Aren did not have time to think.
The far terrace was on the other side of the pit.
If he went down, Vivienne would see him.
If he went straight across the top, along the edge of the pit, he would be in the moonlight for half the way.
The only path that stayed in shadow was the long one, all the way around the rim, behind the broken blocks of stone and the old ladders.
It would take him a minute, maybe more.
Down in the pit, the Quarry Warden’s fist came down.
Vivienne was not there when it landed.
She moved sideways like a strip of cloth in the wind, and the fist smashed into the stone where she had been, throwing up a cloud of pale dust.
Silver crescents flew out of the dust, twenty of them, and struck the giant across the chest.
They cut deep red lines into its body.
It did not stop.
Aren ran.
He kept low, behind the blocks, and moved faster than he had ever moved in either of his lives.
The cores he had absorbed burned in his legs.
Stone scraped his hands.
Below him, the fight went on, a storm of silver light and grinding rock.
Every few seconds, the whole pit shook.
He reached the far terrace from above and behind, and stopped on a ledge just over the three men in dark coats.
They had not seen him.
They were watching the fight, crossbows resting on the fallen block in front of them, bolts loaded.
The bolts had black heads.
Aren did not know much about weapons in this world, but he knew what a black head meant.
It meant something strong enough to stop a Rank E monster in one shot.
Or to make sure the whole Academy knew that House Holt had stepped in at the last moment.
Behind them, Darius stood with his arms crossed, watching.
“Wait for it,” Darius said quietly.
“Wait until she’s down.
Then all three, at the head.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Aren looked at the three men.
He had never killed anyone in this life.
In his first life, he had killed one man, a partner named Grant, with a car and a wet road and a long, careful lie afterward.
He had never felt bad about it.
That had been the problem with him back then.
He thought about the black bolts aimed at Vivienne’s back, and found that he did not feel bad now either.
He dropped down onto the first man.
It was fast and ugly and nothing like the stories.
His knife went into the side of the first man’s neck while he was still falling, and they hit the stone together.
The man made a wet, surprised sound.
The crossbow fell out of his hands and clattered down the terrace.
The second man turned, his face white in the moonlight, and saw a shape in a grey cloak with a strip of cloth across its face.
His eyes went strange and unfocused.
He swung his crossbow around.
Aren grabbed the end of it and pushed, hard, and the man stumbled backward one step, then another, off the edge of the terrace and into the dark canyon below.
He did not even scream.
There was only a long silence and then a sound like a sack hitting the ground very far away.
The third man fired.
The black bolt passed so close to Aren’s head that he felt the wind of it.
It struck the stone wall behind him and buried itself to the feathers.
The man was already fumbling for another bolt.
Aren closed the distance in two steps and put the knife into him under the ribs, twice, and held him while he slid down.
Then it was quiet on the terrace, except for the sounds of the fight below and his own hard breathing.
Darius had not moved.
He was standing with his sword half drawn, staring at the grey shape in front of him, and his face was the face of a boy who had just found out that ghosts were real.
“You,” Darius said.
His voice shook.
“You’re the Rag.”
Aren said nothing.
Down in the pit, the Warden roared.
Vivienne was still fighting.
Nobody had fired.
That was enough.
All he had to do now was leave, and let Darius go home with a story he could never tell anyone without explaining why he had been there.
He turned toward the shadows.
Darius came at him.
He did not use his sword.
Perhaps he was too frightened to think of it.
He lunged forward with his empty hand and grabbed at the cloth across Aren’s face, his fingers digging in, and for a single second the back of his hand pressed against the bare skin of Aren’s cheek.
Aren felt the System break.
It was like a window shattering inside his head.
The slippery second skin that had covered him all night was suddenly gone.
He was just himself again, standing in the moonlight with a strip of cloth half torn off his face.
Darius stared at him.
He stared for a long time.
Then the fear went out of his face.
“Zero?”
Darius started to laugh.
It was a high, shaky laugh, the laugh of someone who had been terrified a moment ago and had just found out the monster was a mouse.
“The servant,” he said.
“The servant.
The thief from the gutter who carries my practice swords.” He took a step back, still laughing, and drew his sword the rest of the way.
“Oh, this is wonderful.
Do you know what my father will do when I tell him?
Do you know what the Ashgraves will do when they hear the Rag is a commoner thief who sneaks out of the dormitory at night to follow their daughter?”
“Darius,” Aren said quietly.
“Lord Holt, to you.” Darius pointed the sword at him.
It was steady now.
He was A-grade, and he was Level 5, and he had been training with a sword since he could walk.
“Kneel.
Kneel the way a servant should, and maybe I’ll let you live long enough to be hanged.”
Aren did not kneel.
He looked at Darius, and at the sword, and at the edge of the terrace behind Darius’s heels.
Darius would walk out of this Rift and talk.
Then the Ashgraves would come for the thief who had been following their daughter, and after him for Nell, and for Mira, because she had stood up for him in front of the whole Academy.
He did the math.
It was very short.
Darius Holt was a bad investment.
Darius raised his sword and stepped forward.
Aren looked down at the pale stone under Darius’s front foot, at the old, cracked edge of the terrace, and thought one word.
Zero.
For one second, the stone under Darius’s feet had no hardness at all.
It was not stone anymore.
It was dust, and air, and nothing.
Darius stepped forward onto nothing and kept going.
He did not even understand what had happened.
Aren saw it in his face as he fell, the pure surprise, the open mouth, the sword still raised for a cut that would never land.
Then he was gone over the edge, down into the black canyon below the terrace, and the only sound was the sword ringing once against the rocks on the way down.
At the same moment, Aren’s own body went soft as paper.
He did not move.
He stood perfectly still on the solid part of the ledge with his arms at his sides and did not breathe, and the second passed, and nothing touched him.
Then it was over, and he was alone on the terrace with three dead men and a hole in the edge of the stone.
[Darius Holt is no longer within range.]
[Hostility record closed.]
It was such a small message.
Aren read it and felt very cold.
Down in the pit, the fight was ending.
He crouched behind the fallen block and watched the last of it, because he could not make himself leave until it was done.
The Quarry Warden was on one knee now.
Long red cuts covered its whole body, and the red light inside it was flickering.
Vivienne stood in front of it, her armor cracked, blood on her face, her silver braid come loose and falling over one shoulder.
She was breathing hard.
She was alone.
Nobody had shot anything.
Nobody had helped.
She lifted her sword toward the moon.
The moonlight came down into the pit like water pouring into a bowl.
It gathered on her blade until the whole sword was shining, until she was shining, until it hurt to look at her.
Then she swept it down, and a single crescent left the blade, as wide as the pit itself.
It cut the Quarry Warden in half from its head to the ground.
The two halves fell apart slowly, and the red light went out.
Vivienne stood in the white silence afterward, swaying a little on her feet.
Then she put her free hand against the cracked stone of the giant’s chest and pulled out a core the size of a fist, burning red.
She absorbed it.
Silver light rose from her body in a column straight up into the black sky.
[Primary Anchor has completed her Trial.]
[Vivienne Ashgrave: Rank F → Rank E.]
[Source: Investment recorded.
Hidden aid.
Trial protected.]
[Mirror Return triggered.]
The small wheel appeared in the dark beside him.
He watched it turn without really seeing it.
It slowed, and slowed, and stopped on the widest segment.
[Result: x10.]
He almost laughed.
Of course.
The night he had risked everything and killed four people, the wheel gave him the smallest result it had.
In his old life, the market had never cared what you had paid to be in the room.
[Return: Breakthrough energy x10.]
[Host’s Class Trial revealed: An Anchor must break through before the Host.]
[Trial completed.]
He took the six cores out of his pocket and absorbed them one by one, there behind the block of stone, with blood drying on his hands.
The heat rose through him.
Level 9.
Level 10.
And then something more, a feeling like a door opening in his chest and a great wind rushing through it.
[Host: Rank F → Rank E.]
[Anchor slots: 1/2.]
Down in the pit, Vivienne looked up.
Her eyes moved slowly along the walls of the pit, along the high terraces, until they reached the fallen block on the far side.
Aren had already pulled the rag back over his face and tied it tight with shaking fingers.
He felt the System settle over him again, cold and slippery.
He did not move.
For a long moment, she looked straight at the place where he was hiding.
Then she looked away.
He stayed there until she had climbed out of the pit and gone.
Then he dragged the first man’s body to the edge of the terrace and let it fall into the dark canyon after the others.
He threw the three crossbows down after them, and the black bolt he pulled out of the wall.
The Rift would take care of the rest.
Rifts always did.
He walked home through the crack beside the old tannery an hour before dawn.
He washed his hands in the cold water of the dormitory pump until there was nothing left on them.
Then he went up to his room, sat down on his mattress, and looked at the open window, at the full moon going pale over the city.
In his first life, he had killed a man to protect his money.
In this one, he had killed four to protect a secret.
The blue window hung in the dark beside him, patient as always.
[Anchor slots: 1/2.]
[No target selected.]