Chapter 79: The Hidden Monsters

It was peaceful enough, in fact, that they were not the only ones treating the lower slope as a place to catch their breath.

As they crested a broad terrace of broken rock, they came upon a cluster of other competitors who had clearly decided the same thing: a loose knot of seven or eight Core Genesis hopefuls, bells bobbing nervously at their shoulders, holed up in the lee of a great leaning slab where the sightlines were good and the approaches were few.

They had banded together for safety, the universal instinct of the middle of the pack, and they were doing what frightened people always did while they waited for the danger to find them.

They were talking.

The team slowed, unhurried, and Rudrean angled their path to pass near the slab rather than around it. Listening, as Isalyn had said, was its own reward.

"...telling you, I’m not going anywhere near the ridge lines," one of them was saying, a wiry young man clutching his bell as though it might bolt. "That’s where the real monsters are hunting. Not the beasts. The people."

"You’re being paranoid," a woman next to him said, though she didn’t sound like she believed it.

"Paranoid?" He laughed, thin and humorless. "You saw the board same as me. You know who’s in this pool with us. Did you see where Kaesryn Vol placed?"

A small, uneasy silence.

"Four hundred and something," the woman admitted.

"Four hundred and twelve," the wiry man corrected. "Kaesryn Vol. Of the Vol Clan. They’re top twenty, and their young mistress has been called a once-in-a-generation frost talent since she was twelve. And she placed four hundred and twelfth." He spread his hands. "You think the heir of a top-twenty clan can’t crack the top four hundred if she’s trying? She wasn’t trying. She coasted. Which means nobody on this mountain actually knows how strong she really is."

’Oh?’ Aelira’s voice flickered down the link, bright with private amusement. ’Sounds familiar.’

’Sounds like a smart girl,’ Isalyn said. ’Keep listening.’

"It’s not just her," another voice put in, an older youth with a scarred jaw. "There’s Sairon Drevane. Ranked, what, six hundred? Six fifty? The man yawned through his entire VR test. Witnesses said he cleared his waves one-handed and looked bored doing it. Drevane family’s only mid-forties on the rankings, but that boy is a freak, and everyone who trained near him knows it."

"And Mirae Solvane," the woman said quietly, and the name dropped the temperature of the whole conversation. "Don’t forget her."

"As if anyone could," the wiry man muttered.

"Who?" someone younger asked, nervous.

"Mirae Solvane. Solvane house is top thirty-five and climbing fast, and she’s the reason why," the scarred youth said. "She placed somewhere in the low thousands too. On purpose, obviously. They say she fights like she’s dancing, laughing the whole way through, and that’s somehow the most terrifying part. I saw a recording once. She took apart a Soul-Tree-stage instructor in a sparring match while smiling like it was a party."

"And then there’s the quiet one," the woman added, lower still. "Torvald Greythorn."

The younger one swallowed. "Greythorn? That’s only a mid-tier house."

"The house is. He isn’t." The scarred youth’s jaw tightened. "Twenty-four years old and people already call him a wall. He doesn’t dodge. He just lets things hit him, and the things break on him instead. I heard he ranked himself down in the eight hundreds and didn’t take a single point of real damage in his whole VR run. Not one."

"So that’s four of them," the woman said grimly. "Four monsters who could be sitting at the top of this board and chose to bury themselves in the middle instead. Hiding in the pack. Just like us." She hugged her bell tighter. "Except we’re hiding because we’re weak. They’re hiding because they don’t want to be noticed until it matters."

"Which is why," the wiry man said, "I am not going near the ridge lines. Let the geniuses eat each other up there. I just want to crawl across the next thirty-five hours with this stupid bell still in my hand."

The team passed on out of earshot, and Aelira was grinning openly now.

’Four geniuses sandbagging the board so nobody marks them,’ she sent. ’Darling, you’ve got company. A whole little club of people doing exactly what you did.’

’Good,’ Rudrean replied, and he meant it. ’The more of them there are, the less I stand out. Ninety-seventh place is a lot less interesting when there are four others who buried themselves deeper.’ His eyes moved, thoughtful, up toward the higher slopes where the cloud-crown sat. ’Kaesryn Vol. Sairon Drevane. Mirae Solvane. Torvald Greythorn. Worth remembering. If any of them are half what those people think, they’re the ones who actually matter in this pool. Not the names sitting at the top of the board.’

Lyra, who had been quiet through all of it, finally spoke up, her ears swiveling. "If those four are as careful as that, we won’t run into them by accident. People that deliberate don’t get caught wandering. They pick their moments." She frowned faintly. "Which means the only people we’ll actually trip over early are the ones bold enough, or stupid enough, to come looking for a fight."

As if the Mountain had been waiting for her to say it, Lyra went still.

She had three of her crafted eyes drifting in a slow patrol around the group, tiny floating lenses that swept the surrounding rock far beyond the range of ordinary sight, feeding straight into the Hexed Eyes link the team shared. And what they suddenly fed her wiped the ease off her face.

"Stop," she said sharply. Her ears flattened. "Everyone, stop."

The team froze.

"We have company," Lyra said, her voice low and tight, her eyes flicking across the readout only she could fully see. "A lot of it. They’ve been moving on us quietly, using the ridges for cover. I count..." Her jaw tightened. "Thirty. Thirty people. And they’re not scattered. They’re coordinated."

Even as she spoke, the figures resolved out of the surrounding rock, rising from behind ridgelines, stepping out from the mouths of ravines, fanning across the slopes above and below in a practiced, closing ring.

Thirty of them.

Surrounding all five.