Chapter 9. Year One Rankings

The final evaluations of the first year arrived under a sky the color of hammered steel.

Phyna stood in the long line that snaked across the main yard, practice blade sheathed at her hip, the last eight months of dirt and bruises written into the way she held her shoulders. Around her the other first-year students shifted and muttered. Some still wore the crests of their packs like armor. Others, the unclaimed and the lesser-ranked, kept their eyes forward and their mouths shut. The air smelled of cold earth and nervous sweat.

Instructor Bren walked the length of the line once, scar catching the weak light. Behind him two senior evaluators carried the ranking boards—wide wooden panels already marked with provisional names in dark ink. The top slots were expected to belong to the blooded sons and daughters of the stronger packs. That was how it had always gone. Crests rose. Unclaimed filled the lower third and tried not to wash out before the second year began.

Phyna no longer checked the letter board. The empty slot had become background noise, another piece of the silence she had learned to carry without letting it slow her feet. What mattered now was the stretch of packed dirt in front of her and the knowledge that every drill, every night session in the far corner, every public refusal to stay down had led to this single morning.

Sable stood three places ahead. She glanced back once, black hair tied tight, expression unreadable. “Whatever happens,” she said quietly, “don’t give them the satisfaction of looking surprised.”

Phyna gave the smallest nod.

The evaluations began with formation work under pressure. Groups of ten moved as units while instructors called sudden changes of direction, simulated breaks in the line, and forced recoveries. Phyna’s group was a mix of lower-ranked and unclaimed. They should have been ragged. Instead she found herself calling the adjustments when the designated leader hesitated, her voice flat and clear. The others followed—not out of loyalty, but because the alternative was immediate failure in front of the boards. When the sequence ended, Instructor Bren marked something on his slate without comment.

Individual combat came next.

Pairs rotated through the center circles under the direct eyes of the evaluators. Phyna drew a second-year student first—taller, heavier, already carrying the confidence of someone who had survived the previous ranking. He came in hard, testing. She gave him the early exchanges, reading the rhythm the way she had taught herself to read every opponent since the power left her blood. When the opening appeared she took it cleanly: a redirected cut, a step inside, a precise strike that put him on one knee. The evaluator’s pen moved.

Her second draw was Joren.

The yard noticed. Conversations dipped. Joren’s mouth curved in something too sharp to be a smile as they faced each other across the circle.

“End of the year and you’re still pretending,” he said, voice low enough that only she could hear. “No letters. No pack. No one coming to claim the mess when you finally break.”

Phyna settled into stance. “You talk more than you hit. That’s always been the problem.”

He flushed and attacked.

The exchange was fast and personal. Joren had improved—his footwork tighter, his combinations less predictable—but the anger that had lived in him since the day she first refused to fold still leaked through. Phyna used it. She absorbed the early pressure, let him believe the months of extra work had only made her stubborn rather than sharper, then changed the angle on the fifth exchange. A short feint high drew his guard. She dropped and drove the practice blade into the inside of his lead thigh hard enough to steal the leg. As he staggered she followed with a clean thrust to the sternum. He hit the dirt with a sound that carried.

Silence held for a heartbeat. Then the murmurs started again, different in tone from the ones that had followed Caelum’s first fall. This was not shock. This was recalculation.

Joren rose without taking the hand she did not offer. His eyes promised later consequences. Phyna only stepped back to the edge of the circle and waited for the next name.

By midday her body was a single continuous ache, but she remained upright through every rotation. The evaluators’ pens moved more often when she entered a circle. She noticed and filed the information away without allowing it to change her breathing.

The final portion of the evaluation was the group challenge—a simulated border defense. Three squads of first-years were given incomplete information, limited practice weapons, and a stretch of broken ground near the outer wall. The objective was simple: hold a marked position against a rotating force of second-years until the horn sounded. Most squads fractured under the first coordinated push. Phyna’s squad, assigned no natural leader, looked to her when the opening assault came because she was already moving to the weakest point in their line.

She did not give speeches. She gave short, precise orders.

“Shift left two paces. Seal that gap. Sable, take the high angle—anyone who overreaches is yours. The rest of you, stay on your feet and keep the center closed. We don’t need pretty. We need to still be here when the horn blows.”

They held.

It was ugly. Twice the line bent hard enough that Phyna had to step into the breach herself and take the hits meant for someone slower. Once she went down to one knee under a heavy strike and forced herself up before the second-years could exploit the break. Sable’s blade was a constant presence on the flank, clean and reliable. The others, sensing that collapse would be public and permanent on the ranking boards, dug in harder than pride alone would have allowed.

When the horn finally sounded, Phyna’s squad was still in possession of the marked ground. Three other first-years were down and staying down. The second-year assault force looked frustrated. Instructor Bren walked the line once, scar tight, and made another note.

The ranking boards were posted at dusk.

Students crowded the administrative hall in a tight, breathing mass. Names climbed the wooden panels in fresh ink. The top ten slots filled with the expected crests—sons and daughters of the stronger packs, the ones who had arrived with private training and family reputations already half-written. Then the list continued downward.

Phyna found her name higher than any unclaimed had ranked in recent memory.

Fourteenth overall among the first-years. High enough to move her out of the lower barracks rotations for the second year. High enough that the whispers that had followed her since the day she put Caelum in the dirt turned into something sharper and more complicated. High enough that several crest-wearing students stared at the board as if the ink itself had committed an offense.

Sable’s name sat three places below hers. The black-haired girl studied the placement for a long moment, then looked at Phyna with a dry almost-smile.

“Fourteenth. They’re going to hate that.”

“They already did.”

“This will make them hate it louder.” Sable glanced toward the cluster of higher-ranked students near the front. Joren stood among them, face set, eyes locked on Phyna’s name as if he could force it lower by will alone. Caelum was farther back, expression unreadable. “Watch yourself when the second year starts. Rankings change how people come at you. Some will try to recruit. Most will try to erase the embarrassment.”

Phyna kept her gaze on the board. Fourteenth. No crest. No letters. No pack claiming the result. Only the months of empty slots and night sessions and the steady refusal to stay in the dirt when stronger opponents put her there.

Instructor Bren appeared at the edge of the crowd and spoke without needing to raise his voice.

“Those of you who moved up will report to the eastern training blocks at dawn. New rotations. Higher expectations. The rest of you know where you still belong. Year two does not care how hard year one felt. It only cares whether you can survive what comes next.”

The crowd began to thin. Some students left in tight groups, already rewriting the day’s results into private narratives that protected their pride. Others lingered, staring at names that had risen farther than predicted. Phyna remained until the hall was nearly empty, the ranking board still clear in the fading light.

Sable waited by the door. “Food. Then the corner. We’re not finished just because the boards are up.”

Phyna followed her out into the cold evening. The compound lights were coming on, yellow pools against the black stone of the walls. Somewhere beyond those walls Pack Vale continued without her—Lucan at the high table, Selene in the seat that had once been Lyra’s, Aria learning the soft arts of a future Luna. The silence from home remained absolute. It no longer cut the way it once had. It had become the space in which she had built something the ranking board could no longer ignore.

They ate quickly in the mess hall. Conversations around them carried new fragments of her name. Fourteenth. Unclaimed. The one who kept getting up. Phyna let the words pass. Food was fuel. Rest was strategy. Everything else was noise.

Full dark had settled by the time they reached the far corner of the lower yard. The lantern was already lit. Two other unclaimed from the old night sessions were waiting. No one spoke of the rankings at first. They simply began the work—forms, corrections, the slow refinement that happened when no evaluators were watching. Phyna moved through the sequences with the same focus she had carried since the letters stopped coming. The bruises from the day’s evaluations sang. She worked anyway.

After an hour Sable called a pause and leaned on her practice blade.

“You’re going to get noticed by people higher than Bren,” she said. “The kind who don’t care about first-year boards except as a way to spot tools they can use later. When that happens, remember that ranking fourteenth doesn’t make you safe. It only makes you visible.”

Phyna wiped sweat from her eyes with the back of her wrist. “I didn’t come here to be safe.”

“I know. That’s what worries the ones who like their unclaimed quiet.” Sable spun the blade once and settled back into stance. “Again. And this time keep your weight centered when you recover from the low cut. You’re still drifting left.”

They worked until the lantern burned down to a guttering stub. The other two left first. Sable lingered long enough to say, “Dawn. Eastern blocks. Try to sleep enough that you don’t look like you’re already at war.”

Phyna almost smiled. “No promises.”

Alone in the cooling dark, she ran one final sequence, then stood with the practice blade resting against her shoulder and looked up at the hard stars. Year one was finished. The boards had placed her higher than the crests had predicted. The silence from Pack Vale remained unbroken. And somewhere ahead the second year waited with heavier expectations and the first real rumors of trouble along the northern borders—rumors she had caught in fragments between drills, the kind that made instructors exchange glances when they thought students were not listening.

She returned the blade to the rack, walked back through the quiet compound, and entered the lower barracks for what would be one of the last times. Most of the bunks were already filled with sleeping forms. A few quiet conversations still drifted in the dim light. Her name moved through one of them, low and speculative. She ignored it, sat on her thin mattress, and began the familiar process of cleaning the newest splits on her knuckles.

Fourteenth.

The number settled into her chest beside the sealed absence of her Alpha power and the long silence from home. It was not enough. It would never be enough until the five years were done and the magic broke and the face she wore became her own again. But it was farther than anyone in Pack Vale would have believed possible when they took her seat and told her she no longer belonged at the table.

Phyna lay down with her boots still on and her blade within reach. Sleep came slowly, full of the memory of the ranking board and the look on Joren’s face when her name refused to sit where he thought it should. Tomorrow the eastern blocks. Tomorrow the higher rotations. Tomorrow the next stretch of the long climb.

She intended to meet it the same way she had met every empty letter

slot and every public attempt to put her back in the dirt.

On her feet.

And already moving forward.