The first work bell found Vhar awake, hungry, and without a mark from the four pistons that had struck him.
Vhar dressed, fastened Radrazh and Ulqor across his back, and reached the dining hall before the bread disappeared.
Sera had saved one heel of the loaf beneath her bowl.
"I considered eating it," she said as he sat down. "Kavos insisted you had earned breakfast by destroying something too large to bring upstairs."
Kavos looked offended. "I said the testing office kept him below ground until the meal bell, but I knew nothing about destruction."
"Good enough for me," Vhar said, taking the bread.
Reth arrived with dust on one knee. "The review frame is already in the central yard, and Orven has walked around it three times without touching it."
Vhar finished the bread and followed him outside.
Orven stood beside the boundary rail in a sleeveless training coat. His staff leaned within reach, but both hands were empty. An examiner had opened the equipment screen around two armored practice bodies and the weighted brace frame between them.
"You are early," Orven said.
"Reth said you were circling the floor."
Orven looked toward the right brace. "That side leaned away from my staff lane last season. Now it leans toward your drawing arm."
The examiner glanced between them. "Nobody enters until I finish checking it. If either of you recognizes something, speak before I set the weights."
Vhar walked outside the boundary. Four bolts carried the First Measure Academy's square-headed stamp. Two beneath the right brace had round heads, shallow tool marks, and fresh gray wax packed into their seams.
"Those bolts came from somewhere else," he said.
Orven crouched without crossing the paint. His jaw tightened when he saw them. "They are new."
The examiner sent a clerk for the frame ledger. Its last repair page listed six square-headed bolts and no work after the equipment had been assigned to their public challenge.
The examiner cleared the lane and released one brake from behind the screen.
CLANG!
The wrong counterweight dropped first. It dragged the protected practice body across Vhar's opening path and left Orven's staff lane untouched.
Orven stared at the body swinging between them. "I would have seen that after the bell, when his arm was already trapped."
Vhar waited to see what Orven would do with the opening.
Orven picked up his staff and stepped away from the frame. "Close this one. I'm not defending eight weeks of work on equipment somebody rigged against me."
Anger roughened Orven's breath as his hand closed around the faded access cord on his wrist.
The examiner covered the frame with a red screen. "The altered bolts go to evidence, and the challenge waits for independent equipment."
Workers removed the two round-headed bolts. Pale quarry grit clung to their threads beneath the new wax.
Reth rubbed a pinch between his fingers and dropped it into an evidence cloth. "Same pale stone as the assembly pit."
"Can you prove it came from there?" Orven asked.
"Not from color alone, but the evidence office can compare what is caught beneath the threads."
Once the workers carried the screened frame away, Orven sat on the rail and loosened his grip.
The replacement would not arrive until after the midday meal, so Sera brought bread and a pot of lentils to the covered walk. Kavos carried cups, while Reth arrived last after delivering the grit sample to the evidence office.
Orven began to leave them the bench.
Sera pushed a cup toward the empty end. "You found the bad frame before it caught anyone, so sit down before you turn that into another training exercise."
He hesitated, then rested his staff against the wall and joined them.
Kavos filled Orven's cup. "I thought you would wait until the first release because the frame was giving you the better lane."
"I almost did wait," Orven admitted. "I knew the brace looked wrong, but I did not want to stop a public challenge because my memory disagreed with an examiner."
"What changed your mind?" Sera asked.
Orven looked toward the red screen. "The angle kept bothering me. I've struck that brace enough times to know where the return force lands in my wrists. If I'd ignored that while Vhar was trapped in there, the excuse would've been mine to carry."
Reth set the empty evidence cloth beside his bowl. "Your memory found the bolts. The grit might tell the office who carried them here."
Orven tore his bread in half. "Whoever changed it knew my lane."
"Or knew which side would place Vhar at a disadvantage," Kavos said.
Vhar ate while both possibilities remained open. The person responsible had touched Academy equipment after assignment, but the altered frame did not reveal whether Orven had been studied, Vhar had been targeted, or both.
Sera glanced between them. "Are you still going through with it tomorrow?"
Orven turned his cup between both palms. "Yes, and I will inspect everything again, but I am not giving up the seat because someone touched the frame."
"We'll inspect the replacement together," Vhar said.
An independent frame arrived after the midday meal with a different workshop stamp and clean anchor plates. The workers left its service trench open long enough for both candidates to see six matching bolts, separate counterweight cables, and bare stone beneath them. Reth checked the bedding while the examiner moved each brake once.
The right weight rose when its brake moved, the left followed its own cable, and nothing crossed between them.
Vhar climbed out of the trench and watched the workers close it. Orven pressed the right weighted arm from full staff reach; it yielded, returned, and kept the center lane open.
Vhar entered from the opposite side with one practice body moving across him. Radrazh cleared first through the open rear channel. His empty hand guided the body past his hip before Ulqor followed.
SHING!
Neither edge touched the figure or frame.
"Release it late," Orven told the examiner. "We both knew the first timing."
The next drop narrowed Vhar's draw and shortened Orven's staff lane. Vhar kept Ulqor secured and moved through with Radrazh alone, while Orven changed his grip to stop the weighted arm before it reached the protected body.
Both men finished inside the boundary.
"Keep the late release," Vhar said. "Neither of us owns it yet."
The examiner wrote the timing into the challenge. "The bell begins the measure. A surrender, lost registered weapon, three breaths outside the boundary, inability to continue, or my horn after decisive contact ends it. If either man cannot defend himself, the other stops."
An armament worker fitted rawhide sleeves over Radrazh and Ulqor and padded the ends of Orven's staff. She made both men draw and turn before sealing the bindings with red thread.
"If a binding tears, freeze where you are and let me reach you," she said. "I would prefer not to discover which weapon remains sharper through personal experience."
Vhar rolled Radrazh through its channel without catching the leather. Orven reversed his staff and found both collars secure.
The public session would open at the next first bell with House Talvern's offering record and the quarry evidence, while their physical challenge would follow as a separate decision over the hazardous-field seat, restricted training hours, and public ranking.
As the terms went onto the yard board, the records officer from the evidence review approached Vhar with a supplementary page from House Talvern.
"The House charged the things you received during your escape against an unnamed worker's household ration," she said. "Breakfast, clothing, boots, and wrapping cloth."
The service mark at the bottom matched the token beside the bowl of grain broth.
Vhar read it twice. "Does this tell you whether she is alive?"
"No, but I can compare the mark against the protected staff register, although I may find only dismissal or a punishment entry."
"Please look for her quietly," Vhar said. "If House Talvern punished her for helping me, I want that written beside every scrap of food they charged her for."
The officer's mouth tightened as she compared the four ration entries with the service mark. A woman's punishment had been reduced to breakfast, boots, cloth, and grain.
The officer folded the page over the service mark. "I will check the register first and come back to you before anyone tries to contact her."
She took a second records worker as witness and carried the page toward the protected office.
Vhar watched the service mark disappear with her. He still did not know the worker's name, and learning it carelessly could place another trail beside her.
He wanted the answer before the public session. If the House had punished her for keeping him alive, its representatives would stand within reach while that fact entered the Academy record.
Evening bells crossed the yard when the verified frame entered the locked review bay. Orven checked the red seal twice before leaving with his staff over one shoulder, while Vhar watched the door close behind it.
The examiner copied that seal number onto the public board, allowing every student at the rail to compare it when the bay opened again.
In his room, Vhar laid the review schedule beside his harness. House Talvern would arrive with a record that declared him dead. Orven was bringing eight weeks of trained work and a staff he trusted.
Beneath Vhar's skin, the Primeval Tattoos waited without revealing a single line.
Two full meals and uninterrupted circulation had restored much of his Uvar, though Vhar did not need the Matrix Manifest to tell him he could sleep.