Three months later
Eight hundred and forty merit points between them — Aren slightly ahead, Colis closing the gap methodically, in the way Colis did everything. The brass plaques on the merit board had long since left the first-year section and were climbing through territory that third-years watched with the specific discomfort of people whose position was being approached from below.
No other first-year pair had broken two hundred.
The snow fox mission was supposed to be simple.
Tracks in fresh powder. Cold air that bit through the collar. The particular silence of a forest that knew winter better than it knew anything else.
Aren noticed it first — the wrongness. Something deliberate in the way the snow had been disturbed ahead. He held up a fist and Colis stopped without a word, the way they had learned to move together over three months of shared missions.
The box sat at the base of an old pine, half-buried. No markings. No tracks leading away from it.
They approached carefully, one on each side.
Colis found the note first. Aren was still looking at the contents — gold coin packed tight, more than a hunting party had any reason to carry — when he saw Colis's expression change. That controlled face, the one that gave nothing away in sparring or in class, flickered into something Aren couldn't quite name.
Then Aren saw the motto stamped into the box's inner lid, and his stomach dropped.
He knew those words. Every member of the merchant guild's night carriers knew those words. Which meant this was a rebel supply cache. Which meant whoever had left it was connected to the network. Which meant Colis had just read the note, and Colis's uncle was the North Duke, and the North Duke served the Crown, and—
They moved at the same instant.
Aren's sword grazed Colis across the shoulder. Colis's blade opened a shallow cut along Aren's cheek — precise, deliberate, the kind of wound that said I could have done worse.
Aren fell back into Eagle Style, pulling his aura down into the blade until the edge shimmered with compressed force. Colis gave him nothing. Not a single opening. Three months of watching each other in the training yard, and now they were using everything they'd learned about the other to shut each other out.
If I lose, Aren thought, Markus said they'll execute me. And the rebellion ends before it begins.
He leapt — over Colis, targeting the exposed back — but Colis moved like cold water finding a crack. His aura bled into the air around him, and Aren felt his sword arm slow as though moving through winter mud. The kick caught him square in the stomach. He skidded two feet and hit the tree hard enough to see white.
Colis didn't stop. He slashed.
Aren moved just in time. The tree behind him split clean.
He caught Colis's next strike on the flat of his blade and drove his forehead into Colis's nose — not elegant, not Academy-approved — then reversed the hilt and cracked it against Colis's chin. Colis punched him in the jaw. Aren spun and kicked. Colis blocked it. They skidded apart, two feet of churned snow between them, both breathing hard.
Aren knew the truth of it now: in pure swordsmanship, Colis was better. Had always been better. The gap was small but it was real, and in a fight like this, small gaps were everything.
He stopped running from that truth. He let his mana core open instead.
It was not a controlled thing. Flame moved through his legs. Wind and thunder wrapped his feet. The forest went quiet in the way forests go quiet before lightning.
He moved.
Even he didn't fully understand how fast.
Colis had time to begin a word — "Wha—" — before Aren's blade opened a wound across his chest. Not deep. But real.
Colis dropped his sword.
He raised both hands.
Aren pressed the tip of his blade to Colis's throat and held it there, watching the other boy's chest rise and fall. Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Just wind, and blood, and the weight of what they had just done to each other.
"You're the one," Colis rasped.
Aren didn't move the sword. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You're going to kill me." It wasn't a question. "I've seen the magic. I've read the note. I know the network exists." A pause. "You can't let me walk away."
"No," Aren said. "I can't."
Colis closed his eyes for one breath. Then: "My uncle is also planning."
"Duke's nephew plotting against the Crown." Aren's voice was flat. "That doesn't save you."
"I'm not asking for mercy." Colis opened his eyes. "I'm asking you to listen for ten seconds. Then do whatever you're going to do."
The sword didn't move.
Ten seconds was free.
"I'm also a rebel," Colis said quietly. "I have been for longer than you know."
Aren said nothing.
"Ask me something only a carrier would know," Colis said. "Ask me anything."
A long silence. Snow fell in the space between them, indifferent.
"What hour is this?" Aren asked.
Colis met his eyes.
"Black hour."
The sword came down slowly.
Aren stood very still for a moment, processing. The merchant guild's night carriers used that phrase as a pass-signal — not written anywhere, not taught in any room, passed mouth to ear between people who had already decided to risk everything. It was not the kind of thing you guessed.
"The guild knew about you," Colis said, lowering his hands carefully. "The twin-core bearer. They said you were already committed."
"And your uncle?"
"Duke Viken." A beat. "Yes."
Aren exhaled slowly. The wound on his cheek had started to sting. "You attacked me because you thought I'd run to the Crown."
"You attacked me for the same reason."
"..." Aren looked at him. "Fair."
Colis pressed one hand to the cut on his chest, checking the depth with the clinical detachment of someone who had clearly bled before. "Earl Markus, then. He's your handler."
"Don't push it."
"I already know."
"Then you already know enough." Aren picked up Colis's sword from the snow and held it out, hilt first. "We should get the fox. Mission still needs to close."
Colis took the blade. Looked at it. Looked at Aren.
They did not shake hands. That would have been too much, too fast, too easy for something this dangerous. Instead Colis simply nodded once, and Aren nodded back, and they turned together toward the tree line.
Eight hundred and forty merit points between them.
Behind them, the cache sat in the snow — gold coin and rebel motto and the particular silence of a secret that had just doubled the number of people carrying it.
The blades that pointed at the Empire had increased by one.
And they were aimed by people who knew how to use them.
--end of chapter 13--