Chapter 423: Footage

His phone had been buzzing since the match. He found messages from Elsa and his mother, and one from Arthur asking him to call when he could.

Elsa answered immediately.

"You won. Dad found it on the academy page. There’s a picture of Glitch. Is your arm all right?"

"Bruised. They’ve checked it."

"Mum wants you to say that to her too."

He did, and answered her questions about the beasts before Arthur took the phone. Jin heard a chair scrape as his father sat. The brace helped him, but long days still left his leg aching.

"One away," Arthur said.

"Yes."

"Tell us when they set the match. We’ll come."

Jin looked down the corridor toward the stalls. "I’d like that."

Elsa got the phone back before Arthur could say anything else.

"Tamsin let me do the feeding practice without reminders," she said. "We’re still getting everything ready. When they choose the hatch day, I want you there if you can come."

"Tell me as soon as you know."

"And if you get into the realm, I want to hear about it afterward. Properly. Not just ’it went well.’"

"I haven’t even won the place yet."

"I know. I’m asking early."

After the call, Jin waited until the handler let him in. Four names remained from the notice he and Lucian had read over lunch, and his family wanted to watch him try for one of the places.

Glitch lifted his head as Jin entered. He went to sit beside him, leaving the next opponent for tomorrow.

On Thursday morning, everything hurt in a slightly different place from Wednesday.

Jin’s forearm had gone from purple to a sullen green-yellow. His hip had stiffened overnight, and getting out of bed involved a short negotiation with it.

When he went down to the stall, Glitch was lying with his sore flank turned to the wall, as if he’d decided nobody needed to see it. The basilisk’s tail had left bruising beneath the plates.

Verrick came at nine.

He checked the ribs, then the old scrape on the shoulder plates, then made Glitch walk the incline ramp twice and watched his feet the whole way.

"Bruised under the plate," he said. "No sign of deeper damage. Light movement only for now." He ran a hand down Flicker’s left wing, and she let him. "She’s sore here. Rest, short flights only. We’ll check them again before Sunday."

"You think they’ll be fit?"

Verrick looked at him over the clipboard. "Probably. That doesn’t mean they won’t still be sore."

The schedule went up at noon.

[Resource-Realm Selection — Qualifying Bouts]

[Sunday. Bout 1, 10:00: Seed 1 v Seed 7.]

[Bout 2, 14:00: Seed 3 v Seed 9.]

[Winners receive Meridian’s two places.]

Lucian read it over his shoulder and made a small noise.

"You go first," he said. "Then I get to sit through yours, and then I have four hours to think about it."

"You’ll eat lunch."

"I won’t be able to eat lunch."

"You’ll eat two lunches," Jin said. "I’ve met you."

He called home that evening. His mother answered, and then everyone was on the line at once.

"Sunday," Arthur said, once Jin had told them. "Ten o’clock. Good. Sunday’s good."

"There’s accessible seating by the north gate," Jin said. "Row with a rail and proper benches. I asked. I can put your names down."

There was a short silence on the line.

"You asked," his father said.

"It’s a form. It took a minute."

"Put us down." Arthur’s voice was rough. "All three of us."

"I asked about the weekend arrangements," Elsa said, from further away. "I can come. Don’t argue."

"I wasn’t going to argue."

"You were going to say something sensible. Don’t."

Friday was for footage.

The first seed was a fourth-year named Torin Maddox. Jin had seen him across the arena on Saturday, once, in the melee. He’d been surrounded by four people, and a minute later he hadn’t been.

He was compact and dark-haired, with a patient expression. His record put him at Rank 2, 4-Star. He used a short practice sword and liked to get close.

His main beast was an Ironcrest Monitor, a long, low, heavy lizard with a ridge of dark iron-coloured plates down its back and a tail like a swinging beam.

[Ironcrest Monitor — Quality: Gold (Middle). Combat Rank: 2 — 4-Star.]

His second was a Windcut Kestrel, small and pale grey, with dark bars on its wings.

[Windcut Kestrel — Quality: Gold (Low). Combat Rank: 2 — 2-Star.]

Jin watched four matches, then watched them again with the sound off.

The first thing he noticed was that the two beasts took turns. Sometimes the monitor started an exchange, shouldering in low and heavy, and the kestrel only came in afterward to cut off whoever tried to get round it.

Sometimes it was the other way round. The kestrel would dive across someone’s line, again and again, and only when they’d turned to deal with it would the monitor arrive.

It never looked like the same fight twice.

The second thing was Maddox himself.

His record listed a talent: a brief heightened awareness of movement close around him. On the footage, it looked like this.

Someone entered the edge of his vision, and he turned almost immediately, sword already up. It happened often enough that Jin replayed the approach. Maddox’s gaze had settled briefly before the exchange, although his feet kept moving.

That might be when he uses it. Jin watched another exchange. Don’t count on seeing it every time.

He wrote that down, and underlined close and movement, because on the third match he’d seen something useful. Somebody had come at Maddox from behind a barrier block, and he hadn’t turned until they came round its edge.

He can’t see through things. He just notices fast.

None of that was a plan. It was the start of one.

Lucian had his own footage, and he looked worse after it than Jin did.

The third seed was Sela Morrow, another Rank-2, 4-Star fourth-year. She was tall and very calm, and fought with a short practice sword.

Her beast was a Stonearm Gibbon, long-armed and grey, which moved sideways in quick little hops and seemed to be everywhere its tamer needed it to be.

"Watch this," Lucian said, and played Jin a clip.

On it, somebody tried to get past Morrow at speed. They broke away with a quick burst, the same way Lucian would have done. When they landed, the gibbon was already there.

Its long arm came round, caught them by the vest, and swung them off their feet.

"She lets you think you’ve found the gap," Lucian said. "Then the gibbon’s standing in it."

"Every time?"

"Every time I’ve watched."

He rubbed his face. "And her talent’s worse. If her sword touches yours, for a second it sort of sticks. You can’t just pull away. You have to break the contact properly." He played another clip. A boy’s blade met Morrow’s, and when he tried to step back, his weapon dragged after hers, slow and heavy, as if it had caught on something. "That’s how she gets you. She doesn’t hit hard. She just holds you there while the gibbon comes."