Chapter 39| A Score To Settle

Chapter 39: Chapter 39| A Score To Settle

Zane found Dex still in the corridor outside Arena One.

The squad had filtered back toward the second year block — Kael, Torre, Fen, Pris, all gone. Just Dex standing near the wall with his arms crossed and his eyes on the arena entrance like he was still processing what he’d watched on the floor ten minutes ago.

Zane stopped beside him.

Neither of them said anything immediately.

The corridor noise ran around them. Students moving between arenas, the commentator’s voice picking up the next bracket announcement inside Arena One, the general hum of a building that was still running its schedule regardless of what had just happened on the floor.

"Your friends left," Zane said finally.

"Second year obligations," Dex said without looking over. "I stayed."

Another silence.

Then Zane said "Is there any way to get paired with a specific person in Round Two. Or Three."

Dex looked at him.

Properly. The easy energy was still there but something more focused underneath it.

"Specific like who," Dex said.

"Ryan," Zane said.

Dex was quiet for a full three seconds.

Then.. "You’re extremely mad right now."

"I’m fine," Zane said.

"You have the face of someone who is extremely mad and calling it fine," Dex said. He turned to face him properly for the first time. "I saw her go on that stretcher too." A pause. "Does she mean a lot to you?"

Zane kept his eyes forward.

The corridor. The wall. The arena entrance. Anywhere except the specific question sitting in the air between them.

"It doesn’t matter," he said. "She’s the one person I won’t let that slide for."

Dex looked at him for a long moment. Not pushing. Not probing further. Just taking the answer at face value the way Dex took most things. Without ceremony and without making it a bigger moment than it needed to be.

"Okay," he said simply.

He leaned back against the wall.

"Technically the bracket organisation is handled by the trial committee," Dex said. "There’s a senior coordinator in charge of the structure. You’d have to know them directly or know someone who does." He paused. "And look. Tactically speaking, you wouldn’t want to face Ryan too early. If you get paired in Round Two and drop out before you’ve shown what you can actually do you’ve wasted the whole setup. Chill for a round. Let the bracket run."

"I hear you," Zane said. "But this is my score to settle."

Dex held his gaze for another second.

Then nodded once. Clean. No further argument.

"Alright," Dex said. "Good luck."

Zane turned and walked back toward the main corridor.

He was halfway to the exit when the thought clicked.

His father. Garrett Calloway was an S-rank hero. The kind of hero whose name filled rooms before he walked into them. Active for years before the fall. Long enough to have worked alongside the generation that came after him.

Nova Steele had said this morning that she’d passed through these same trials once. Graduated from Aldren. Served after.

If the timelines overlapped..

’She knew him,’ Zane thought. ’She has to have.’

He turned around.

Nova Steele was near the main building exit, gear bag over one shoulder, already moving toward the doors with the purposeful stride of someone whose schedule hadn’t paused for the trials and wasn’t pausing now.

Zane caught up before she reached the exit.

"Nova Steele."

She stopped. Turned.

Looked at him with genuine surprise. Not alarm, just the real recalibration of someone who hadn’t expected to be stopped in this corridor by this specific person today.

"Oh," she said. A brief pause. "Sovereign’s kid." She glanced toward the exit then back. "Didn’t think I’d actually get to talk to you today. Duty calls unfortunately. I would’ve loved a proper chat."

"Please hear me out," Zane said. "I have a request."

Nova Steele looked at him.

Something shifted in her expression. Not impatience. Genuine curiosity. The controlled smirk from the press conference pulled at the corner of her mouth.

"The Sovereign’s son has a request," she said. "And what might that be."

"I need to be in the same bracket as Ryan Castellan in Round Three," Zane said. "I need someone to talk to whoever organises the trial structure."

Nova Steele looked at him for a long moment.

"Ryan Castellan," she said. Something almost like amusement in her voice. "Haha. Don’t be too hard on yourself about him. His character is just like that. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by what happened out there."

Zane looked at her.

Just looked at her. Steady. Flat. Letting the look carry what the words didn’t need to.

Nova Steele held his gaze.

The amusement faded. Something more considered replaced it. She glanced toward the arena corridor toward where the stretcher had gone then back at him.

"The girl on the stretcher," she said quietly.

Zane said nothing.

Nova Steele was quiet for a moment. Long enough to mean something.

"Your father did me a favour once," she said. Her voice had dropped slightly. Not soft exactly. Just real. "In my early career. Before I had the rank to handle something on my own. He stepped in without being asked." She paused. "I never got to pay it back to him."

She looked at Zane directly.

"I’ll make one call," she said. "But you have to advance to Round Three first. If you drop in Round Two this conversation never happened and the bracket stays as is."

"I’ll advance," Zane said.

"Promise me," she said.

"I promise," Zane said.

She held his gaze for three full seconds. Reading something in it. Whatever she found there was apparently sufficient.

She nodded once.

"Go," she said. "Your Round Two bracket just posted."

From somewhere down the corridor the commentator’s voice lifted over everything.

"Round Two — 007, Calloway Zane versus 015, Mercer Dean. C-rank versus C-rank. Arena Two. Students please report immediately."

Zane looked down the corridor toward the arena entrance.

Then back at Nova Steele.

"Thank you," he said.

She waved him off with the specific casual energy of someone who had already moved on internally.

"Don’t thank me," she said. "Advance."

He turned and walked toward Arena Two without looking back.

Behind him the main building doors opened and closed.

Nova Steele was gone.

He kept walking. The corridor running its noise around him. The building still doing what buildings did on trial day regardless of what had happened on any individual floor.

Round Two. C-rank opponent. Mercer Dean. Someone whose name he didn’t recognise and whose Sigil he’d never seen activate within his aura range.

He’d handle it.

Then Round Three.

Then Ryan Castellan.

’You will pay,’ he thought again.

The file was still open.

It wasn’t closing until he settled it personally.