mouth fell open. She looked from the balcony at me, her anger replaced by pure, unadulterated shock.

  "He drafted us," she whispered. "After... that?"

  I stood there, staring up at the dark corner. Vorian hadn't moved. He was still scrubbing his hands, his face hidden in the shadows of his cowl. He had just saved us. He had just defied the entire political machine of the Academy to pick the one squad everyone wanted dead.

  And I had absolutely no idea why.

  "The High Commander Draft is concluded!" The Herald slammed his staff down. "Commanders, please vacate the High Seats. The Strike Commanders will now enter for the secondary draft."

  The spell broke. The garden erupted into low, frantic whispers. The aristocracy was reeling. The "Maggot Commander" had picked the "Ghost Squad." It was a scandal. It was a disaster. It was perfect.

  I didn't wait for the applause that wouldn't come.

  "Where are you going?" Grace asked, still looking shell-shocked.

  "To get an explanation."

  I turned and walked toward the exit corridor.

  I wasn't the only one moving. The High Commanders were descending the stairs.

  Titus Thorne brushed past me, his golden armour clinking. He didn't stop, but he leaned in close, his voice dripping with venom.

  "Fitting," he laughed. "The trash goes to the garbage heap. Enjoy the smell of death, Sunstrider. It suits you."

  I ignored him. I ignored Lysander, who looked furious that he had been denied the pleasure of ending my career himself.

  I pushed through the crowd, stepping into the wide, vaulted marble corridor that led out of the Garden. It was empty, save for one massive, shambling figure moving slowly toward the shadows.

  "Commander!"

  I didn't shout, but my voice carried down the hall with the weight of command.

  Vorian stopped. He didn't turn around immediately. He stood there, a mountain of tattered grey wool and the heavy, cloying scent of lilies masking the smell of wet earth.

  I walked up to him, stopping ten paces away. A respectful distance. A safe distance.

  "I lost," I stated, my voice echoing off the cold stone. "The terms were resignation. You wanted me gone. Why did you draft me?"

  Vorian slowly turned. His milky eyes bore into mine. Up close, without the distortion of the Rift, the stitches holding his face together looked even more crude. The black wire pulled his skin tight, giving him a permanent, ghastly grimace.

  "The duel wasn't about the contract. It was an interview."

  I frowned. "An interview?"

  "I do not need a duelist," Vorian rasped. "I am the strongest thing in this Spire. If I wanted to kill something, I would do it myself. I do not need a student who can swing a sword."

  He took a step closer, the smell of decay rolling off him in waves.

  "I needed a leader with character," he said. "Most people? When they feel the rot... when they feel the squalor touching them... they panic. They freeze. They beg."

  He pointed a gloved finger at my right wrist.

  "You? You felt the worms entering your system. You didn't panic. You cut off your own hand to keep fighting. Do you realise how rare that is in one so young?"

  A strange, bubbling sound erupted from his throat—a laugh.

  "But even that is not why I chose you."

  He lowered his hand, his milky eyes narrowing as he leaned closer.

  "I watched you after the worms took you, Sunstrider. I watched you stand in the Garden. You lost everything. The bet. Your future... And yet... you did not whine. You did not scream that I cheated. You did not beg for mercy."

  Vorian’s voice dropped to a low, wet rumble.

  "You would have honoured our deal no matter what. In a Spire built entirely on lies and corrupted pawns, you are the only one who tried to keep his word."

  He straightened up, adjusting his heavy grey cowl.

  "I needed a man who understands that a promise is heavier than gold. That is a rare currency, little bird. Rarer than the Ciphers."

  "The deal stands," Vorian rumbled, turning back to the darkness of the hallway. "We go to the Mist Valley. You handle your own logistics. You clear my path. If we win the Prime, I keep the points to buy my cure."

  He paused, looking back over his shoulder.

  "And you keep the Ciphers."

  I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. We were in. The path to the vault was open.

  "Understood, Commander," I said, straightening my back. "We will be ready."

  Vorian nodded once. He began to walk away, his heavy robes trailing on the pristine floor.

  "Good," he wheezed. "Just do not expect me to shake on it. I know where that hand has been."

  I watched the massive, grey figure of Commander Vorian disappear into the gloom of the corridor. The smell of funeral lilies lingered in the air, a sickly-sweet reminder of the bargain I had just struck.

  I turned back to the light.

  The transition was jarring. Behind me lay the silence of the hallway and the echo of a death threat. Ahead of me, the Garden had already moved on.

  The High Commanders—Titus, Isolde, Malakor, and Vorian—had departed. In their place, the "Strike Commanders" were filing in.

  These were the second-tier officers, the ones who commanded perimeter patrols and logistics trains rather than deep-insertion Rift assaults. They wore silver instead of gold, and their movements lacked the predatory grace of the monsters who had just left.

  The band had started playing again. A lively, string-heavy waltz floated through the air, trying desperately to scrub the memory of my vivisection from the minds of the students.

  It was working. The aristocracy had the attention span of a goldfish. They were already drinking wine, laughing, and posturing for the secondary draft, their horror forgotten the moment the blood was cleaned off the marble.

  I found my squad near the edge of the terrace, huddled near a statue of a weeping angel.

  There was a visible gap around them. A ten-foot radius of empty space where no other student dared to tread. When a group of laughing nobles walked too close, they swerved violently to avoid brushing against Finn’s sleeve, wrinkling their noses as if the rot was contagious.

  "We are popular," I noted, stepping into the circle.

  Finn jumped, nearly knocking over the statue. He looked at me, his face still pale and greenish in the mana-light.

  "You're back," Finn breathed. He looked at my chest, then quickly averted his eyes.

  "We did it," I said dryly.

  Grace crossed her arms. She looked exhausted, her earlier fury replaced by a cold, hard realisation of our reality.

  "At what cost?" She gestured to the empty space around us. "Look at them, Murphy. They’re terrified of us. We aren't just the 'Failing Squad' anymore. I heard what they’re calling us."

  The name was floating through the room, whispered behind fans and glasses of wine.

  Vorian’s Carrion Eaters.

  I looked at the squad. A neurotic wind mage, a disgraced engineer, a pacifist berserker, a terrified healer, and a defector. And leading them, a man who had just been publicly eaten by maggots.

  "Let them talk," I said, adjusting the cuffs of my uniform. "Terror is a form of respect. Besides, we didn't come here to be popular."

  I looked toward the dark mountains in the distance, where the Mist Valley waited.

  "We came here to win."