Holden found himself at the clinic. He was sitting on the edge of a bed with his shirt pulled up while a nurse pressed two fingers along his left side, checking for broken ribs.
"Breathe in," the nurse said.
He breathed in.
"Do you feel any pain?"
"A little." he said.
"Does it hurt like ow or does it hurt like something is wrong with me? "
Holden considered. "First one."
"Good." The nurse made a note and moved to the next spot. "You're going to be purple tomorrow. But you are fine, okay?."
"Great."
"You fought a Shadow Jaguar."
"Mm."
"You're seventeen."
"People keep saying that." Holden said.
The nurse stared at him, looking so confused. Then she went back to her notes without saying anything else.
The VIP box overlooked the arena from the north side of the building, accessible only through a corridor that required a key given out by senior staff.
Holden had never been up there and had no reason to think about it.
He thought about it now, because he had noticed her.
She had been standing on the far left side of the box during the end of the fight.
She was tall and dark-haired. Though he'd only seen her face for a moment, through the cage bars. She hadn't even been watching the Jaguar. Instead, her eyes were fixed on the way he held his sword.
He didn't know who she was, so he just focused on breathing slowly while the nurse finished her work.
They left him alone eventually.
One nurse remained at the desk near the door, filling out a form and a second had gone to find him something for the bruises.
A curtain was half-drawn around his bed. It didn't give him much privacy but it was enough for him.
He lay back on the bed and let the system screen come into focus above him.
[Unclaimed Rewards: 2]
The chests had followed him. They floated patiently at the corner of his vision. The bronze one from the Gore-Boar, and the other one from the Jaguar.
He sat up carefully and reached for the bronze chest first.
The latch opened. The lid swung up on its own.
Inside, arranged in neat rows, were Vanguard Credits.
There were gold cards that the academy issued as internal currency, each one worth more than a week's food budget in the Village Quarter. He counted them twice because the first count seemed wrong.
There were twenty of them.
He sat with that for a moment. Twenty Vanguard Credits. In a chest that had come from a Rank 1 Gore-Boar.
He closed the bronze chest carefully, set it on his knee, and reached for the second one.
This latch was different. It wasn't harder to open, it just had a trick to it. The way some doors require you to push slightly before they pull.
He applied the right pressure and it opened.
Inside, sitting on a dark foam, was an Aether Core.
He knew what it was from the same district library where he'd read about Gore-Boars.
It was roughly the size of a tennis ball. Deep blue-green in color and it pulsed slowly with a light coming from its center.
An Aether Core was, in the simplest terms, a battery. A very dense battery, made from condensed ambient energy. Usually, it takes years of hard training to build up this energy in your body. But using just one Aether Core could save you months of work..
The nurse near the door sneezed.
Holden closed the chest.
Behind the curtain, Holden sat on the bed with his rewards: twenty credits and an Aether Core. He knew he shouldn't have gotten something this valuable from an exam beast. The world was usually very mean to him, so this felt strange. He looked at the items and thought about Maeve.
He thought about Maeve standing at the shelf that morning, looking at half a stale roll, and eating it alone while he was here.
Twenty Vanguard Credits.
He could finally get her a thick coat for the winter. He could buy her real food instead of the stale bread and cheap scraps he usually found at the end of the day.
He rubbed his face with his hands and sat in silence for a moment.
"You need anything?" The nurse from the desk had appeared at the curtain, holding a cold compress.
"No," Holden said. "Thank you."
The nurse gave him the compress anyway, for the bruising on his left arm.
He accepted it without argument.
"The examiner wants you in the results hall when you're cleared," the nurse said. "No rush. Whenever you're ready."
"How long do I have?"
"An hour. Maybe more." she paused.
"They're still figuring out what to put on the official forms."
He looked up.
"Apparently the section for Shadow Jaguar encounters has never been filled out for an unranked recruit before." she paused again. "Or a ranked one, actually. At any level.
They're checking."
She went back to her desk.
Holden pressed the cold compress to his arm.
Outside the clinic, the academy grounds were noisy with voices and movement. The crowd from the exam was starting to leave, and the arena was being cleaned up.
It had been one morning since he'd left Maeve a note and left for this exam.
He stood up.
He felt pain all around his body.
He kept the chests and straightened up.
He was going to pass this exam, collect whatever they gave him, and then he was going to walk back to the village Quarter and fix the list.
He was almost at the curtain when he felt something. He just suddenly knew that someone in the building was watching him. They were waiting patiently, and he could tell they were going to talk to him
It wasn't anyone in this room.
He didn't know how he knew. He just did.
He kept the thought for later and walked past the curtain.