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The blade was still cold against Cass's throat when Mara leaned in close enough that he could smell the leather oil on her practice armor. Her breath came fast and shallow. Not scared. Pissed.
"You don't get to know about Lina," she said. "Nobody knows about Lina."
Cass kept his hands up, palms out. The courtyard ice was seeping through his pants and his ribs still ached from the thing that had killed him two loops ago. Or would kill him. Time was getting messy. "Treatment slot. Seventh floor. Nine tonight. Your sister needs the healer or the infection spreads past her shoulder."
Mara's knife hand shook. Just a fraction. Cass watched her pupils contract and her jaw set. She was doing the math. Scholarship fighter. No family money. One sick sister and no way a rich academy brat should know any of that.
"How?"
"Can't explain here." Cass nodded toward the frozen lake behind her where the blood letters were still glowing faintly under the surface. The ones that said keep him from hearing the second bell. "But that? That's about me. And you're in it now."
She pulled the blade back an inch. Didn't sheathe it. "Duel ring. Ten minutes. You're going to answer every question I have or I'm going to break both your legs and drag you to the headmaster myself."
"Deal."
Mara stood and walked away without looking back. Cass rolled onto his side and coughed. Nix was going to lose his mind when he found out Cass had made another deal with the one person on campus who could actually kill him in a fair fight.
Good thing Cass wasn't planning to fight fair.
---
The duel ring sat in the east garden, a raised stone platform with rune-marked boundaries that kept spells from spilling into the crowd. Usually it was for honor disputes or exam makeups. Right now it was for Cass to get his teeth kicked in on purpose while he figured out what Mara knew and why the curse wanted him dead before second bell.
She was already on the platform when he arrived, buckling on her combat rig. Leather pauldrons inscribed with speed glyphs. Bracers that could turn a blade or a bolt. No helmet because Mara Flint didn't believe in blocking hits she could dodge.
Cass climbed the steps and pulled on his own gear. Family-issued. Expensive. Enchanted to look impressive and keep him breathing when he did something stupid. Which was often.
"Rules," Mara said. She wasn't looking at him. She was stretching her wrists and rolling her shoulders like this was just another sparring match. "First blood or yield. No lethal spells. You talk while we fight or I stop pulling punches."
"Generous."
"I want answers. Not a corpse." She finally met his eyes. "Yet."
The boundary runes flared blue. The ring was live. A few students had started to gather at the edge of the garden. Word traveled fast when a Veyr was about to get flattened.
Cass drew his sparring blade. It felt heavier than it should. Or maybe that was just the weight of knowing he'd watched this girl bleed out in a hallway three loops back while something with too many mouths chewed through her ribcage.
"Start talking," Mara said.
Then she moved.
Fast. Faster than last time. Her blade came in low and Cass barely got his guard down in time. The impact rattled up his arm and he staggered back. She didn't let him reset. She flowed into a high slash that he ducked and then a pommel strike that clipped his shoulder and went numb.
"I'm—" He blocked another hit. "I'm stuck."
"Vague."
She swept his legs. He hit the stone hard and rolled. Came up gasping. "Stuck in today. I wake up. Go to class. Thing kills me. Wake up again."
Mara paused. Just for a second. Then she came at him again and this time she wasn't holding back. Her blade rang off his bracer and the speed glyph on her shoulder lit up. She was inside his guard before he could blink. Knee to his gut. Elbow to his jaw. He tasted copper.
"How many times?" she asked.
Cass spat blood. "Lost count."
Her eyes narrowed. She was believing him. Or at least considering it. That was progress. Also she was about to break his collarbone if he didn't do something.
He triggered the barrier charm on his chestplate. A weak kinetic pulse. Just enough to buy space. Mara skidded back and her boots scraped the stone. The runes under them flickered.
Then they started to glow.
Not blue. Red.
Cass froze. That wasn't supposed to happen. Duel rings didn't do that. The light spread out from where Mara was standing and crept toward the boundary marks like veins. Like something was waking up under the platform.
"What did you do?" Mara's voice was tight.
"Nothing. I didn't—"
The air above the ring started to bend. It looked like heat shimmer except the temperature had just dropped ten degrees. Cass's armor went cold against his skin. The inscriptions on his bracer started to burn.
"The armor," he said. "It's feeding something."
Mara looked down at her rig. The glyphs that had been glowing blue were turning dark. The leather was pulling tight like it was shrinking. She hissed and started yanking at the buckles.
Cass did the same. His fingers were clumsy and the straps weren't coming loose. The bracer was hot now. Actually burning. He could smell his own skin.
"Get it off," Mara snapped.
She'd gotten one pauldron free and was working on the second when the shimmer above them tore.
It wasn't loud. It was worse than loud. It was the sound of something ripping that should never be ripped. The kind of sound that made your back teeth ache and your stomach drop. A split opened in the air eight feet above the platform and something pale and wet moved behind it.
The watching students started screaming.
Cass finally got his bracer off and threw it. The moment it left his hand the red light under the platform surged toward it like a living thing. The bracer melted into slag before it hit the ground.
"Move!" Mara grabbed his arm and hauled him toward the edge of the ring. They hit the boundary and the runes flared white. A barrier. They were locked in.
"Of course," Cass said.
Mara spun and her blade was out again but this time it was pointed at him. Her face was pale and her hand was steady. "You knew. You knew this would happen."
"I didn't. I swear."
"Then why aren't you surprised?"
Because he'd seen worse. Because he'd died six different ways and this was just another flavor of wrong. But he didn't say that. He looked at the tear and the thing moving behind it and he looked at Mara and he made a choice.
"Because I've already watched you die," he said.
Her blade didn't waver. "What?"
"Three loops ago. Hallway outside the lecture hall. That thing came through the wall and you tried to fight it. You lasted longer than anyone else. You almost made it to the stairs." His throat was tight. "You told me to run. I didn't. I stayed and I watched it kill you and then it killed me too."
Mara's expression didn't change but something in her eyes did. A flicker. Recognition maybe. Or belief.
The tear above them pulsed and the shimmer spread. More red light bled up from the platform. Cass's remaining armor was starting to heat again. They had maybe a minute before whatever was on the other side decided to come through.
"If you're lying—" Mara started.
"I'm not."
She stared at him for three seconds that felt like an hour. Then she lowered the blade. "Fine. How do we stop it?"
"I don't know yet. But the armor's the trigger. Enchanted gear. It's pulling something through."
"The school's full of enchanted gear."
"I know." Cass looked at his hand. At the silver ring on his third finger. His father's ring. Family seal. He'd worn it every loop and never thought twice about it. But now it was warm. Not burning like the armor. Just warm. And it was getting warmer.
Mara followed his gaze. "That's a Veyr seal."
"Yeah."
"Take it off."
"Can't. It's keyed." Which was true. The ring didn't come off unless the wearer was dead or the family head released it. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was that the ring was pulsing now. A slow steady rhythm that matched the red light crawling up from the stone.
The problem was that under his sleeve where Mara couldn't see, the family seal was glowing with the exact same markings that were burning themselves into the dueling platform.
Mara saw his face change. "What?"
Cass opened his mouth. He didn't know what he was going to say. He didn't get the chance.
The bell tower rang.
Second bell.
And the thing in the tear opened its eyes.