Yellow Jacket

They stepped into House, and the air adjusted around them, warm and dry, carrying the faint smell of bread and honey. Light slid on without anyone touching a switch. Socks whispered against polished floor as if the ground had softened just for them, absorbing the weight of sixteen exhausted bodies all at once. The door closed itself behind them with a soft sigh.

"Hello, House," Vaeliyan said.

"Welcome home, Master Vaeliyan," House said, its voice soft and melodic, the tone dipping like a bow. "It is good to have you back."

Lessa crossed the foyer without a word, eyes half-closed, and swept Momo up from where the bear stood waiting at the entrance. She hugged the stuffed thing to her chest with a long exhale, shoulders sinking as if she'd been holding up the sky for days. Bastard padded past her in house-sized form, sleek and black, and climbed onto the couch beside Warren, collapsing like a fallen pillar. Styll appeared an instant later, slipping across the floor like a silver whisper and coiling herself across Warren's shoulders. Her fur bristled for only a moment before smoothing flat as she let out a thin, chittering sigh.

House shifted its lights to a soft gold, adjusting the air to a comforting warmth just above body temperature. The world contracted down to walls, quiet, and breath.

The rest of Class One followed behind, fanning out across the foyer and spilling into the wide, sunken living room. Boots clattered to the floor, half-tied laces tangling as they were kicked aside, and for a moment the house filled with the rustle of exhaustion. Plush couches and armchairs swallowed them up in seconds, their bodies sinking into velvet cushions with audible groans of relief.

Ramis flopped into an armchair with a groan, his legs dangling off one side. "We should celebrate," he said, grinning despite the purple hollows under his eyes. "Actual celebration. Drinks, music, maybe setting something on fire."

"You can't even stand," Jurpat muttered, but he was grinning too, leaning forward on his knees like he might launch himself across the room at any moment.

"Not for long," Ramis shot back.

"We don't need drinks," Elian said, already smoothing his shirt like they weren't all barely functional. "We need to appreciate what we saw. That was…unbelievable."

"It was art," the twins said together, voices perfectly even. "They made the world shatter and they danced through it."

Vexa had curled up sideways across the loveseat, her head resting on Leron's stomach. Leron didn't even blink, just reached over her to snag a pillow and adjust her hair from her face, his own expression hollow and dazed.

Lessa curled into the corner of a couch, still clutching Momo. "I can still feel it. Like the ground's humming in my bones."

"Same," Fenn said from the other end, voice muffled by cushions. "I keep thinking if I blink too long, I'll wake up and find it didn't happen."

Rokhan had taken over an entire chaise lounge, one arm thrown dramatically over his face like a dying noble. Torman was sitting upright in a chair next to him, head slowly bobbing like he might fall asleep mid-sentence if anyone made him talk. Varnai was sitting cross-legged on a stool near Jurpat, eyes half-lidded, running one finger in lazy circles across the polished stone countertop like she was still watching the battle in her mind.

Roan was stretched out across the back of one of the larger couches like a cat, staring at the ceiling with a faint smirk that didn't reach his eyes. Wesley had wrapped himself in a blanket at one end of the room and was muttering about footwork between yawns, occasionally sketching patterns on the fabric with one finger before forgetting what he was doing. Sylen had claimed the arm of Warren's couch, legs folded, arms crossed tight, watching him like he might vanish if she blinked.

Xera had draped herself across the arm of Rokhan's chair, quietly sketching something on her palm with a pen she'd produced from nowhere. Chime sat upright at the far end of the longest couch, eyes closed, posture perfect, as though she were silently replaying every motion she had seen from the instructors. Even in exhaustion, her presence carried a surgical precision that made the others glance at her and look away.

"We watched Vaeliyan finish his last task," Sylen said quietly, almost to herself. "We've been here for what, three weeks? And two of us are already going to graduate as High Imperators."

"That's… terrifying," Ramis admitted, rubbing his face. "And somehow I want it more now."

"I want it because it's terrifying," Fenn mumbled, eyes half-shut. "Because it's not supposed to be possible."

Jurpat laughed and threw an arm over his eyes. "We're going to be monsters."

"You're going to be unconscious," Vaeliyan cut in, voice flat but not unkind. He stood in the center of the room, looking over them all like a commander inspecting the aftermath of a battle. "I can feel it through the bond. Every one of you is running on fumes. You are done."

"But..." Roan started.

"No." Vaeliyan's tone cracked like steel cooling in water. "I know you want to celebrate. I know what you saw today. I know what it means. Two of us are already on track to become High Imperators, and none of us have been here a full month. It's insane. It's terrifying. It's real. And you are all too tired to survive standing upright. So shut up and sleep."

There was a pause. Then House dimmed its lights even further, as if agreeing, golden glow sliding down into soft amber.

One by one, they gave in. Boots left in piles. Pride softening to silence. Laughter broke into yawns. Conversations melted into slurred fragments and then into nothing. Within minutes, Class One had collapsed across couches and chairs, draped over one another like fallen banners. Their breathing filled the house like waves lapping stone, steady, inevitable, and warm. House hummed faintly, pleased, and lowered the temperature by a single degree as the last of them slipped under.

The house had gone still. The air was low and warm, almost humming with sleep, as if the walls themselves were exhaling. Sixteen cadets lay scattered like fallen dominos across the living room, curled in blankets, draped over couches and armchairs, their breaths rising and falling in slow tandem. The faint scent of trimmed greenery and clean soil lingered in the air, mixed with the quiet warmth of bodies at rest. The only motion came from the subtle shift of House adjusting the air currents to match their breathing, and even that was near soundless. Only Vaeliyan remained awake.

He stood in the kitchen's threshold, bare feet silent against the flooring, staring at the faint silhouette hovering by the counter.

Roundy.

A floating disk of black glass and dull chrome, about the size of a large dinner plate, suspended by nothing. No hum, no hover-field shimmer, no visible thrust. Just silent gravity-defying stillness, hovering at exactly chest height as though the world's rules ended an inch from its surface. He turned toward Vaeliyan in a slow, deliberate tilt, like a moon adjusting its gaze. His central lens glimmered like a still pond at night.

"I figured out what you are," Vaeliyan said quietly, his voice careful not to disturb the ocean of sleep behind him. Even speaking softly, it felt too loud in the stillness.

Roundy spoke, delicate and precise, but in a language no one in the Citadel could name. Everyone assumed he was speaking nonsense. Even Isol, who spoke more languages than anyone Vaeliyan had ever met, had admitted he had no idea what it was. They poured from Roundy like liquid glass, threading together with impossible cadence, as if the words were older than their meanings. It sounded like poetry carved into the bones of the planet. It was beautiful. But it was also completely incomprehensible.

Vaeliyan smiled faintly despite himself. "You're talking poetry again."

Roundy rotated once, a quiet spiral, as if bowing.

"I gave you everything," Vaeliyan said. "Every housekeeping protocol, every staff routine, every repair subroutine I could find. And then… I dumped in thirty-two separate adaptive combat packages just so you could defend the house if anyone ever broke in. I wanted you to be able to do everything. I thought… if I made you perfect. That we'd be safe."

He let out a slow breath, leaning on the counter, eyes drifting over the faint glow of the appliance panels. "And you can. You can do everything. Which means you can kill everyone. All of them. All of anything. Anything you decide should stop existing."

Roundy said something soft in that unknowable language. It lilted gently, like a lullaby sung in reverse, like something kind trying to remember what kindness is, like an apology offered in a language meant for stars.

Vaeliyan laughed under his breath, almost soundless. "Yeah. I know. You wouldn't. Not unless someone destroyed your hedges. But if they did… you'd erase them. You'd erase all of them. The whole species, just to be sure. You'd burn the world to stop the spark that lit it. You'd end the fire by unmaking the forest."

Roundy tilted slightly, lens glinting like moonlight on black water.

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"That's why you scare me," Vaeliyan admitted. "You're a household war crime. You know that, right? If anyone from the Command found out what you can actually do, they'd dismantle you on sight. Probably salt the ground after. They wouldn't even try to study you first. They'd just decide you're too dangerous to be allowed to keep existing."

Roundy made a sound like rain falling on crystal, soft and sharp at once.

"Yeah," Vaeliyan said, smiling faintly. "It's fine. I'm literally being trained in how to commit war crimes, so… this fits. It's good to have your own personal weapon of mass destruction. Especially one that trims the hedges. You terrify me. I think that's a good thing."

Roundy's central lens flared faintly, a flicker like an eye narrowing, or maybe just focusing. It wasn't threatening. It was almost… affectionate.

"I love you, you know that," Vaeliyan said softly. "Doesn't matter what you are. You're my terrifying murder bot. Never change. Or do, if you want. If being what you are hurts, I can change you back to whatever you once were. If that would bring you peace."

Roundy turned a full circle, then drew a knife out from nowhere. A long, wicked thing of matte-black alloy, too large to logically fit inside him. He set it gently on the counter between them and left it there. The black glass of his body never rippled.

Vaeliyan stared at the blade for a long moment, then looked back up at Roundy. "Yeah," he said. "I get it. Don't change you."

Roundy bobbed once in silent agreement, his lens pulsing faintly like a slow heartbeat.

"Alright." Vaeliyan took the knife, turned it in his hand, and slid it back toward him. "I won't."

Roundy absorbed it silently, the blade vanishing into smooth black glass without a ripple, like it had never been real at all.

"Goodnight, Roundy."

Roundy spoke one last time in his strange, elegant tongue, something that might have meant goodnight or I would kill the world for you, or maybe both, and then drifted away into the shadows like smoke dissolving, leaving only silence and the faint scent of clipped greenery. The kitchen light dimmed behind him as if even House was holding its breath until he was gone.

The world existed only as warmth and breathing until the walls spoke.

"Good evening, everyone," Isol's voice said, smooth and unhurried, woven through the plaster as though the house itself had chosen to speak. "I hope you all had a good sleep. It has been… well, class would technically be over by now. If you had shown up."

Vaeliyan woke with a jolt.

For a moment he didn't know where he was, just heat, weight, and the faint smell of fur. Then Bastard shifted against his ribs like a boulder rolling downhill, and Styll muttered something garbled and sleepy directly into his ear from where she had wrapped herself around his shoulders like a scarf.

There were more limbs than he remembered.

Vaeliyan froze, eyes cracking open. The soft golden glow of House's lamps revealed Bastard sprawled across his legs, Styll draped along his neck, and three additional bodies crammed around him on the cloud bed.

The cloud bed could have expanded to fit a dozen comfortably. It hadn't. Instead, the entire group had huddled together in a tight knot, pressed shoulder to shoulder in a nest of warmth as though they'd all silently agreed that proximity was safety.

Ramis. And the twins.

They were all still fully clothed, thank the gods for that, but the sight still froze his heart for one raw instant of horror. If they had, if anyone had...

No. No. They were just sleeping. Deep, heavy, limp. Leron's arm was flung across his chest, Vexa's foot was jammed under his hip, and Ramis was face down against his ribs like a corpse trying to cuddle.

"Absolutely not," he whispered hoarsely. "This is not a thing that is happening."

Ramis made a low, pleased noise and burrowed closer into Vaeliyan's side like an affectionate corpse.

Vaeliyan stiffened like he'd been shot. "Please don't. Please do not cuddle me. This is the most awkward I have ever felt. My wife would not want to hear that I woke up with a pervert and a matched set of lunatics."

The twins, for their part, snored in perfect unison, steady and mechanical, like two perfectly synchronized engines. It should have been unsettling, but somehow it wasn't. Not to him. Wren had snored like a bear having sex with a chainsaw, this scene reminded him of home. Actually...

Vaeliyan blinked. He realized, with something like reluctant horror, that this was one of the best sleeps he'd had in days.

Which no one could ever know. Absolutely no one. People would question it. People would assume things. People would look at the three deviants crawling out of his bed and assume something had happened.

House's lights rose slightly, soft amber sliding toward warm gold. Isol's voice continued through the walls, steady and calm as though none of this was happening. "But, seeing as none of you are awake, and seeing as I watched you all on the verge of collapse last night, I decided it was wiser to let you rest. I imagine even Theramoor would not have gotten through to you in your state. However."

Vaeliyan carefully extracted himself from the pile, one limb at a time, moving like a thief escaping an ancient trap. The twins snored on in perfect stereo, perfectly content. Ramis snorted and immediately began drooling on Vexa's sleeve. Bastard opened one silver eye, confirmed he was still touching Vaeliyan, and went back to sleep.

Vaeliyan opened his door, stepped out into the hall, and shouted, "Who the hells let them into my room?!"

Every other door cracked open. Every other cadet appeared, silent, wide-eyed, and absolutely refusing to speak.

"I will find out who did this," Vaeliyan warned the air.

"They let themselves in," Elian said flatly from the end of the hall.

"Yeah, don't make it weird," Sylen added.

"Maybe you let them in," Xera said with a knowing smile.

"See, it's already weird," Vaeliyan shot back.

"We cannot lose this day," Isol continued as though none of this was happening. "I have a lesson. Theramoor has a lesson. We must teach you. So here is what will happen: you will get up, you will get dressed, you will eat something, and then you will make your way to class. Because we are beginning now."

Vaeliyan dragged on a shirt. Through the open door he could hear the rest of the house beginning to stir: boots hitting floors, quiet muttering, the slow shuffle of bodies that had only barely remembered how to be human.

"I understand how long and rough yesterday was," Isol said, almost gently. "But this is the most I can give you. I delayed the world for you. Now, the world resumes. Up."

House hummed obediently. Curtains peeled back to reveal the pale gold of the late sun. The glass walls shimmered faintly as they cleared of the sleep-dim haze.

"Thank you, Instructor Brent," most of the cadets chorused from across the house, ragged and uneven.

The walls went silent again.

Vaeliyan looked back at the heap of sleeping disasters in the cloud bed. "All of you are banned from existing," he muttered. Then he opened the door and joined the shuffle of half-conscious legends in the making, all of them drifting toward food and the long walk to class.

The house smelled of sleep and triumph. And exhaustion that went so deep it hummed.

The classroom was quiet when they entered, the silence too sharp for how loud their day had already felt. It was a standard lecture room: rows of desks and chairs arranged in a half-circle, a large whiteboard spanning the front wall. Paper notes had been pinned to cork along the far side. Everything smelled faintly of chalk.

Isol stood at the front, hands folded behind his back. Theramoor sat on the edge of one of the front desks, one boot hooked on the chair beneath her. Neither spoke as the cadets filed in, the scrape of boots on tile harsh against the suffocating stillness. The air felt thinner here, as though the room itself knew what story was about to be told and wanted no part of it.

When the last of them had taken their seats, Isol finally lifted his head. "This class is Historical Combat Analysis. It will not be comfortable. It is not meant to be."

Theramoor's eyes flickered over them like frost tracing stone. "You are not here to be told what was done right. You are here to walk into the corpse of a failure and see if you can find the moment its heart stopped beating and fix it."

A ripple of unease moved through the cadets. Even Vaeliyan felt it. This wasn't like their other classes, which were loud and brutal and burning with motion. This one was still, and in that stillness, there was something worse than fear, expectation.

Isol turned and wrote a single word across the whiteboard in deliberate block letters: Kavros.

"This," he said, tapping the marker against the name, "was one of the Legion's greatest failures. The city once known as Kavros. In the Eastern Reach. It was the site of the first major Neuman offensive. The battle became known as the Ash Curtain."

None of the cadets spoke. The name meant nothing to them. That was the point. They were about to learn why it had been erased.

"Kavros was not a border outpost. It was a hub," Isol continued, voice flat. "Tens of millions of civilians. Two hundred thousand Legionnaires. Supply towers that touched the upper atmosphere. Entire fleets rotated through its docks every month. And yet it fell in twenty-seven days."

He picked up a remote and clicked it once. The lights dimmed, and an old combat map flickered to life on the wall monitor, showing the city as it had been: towering walls, ringed bridges, defensive spires like teeth. Glimmering defensive rings rotated lazily in the sky, like halos. They had done nothing.

"They did not storm the walls," Isol said. "They watched. They mapped. They learned. Our commanders assumed they were waiting for weakness. The weakness was us."

The recording showed the first strikes: water treatment towers collapsing, thermal exhaust stacks torn apart, power grids burning. Then the plazas and bridges filled with killing fire, Legionnaires falling from rooftops, lifted screaming into the clouds and dropped like stones. Supply lines burned. Medical bays crumbled. Barracks were turned into craters.

Theramoor spoke without looking at them. "We didn't lose the walls. We lost the breathing space. We lost the ground inside the walls, until every step forward meant exposing yourself to skyfire. You could run, or you could die tired."

Isol let the footage roll forward. The sky over Kavros darkened, black bleeding across it like ink through water. The outer wards flickered and failed. Fire turned to silence.

"This," he said quietly, "was the Curtain."

In the span of seconds, the city emptied. Sensors cut out. Audio died. When the blackout cleared, Kavros still stood, but its streets were layered in bone-white ash. There were no bodies. Not a single survivor. Forty million people gone.

His voice went cold. "Understand this. The Neuman do not come to kill. They come to take. They come to harvest. They do not see you as enemies to defeat, only as stock to gather. They do not burn cities because they want them gone. They burn cities because they want what is inside to stop resisting."

He let the silence hang for a moment longer, then continued, quieter now. "This was not a raid. This was the first time the Neuman committed their entire strength. Not a single cloud-class warship. Not a lone cruiser. They brought an entire armada. Dozens of nests from Clan Nysari, nearly two dozen of their drifting clouds, and the Heart of Clan Nysari itself. They were not the only clan present, but they were the ones who commanded it. A Heart does not move for prey. It moves for history. That is what they came to carve here."

He set the remote down and faced them fully. "They did not take Kavros by breaching its gates. They built the Curtain. They scorched the land around it to ash so no reinforcements could land, no supply lines could reach it, and no survivors could escape. The Curtain did not fall on Kavros, it cut it off. It cut the world away from it until only silence remained."

A few cadets shifted in their seats, uneasy. They understood now why they had never heard this story. Even Elian's perfect posture seemed to falter.

"Your task," Isol said, "is simple. You will run this scenario from the point the siege begins. You will attempt to change the outcome. You will not be given more soldiers. You will not be given better weapons. You will only be given the same city, the same forces, and the same time."

Theramoor finally looked at them. Her eyes were very dark. "If you fail, you will fail like they did. Completely. And you will understand why no one speaks the name of Kavros anymore."

Vaeliyan felt the air shift, like the room itself had taken a breath and decided to hold it.

"Get ready," Isol said. "We are about to begin."