The Silver qualifier did not begin with a blade.
Support variables were not supposed to be evaluated. They were supposed to vanish before the score mattered.
That was how I knew Malcris had touched it.
Violence was honest. A sword announced what it wanted. A spell declared intention through light, heat, pressure, or the sudden inconvenience of shattered bones. Even poison had the decency to enter the body eventually.
Procedure was worse.
Procedure smiled.
A new platform rose from the Spire floor after my duel with Marcell Rovain, unfolding in clean black panels marked with seven circles of light. Six burned blue. One burned gray.
Ren looked at the gray circle and forgot how to breathe.
A servant did not need training to recognize where he had been placed.
At the center of the platform, a waist-high crystal pillar appeared. Inside it floated a small silver token shaped like a ladder rung. The symbol for provisional rank advancement.
