Soren enters the forgotten Mercy Trial Hall and finds records proving support rankings were deliberately suppresse...
Mercy Trial Hall smelled of dust, lavender antiseptic, and a century of being inconvenient. Soren slipped inside after midnight with Mira, Lyra, and Talen arguing in whispers behind him about who was least likely to collapse. The door closed without a latch. Blue examination circles woke along the floor, one by one, as his cracked expelled badge bled light into the grooves. Shelves rose out of shadow. Each held sealed patient records, old healer medals, and ranking plaques turned face down.
"They had a whole hall," Lyra said. Her voice was small in a way the arena had never allowed. Talen leaned on a cane, furious at every step. "My grandfather said support trials were nursery stories." Mira pulled a ledger from a shelf and sneezed hard enough to insult history. "Your grandfather was lied to by people with excellent storage habits." Soren opened the ledger carefully. The first page listed support rankings by survival rate, recovery time, consent accuracy, and return-to-duty health after three months.
Not damage. Outcomes. The difference hurt. Soren ran one finger down names erased from modern banners. Healers had once stood beside champions in official rank, not behind them as maintenance. A red memo had been pasted over the later pages: spectacle ranking reform, sponsor clarity, support metrics retired. Dean Corvin's family seal sat at the bottom, three generations old. The academy had not outgrown healers. It had sold the scoreboard.
The Mercy Ledger opened without Soren touching a patient. Hall record recognized. Candidate status disputed. Expulsion conflict detected. Mana cuff integrity poor. Mira grabbed his wrist as blue light drained from the cracked cuff into the floor. "Stop feeding the haunted classroom." "I am not." "Then the haunted classroom is feeding on you." Soren pulled back, but the hall had already taken enough to write his name across an examination circle.
A voice from the walls spoke in formal old academy cadence. Candidate Soren Vale eligible for preliminary Mercy Trial by field diagnosis, consent record, and public fraud trigger. Lyra laughed once, delighted and dangerous. Talen sat down before his knee chose for him. "Eligible means they have to let you test?" Soren read the next line and felt the night sharpen. Preliminary trial requires three patients, one hostile review, one recovery outcome, and dean notification.
Inside the hall, Mira found a shelf of old supply recipes and made a sound usually reserved for discovering money. "They had willow ratios, mana-rest schedules, consent scripts, all of it." Soren took one page and saw notes from support students who had treated champions decades ago. Their handwriting was practical, irritated, alive. The academy had not buried theory. It had buried people who knew how to keep fighters whole after the crowd stopped watching.
Soren found an old medal under the ledger shelf, tarnished green at the edge. The engraving read support rank, first class. He held it beside his cracked badge. One was honor hidden in dust. One was disgrace warm from use. The Mercy Trial circle brightened under both, as if history preferred mismatched tools to clean lies.
The hall record listed failed support candidates too. Not failures, Soren realized as he read the notes, but people who had refused treatment without consent or hidden side effects to impress judges. The old exam had punished shortcuts. No wonder the modern academy had buried it.
Somewhere above, a bell rang in Dean Corvin's office. The hall had notified him because old rules loved procedure even when procedure carried knives. Mira stuffed the retired support ledger into her bag. "We should leave before the dean arrives with a broom for history." Soren looked at the examination circle bearing his name. Expelled. Banned. Eligible. For the first time since the arena, the words did not cancel each other. They formed a treatment plan. "No," he said. "We prepare patients."