Amaron was reviewing contract postings when Livia Jewel walked up beside him and said, without preamble, "You’re the one who collapsed the passage in the Marrin Survey."
Not a question. A statent of fact delivered in the sa direct tone she used for most things — efficient, certain, requiring acknowledgnt. He looked at her. She was standing with her arms crossed, head tilted slightly in the assessing way of soone who had been thinking about sothing for a while and had finally decided to address it.
"Yes," Amaron said.
"And you registered as C-rank after that. Which ans you were hiding it before."
"Yes."
"Interesting." She said this without judgnt, just observation. Then she gestured at the contract board. "Are you looking at the eastern district posting?"
Amaron had not been looking at the eastern district posting. He had been deliberately avoiding it, in fact, because the eastern district rift was the one the Guild hadn’t finished surveying yet and the one he’d been advised by multiple people to stay away from until the structural assessnt was complete.
"No," he said.
"Good. It’s a bad contract. They’re understaffing it and the pay doesn’t match the risk level." She pulled a contract slip from her coat pocket and handed it to him. "This one’s better. Fourth district, Grade 2 clearance, three-day operation with proper team support. I’m running it. We need a fourth."
Amaron looked at the slip. Then at her. "You’re inviting to join your team."
"Yes. Elian said you’re competent and Miren said your survey work was excellent. That’s two recomndations from people I trust. And I’ve been watching you for the past three weeks." She said this matter-of-factly. "You move through the Guild hall like you’re trying not to be noticed. But you notice everything. That’s useful in dungeon work."
— ◆ —
Amaron processed this. Livia Jewel — the female lead of the original story, the person who had categorized him as ’the board person’ for two months and then forgotten he existed — had apparently been watching him for three weeks and had decided he was worth recruiting.
The tiline was diverging in directions he had not predicted.
"Why now?" he asked.
"Because you’re C-rank now and I can officially ask you to join a contract without it being weird. And because—" She paused, reconsidered her phrasing. "Because Elian talks about you differently than he used to. Like you’re soone who matters, not just soone he’s being nice to. And Elian’s judgnt about people is usually good. So I’m trusting it."
This was, Amaron thought, possibly the most straightforward explanation anyone had given him for why they were choosing to include him in sothing. Not strategy. Not obligation. Just: soone I trust said you were worth paying attention to, so I am.
"The contract is in four days," Livia continued. "Team briefing is the day before. If you’re interested, let know by tomorrow. If you’re not, that’s fine too. But I think you’d be good at this work and I could use soone who notices things."
She handed him the contract slip and walked off before he could respond, heading toward the equipnt office with the purposeful energy of soone who had said what needed saying and had other things to handle.
Amaron stood by the contract board holding the slip and trying to determine whether he’d just been recruited to a team by the original story’s female lead or whether the universe was playing a complicated joke on him.
He suspected both.
— ◆ —
He found Elian later that afternoon at the Guild’s practice grounds, running through combat drills with the focused efficiency of soone who trained because it was necessary rather than because it was fun.
Amaron watched from the edge of the grounds for a mont, cataloguing the differences between how Elian moved now and how he would move in three years — the current version was good, technically sound, but still learning. The future version would be devastating. Watching the transition happen in real ti was strange in ways Amaron did not have language for.
Elian finished his set, noticed Amaron, and walked over. "Hey. You look like you have a question."
"Livia offered a contract position," Amaron said.
Elian’s expression shifted to sothing that looked like satisfaction. "She did? Good. That’s a solid team. You should take it."
"You told her about ."
"I told her you were competent and reliable and had good instincts. Which is true." Elian grabbed a water canteen from the bench nearby. "Why? Are you worried about working with her?"
"I’m trying to figure out why she decided to ask ."
"Because you’re good at the work and she needs a fourth." Elian said this as if it was obvious. "Livia doesn’t recruit people she doesn’t think can handle themselves. If she’s asking, it’s because she’s made the assessnt and you passed."
"That’s not how it worked two months ago," Amaron said. "Two months ago I was furniture. The board person. Soone she walked past without thinking about."
Elian considered this. "Two months ago you were F-rank and deliberately staying out of sight. People respond to what you show them. You’re showing them sothing different now. So they’re responding differently."
This was, Amaron had to admit, an accurate assessnt of the situation. It was also unsettling in the way that accurate assessnts of yourself from other people tended to be.
— ◆ —
"Are you going to take it?" Elian asked.
"Probably."
"Good." Elian drank his water. "Livia’s direct. She doesn’t do politics, doesn’t perform, doesn’t waste ti on things that don’t matter. If she thinks you’re worth having on the team, then you are. Trust that."
Amaron nodded slowly. Then he asked the question that had been forming since Livia walked away from the contract board. "Does she know? About the Marrin Survey. About what I did."
"She knows you collapsed a passage during a core breach and saved five people. She doesn’t know the details beyond that, and she didn’t ask for them. Livia’s like that — she cares about what you can do and whether you’ll have her back, not about your life story." Elian set down the canteen. "Why? Are you worried she’ll ask questions you don’t want to answer?"
"Everyone asks questions I don’t want to answer," Amaron said.
"Fair point." Elian looked at him with the assessing quality he got sotis, like he was trying to solve a puzzle he found interesting but wasn’t sure had a solution. "You know you’re allowed to just say ’I don’t want to talk about that,’ right? You don’t have to perform being mysterious. You can just be private."
Amaron had not, actually, considered that distinction. Mysterious suggested intentional obscurity for effect. Private suggested boundaries without performance. The difference was subtle but significant.
"I’ll rember that," he said.
"Good. Now are you going to stand there all afternoon or are you going to help run through these drills? I need soone to hold the practice dummy."
— ◆ —
They trained for an hour. Amaron held the practice dummy while Elian worked through a complex striking sequence, then they switched and Amaron ran through his own patterns while Elian offered observations. It was the first ti they’d trained together where Amaron wasn’t deliberately performing weakness, and the difference was considerable. He could use his actual technique. Could demonstrate the control he’d been building for eighty-two days. Could move the way he’d learned to move in nine years of dungeon work without having to pretend he was learning it for the first ti.
When they finished, Elian looked at him with an expression that was difficult to parse. "You’re better than C-rank."
"The capacity assessnt put at mid C," Amaron said.
"I know what the assessnt said. I’m telling you what I’m seeing. You move like soone who’s been doing this for years. Your technique is too clean. Too efficient. Nobody self-teaches to that level in three months."
Amaron said nothing. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t require explaining things he couldn’t explain.
Elian watched him for a mont, then nodded as if confirming sothing. "I’m not asking you to tell . I’m just noting it. You’re more than what the paperwork says. That’s fine. I’m not going to push. But you should know I’m paying attention."
"I know," Amaron said quietly.
"Good." Elian clapped him on the shoulder. "Take Livia’s contract. Work with her team. Let people see what you can actually do. You’ve spent enough ti being furniture."
Amaron accepted the advice without arguing. Because Elian was right. He had spent enough ti being furniture. In his first life, that had been his entire existence. In his second, it had been strategy. But strategies could change. And this one was changing whether he’d planned for it or not.
— ◆ —
He found Livia at the Guild hall the next morning and told her he’d take the contract.
She nodded, handed him a briefing packet, and said, "Team eting tomorrow at the tenth hour. Don’t be late."
"I won’t be," Amaron said.
"Good. And Volg—" She paused, as if deciding whether to say sothing. Then she said it anyway. "Elian told you saved five people in the Marrin collapse by doing sothing you weren’t supposed to be able to do. I don’t need to know what that sothing was. But I need to know I can trust you to have my back if things go wrong."
"You can," Amaron said.
"Then we’re good." She walked off, heading toward the contract processing desk.
Amaron stood in the Guild hall holding the briefing packet and thought about the fact that Livia Jewel — who had walked past him for two months without seeing him — had just told him directly that she was trusting him with her life.
The world kept changing faster than he could plan for it.
He was beginning to suspect that was the point.
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