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I turned to Silvaria. "You want the truth instead of a defense? Fine. I have no academy record because I never attended one. My assessments aren't public because the Council never made them public. I didn't train through Basic like everyone here, and no Master in this hall will put their name to what I learned before I turned eighteen because none of them taught me."

I kept my eyes on hers and didn't soften any of it. "Two Councilors and the High General attended my first debrief because my file makes people nervous, not because anyone was protecting a favorite. You've spent time looking at the gaps in my history and deciding something rotten must be hiding inside them."

"Isn't it?"

"Whatever fills those gaps belongs to me," I said. "Nephrite knows exactly who I am."

For a moment, nobody moved. Silvaria drew breath as though she meant to answer, but no words came, and the silence told the crowd enough. She looked at Nykos, then at Corian standing beside me, before her eyes settled on mine. Frustration tightened her face as she held my gaze, then she turned and walked back towards her staging gate. She had come looking for a clean victory and left without one.

Halver caught my arm gently when we reached the staging gate. His gaze dropped to my ribs, his fingers gently hovering. I told him I needed a minute alone, and although my voice stayed steady, the look he gave me said he wasn't fooled. He watched me for another moment before nodding and letting go. He didn't follow, but I could feel his eyes on my back the entire way down the corridor.

The equipment room at the far end stood empty and dim, its walls lined with practice blades and spare harnesses, the air thick with oiled leather and old sweat. I reached the bench along the back wall before the control I'd been clinging to finally slipped.

My hands began to shake as soon as I sat down, first with a faint tremor and then hard enough that I pressed them against my knees in a useless attempt to hold them still. The shaking only travelled up my arms. I dragged in a breath too quickly, and it caught against my broken ribs, sharp and shallow. A minute earlier, I'd faced Silvaria with my voice level and every word exactly where I wanted it. Now I couldn't convince my own hands to stay still.

Ashter unwound from my wrist and poured onto the bench beside me, solidifying into his usual shape, and pressed his head hard against my leg. He didn't ask what was wrong. He never did. That was, I thought, half the reason I let him see me like this and nobody else.

"I said all the right things," I told him, my voice coming out thinner than I wanted it to. "Every word of it was true. I didn't back down, I didn't lie, and Nykos actually called her out, out loud, in front of everyone. It should feel like winning."

Ashter pushed harder against me, a low sound building in his chest, just a presence, just weight against the shaking so I had something solid to lean into.

"It doesn't feel like winning."

My ribs still ached because I hadn't allowed myself to heal them, a dull, constant throb I could have erased in seconds. Instead, I sat there hurting because pain had felt safer than letting anyone see what I could do. That seemed like something I should examine, but noticing it was all I had the energy for.

"She wasn't even wrong," I said, quieter now.

Ashter's eyes stayed fixed on me, patient and unbothered by any of it.

"They know me," I said. "All of them. Corian knows I break under crowds sometimes. Nykos knows I flinch before I mean to. Halver knows how I take my tea and Alex knows exactly which jokes actually land instead of just landing near me." My voice caught somewhere I hadn't expected it to.

"But knowing isn't the same as choosing. Janus decided. The Council decided. I didn't walk into that house because anyone wanted me there. I walked in because an order said I had to, and no matter how long it's been, or how much any of that has changed since, some stupid, stubborn part of me still can't tell the difference between being known and being placed."

The words sounded worse aloud than they had before I said them, but I didn't take them back. Ashter wasn't going to judge me, and for once, no one was keeping score.

He pressed closer, warm and solid against my side, and offered no opinion at all. That was exactly what I needed from him.

I stayed on the bench long after my hands stopped shaking, one palm resting against Ashter's shoulder while smoke curled between my fingers. With no crowd watching, I finally let myself feel what I'd hidden from Silvaria and even Nephrite all morning. I wasn't afraid that I didn't belong. I was afraid that belonging wasn't the same as being wanted, and no number of victories had ever answered that for me.

Chapter Eighteen: Skitters, Probably

Nykos

Steam curled off Jade's tea before she'd even lifted the cup. I'd learned by now not to warn her when it was too hot. My hand found the back of the chair across from hers before I'd decided to sit there at all, and I set my cup down at the corner of the kitchen table and pretended, the way I did most mornings now, that I'd simply run out of other places to sit.

Jade didn't look up, not right away. She never did, like saying good morning too soon would make the day feel like something you had to deal with.

"You're doing the thing again," Alex said, dropping into the chair beside me with a plate stacked higher than any single person needed.

"What thing?" I didn't look up from my plate.

"The thing where you sit next to her and drink your tea like a man who hasn't rearranged his entire morning to do it."

"I haven't rearranged anything." Too fast. I heard it too.

"You used to sit by the window."

"The window has a draft."