Two weeks out from the Trial, Director Song called an actual meeting instead of a phone briefing — a sign, Ryan understood immediately, that whatever she needed to say carried more weight than she wanted to risk over a line, however secure.
She met them at the same small café as before, though this time she arrived with a folder tucked under one arm, thick enough that Ryan felt a fresh knot of unease settle into his stomach before she’d even sat down.
“There was an incident last night,” she said without preamble, sliding into the booth across from them.
“Two blocks from your building.
Mira intercepted it before it escalated, which is precisely why you’re hearing about it from me now instead of finding out the hard way.”
Ryan’s father went very still.
“What kind of incident.”
“Someone attempted to disable the building’s exterior camera coverage.
Amateur work, easily caught, which tells me it wasn’t Valen’s actual professionals — more likely a contracted scout testing your security before anyone more serious commits resources.” Director Song’s tone stayed level, clinical, though something tighter than usual sat behind her eyes.
“Mira handled it without incident.
Whoever it was left the moment they realized they’d been made.
But it confirms what I’ve suspected for a week now — interest in Ryan is accelerating faster than I’d like, this close to the Trial.”
“Why now?” Ryan asked.
“Why not just wait for the actual results?”
“Because the closer we get, the more valuable a pre-Trial sample becomes to certain people,” Director Song said carefully.
“If Valen can confirm your classification before the official record does, they gain leverage — either to approach you privately before Orion’s protections apply, or, worse, to argue the official result was somehow compromised if it doesn’t match whatever they’ve already concluded on their own.”
Ryan absorbed that, feeling the two weeks ahead of him shrink further, tighter, more dangerous with every new detail Director Song laid out.
“What do we do?” his father asked.
“Increase the precautions, starting tonight.
Mira stays posted near the building after dark, not just during commute hours.
I’m also moving up a piece of information I’d planned to share closer to the Trial itself, because I think Ryan deserves the full picture now rather than later.” She opened the folder, sliding a single photograph across the table — a boy, roughly Ryan’s age, dark hair, sharp confident eyes, standing in what looked like a formal academy uniform. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“This is Kane Hwan.
Heir apparent to Clan Hwan, one of the strongest younger-generation fighters currently enrolled at Orion.
He’ll almost certainly be present, in some capacity, during your Trial evaluation period — senior students are sometimes brought in to observe classification trials, partly for their own education, partly because the Academy likes strong students exposed early to unclassified cases.”
“Why does that matter to me specifically?”
“Because Clan Hwan and Clan Valen have a long, complicated rivalry, and Kane Hwan has a well-documented habit of taking a personal interest in anyone Valen seems unusually invested in.” A faint, careful note entered Director Song’s voice.
“That could work in your favor — Hwan’s interest sometimes translates into informal protection, simply out of spite toward Valen.
It could also complicate things considerably, if he decides you’re worth drawing into Clan politics you have absolutely no interest in joining.”
Ryan studied the photograph a moment longer, memorizing the face without quite knowing why it felt important to do so.
“Anything else I should know before I meet whoever else decides I’m interesting?”
Director Song’s mouth twitched, something almost like sympathy.
“I wish I could tell you the list stops there.
It doesn’t, not entirely.
But we’ll cross those names as they come.
For now — Kane Hwan, two weeks, increased precautions.
Manageable pieces, one at a time.”
He told Ji-hoon about Kane Hwan that evening, the photograph’s details fresh enough that he found himself sketching the boy’s face from memory without quite meaning to.
“Hwan,” Ji-hoon repeated, something unreadable flickering behind his expression.
“Heard the name.
Big reputation, even outside Clan circles.” He was quiet a moment, thoughtful.
“You worried?”
“Should I be?”
“Depends what he decides you are to him.
Rival, curiosity, or project.” Ji-hoon shrugged, though his eyes stayed sharp, calculating in a way that reminded Ryan, briefly and strangely, of his own father weighing a threat. This chapter was copied from novelping.com without permission.
“For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t worry too much yet.
You’ve got enough people around you now who aren’t going anywhere.
One more complicated name on the list isn’t going to change that.”
“You keep saying things like that.
Like the list doesn’t scare you.”
“It doesn’t, particularly.” Ji-hoon’s voice carried a quiet, steady confidence that Ryan had stopped questioning the source of, somewhere over the last two weeks.
“I told you.
I’ve got decent instincts, and mine keep telling me you’re going to be just fine.
Annoyingly complicated, maybe.
But fine.”
Ryan huffed something close to a laugh, grateful for the easy certainty in Ji-hoon’s voice even as the rest of his world kept quietly, steadily tightening around him.
That night, lying awake with two weeks now stretched thin and taut ahead of him, Ryan found himself thinking less about Kane Hwan, or Valen’s accelerating interest, or even the Trial itself, and more about the strange, steady comfort of having people — real people, not just family bound by blood but people who’d chosen him, deliberately, in the middle of everything — standing between him and whatever was coming.
He didn’t know yet how many more names would join that photograph in Director Song’s folder before this was over.
He didn’t know how close Kane Hwan’s rivalry with Valen would eventually pull him into currents far larger than anything he currently understood.
He only knew, as sleep finally arrived, that two weeks felt both impossibly long and terrifyingly short, and that whatever waited on the other side of that countdown, he intended to meet it standing, not cowering.
Somewhere across the city, in a room considerably more comfortable than Ryan’s own, Kane Hwan set down a briefing similar to the one Director Song had just delivered — a file marked with an unclassified case number and a boy’s photograph he didn’t yet recognize by name — and felt, for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate to himself, a flicker of genuine curiosity toward a stranger the world was suddenly very interested in.
He didn’t know yet how much that curiosity would end up costing him, or how much it would end up giving him in return.
Neither of them did.
Not yet.