Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

Dean ends the session, but he doesn’t leave right away.

He stays a few seconds at the edge of the arena, looking at the dead screen as if some order were still pending there.

The bleachers are still full. An inexperienced Diver’s curiosity often leads him to ruin. This time they’re lucky it’s a public, civilized place. Cadets whisper in small groups. Instructors pretend to organize panels and reports, but their eyes come back to us whenever they can.

Dean notices the murmur. "Freya," he calls. "Mira. Kellan. With me."

Freya doesn’t answer at once.

She’s a few steps ahead, still at the border between arena and side corridor, her face controlled, her classic ice aura pulled in completely. Mira rolls her shoulder once, glances at Oliver from a distance, and follows. Kellan goes after her without a word.

Freya lets out a heavy sigh, long enough to make clear that obeying wasn’t agreeing, but she follows.

Dean changes his face before he turns to Rahul. The rigidity stays, but it gains polish. Shoulders a little less hard. Voice lower. A man dusting off his own authority before presenting it to someone more important.

"Mr. Sharma, if you’ll allow me, I can take you to a proper room. There are a few administrative points I’d still like to discuss."

The way Dean looks at Freya as he says it bothers me completely. Their "business" probably involves her, and that leaves me irritated.

Rahul lifts his face to Dean with impeccable courtesy. His hands barely move. "I appreciate the kindness, Dean. But there’s an important matter I need to handle with Mr. Sands."

The irritation doesn’t cross Dean’s face. It crosses his hand.

The fingers close fast, white for a moment before they relax. The jaw locks a little too, short, discreet. Anyone who’s seen Dean angry the way I saw him in the library tower would understand.

He canceled the fight, interrupted Freya, cut off my opportunity, and shoved his own authority into the center of the room. Rahul, with one polite sentence, took the stage away from him.

"Of course," Dean says.

There’s nothing "of course" in the answer.

Rahul tilts his head in thanks, and Dean withdraws, choosing to leave whole rather than argue in front of students and dig his own grave. He goes ahead of Freya, taking the rest of his group and an irritation he tries to hide inside the uniform. Freya passes through the side door without looking back, but at the last moment she stops, hesitating over the next step.

When they leave, I look to my side. "You’re free to go. Do whatever you want today."

Veric finds it strange. Rhayne understands first. Oliver just rests Motorhead on his good shoulder and looks at Rahul before turning his eyes back to me.

"You sure?" Oliver asks.

"I’m sure."

He doesn’t push. That’s one of the things I value most in him. Oliver asks questions when he needs to, not when he wants to control an answer.

They leave little by little, blending into the flow of the arena, until only Rahul, the assistant, and I remain near the edge.

"So," I say. "What do you want?"

Rahul looks at the bleachers. No large gesture. He only moves his eyes over the cadets, the instructors, the aides near the panels. The whole room seems busy with other things now that the circus is canceled, but Thirstfall trains people to hear what they shouldn’t.

"This isn’t a proper place for an important conversation," he says. "Too many eyes. Too many ears. And the young have a complicated relationship with silence."

"You want me to come with you."

"I’m asking, not ordering."

"Is there a difference?"

"For some men, yes."

His assistant starts pushing the chair before I answer. Rahul doesn’t look back to confirm I’ll come. That irritates me a little, so I go.

The corridor outside the arena feels colder without the noise of the bleachers. The Academy has a specific kind of silence, made of clean stone, distant footsteps, and doors that open only for those who carry permission. Rahul moves through it calmly, guided by the assistant, greeted by staff who bow the exact right amount.

"Have you been enjoying your life as a Diver, Mr. Sands?" he asks.

"Strange question."

"Not really. Some see Thirstfall as a sentence. Others as an opportunity. The difference between the two usually reveals more than they’d like."

"And you?"

Rahul smiles without turning his face. "My life down here is more comfortable than the one I had on Earth."

A lie. A pretty one, well pressed, almost polite.

Rahul Sharma doesn’t look like a man who fled Earth for lack of room. He smells of old power, the kind that learns to use back doors, accounts too clean, and violent men in expensive suits. Thirstfall may have given him another table, another currency, another board. It didn’t create the player. He smells of the mob to me, whatever the world.

"Comfortable," I repeat.

"Within reason."

’I can’t hold it back...’

"You talk like a man who came from a simple life."

"I didn’t say that."

"You just left it in the air."

"Leaving things in the air saves time. People tend to pull toward themselves what they want to understand."

The assistant doesn’t react. Not even an eyebrow. If she found the answer rehearsed, she keeps it to herself.

We take a side stairway I know.

At first it doesn’t bother me. The Academy repeats corridors, symbols, passages in the same pale stone. Then I recognize a specific turn, a narrow stained-glass window near the ceiling, a thin crack crossing the base of the wall.

My mood gets worse.

Rahul notices before I speak. "You recognized the way?"

"Unfortunately."

"Good. That saves explaining."

"I don’t like it when you find that good."

"You tend not to like it when you understand too fast."

We turn into the last corridor.

The feeling of a trap comes without hurry, like water slipping under a door. The room at the end isn’t just familiar. It’s too specific.

[Master Instructor Rae.]

’Of course. Everyone was in on it. They just forgot to send me the invitation.’

I stop for an instant.

Rahul stops too, because the assistant felt the change in rhythm and locked the chair smoothly.

"A friend of mine needs to see us," Rahul says. "He’ll take part in the meeting."

"Friend."

"A flexible word. You’re my friend too. Right, Mister Sands?"

"Convenient."

"I like convenience. It’s why I use my wheelchair."

I want to say his convenience looks more like laziness and arrogance, but I hold it. I like being alive.

I look at the door. The corridor smells of a den. The discomfort doesn’t come from being surrounded by wolves. It comes from realizing everyone seems to know the password for not being eaten, except me.

The assistant knocks twice. The answer comes from inside, calm. "Come in."

She opens the door and pushes Rahul through first. I step in right behind.

Rae is in the room.

Seated at the desk, hands crossed, posture too clean for someone who should look surprised. The light catches his thin glasses and hides part of his eyes. When he sees me, he smiles.

Not like a man receiving a visit.

Like a man who just got confirmation of his plans.

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