The mont they crossed the boundary, the tension that had been sitting on Lucas’s shoulders finally let go. The open ground felt almost strange after everything inside — no ambushes waiting between the trees, or any hidden movent in the undergrowth, just open space and the sound of wind across grass. He adjusted his grip on the completed sphere one last ti and let out a long breath, his shoulders dropping with it.
"Finally," he muttered. "We actually made it through."
Sylvia didn’t respond right away. Her eyes were already moving across the field, taking in the surroundings quietly. There were far fewer cadets gathered than she expected — small clusters scattered around instead of anything resembling a crowd. So sat on the ground recovering, so stood holding completed spheres with the particular stillness of people who had just finished sothing difficult, and many were simply not there at all.
"There aren’t many,"
Lucas followed her gaze, then shrugged lightly. "Not surprising. That round wasn’t built to be forgiving. If anything I’m more surprised anyone else made it through at all." He shifted the sphere more comfortably against his side, easier with it now than he had been an hour ago. "Still... I just hope Nova, Celia and Gideon made it out too."
Sylvia didn’t answer right away. Her attention had drifted, and it had settled on Lucas.
For a brief mont she just watched him. His relaxed posture, the way he held the sphere without overthinking it now. The thought arrived without her deciding to think it. ’Would I have made it through this round without him?’
Her lips curved faintly without her noticing them do it. ’He’s definitely a genius. Nothing less than what I’d expect from my—’
The next thought began forming, and she almost let it co all the way but stopped it.
’Why the hell was I even thinking that?’ The warmth that moved toward her face arrived a fraction of a second before she caught it, and she turned her gaze away and composed herself the way she had been composing herself since she was old enough to understand that certain things weren’t supposed to show.
Lucas caught the movent.
"Sothing wrong?" he asked, tilting his head slightly, watching her with that careful sideways attention he had when he was deciding whether to push sothing or leave it alone.
"Nothing," she replied, her voice coming out steady.
He looked at her for a second longer than the question needed. Then he let it go.
"Hey, you two."
Both of them turned.
Gideon ca across the field toward them with a small wave.
Lucas stepped forward a little, his expression easing. "Gideon, you made it. Please tell you didn’t co out empty-handed after all that."
Gideon let out a short breath through his nose, sothing close to a smile forming as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I got through," he said. "Though I can’t take full credit. My partner handled most of the heavy lifting. I just made sure I wasn’t the reason we failed."
"Doesn’t matter how it happened," Lucas said, and he ant it without ceremony. "You’re here. That’s enough."
Sylvia stepped up beside them, her gaze scanning briefly across the field before returning to Gideon. "At least one more familiar face made it out," she said. "That’s better than nothing."
Her eyes shifted past him, searching the scattered groups with a quiet patience.
"What about Nova and Celia?" she asked, carrying a specific expectation.
Gideon shook his head lightly. "Honestly I didn’t run into them. Things got ssy on my end and by the ti I cleared the boundary I was just focused on getting out in one piece. I spotted you two first and ca straight here."
Lucas nodded, but his eyes had already drifted out across the field, moving through the clusters of cadets, looking for a familiar face. Sylvia stood quiet beside him, her attention doing the sa thing, sharper now, trying to pick up even the smallest sign of them sowhere in the crowd.
Then footsteps ca from behind them.
More than one person.
All three turned at almost the sa ti.
Nova and Celia were crossing the field toward them.
Lucas’s face shifted imdiately into sothing easy and relieved, a smile already forming as he stepped forward. "There you are," he said, the relief coming through naturally in his voice. "We were just—"
The words stopped.
Sothing was wrong and he felt it before he understood it.
Nova wasn’t grinning. He wasn’t talking. Wasn’t making any kind of noise at all, which by itself was enough to convince them sothing was wrong.
His head was lowered, shoulders sitting just slightly wrong — not the way soone holds themselves when they’re tired or distracted, but the specific way people carry themselves when sothing has happened that they haven’t worked out how to put down yet.
Beside him Celia walked without speaking, her expression unreadable, eyes aid sowhere at the ground in front of her feet.
Lucas’s smile disappeared.
Gideon’s posture straightened, his calm sharpening into sothing more focused as his eyes moved between the two of them.
Sylvia didn’t say anything at first. Her gaze had already dropped to their hands before her mind had fully caught up to what she was looking for.
Celia was holding just one.
A hemisphere. Alone. Half of sothing that needed to be whole.
The realization landed in Sylvia’s chest before it reached her face. "Wait," she said, her voice dropping lower than usual. "Don’t tell you two—"
She stopped herself.
Because finishing it out loud wasn’t going to change what was already true, and so things deserve the quiet of being understood without being said.
Nova and Celia ca to a stop in front of them.
Neither of them looked up imdiately. The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable exactly — it was the heavier kind, the kind that settles when sothing real has happened and the people involved haven’t decided yet how to carry it in front of others.
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