The morning of the trial, Levi woke up before his alarm.
He lay still for a moment, looking at the ceiling of the guest room that had stopped feeling like a guest room weeks ago, and did a quiet inventory. Nervous — yes, a low-level current beneath everything, not unpleasant. Ready — also yes, in a way that felt earned rather than assumed. The Flux was there at its resting warmth, steady as a heartbeat, and when he reached for it experimentally it came up clean and immediate. Good.
He got dressed, strapped his mother's daggers to his belt, and went downstairs.
Sylvia was already at the table.
"You're early," he said.
"Too excited to sleep." She didn't look up from her plate. "Sit down."
He sat. They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes — the particular quiet of two people who have been through enough together that they don't need to fill space.
"Priscilla?" he asked.
"Still asleep. Probably."
Levi nodded. He'd learned his lesson about waking Priscilla. Once, three weeks ago, he'd knocked on her door at seven to check if she was joining the morning session. She'd said, in a voice approximately two octaves lower than her normal register: *Who dares disturb my slumber.* He'd had time to open his mouth before the telekinesis deposited him firmly in the corridor and closed the door.
He had not knocked on her door since.
As if summoned by the thought, Priscilla appeared in the doorway — dressed, composed, apparently fully human. "Morning," she said, and sat down and began arranging her plate with the spatial precision she applied to everything.
"How are you feeling?" Levi asked.
"Confident," said Priscilla. "The training gave me that."
"Same," said Sylvia. "Though I wish Melissa was going to be there."
A beat of quiet. The three of them sat with that for a moment.
"She trained us," Levi said. "She'll be there either way." He picked up his fork. "And we're going to make her proud whether she's watching or not."
Sylvia looked at him. Priscilla looked at him. Something passed between all three of them — not words, just the specific alignment of people who have been working toward the same thing for long enough that they understand each other without having to say much.
They finished breakfast and got ready to leave.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Olympia Military Academy had a different quality on trial day.
The same corridors, the same training fields visible through the windows — but the air was charged in a way it wasn't on ordinary days, the way arenas feel before something starts. Students were filing toward the arena in streams, voices louder than usual, the particular collective energy of people expecting to watch something worth watching.
The contestants waited in the lobby. Seven of them: the full top class, assembled for the first time with this specific purpose. Levi, Sylvia, and Priscilla found the others and joined the loose circle that had formed.
Kevin looked up. "The three amigos. Finally."
"You seem calm for someone on their fifth attempt," said Sylvia. "They say five's the charm."
Kevin's expression darkened. "Okay, listen here, you little royal pain in the—"
"Are you guys ready?" Vanessa asked, cutting across him with the serene timing of someone who had done this before.
Everyone oriented toward Vanessa. Kevin continued speaking at a volume nobody responded to.
"More than ready," said Sylvia. "We've been training for a month. Melissa Blaze ran our prep sessions."
Dwayne raised his eyebrows. "The Blazing Beast? Seriously?"
"Please don't call her that in front of me," said Sylvia.
"Why not? It's a great title."
"It's embarrassing when people say it about your mother."
Levi, Dwayne, and James all agreed simultaneously that it was a great title. Sylvia began explaining why this was wrong. Kevin, still speaking, had apparently transitioned from outrage into a detailed monologue about respect that nobody was tracking.
Priscilla touched Levi's arm. "Levi."
He turned. She was looking at the lobby entrance, her expression doing something careful and precise. He followed her gaze.
A woman in MK operational gear had just walked through the door. The gear was field-worn, the kind that had seen real deployment rather than training use. She was scanning the lobby with the automatic efficiency of someone who located threats and allies in the same motion, and when her eyes found the group she stopped scanning.
Levi was already moving.
"Melissa-sensei!"
He covered the distance faster than he'd intended to, Priscilla right behind him. Melissa opened her arms and received them both and then, a moment later, Sylvia — who had said "well, speak of the devil" and then run anyway.
The four of them stood in the lobby and Melissa held on for a moment longer than strictly necessary, and nobody commented on it.
—
"You said yesterday you weren't coming," Sylvia said, when they separated.
"There was no activity in Olympicõ last night. I took the Gate Portal at four in the morning." Melissa looked at all three of them with the expression of someone taking an inventory and being satisfied with the results. "You look different."
"Stronger," said Levi.
"Yes. That's the word." She looked at him specifically for a moment — the careful look, the one he'd filed as meaning something he didn't fully understand yet. Then she moved on. "Duration numbers?"
"Eleven minutes for me," said Levi. "Fifteen for Sylvia. Twenty-five for Priscilla."
Melissa was quiet for a moment. Not surprise — something closer to satisfaction. "Twenty-five."
"Mental stamina," said Priscilla. "Less biological resistance."
"I know how it works," Melissa said, with a slight smile. "I'm just pleased." She looked at all three of them. "Advice before you go in. Don't use your 3rd forms until the final wave. Seven waves total — the last one is where the officials make their decisions. You want them to see your ceiling, not your reserves. Save the form for when it matters most."
"How do we know when we've hit wave seven?" Levi asked.
"You'll know. The difficulty curve is significant. Waves one through five are manageable. Six starts to hurt. Seven is designed to find your limit." She held his gaze. "When you feel it — that's when you show them everything."
Levi nodded.
"Good." Melissa straightened. "I have to get to my seat. The officials will be watching from the VIP section — Colonel Ralph, Colonel Megan, Colonel Theo. They're serious people. Don't perform for them. Just fight." She looked at each of them in turn. "I'll see you after."
She walked away toward the arena. Sylvia watched her go.
"She came back," she said, quietly. Not to anyone specifically.
"She always makes a plan," said Levi.
✦ ✦ ✦
Headmaster Veronica walked into the lobby with the energy of someone who had been looking forward to this.
"Contestants. Gather up." She waited until the circle had tightened. Her gaze moved briefly to Kevin. "Unless you already know everything, Kevin, in which case feel free to stand at the back and think about why you're here for the fifth time."
Laughter from the group. Kevin made a sound of profound grievance that everyone ignored.
"The trial is a test of survival and strength," Veronica said, dropping into the direct register she used when she wanted things remembered. "Seven waves of myths, escalating class rank. Each of you gets a smartwatch — it tracks your health and magic energy in real time. When your health hits zero, you're out of the simulation. You will feel pain. That's intentional. Don't forget it in there."
She looked around the circle.
"Survive to wave six or seven. That's the baseline the officials are looking for. Go out in wave three and you're going home without a commission." A pause. "The contestant with the most kills at the end gets a prize. I'll let you decide how much that matters to you." She checked the time. "Five minutes. Prepare yourselves."
She left for the arena.
The lobby was quiet for about three seconds.
"Most kills," said Sylvia, looking at Levi.
"Most kills," said Levi.
"I'm going to win."
"You're not going to win."
"I have fire and enhancement. You have electricity and speed. I have the better kill combination."
"Speed means more kills per minute. It's a volume argument."
"You two," said Priscilla pleasantly, "are going to get yourselves killed competing with each other instead of focusing on the myths."
"No we won't," they said, at the same time.
Priscilla looked at Dwayne. Dwayne looked at Priscilla. They shared the expression of two reasonable people observing two unreasonable ones.
✦ ✦ ✦
The arena was full.
Levi stepped through the entrance tunnel and into the noise — the collective roar of several hundred people greeting the contestants, bouncing off the curved walls, filling the space with the physical pressure of anticipation. The arena floor was pale and clean under the overhead lights, waiting.
He walked out with the others and stood on the floor and looked at the crowd looking back at them.
On the big screens around the arena, their faces were projected large enough that Levi could see his own expression — calm, focused, a slight set to the jaw that he recognised from photographs of his mother before her high-profile missions. He hadn't known he was making it.
Veronica was at the microphone, working the crowd with the practiced ease of someone who had done this many times and still genuinely enjoyed it. "Ladies and gentlemen — your contestants!"
She went through the names. "Kevin Dander. Dwayne Metamus. Vanessa Aquadin. James Smyth. Sylvia Blaze. Priscilla Jefferson."
A pause before the last one. Deliberate.
"Levi Baron."
Something moved through the crowd at his name — not the loudest reaction, but a different quality. The name carried weight. He understood why. Jane Baron's son, standing on the arena floor of the kingdom where his mother had trained. He let it pass through him without holding it.
In the VIP section, three military officials sat with the attentive stillness of people whose job it was to see things clearly. Levi found them without meaning to, the way you find the people who are there to judge you. Colonel Ralph, Colonel Megan, Colonel Theo. Serious faces. Experienced eyes. He didn't look away from them, and they didn't look away from him.
He looked away first. There was work to do.
He found Melissa in the stands — civilian section, three rows up from the floor, arms folded. She wasn't performing composure. She just had it. When she caught his eye she gave him a single nod, brief and complete.
He returned it.
Beside him, Sylvia exhaled slowly through her nose — the specific breath of someone settling into readiness. On his other side, Priscilla stood two inches off the ground without appearing to notice, the silver of her 3rd form not yet activated but present somehow in the quality of her stillness.
Veronica's voice filled the arena. "Contestants — to your positions."
They spread across the floor. The crowd noise softened — not gone, but held, the collective breath of several hundred people.
Levi rolled his shoulders. Felt the daggers at his belt, warm from his mother's leather. Felt the Flux beneath his sternum, steady and ready and larger than it had been six weeks ago.
"Seven waves," he said quietly, to himself. "Wave seven. Then everything."
The arena lights shifted.
The simulation began to build around them — the floor texture changing, the walls rising, the world of the arena reassembling itself into somewhere else entirely.
Levi watched it come.
He thought about his mother's voice — *end this war, Lee. That dream you told me about by the pool. Hold onto it. It's worth holding onto.* He thought about the oak tree, its static blue leaves, the root system he couldn't see from the surface. He thought about everything the last six weeks had cost and everything they had built.
The simulation locked into place.
The first myth appeared.
Levi moved.