The Thirteen Knight

Chapter 18: The Suspect

The Great Hall was usually a place of noisy meals and floating candles. Tonight, it was a tomb.

Headmaster Thorne stood at the podium, his voice amplified by magic, booming over the heads of two thousand terrified students.

"The breach has been contained," Thorne announced, his face grave. "However, the nature of the incursion is... troubling. Security protocols are being rewritten effective immediately."

I stood in the back row, squeezed between Tal and a trembling first-year. My arm throbbed. The skin underneath my sleeve was red and raw, like a bad sunburn, a lingering souvenir from the Apostate Knight’s transformation.

"Furthermore," Thorne continued, his eyes scanning the crowd, "there have been reports of an unidentified entity operating within the campus grounds during the attack. A humanoid figure in black armor."

A murmur ran through the hall.

"This entity is not authorized," Thorne said, his voice hardening. "It is considered a Class A threat. If you see it, do not engage. Report it immediately. It is likely a demon of a higher order, mimicking human form."

My stomach turned. They didn't see a hero. They saw another monster.

"Irony is dead," Tal whispered to me. "That thing saved our lives, and they want to hunt it."

"Fear makes people stupid," I muttered, gripping my elbow to stop the shaking.

I looked up at the balcony. Commander Vane wasn't there anymore. That scared me more than if she had been staring at me.

"Dismissed," Thorne said. "Report to your temporary sector assignments."

As the crowd began to shuffle toward the exits, a drone—a floating silver sphere with a single red eye—dropped from the ceiling. It buzzed over the heads of the students, weaving through the crowd until it stopped directly in front of me.

It hovered at eye level. A holographic projection beam shot out, displaying a single, curt message.

CADET ROYCE. REPORT TO THE DISCIPLINARY TOWER. IMMEDIATELY.

Tal looked at the message, then at me. "Disciplinary Tower? Chase, what did you do?"

"Probably about the arena pipes," I lied, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Vane is pissed I broke her nephew's win streak."

"Good luck," Tal said, patting my shoulder. "Don't let her turn you into a toad."

I nodded and separated from the stream of students. I didn't go to the tower immediately. I had one stop to make first.

I sprinted toward the steam tunnels, taking the long way around to avoid the drones. I burst into Randar’s workshop, nearly tripping over a pile of scrap metal.

"Randar!" I hissed.

The old smith was welding something. He flipped his visor up. "You're late. I heard the sirens."

"I used it," I said, pulling the Apostate Drive out of my pocket. "I had to. Tal was going to die."

Randar’s face went pale. He snatched the Drive from my hand and threw it into a lead-lined safe under his workbench, spinning the lock.

"Did anyone see you change?"

"No," I said. "But Vane saw the Knight. And now she's summoned me to her office."

Randar cursed in an ancient dwarven dialect. He grabbed a bottle of clear, viscous liquid from a shelf and a rough rag.

"Your arm," he barked. "Show me."

I rolled up my sleeve. The skin was laced with faint, black veins—residue from the demon fibers.

"Idiot," Randar grumbled, pouring the liquid onto the rag. It smelled like bleach and battery acid. "If she scans you with a spectrometer, you'll light up like a bonfire. This is going to hurt."

He scrubbed my arm hard.

It didn't just hurt; it burned. It felt like he was taking a layer of skin off. I grit my teeth to keep from screaming.

"The Drive leaves a signature," Randar explained, scrubbing until the black veins faded into red irritation. "This neutralizes the necrotic residue. It’ll look like a rash or a burn, but it won't read as demonic magic."

He finished and tossed the rag into the furnace.

"Go," he said, pushing me toward the door. "Don't look guilty. You're just a Null mechanic who likes plumbing. Stick to the story."

"What about the Drive?"

"I'll bury it deep," Randar said grimly. "If they search your room, they find nothing. If they search you, they find nothing. Now get out."

The Disciplinary Tower was the highest point of the Academy, a spire of black stone that overlooked the entire campus. Commander Vane’s office was at the top.

The room was cold. One wall was entirely glass, offering a view of the smoking ruins of Sector 7.

Vane sat behind a desk made of polished obsidian. She didn't look up when I walked in. She was writing on a datapad.

"Sit," she said.

I sat in the single, uncomfortable wooden chair in front of her desk. I kept my hands on my lap, hiding the raw skin of my left arm under my sleeve.

Vane finished writing, placed the stylus down with a precise click, and looked at me.

"Mr. Royce," she said. "We have a problem."

"Is it about the arena, Commander?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. "I can pay for the valve repair."

"Forget the valve," she said, waving a hand dismissively.

She tapped the surface of her desk. A hologram flickered to life in the air between us.

It was grainy security footage from the courtyard. It showed the chaos of the attack. Then, it showed the shed exploding.

A figure in black armor launched out. The video paused.

"This," Vane said, pointing at the figure. "We are calling it the 'Green Knight' for lack of a better term. It moves with incredible speed. It possesses strength capable of crushing a Hellhound's trachea."

She tapped the desk again. The video played forward. The Knight grabbed the hound, spun, and discharged the lightning.

"Brutal," Vane murmured. "Efficient. Not a spell-caster's style. No chanting. No hand signs. Just raw output."

She looked at me.

"Do you know what I find interesting, Mr. Royce?"

"No, ma'am."

"The fighting style," she said. "Look at the stance."

She split the screen. On the left, the Knight. On the right, footage of me from the arena earlier that day.

Me, crouching with a wrench. The Knight, crouching to spring.

"The center of gravity," Vane said softly. "The way the feet are planted. The preference for the left hand."

My heart stopped. I hadn't even realized I did that.

"It's a common stance for mechanics," I said, forcing a shrug. "We lean into the torque."

"Perhaps," Vane said. She stood up and walked around the desk. She moved like a viper, slow and silent.

She stopped behind my chair.

"You were missing during the attack, Chase. Your roommate said you were with him, then you vanished, then you reappeared after the Knight fled."

"I panicked," I said. "I ran into the woods. I'm a Zero, Commander. I can't fight Hellhounds. I hid in a bush like a coward."

"A coward," Vane repeated, her voice right by my ear. "Or a pragmatist?"

She placed a hand on my shoulder. Then, her hand slid down my arm.

She squeezed my left bicep. Hard.

I flinched. The chemical burn from Randar’s scrubbing flared up with sharp pain.

"You're hurt," Vane noted.

"Scraped it climbing the wall to get away," I said quickly.

"Let's see."

She didn't ask. She grabbed my wrist and pulled my sleeve up.

She stared at the angry red skin. It looked raw, blistered.

"That looks painful," she said, her eyes narrowing. "Almost like a radiation burn. Or mana backlash."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, silver device. A Mana Spectrometer.

I held my breath. Randar said it would work. Randar had to be right.

She ran the device over my skin. The light on the tip hummed.

It stayed white.

If there had been demon energy, it would have turned purple. If there had been human magic, blue.

White meant nothing. Null. Just dead flesh.

Vane stared at the white light. She looked disappointed.

"Clean," she whispered. "Completely inert."

She released my arm. I pulled my sleeve down, resisting the urge to rub the ache.

"You are a very confusing young man, Chase Royce," she said, walking back to her seat. "You move like a soldier. You think like an engineer. But you have the magical signature of a brick."

She sat down and steepled her fingers.

"I cannot prove you are connected to this... entity. The physical similarities are circumstantial. And the lack of magical trace is absolute."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. "Am I free to go, Commander?"

"Not quite," she said.

She opened a drawer and pulled out a document.

"Because of your unique... talents... demonstrated in the arena, and the general security threat, I am reassigning your work detail."

She slid the paper across the desk.

"You are no longer on general maintenance. You are now assigned to the Artifact Recovery Unit. Specifically, as an assistant to Professor Kael."

My blood went cold.

Professor Kael was the head researcher of the Academy. He was the man who studied demons. He was the man who dissected magical anomalies.

"He needs a Null," Vane said, smiling that cruel, cat-like smile again. "Someone who can handle volatile artifacts without setting them off with accidental mana. It's a dangerous job, Chase. Very high mortality rate."

She leaned forward.

"If you are just a normal boy, you might learn something. If you are something else... well, Professor Kael has a way of finding out what makes things tick. Usually by taking them apart."

She pointed to the door.

"Report to the lab at 0600. Don't be late."

I stood up, took the paper, and walked out.

My legs felt numb. I had survived the inspection, but I had lost the war.

She was putting me in the lion's den. I was going to be working directly under the man whose job was to hunt things like the Apostate Knight.

I walked down the spiral stairs of the tower, clutching the assignment paper.

I needed to tell Randar. I needed to get the Drive back.

But as I reached the bottom floor, I realized the terrifying truth.

I couldn't get the Drive back. Not yet. If I carried it into Kael’s lab, the sensors would pick it up in a heartbeat.

I was defenseless.

And tomorrow morning, I was going to work for the enemy.