We ran the ridge back the way we’d come—low, steady, no show. Wind tugged at collars and tried to pick fights, but our flags held: short ties, low posts, tucked behind stone. At the switchback we took the rope on hands and knees again. The line hummed a slow beat through my palms. Honest work.
In the bowl we passed a team arguing with their tall flags. A gust bullied the cloth and made the poles chatter. A proctor marked their slate without looking up. We kept moving. Pelham glanced once, swallowed a comment, saved his breath for the stair cut. Good. He was learning which parts of him helped and which parts got in the way.
We reached the start marker with our bundle empty and our lines tidy. Pierce checked depth with a leather measure, tugged each knot, and grunted. He wrote something on his board and tipped his chalk at Mira.
"Tags?"
"Logged," she said. Her script was clean even with wind-grease on her fingers.
Below, the sponsor in the dark coat watched our line, then the board, then the bowl flags still wobbling. No smile, no frown. He looked like a man who knew what he wanted to see.
Lyra waited near the rope rack with her folio and brass coordinator badge. She scanned our line, counted heads, then checked our hands. No frayed tails on the ground. A small nod. Not for me. For the work.
"Two signatures," she said. "Splices held." She signed Ariadne’s sheet and handed it back. When our fingers brushed the paper, her ears warmed. Heat, not fluster. She stepped back half a pace to keep the circle clear.
"Good call on the echo," she added.
"Your warning saved us a turn," I said.
"Procedure saves time," she replied, then tugged a stub of candle from her folio. "Wax your chalk. Cuts the squeal in damp." She pressed it into my palm like it was a normal trade and not a kindness. Her eyes flicked to my hand—no shake—and away.
Gareth elbowed me once after she left. "She likes that you didn’t try to be sculpture on the rope."
’I like that she keeps people breathing,’ I thought. Out loud: "You planted stakes like you meant it."
He grinned. "I did."
Aldric dragged his team in with one of his boys nursing pride. Their flags stood tall and swayed; the cloth snapped like it wanted to leave. Aldric threw a crackle at a stubborn knot and earned a white "unsafe" line across his slate from a proctor fifty paces away. He stared at the mark like it had insulted his blood, then cut his eyes toward the sponsor, expecting rescue.
The sponsor didn’t move. He made a note with a neat hand and kept watching.
Seraphine stood at the sponsor’s shoulder. White hair like frost, amethyst eyes bright and polite. She had the face of someone listening hard and promising nothing with her mouth.
Pierce rang a hand bell with a tired wrist. "Ridge Relay scores posted by route," he called. "No trades. No appeals."
The yard flowed to the board. Mira was faster. She read, jotted, came back. "Route B standings," she said. "Cael’s team first by a hair. We’re second. Marcus close. Elara fourth. Aldric eighth with two penalties."
Gareth whooped once and capped it. Pelham let out a breath he didn’t know he’d held, then tried to look like he hadn’t. I rapped his knuckles lightly with the slate.
"You didn’t reach for your hat," I said.
He stared at the ridge, embarrassed and proud. "Wanted to. Didn’t."
"Good," I said. "Keep not wanting after you don’t."
Cael crossed with his team, light on his feet like wind had given up moving him. He counted something in my posture and gave a clean nod. Not praise. A check. Beams align. I tipped two fingers. Still holding.
Liora stepped onto the rack’s low stone. The yard quieted without being told. Hair pale in the high light, soft blue eyes taking a quick inventory of where noise still lived.
"Ridge Relay completed," she said. "Thank you for keeping your lines clean. If your flag leaned, you know why. Adjustment drills posted. Refuge traffic stayed clear. Good." Her gaze slid toward Lyra for one heartbeat; Lyra did not react beyond a small breath out. "Tomorrow: practical two—Wilderness Convoy. No rune-lamps. Points for coordination, restraint, and simple fixes. Unsafe discharge is a penalty. Questions now. Do not invent rules at the rope."
A hand shot up. "What counts as a simple fix?"
"If it holds and doesn’t make a new problem," Liora said. "Think braces, not sculptures."
Pelham mouthed braces like he was filing it somewhere he could reach.
Pierce pinned a notice beside the first. "Sponsor remains for tomorrow’s run," he read. "Observations weigh into bursary decisions. Make good choices."
Aldric planted his hands on his hips the way men do when they want attention. No one gave it to him. He laughed too loud and had to carry the sound by himself until it died. Seraphine didn’t look at him. She looked at me.
"Captain Valcrey," she said when etiquette made it easy. "Your line was... correct."
"That’s the point," I said.
"Our sponsor appreciates work that holds," she went on in a tone for the sponsor’s ear. "Donors want outcomes, not theater."
"Then you’ll be pleased tomorrow," I said. "We plan to be boring."
Her mouth curved. "You do love that word."
"I love people not going home hurt," I said.
She studied my face like a room she once knew and couldn’t quite recognize. "A word of caution," she said softly. "Today’s restraint reads well. Tomorrow’s route is longer. Tired minds reach for tricks. Be careful where you point your findings. Gates are politics as much as stone."
"Change your methods," I said. "I’ll help fix what can be fixed. The offer stands." Not a threat. Not a prayer. A fact.
She smiled her practiced smile. "You do love conditions." She left with the sponsor, silk that never snagged.
Ariadne arrived with her clipboard, posture like a yardstick. "Splices?" she asked.
"Five signatures," I said, passing the sheet.
She checked names, tugged tags, ticked a square beside my line. "Met," she said. "Next restitution: one hour in Refuge this afternoon. Headcount. Log without commentary."
"Understood."
She didn’t look up when she added, "Your wording yesterday was clear. Keep it that way."
"Will."
She nodded once and moved on, already reading the next line of someone else’s trouble.
Gareth slapped my shoulder. "Food?"
"Food," I said.
We found shade and bowls of hot broth that tasted like salt and relief. He bumped me again. "You see Aldric’s face when he caught that white mark?"
"I did," I said. "He’ll try harder to make noise tomorrow."
"Then we’ll make less," Gareth said, grinning.
Mira jogged over with her slate under an elbow. "Sponsor asked Pierce why our flags were short," she said. "Pierce said, ’Because they were meant to stay.’ Sponsor wrote it down. Twice."
"Good," I said. "Short flags don’t impress wind."
"Or donors who like breathing," Gareth added.
Lyra returned with two first-years and a coil. "They need the splice again," she said. "You have a minute."
"We do," I said.
I showed the steps slow—measure, pinch the tail, dress the lay, slide and bite. Pulled one wrong to show slip, fixed it, made them tie without watching their hands. When the knots held under load, Lyra signed the bottom of Ariadne’s line with neat strokes. She checked the rope ends one more time like a habit, then looked at me.
"Refuge at second bell," she said. "I’ll take your log after. Don’t talk to the line while you count. It slows them."
"Copy," I said.
Her ears warmed again. She left at a brisk walk, giving the rope rack a quiet pat as she passed, like a sailor tapping a mast for luck.
Pelham hovered at the end of the bench where we’d parked the Bone Warden. He cleared his throat. "I almost stood up on the rope," he said. "Because it would have looked... you know."
"I do," I said. "Thanks for not."
He nodded, jaw tight. "I don’t want to be that kind of noble," he blurted. "The... old way."
"Then don’t," I said. "Every time."
He nodded again, slower. The words seemed to loosen something in him. He left before the moment got sticky.
I checked the Warden’s hip pins with a bone pick and a touch of wax. The joint turned quiet. Hollow watched from the beam above. I tapped his skull. "Twelve seconds for a Moth, then down," I told him. He clicked once and tucked himself deeper into shade. The leash in my chest hummed steady: two threads only—Marrow and Hollow—both in Shade. No fuzz. No itch to show off. Just work.
Cael crossed the yard with Elara and two boys I didn’t know well. He didn’t stop. He gave the smallest tilt of his chin, the kind you give a beam that hasn’t sagged. I answered with a breath and felt my heels set heavier on the stone. Anchor Step sitting right where it belonged.
A runner in gray handed Liora a sealed tube. She broke the wax, read, didn’t change her face. Then lifted her head and spoke half a shade lower.
"Convoy routes posted at third bell," she said for the yard. "Sponsors remain. There will be audits on rope use and line safety. If you plan to be artistic, save it for dance."
Soft laughter moved across the stones and died.
Pierce clapped a fresh board under the arch. Clean chalk letters. Route C in a neat column. Names.
I picked up our sheet, checked the list—Gareth, Pelham, Mira, a quiet rune-tech from east dorm I’d seen soldering in silence—and signed at the bottom. Beside our team, a small note: Lyra, Sector One observer; return to Refuge.
Seraphine and the sponsor passed under the arch. She didn’t look at me. The sponsor did, one quick, measuring cut of his eyes. He filed something away and walked on. Read complete version only at noᴠelfire.net
Gareth finished his bowl. "Tomorrow?" he asked.
"Flags again, only sideways," I said. "Wind, rope, wheels. Simple fixes. Be boring. Make it hold."
He grinned. "Boring we can do."
Third bell rang. The board clattered. The yard shifted toward kit and water and last questions.
I set my palm on the Warden’s ribs and listened to the pin settle. The leash hummed steady. In my head, two tracks ran side by side: how to move people across a bad bridge without fuss—and the way Lyra’s ears warmed when work landed clean, the way Seraphine’s voice softened when she talked about donors, the quiet nod Cael gave when beams aligned. Under all of it, the memory of a kitchen table, two small bowls, a plastic dinosaur. I let the ache stand next to the day without pushing it away.
Tomorrow would ask for hands, not speeches.
"Make it hold," I said, mostly to myself.
The wind ran the ridge and didn’t argue.