Thursday.
The Palladium's schedule ran on a loop: theory Mondays and Wednesdays, practical assessments and combat duels Tuesdays and Fridays. Thursdays were the only full day set aside for training—no lectures, no scoreboards, just halls full of students trying to sharpen their edges before the next round of matches.
Weekends were technically free, though most students spent them in the main halls, grinding Merits, showing off, and making sure everyone remembered their names.
Alex was not in the main halls.
The training facility on the eastern edge wasn't even officially named. Students called it the Quiet Room or the Shame Cage, depending on who you asked. It had old equipment, flickering sensors, and exactly zero audience capacity. Perfect for people who couldn't afford to be seen failing.
Alex had been here for thirty minutes.
He stood in front of a practice dummy—standard Osserian design, a humanoid frame of reinforced polymer with a crystalline core that absorbed and measured impact force. The target zone glowed faintly orange where his strikes had landed.
Which wasn't many.
He raised his hand again. Focused. Drew on his Core. Apothecary Arts. Fire. Basic combustion. The kind of thing Blue Marks learned before puberty.
Pale orange flickered across his palm. Guttered. Died.
Come on.
He tried again. The flame caught—barely—and he hurled it at the dummy. It sputtered across the target zone like a wet match. The dummy's display flickered.
DAMAGE: 4/100
Alex lowered his arm. His breathing was heavy. His palm stung.
Four. Out of a hundred.
He'd been at this for half an hour. His best hit was a seven, his average was hovering around three.
Four months, he thought. Four months of this. Four months of waking up, training, failing, eating, sleeping, repeating. And the number still won't move.
He kicked the base of the dummy. It didn't even wobble.
"Fuck this."
The words hung in the empty air. No one around to hear them, except—
He turned.
Veronica was sitting on a bench against the wall. Tablet in hand. Eyes on the screen. Had she been there the whole time? Since when? He hadn't heard the door open. He hadn't heard anything.
Her black hair pooled over one shoulder. No uniform today—just a simple sweater, dark pants, the kind of outfit a normal student might wear to a casual Thursday. It didn't help, she still looked like she'd stepped out of a portrait and couldn't find her way back. Her expression gave away exactly nothing.
Was she watching before? Was she just bored and scrolling? With her, you could never tell.
Alex's chest tightened. He ignored it.
"You don't actually have to be here, you know."
She looked up slowly, those red eyes finding him like they'd known where he was the whole time.
Then she stood.
It was just standing, nothing dramatic, but Alex's breath caught anyway.
She walked over, hands behind her back, steps unhurried, like the training hall was hers and he was just occupying it temporarily.
She stopped next to him, then looked at the dummy's display.
DAMAGE: 4/100
[Curiosity: 31% → 36% ↑]
[Cognitive Engagement: 14% → 16% ↑]
"Four," she said.
Alex rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. I saw."
"Out of a hundred."
"That's generally how scores work, yes."
She looked at him. Just... looked. Her expression unchanged. "That's very low."
"Wow. Thanks. I hadn't noticed. Here I was thinking four out of a hundred was basically a passing grade."
She looked at the dummy's display again. Then at his hand. Then back at his face.
She paused, like she was deciding something.
[Curiosity: 36% → 49% ↑]
"Let me see your most useful weapon."
Alex blinked. "Huh?"
"Your weapon." She gestured vaguely at him. "The thing you'd use if you actually had to fight someone who wasn't a practice dummy. Show me."
Alex stared at her for a second. "You mean my Artifice."
"Sure. That."
He took a breath, held it, let it out, then he reached for his Core.
Artifice was different from Arcanum or Apothecary. It wasn't about forging your body or hurling energy—it was about pulling something out. A construct stored in the metaphysical armory of your soul, waiting to be manifested.
Alex had spent four months learning to use one.
Just one.
The air in front of him shimmered, bent, then solidified.
A pole axe appeared.
Seven feet of haft, dark metal with a faint black sheen. A single blade curving from the top, wicked sharp, designed for reach and leverage. It hung in the air for a moment, then his hand closed around it.
He looked at her. She was staring at the weapon.
Then she blinked once. "...That's it?"
Alex's grip tightened on the haft. "It's a pole axe."
"I can see that."
[Amusement: 4% → 3% ↓]
"It's—" He searched for the word. "Functional."
She looked from the weapon to his face, then back to the weapon. "Hm."
[Boredom: 80% → 82% ↑]
Alex opened his mouth to say something—probably something defensive, probably something stupid—when the door slid open behind him.
He turned.
A girl stood in the doorway.
Blue dress. Blonde hair pulled back. Young—first-year student—with the kind of face that looked like it was still deciding what expression to wear. Her hand was frozen on the door frame, like she'd walked in and immediately regretted it.
Anastasia Collins.
One of three Black Marks admitted this year. Same intake as Alex. Same Equity Clause slot. Same invisible status.
The girl who'd looked away first during his duel with Marcus.
Her eyes went from Alex to the pole axe in his hand to Veronica standing next to him. The new Gold Mark. The one who'd sat in the empty seat. The one everyone was talking about. Now standing close to Alex, like it was normal.
Anastasia's expression flickered. Just once.
"Uhm." Her voice came out smaller than she probably wanted. "I... wanted to train. Thought it was empty." She took a half-step back. "I'll—I'll just come back some other time—"
Alex held up a hand. The pole axe dissolved into light, fading back into his Core. "It's fine. I'm done already."
She looked at him. Then at Veronica. Then back at him. Then she nodded.
Alex wiped his palm on his pant leg, trying to look like someone who hadn't just scored four out of a hundred on a practice dummy.
"Anastasia, right?"
Another nod. Smaller this time.
"Yeah. That's me."
She didn't add anything. Didn't ask how he knew her name. Didn't make eye contact for longer than a second.
Alex waited. Nothing.
Right, he thought. Same as always. Bounty on my head. Metaphorical target. No one wants to get close.
His face did something. He didn't know what. A flicker, maybe. A tightening around the jaw. Something that said 'I understand and it's fine and it's not fine but what are you going to do' all at once.
"Got it," he muttered.
Alex turned, and started walking toward the door. Behind him, Ana spoke but it was so quiet he missed it: "That's not—"
He kept walking.
Veronica followed. Not because she wanted to—probably not—but because Clause Four didn't care about awkward training hall encounters. Or maybe she actually wanted to follow. We'll never know.
The door slid shut behind them.
Anastasia stood alone in the empty room, staring at the spot where Alex had been standing.
The dummy's display still read DAMAGE: 4/100.
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