The man arrived without announcement.
No house affiliation. No institutional introduction. No letter of reference, no Academy enrollment, no military transfer documentation. He walked into Ashenveil through the eastern gate on an Ironday morning — a tall Human, mid-twenties, carrying a single sword and a canvas bag — and presented himself at the War College's admissions office with a request so unusual that the clerk sent it up the chain of command through three levels of military bureaucracy before someone with sufficient authority agreed to address it.
"I want to fight the best person here," Kael Verenthis said.
