The summons came in silence—a Sovereign-coded comm pulse that blinked twice on his terminal before vanishing.
No message. No request. Just a signal of bloodline priority.
Serin Val'En answered without hesitation.
He walked alone to the private relay chamber embedded near the Academy's observatory wing—an enclave sealed from instructor surveillance, accessible only by lineage-encoded cipher.
As the call stabilized, the screen remained dark.
Then came the voice. Not aged. Not warm. But absolute.
"Serin."
He lowered his head slightly. "By the Line of Val'En, I hear and answer."
"There are eyes on your squad."
"I am aware, Father."
"You have seen the Retainer—Virex."
"He walks between command and calamity."
"Does he endanger the Line's standing?"
Serin answered carefully, precisely: "He distorts the structure, but does not yet break it."
A pause.
"You are not sent to balance him," his father said. "You are sent to weigh him. And if the measure fails—"
"I will correct it. Quietly. With precision."
A breath. Not quite agreement. Not yet.
"You are Val'En, Serin. Our House is not shadow. We are the pillar beneath the doctrine. See that your spine reflects it."
"I walk in clarity."
The call ended.
No farewell. Nobility did not waste words on closure.
Serin returned to the common quarters of Team Theta with a different posture—nothing visible. Just a slightly sharper line to his jaw, a smoother silence to his footsteps.
Dane noticed first. Of course he did. The large one always did.
Nayla, perceptive as ever, raised an eyebrow. She didn't speak.
Vellin didn't notice. Too caught up in whatever dramatized skirmish account he was retelling to Myr and Juno-Seven.
Kael entered five minutes later.
He didn't look at Serin.
That was fine. Serin didn't look at him either.
Yet.
That evening, as the lights dimmed across the outer deck, Serin stood alone in the practice hall. Blade in hand. Movements slow, surgical, deliberate.
Every arc of the blade was perfect. Not flashy. Not elegant. Just correct.
He imagined Virex—stripped of symbols, separated from anomaly.
Then he imagined the world if Virex was allowed to fracture further.
In that imagined version of things, the doctrine buckled. The pillar cracked. The hierarchy flinched.
That could not be allowed.
Serin brought the blade to a halt. Bowed to no one. And whispered the oath his father had taught him as a child.
"If clarity breaks, I do not."
"If the frame defies the shape, I reshape it."
"If the name beneath mine threatens order—I remove the name."
And just like that, the blade returned to its sheath.