That evening, the halls of Barmo's administrative wing were quieter, draped in the golden dim of ambient mage-lamps. The city's pulse never fully stilled—sigil-rigs whirred quietly in the walls, mana threads trembled like fine strings—but the mood had shifted. Something was changing.
Outside the reinforced holding block, Belisarius stood leaning against a column, arms crossed, brooding like a statue with blood in its veins.
Roen joined him, toweling off sweat from a post-sparrinɡ rinse. He looked less like a soldier now and more like a man who'd brushed up against something unpredictable.
"Well?" Belisarius asked, not looking up.
Roen inhaled. "He rigged the entire cell in five hours. No tools, no foci, just ambient mana and whatever trash was inside."
Belisarius's brows furrowed. "Most combat engineers would need at least double that. With proper materials."
Roen nodded. "He used resonance to tighten energy feedback loops. One of the wires was set to collapse a flow pattern into itself—that's the kind of trick you see on Varncrest thesis projects."
"I'm impressed," Belisarius muttered, "which worries me."
Roen lowered the towel. "There's more."
Belisarius looked over.
"He only gave that much. Held back, on purpose."
Belisarius stilled.
"He knew he was being tested," Roen continued. "He figured me out before I stepped in. Gave me just enough to seem formidable, not enough to show his ceiling."
"That's exactly what I needed," Belisarius murmured.
Roen blinked, unsure whether to feel satisfied or manipulated. "So the rumors… are they true? About Varncrest?"
Belisarius's eyes darkened. "Yes. It's worse than the rumors say."
"The number of monsters is dropping?" Roen asked. "I thought that was dramatics."
Belisarius turned fully now, his posture severe. "It's real. Ten years ago, every intake class had at least two unstable prodigies—kids who summoned gods on a dare or tried to rewrite thermodynamics as a party trick."
"Let me guess," Roen said with a sardonic edge. "Now those kids are being gobbled up by noble Houses. Trained to wear circlets and recite doctrine instead of fight."
"Exactly," Belisarius said. "They're taught stability, bureaucracy, and obedience. Not curiosity. Not fire."
Roen shook his head with a dry laugh. "So when the next great monster arrives, we'll have a phalanx of public speakers ready to drown it in paperwork."
"Not wrong," Belisarius said, voice like a blade.
Roen narrowed his gaze. "And you think Martin is the fix?"
"No," Belisarius replied flatly. "He's not the fix. He's the catalyst."
That made Roen pause. "Meaning?"
Belisarius didn't answer immediately. He turned to look back at the cell wing. Through three enchanted barriers and two layers of silence wards, Martin was—probably—taking apart a light crystal to examine its sigil array, or reconfiguring his coat to emit false heat signatures.
"He's arrogant," Belisarius said at last. "But the kind of arrogance that's earned. Efficient. Not a spark wasted. Not a move too many."
"And?"
"Enough malice to punish his enemies regardless of their rank."
Roen gave a slow whistle. "You think the other students will react to that?"
"They'll have no choice," Belisarius said. "He'll remind them what being dangerous actually looks like."
Roen's tone turned thoughtful. "And if they try to drag him down?"
"He'll bury them."
The words came so casually, so matter-of-fact, that they rang louder than any threat. It made Roen straighten instinctively, reminded of what he'd seen earlier—that wire field, those subtle traps, the gleam of intention behind every breath.
There was a silence.
"So," Roen finally asked, "what's next?"
Belisarius's jaw tightened. "I bring him in officially. Varncrest will resist. Some faculty will want to collar him, others will want to dissect him. But a few—maybe enough—will recognize the value of a proper adversary."
Roen tilted his head. "Adversary?"
Belisarius nodded. "They've grown lazy. Competitive. But only in the way politicians compete—talking, maneuvering. Martin won't play by those rules. He'll innovate. He'll offend. He'll humiliate them by being better—and by not caring."
"You want to shame the academy into waking up."
"No," Belisarius said. "I want the rot to show itself. And nothing draws out rot faster than fire."
Unseen by both men, a thin ripple of blue-gold mana shimmered faintly in the stone overhead—then dissolved. One of Martin's resonance-runed echoes, carefully positioned before Belisarius ever delivered him here, listening silently through the wards.
In the cell, Martin lay on the cot, legs crossed, eyes closed. A strand of conjured thread hung from his finger, rotating a tiny broken crystal shard above his head like a pendulum.
"So that's your plan, old man," he murmured softly.
He tapped the inside lining of his coat twice—his own little trigger. Just a muscle memory now, a gesture that told him he was two moves ahead. Always two moves ahead.
Belisarius wanted to use him. He didn't mind.
Because Martin had no intention of playing along. He didn't care about Varncrest's decline. Or noble politics. Or the weight of expectation.
But being underestimated by everyone in power?
That was exactly the kind of playground he liked.
He grinned into the silence.
Let them think I'm a catalyst, he thought. Let them think I'm the match.
They've never seen the whole fire.
To Be Continued…