Liora Ashveil hated nobles in a clean, practiced way.
Hatred had rules. Hatred had balance. Hatred made the world easier to stand inside.
Nobles took. Commoners paid. Nobles smiled. Commoners bowed. Nobles called it tradition when blood flowed downward and called it disorder when someone dared to climb.
Cedric Valdrake had been simple once.
Cruel. Cold. Arrogant. The sort of noble boy who looked at commoners like the floor had learned to speak.
Then he ruined everything by bleeding correctly.
Liora stood alone in Training Hall Four after curfew, sword in hand, sweat cooling beneath her collar.
She remembered Cedric in the Spire.
The way he had baited the old mistake. The way he had almost invited her to strike where the game had wanted her to strike, though she did not know why she knew that. A fight had rhythm. Even when nobody said the rules aloud, the body heard them. Cedric had moved as if he knew the rhythm before the music began.
