Elira learned early that urgency never announces itself honestly.
It arrived disguised as courtesy. As reminders phrased like questions. As doors that closed a little more quietly than usual.
The first sign was the delay.
The relay sigils should have pulsed by now. Even weakly. Even fractured. The second expedition was not composed of amateurs. They knew the routes, the margins of error, the ritual windows where contact was possible. Two weeks of silence could be dismissed. A month demanded reports. Two months demanded contingency.
They were well past that.
From the outer balconies of the academy's administrative wing, Elira could see the city below, slate roofs stacked too tightly, smoke rising in uneven threads. Merchants still shouted. Carts still rolled. On the surface, nothing had changed.
But institutions felt absence like a missing tooth.
The empire had not announced the loss. It never did. Public panic was inefficient. Instead, resources shifted quietly. Patrols increased along old roads. Archive access tightened. Funding reallocated under different titles.
And people like Elira stopped being asked and started being told.
Her summons came in the late afternoon, delivered by a clerk who refused to meet her eyes. That alone told her enough. When she arrived, the chamber held only three others. No banners. No ceremonial guard.
Efficiency mode.
"The window is closing," said the man at the far end of the table. Lord-Administrator Kaelrin. Civilian title. Military authority. The worst kind.
"We don't know that," Elira replied evenly.
Kaelrin's fingers tapped once against the wood. "We do. Other nations are mobilizing. Quietly. Just like us. Someone will reach it again. Soon."
It. The word carried weight even unspoken.
"And if they do," another voice added, "we lose leverage."
Elira folded her hands behind her back. She had learned not to grip them. It read as fear.
"You want a third attempt," she said.
"We want success."
"You want speed."
Kaelrin's gaze sharpened. "We want minds."
There it was.
She exhaled slowly. "Throwing bodies at it hasn't worked."
"No," he agreed. "Which is why we are no longer throwing bodies."
They slid a thin folder across the table. She did not open it. She already knew what would be inside. Candidate profiles. Behavioral analyses. Marginal notes written by people who never met the subjects.
"You've been embedded at the academy for six years," Kaelrin continued. "We are asking you to produce results commensurate with that investment."
Asking.
Elira inclined her head. "I am not a recruiter."
"You are an observer," he corrected. "And you've observed someone."
Silence thickened.
She hated that they were right.
"I've observed several," she said carefully.
Kaelrin smiled without warmth. "But only one you haven't reported."
The meeting ended shortly after. No threats. No raised voices. Just timelines.
When Elira left the chamber, the corridor felt narrower than before. She walked without hurry, posture composed, thoughts racing beneath the surface.
She had not planned for this to accelerate.
The boy was supposed to be an option. A contingency. Someone to be cultivated slowly, indirectly, if at all. He was too young. Too raw. Too visibly resistant to being shaped.
Which was precisely why he mattered.
Outside the academy, the city breathed uneasily. Rumors moved faster than official silence. Traders spoke of closed mountain passes. Pilgrims delayed journeys. A temple in the southern quarter had begun nightly vigils "just in case."
People sensed instability before they could name it.
Elira watched from a shaded balcony as students crossed the courtyard below. Laughing. Complaining. Living inside a bubble that had not yet popped.
She spotted him near the eastern archway.
Of course she did.
He walked alone, as usual, but not aimlessly. He never wandered. Even his pauses had intent. That was the tell. Not brilliance. Not knowledge. Control.
He was pulling back again. She could see it. Less engagement. Less presence. He thought restraint equaled safety.
She had thought the same once.
Her superior's words echoed uninvited: Produce results.
They wanted a strategist. A coordinator. Someone who could think laterally under impossible constraints. Someone who did not believe in clean victories.
They wanted him.
But Elira knew something they didn't.
Pressure broke people like him in unpredictable ways.
That night, she reviewed the failed expedition logs again. The fragments that remained. Spatial distortions. Emotional anomalies. Reports of decision paralysis near the final ascent. Teams that argued too long, hesitated too late.
Not lack of courage.
Lack of someone willing to decide.
She closed the files and leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
This was not about recruitment anymore.
It was about timing.
The empire would not wait forever. If she didn't act, someone else would. Someone cruder. Someone who would drag him in with promises or threats instead of conversation.
Elira rose and crossed to the window.
"I'm running out of room," she murmured to the glass.
Below, the boy stopped walking. Just for a moment. As if he felt eyes on him.
He didn't look up.
Good, she thought. Still cautious.
Still dangerous.
She turned away, decision settling not as certainty, but as acceptance.
Tomorrow, she would push harder.
Not because she wanted to.
Because if she didn't, the empire would stop asking altogether.