The old man didn’t wait for questions.
The moment his order left his mouth, he swept his staff in a single clean arc. Blue light erupted around him — not gradual, not building up, just *there* — and he rose from the ground without so much as bending his knees. One meter up, hovering in complete stillness, like gravity had simply decided not to apply to him anymore.
"Consider me absent," he said, his voice carrying easily despite the fact that he was already moving forward. "I will not assist you under any circumstances short of you formally withdrawing from this Selection."
The blue light intensified.
And then he was gone.
No trail. No sound. No shimmer in the air where he’d been. One moment a senior mage supervisor was floating in front of them, and the next moment there was just road and morning light and five young fighters staring at an empty space.
Caden Stone blinked. "Did he just—"
"Yes," Darius said.
Leo had already turned to look behind them. Just once, quickly. His eyes moved across the treeline without pausing on anything in particular.
Then he looked back at the road ahead.
---
"Here." Liora reached into her coat and produced a folded sheepskin map. She spread it open against her saddle. "We move due east and enter demon-controlled territory at this point." She tapped a spot near the edge, then reached into her coat again and produced five silver tiles — round, palm-sized, each set with a small violet gem that pulsed faintly with magical energy. She kept one and passed the other four across.
Leo turned his tile over in his hand. The back was engraved with text — identification, origin city, competitor number. The gem in the center hummed against his palm.
"These are our entry licenses for the Selection," Liora said. "They’ll keep Alliance patrol units from stopping us, but they won’t get us any help from them either. Once we cross into demon territory, we’re entirely on our own." She looked up. "The objective is straightforward — twenty-five demon kills total, five per person. The most efficient targets will be demon scout patrols. We avoid their main encampments entirely. That direction leads to a death trap with no exit."
She paused, and her gaze moved carefully — deliberately — to Mira.
"We’re operating as a unit. A unit needs a commander. Before we engage anything, we should establish who’s giving orders in the field."
Mira’s eyes narrowed. The pause before she spoke was exactly one second long. "And I assume you’re volunteering yourself."
"Yes." Liora didn’t flinch. "My cultivation level is the highest in this group. As a rear-line mage, I also have the widest view of any battlefield formation — I can see everything from the back. That makes me the most qualified to direct."
Mira looked at her for a long moment.
The group waited.
Then, to everyone’s visible surprise — including Liora’s — Mira nodded. "Fine. We’ll follow your lead."
Liora stared.
Mira caught the look and made a short, dismissive sound. "Don’t read into it. I’m keeping personal feelings out of this because my little brother is riding with us. That’s the only reason." She leveled a finger. "But if your calls on the field are wrong — even once — I’m taking command myself. Are we clear?"
Liora held her gaze for a second, then looked at the Stone brothers. "Any objections?"
Darius and Caden shook their heads in unison. They were straightforward people, practical to their bones — they knew perfectly well that both women outranked them in ability, and they had no interest in pretending otherwise.
"Good." Liora rolled up the map. "We move."
Leo, who had been standing quietly to the side through the entire exchange, glanced around the group.
Not one person had asked his opinion.
He stood there for a moment, processing this, and was still privately working through how he felt about it when Liora stepped directly in front of him.
She was smiling. Warmly. In a way that was completely different from every interaction they’d had so far.
"Little Brother Long." Her voice had gone soft and pleasant. "I’m wearing a mage’s robe — I can’t ride properly on horseback. Could you look after me? I’ll ride behind you."
Leo opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
On his left, Mira had gone very still. The temperature around her seemed to drop two degrees.
Liora still hadn’t looked at Mira. She kept her eyes on Leo, her expression patient and entirely unbothered, and tilted her head slightly. "You’re a Guardian Knight. Are you really going to tell me you can’t protect a mage?"
She extended her hand toward his horse.
A second hand appeared from the left — much faster — and grabbed Liora firmly by the arm.
Mira pulled her back two full steps with no apparent effort, placed herself between Liora and the horse, and stared at her with an expression that was somewhere between fury and satisfaction.
"You can ride with *me,*" Mira said, in a voice like a door being locked from the inside.
"I don’t want—"
"Wonderful." Mira was already swinging up onto the Rose Unicorn. "Pick one of the Stone brothers if you’d prefer. But you are not using my little brother as your personal mount service. That is not happening. Not in this lifetime."
Liora turned red. "I wasn’t *using* him—"
"Choose." Mira extended a hand from atop the unicorn with the absolute finality of someone who had already won and was simply waiting for the other party to realize it.
For a moment Liora looked like she was going to argue.
Then, with the controlled expression of someone swallowing something unpleasant, she took Mira’s hand and climbed up behind her.
The Rose Unicorn launched upward immediately, shooting forward like a red streak released from a bow, and Liora made an undignified sound that she would certainly deny later.
Leo looked at Darius. Darius looked at Caden. Caden was pressing his lips together very hard.
They kicked their horses forward without another word.
Behind them, low to the ground, a long dark shadow kept pace — two heads swiveling with keen interest, both of them apparently having the time of their lives.
---
The Rose Unicorn could cover two hundred kilometers in two hours.
The horses could not.
They rode from early morning through to late evening, the landscape shifting around them from the cultivated outskirts of Moonhaven City into wilder, rougher terrain — broken hills, sparse forest, roads that thinned and then stopped being roads at all. By the time they reached the edge of Alliance-controlled territory, the sky had gone dark and the air had a different quality to it. Quieter. More watchful.
They showed their tiles at the border checkpoint and passed through without incident. Their horses were left at the post. A quick, plain meal — the kind you eat because you need to, not because you want to — and then they were standing at the threshold of demon territory, looking in.
"Here." Liora spread the map on a flat rock, lit by moonlight. Her earlier irritation was packed away somewhere behind a calm, professional expression. Whatever she felt about Mira, this was not the time for it. "Our current position is here. The main demon encampment is approximately one hundred kilometers in — far beyond our operational range. We are not going anywhere near it." Her finger traced the border region. "Scout patrols operate in this band. We hunt patrols. We get twenty-five kills. We get out."
She looked up and met each set of eyes in turn.
"Formation. Mira, you’re at the front — fastest response time and strongest individual combat power. Darius, left flank. Caden, right flank. Little Brother Long, rear guard. I stay at the center." A brief pause. "In engagement, nothing moves without my call unless there is no time for one. Everyone acknowledged?"
Nods around the circle. Even Mira.
They stood up together and looked at what was ahead of them.
The demon lands were dark. Not the comfortable dark of a city at night — the kind of dark that pressed back. Somewhere in it, things were moving. Things that had been at war with humanity for six thousand years and would be for six thousand more if they could manage it.
Leo felt something tighten in his chest. Not fear exactly. Something more alert than that. Something that said *pay attention.*
"Veyra," he said quietly. "Come out."
A shadow detached itself from the darkness behind the group and stepped forward — two meters of scaled muscle, two heads raised, four eyes reflecting the moonlight. The violet-gold contract mark on her back glimmered softly.
The group scattered.
Darius’s hand went to his sword. Caden dropped into a combat stance. Even Mira’s unicorn took a startled step sideways.
"Easy," Leo said quickly, raising a hand. "She’s mine. She’s with us."
Heartbeats of silence.
Then, one by one, people straightened up.
The most affected was Liora. She was a mage — her mental sensitivity was her greatest asset, sharper than any of the frontline fighters — and she had felt absolutely nothing from Veyra until the moment Veyra had chosen to appear. No spiritual energy signature. No presence. Nothing.
She looked at the two-headed lizard with an expression that had moved, very rapidly, from alarm to something much closer to unsettled respect.
"What," she said carefully, "is that."
"My partner," Leo said.
Liora looked at him. Looked at Veyra. Looked at him again.
"Your partner," she repeated, in the tone of someone revising several assumptions simultaneously.
Veyra’s golden eyes turned toward Liora with calm, unhurried interest.
Liora looked away first.