Exercise One ended without a winner.
No winner meant no one could stop fighting over the meaning.
A trophy would have been simpler. Gold Hall could polish it. Piety could moralize around it. Obsidian could resent it. Team Seven could refuse it until refusal became its own unbearable reputation. Instead, the board left everyone holding different pieces of success and failure.
That was more honest.
Dangerous too.
Unfinished outcomes attracted narratives the way blood attracted monsters.
That was the only honest result.
Naturally, the academy tried to score it anyway.
