The manor was silent when Atlas returned.
Not quiet. Not resting.
**Silent.**
The kind of silence that came not from sleep—but from walls too old to care, and servants too well-trained to stir.
He stepped down from the carriage, boots crunching softly against the gravel of the side court. The horses snorted once, then stilled again, their breath steaming faintly in the cool dark.
Old Kesh, the driver, gave a shallow nod but didn't speak. He never did after sundown.
Atlas crossed the stone yard alone.
The outer lanterns had been dimmed. Shadows stretched longer now in the late autumn dusk, creeping up the columns, curling around the doorframes like ghosts with nothing left to haunt.
When he entered, the air smelled of parchment and cold oil.
He paused briefly at the entrance hall—one hand resting on the carved tiger emblem set into the stair post—and listened.
Nothing.
No movement upstairs. No guards. No rustle of servants.
Just the faint creak of wood adjusting in the walls.
He moved toward the war room.
---
Lady Elen stood at the round table near the center, her back to him.
She wore a black dress without ornament, sleeves rolled up to the forearm. Her hair was bound high, as always, not a strand out of place. She was reading a scroll—slowly.
Not scanning. Not annotating.
Reading.
That was rare.
Atlas stepped inside and waited.
She didn't turn.
But after a moment, she said, "You left the banquet early."
"I was finished."
"You made no connections."
"I was seen."
Elen lowered the scroll, rolled it tight, and placed it on the table. Then she turned.
Her expression was unreadable.
Except for the eyes.
They were narrowed just slightly—not in anger.
In **calculation**.
"They will test you the moment you arrive," she said. "Not officially. Not on paper. But you will be watched. From the day you step into that academy until the day you leave it, someone will be measuring your steps."
"I know."
"You carry a name that no longer commands fear. You stand beside houses with deeper vaults, older records, and cleaner reputations. You have no famous mentor. No public technique. You are, in every way that matters to them, weak."
Atlas didn't speak.
Elen walked toward him now, slowly, hands folded behind her back.
"But I've seen how you train. How you think. And I believe they're wrong."
She stopped directly in front of him.
Then, without expression, handed him a letter.
Not black like the last one.
This one was **white**—trimmed in navy blue, sealed in silver wax.
The emblem: a sword descending through a star.
**Stellanox Academy**.
"You leave in three weeks," she said. "You'll ride with an escort to First Hall and board the barge to Caer-Etherin. You'll arrive before the entry trials."
Atlas took the letter.
Held it.
Then asked, "Why me?"
Elen's eyes flicked slightly.
"You think I know?"
"You requested it."
"I did."
"Then why?"
She looked at him a long moment.
And—for the first time in years—her tone softened.
"Because I know what it feels like to be the one no one believes in."
Then she stepped past him.
Her voice returned to steel.
"Train well. Rest better. Your real life starts the moment you leave this house."
---
Atlas returned to his room.
Closed the door.
Bolted it.
The stars outside his window looked smaller than they had the night before. Like they were backing away.
He lit the lamp on his desk, unsealed the letter, and unfolded the thick parchment inside.
It read:
> Candidate 9138 – Atlas Caelum Westenra
>
> Status: Provisionally Accepted
> Entry: Tier I Evaluation Required
> Sponsor: House Vaelcrest – Academic Observer Assignment
> Report to Orientation Chambers no later than First Light, Seventh Moon.
> Uniform: Black. Unadorned.
> Blade: Personal. Standard-length required.
> Rooming: TBD.
He stared at the name halfway down the page.
**House Vaelcrest**.
Sponsor?
Why?
He hadn't spoken to Serenya. Hadn't even approached her. And yet… something in the way she had looked at him—*once*—still echoed.
He turned away from the letter and looked toward the corner of the room where his blade rested against the wall.
The steel caught the lamplight.
And for a moment, in the glint, he saw the shape of **her footwork**. How she'd turned, shifted her weight, kept her center low and her limbs silent. She fought the way a painter painted in reverse—by erasing space, not filling it.
He saw it.
And he understood.
The **Second Fang** would not be about speed.
It would be about *distance*.
About space.
About knowing where a sword would strike before it even moved.
---
He closed his eyes.
And once again, the white realm returned.
This time, it wasn't empty.
It was shifting. Rearranging.
Lines appeared—faint, glowing—on the ground, stretching outward in precise angles.
Combat geometry.
A map of where his enemy *could* go.
And from within that map, he began to design the second technique.
Not yet real.
But forming.