Meridian looked less like a city than a challenge issued to the sky: black spires stabbing up through a quilt of morning fog, mirrored walls still wet with last night's sleet, every surface insisting it would never be softened by the warmth of human hands.

Soren's boots sucked at the ice-glazed ruts, archipelagos of refuse swirling around his ankles, the city's greeting committee, all rot and chemical perfume. Somewhere above, a bell tolled, each note longer and more exhausted than the last, as if even time itself was waiting for a shift change.

He kept his sword sheathed under the coat, hand never straying far from the grip. Behind him, Rehn shuffled, wrists bound but mouth already resuming its slow-motion victory lap. "Welcome home," Rehn said, tongue tasting blood at the corner of his mouth, "You made good test subjects."

Soren said nothing, but he caught Kale's unease in the way the boy's head dipped with each step, as if expecting the formal walk of the condemned. Lira and Liane flanked the rear, eyes darting from alley to alley, blue hair dulled by a week of river water and hard luck. Seren moved up beside him, stride even, the only one of the lot who didn't look ready to bolt at the first sign of a rescue gone wrong.

Lethren walked ahead, cloak now ashy from the road, her boots unmarked by mud or mistake, like she'd never been anywhere but at the head of a procession. Seren muttered, "If she makes it inside, she wins."

Soren weighed the odds; the city itself felt like a trap, every window blank as a closed casket, every rooftop a potential gun nest. "Then we change the rules," he said, quiet enough for only Seren and the ghosts of his past decisions to hear.

The checkpoint was not a gate but a prefab station, all resin panels and etched runes, Aetherion's sigil blinking blue above the slot where the guards punched their time. The officers on duty were not soldiers, but the kind of administrative muscle that made you wish for the honesty of a mercenary's blade. They wore pressed uniforms and perfect expressions, each one a portrait of polite detachment. Soren saw the insignia on the lead's shoulder, Cirel's division, unmistakable in its arrogance.

"Escort 7-B, report concluded," the officer said, not looking up from his tablet. The words landed with the same finality as a chalk smear on a ledger. "Present client and asset inventory."

Kale's hands shook as he fumbled the roll call. Lira swore under her breath. Rehn smirked with half his face, the other half already swelling from the last altercation.

Lethren stepped forward, produced a seal from her sleeve, and held it at eye level. The officer's posture changed: he bowed, precise and shallow, to her—not to the battered cohort behind. Lethren didn't return the gesture, only placed the seal on the table and waited.

Soren watched the interplay, the choreography of power. He'd thought their job was to deliver her intact, but now, with the city watching and the checkpoint making no note of the squad's existence, he understood: they were never the assignment. They were the measure. And Lethren was the one holding the red pen.

He leaned in, just enough to put voice to the itch in his skull. "That's it, then."

The officer looked up, studied Soren's face as if weighing the contents of a canteen he'd rather not drink from. "You are dismissed, effective immediately. Proceed to debrief. If you require medical, station two is equipped."

Rehn laughed and spat blood onto the resin tiles. "Told you," he said, "You don't even rate a footnote. See you on the next syllabus, if you live that long."

Soren nearly broke knuckle on the boy's jaw, but settled for the more basic violence of cutting Rehn's binds with a single flick. "Get lost," he said. Rehn, ever the professional, grinned with all the teeth he had left and vanished into the city.

Lira waited until the echo of the boots faded, then let out a low, incredulous whistle. "That's it? We get benched by a paper pusher?"

Kale looked at Soren, eyes glassy with the hunger and the letdown. "What now?"

Soren shrugged, the gesture landing heavier than he intended. "We get the story straight. Then we see if the Academy wants us, or just our bodies."

Lethren lingered at the checkpoint, watching it all unfold. For a moment, Soren thought she'd say something, offer a word, a warning, maybe even thanks. But all she did was lift the seal, slide it back into her sleeve, and walk away with the certainty of someone who knew the outcome before the first move was played.

Seren clapped Soren on the shoulder, light but not mocking. "You did what you came to do."

Soren looked at his own hands, raw and cracked, the blade's memory still vibrating in the muscle. "Not yet," he said, and followed the rest into Meridian, the city already closing over their heads, as if to erase the fact they had ever made it this far at all.

Debrief was a windowless room, the kind that could double as a panic cell if the meeting went off-script. Soren sat at the head of the table, the rest of the squad filling in as if afraid to leave empty chairs for the ghosts. The table was glass, the walls a shade of blue that made everyone's skin look one step closer to hypothermia.

A woman from the Academy, gray suit, hair in a coil, face like a coin that never landed heads-up, ran the session. She didn't introduce herself, just asked for the account, eyes lasering into the scratchpad as if the words would catch fire on contact.

Soren told the story straight: the route, the ambush, the pass, Jannek's death, the runner from the Spire. He omitted the part where he'd almost let Rehn bleed out on the rocks, or how much he'd enjoyed the moment when Lethren finally looked uncertain. The woman asked three questions: Who shot first? Was the Lady ever in mortal danger? Did you at any point consider abandoning the contract?

Soren answered them all, and then waited.

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