"Was that a magic crystal?"
Liora was staring at the spot where Veyra had been crouched, the small green object already gone, the demon’s cracked skull the only evidence that anything had been there at all.
Mira answered before anyone else could. "Yes. Demonized magical beasts carry them, and that was a fifth-rank one." She turned to look at Veyra with the expression of someone doing difficult arithmetic. "That crystal could have sold for at least a thousand gold coins. Little Light just swallowed a thousand gold coins."
Veyra’s golden eyes blinked at Mira with complete serenity.
Liora laughed, a short, tired sound, more exhale than amusement. "If I had a partner like that, I’d let her swallow whatever she wanted." She glanced at the Stone brothers. Both of them nodded without hesitation.
They weren’t wrong. In the fight just finished, Veyra had operated like a second team member attached specifically to Leo, healing when he took damage, covering angles when his hands were occupied, roaring at exactly the right moment to break the demon’s charge. Five or six different spell types, from a fourth-rank mid beast. Most magical beasts at that level could manage two or three.
Liora found the jealousy very easy to feel and not particularly worth hiding.
Little Light, for her part, had lowered both heads with the body language of a creature that understood it had done something it wasn’t sure would be approved of, and was hoping the scratching behind the jaw would continue regardless.
Leo crouched and gave both heads exactly that. "You’re fine," he said quietly. "You’re both fine. Come on, we need to move."
Veyra made her satisfied sound and fell into step beside him.
---
Mira brought the demon’s body up. "The dark green carapace has medicinal uses. It’s worth taking."
Leo looked at her, then at the body, then nodded. His special ring accepted the demon’s remains without ceremony. "We split the value when we get back. Equal shares."
"I don’t need any of it," Liora said immediately.
The Stone brothers shook their heads in unison. Caden spoke for both of them, which, for Caden, was a notable event. "We can’t take it. You’re the reason we’re alive, Leo. You took every hit. That’s yours."
Leo looked at him. Then at Darius, who was watching with the patient expression of someone who had already decided not to argue with whatever conclusion was reached.
"I didn’t kill it alone," Leo said. "I couldn’t have. That’s not modesty, it’s just true. We talk about the split when we’re safe. Now we move."
Nobody argued.
---
They made it ten kilometers without seeing a single pursuing demon.
The Rose Unicorn carried Mira and Liora at the front. Caden and Darius rode the spare horses. Leo rode beside them, letting the motion help settle his injuries, feeling the Holy Mantle continue its slow repair work from the inside out.
Through the Blood Contract, he could feel something happening in Veyra as she ran alongside the horses. A warmth moving through her, not external, deep and internal. The crystal was being processed. He didn’t know what that meant yet. But it felt significant, the way things feel significant before you understand why.
The Temple Alliance garrison came into view under a bright, full sun: organized tents, patrol rotations, the structured activity of a military post that existed specifically because demon territory was close enough to make it necessary.
The captain on duty received them with practiced courtesy. Participants in the Demon Hunt Selection were handled carefully everywhere. The Alliance understood what they represented, and what they’d had to do to get here.
They were given a large tent. They collapsed into it.
---
Leo sat against the tent’s center post and took stock.
"Twenty-two confirmed kills," he said. "Three short. And I need roughly three days to recover fully before I can fight at any reliable level."
The tent was quiet for a moment. Not the quiet of people with nothing to say, but the quiet of people deciding whether to say the obvious things.
Darius broke it first. "We rest today. Tomorrow is the final window. We reassess in the morning."
Liora shook her head. She’d been staring at the tent floor since they sat down, and when she looked up, her expression had settled into something unusually direct.
"I’m going to recommend we don’t go back in," she said. "We still don’t know how they were tracking us. The ambush pattern, Luke Clan underground, Dyke Clan assassin above, Dark Green Dual-Bladed Demon in pursuit, wasn’t random. Someone organized it. If we go back in blind, we might face something we can’t handle even with full spiritual energy." She paused. "I’ll withdraw from the Selection if it comes to that. I’ll take the disqualification."
Mira stared at her.
Liora met her gaze without flinching. "If Leo hadn’t been there, I would be dead. That’s not a feeling, that’s what happened. I saw the blade." She looked at her own hands for a moment. "I have gaps I didn’t know I had. Going into a formal competition with those gaps unaddressed would be irresponsible."
The tent stayed quiet.
Then a voice came from outside.
"None of you need to withdraw."
The tent flap opened.
The old mage stepped in, staff in hand, posture unhurried, the deep blue robes catching the afternoon light through the entrance. He looked different from the expressionless figure who had floated ahead of them at the east gate and vanished without ceremony. Not warmer, exactly. But present in a way he hadn’t been before.
Everyone straightened automatically.
Liora bowed first. "Senior Supervisor."
The old man waved a hand and moved to sit facing the group. "Stay seated." He looked at each face in turn, his gaze lingering on Leo’s a moment longer than the others. "My name is Garrick Yorne. You may call me Teacher Yorne. As of now, you are participants in the Demon Hunt Selection Competition, and I will be coordinating your involvement from this point forward."
The shift in his manner was noticeable. The flat, final quality of his earlier words, *consider me absent*, was gone.
Leo filed that observation away.
Liora spoke carefully. "Teacher Yorne, you said we’ve already qualified?"
"You have." Yorne nodded once. "All five of you."
The reaction was immediate and involuntary: a collective release, five sets of shoulders dropping at the same moment, the relief of people who had braced for more bad news and received good news instead. Even Mira’s carefully maintained composure developed a visible crack.
Leo frowned. "We only killed twenty-two demons. The requirement was twenty-five, five each."
Yorne looked at him with something that might, on another face, have been amusement. "The requirement of five kills applies to fourth-rank demons and below. A fourth-rank demon counts as five. A fifth-rank counts as more." He paused. "When you killed the Dyke Clan assassin, you had already qualified. When the Dark Green Dual-Bladed Demon appeared, I was genuinely concerned. I considered intervening several times. But I didn’t, because I wanted to see what you could do." The look he gave Leo was unreadable but specific. "I did not expect you to actually kill it."
Caden’s fist came down on his knee. "Then we’re in."
"You’re in," Yorne confirmed. He looked around the tent. "Since you’ve qualified, you’re entitled to certain information about the Selection. I’ll give it to you now. Listen carefully. This is the only briefing I’ll provide directly. Everything from here on is your own responsibility."
The tent went very still.
Five people who had just survived two ambushes and a fifth-rank demon sat up straight and listened.
---
"The Demon Hunt Selection occurs every five years," Yorne began. "Each mid-sized city sends one supervisor to administer the qualifying round. That was my role. Once you reach the Temple Alliance, you’ll be divided by vocation into preliminary contests before advancing to the main stage."
He let that settle, then continued.
"The Alliance cities collectively hold 127 competition slots. Every one of those slots will be filled by the strongest young talent each city can produce. The preliminary rounds are brutal, particularly for the Knight Temple, Warrior Temple, and Mage Temple, which carry the largest number of participants." He paused. "The other three temples field far fewer competitors. The Spiritual Temple in particular. Their participants typically advance to the main stage after only one or two preliminary rounds."
Leo’s expression didn’t change, but behind it, his mind was already moving, mapping the structure, calculating where each person in this tent would be placed, noting the Spiritual Temple’s unusual position.
Mira noticed. She always noticed.
She said nothing.
Yorne was still speaking, and what he was saying mattered too much to interrupt.
Leo’s eyes moved from the table to Liora, then back to Yorne.
"You noticed," Yorne said without looking at him. "Good. Most people hear that detail and forget it by dinner."
"Why would the Spiritual Temple need only one or two rounds?" Leo asked.
Yorne’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. "Because the Spiritual Temple doesn’t need to be the strongest to win. It only needs to be chosen." He let the words hang over the table for a long moment. "And the prize that makes that choice worth fighting for is one I haven’t told you about yet."
Mira’s hand tightened around her cup.
Across the tent, Darius and Caden exchanged a look. Liora’s fingers had gone still on her staff.
Only Leo kept his eyes on the old man, and the faint pull of the Lodestar Stove in his chest, which had started to hum.