The tiny park had no name as far as J-65 knew. It was simply a small space that held a single, a star-oak with a stone bench ready for any passersby to sit for a while. She had been ing here for years, and she had yet to see anyone else sitting to enjoy a brief break from the responsibilities of the Imperial Academy. As the sun drifted below the horizon, above her head, silver leaves began to shimmer with captured moonlight in the evening air. Normally, she would be enjoying the gentle light herself, being a star elf. But not tonight.

  In her gloved hands rested the white mask that had defined her for over a decade — a polished, featureless thing desigo strip away individuality and repce it with one purpose. Being a Sentinel. She stared down at it, her thumbs trag where the features of her face would have been painted on a different mask long ago.

  The mask Jezeri had worn as a child.

  Jezeri tio stare down at the symbol of her position in the Imperial Academy, her thoughts swirling in a way they rarely had over the past decade. Sentinels were traio be present, effit, and, above all, without distras. But here, in this quiet park, hidden away from the endless demands of duty, memories she had long buried rose to the surface, whispering to her like ghosts.

  Jezeri.

  That name felt fragile now, distant and worn like a fabric faded by time. She couldn’t remember the st time anyone had spoken it aloud. It had slipped from her life the day the previous s of House Bcksword had been removed from the Imperial Academy. Though over a decade ago, thinking over those memories revealed that the ache of that severance lingered down to her bones.

  Jezeri idly flipped the mask over, revealing the intricate runework on its interior that allowed her to speak, see, ahrough that bnk, featureless white visage. House Bcksword. The ill carried weight, even if the House itself was still dwindling away. A, for Jezeri, it was more than a name — more than just another noble House — it was an anchor of her past, the source of both her greatest joys and sharpest sorrows.

  She had fled a life she refused to remember beyond that mask she had worn as a child. What came before the Hall of Bonds was a dark blur, stained with shame and pain. So much pain. That pce had offered her a fresh beginning, though at a cost. There, girls like her were assessed, cataloged, and sold to ss able to purchase their service. Some that had been sold alongside her became chambermaids. Others panions or scribes. Jezeri hadn’t cared at the time. She only wanted escape.

  She started paying more attention when her escape came in the form of a tact signed by her than the s of House Bcksword of the time.

  Before arriving at the Hall of Bonds, Jezeri had knowhe reputations of the most important Houses of the western region of the Empire, House Bcksword chief among them. House Bcksword was synonymous with brutal effi the battlefield and cold detat in political circles. Their warriors were fed in harsh ditions and trained from a young age to wield ons and strategy without hesitation. To outsiders, they were a House of unyielding steel, ruthless in pursuit of victory and survival against the myriad threats that worked to destroy them.

  Yet she khat there was an uling undercurrent to that reputation as well. Rumors spoke of harsh discipline, fractured family ties, and a relentless expectation of perfe that crushed many us weight. Their ss were said to be merciless, both to their enemies and their own kin, living by the creed that weakness had no p the Bcksword legacy.

  Being chosen by such a House was a mixed fate — prestigious, certainly, but dangerous for any who couldn’t meet their exag standards. When Jezeri had been cimed by the female s, she had braced herself for a life of cold ands aiude on and off the battlefield.

  Instead, she had been trained as a simple maid.

  Her duties were easy, light even: maintaining the s’s chambers, tending to garments fihan anything she’d ever touched, and other small, miseous tasks that might need doing. For all the monotony, life had been good then. There was a simple dignity in the work, and for the first time, Jezeri had felt safe.

  But that peaceful routine hadn’t sted. She still didn’t know why the s had chosen her, of all her servants, but her role ged roughly six months into her service. Under her Mistress’ dire, she was trained is of observation, subtlety, and self-defense. Her hands, once aced to polishing silverware and folding dresses, learo wield daggers aract secrets from guarded lips. Jezeri slowly became more than a simple servant — she became a fidante, a shadow moving uhrough the corridors of power. A spy in pin sight.

  Looking back, those days had been eveer. She had found purpose, a true calling, doing something she had been good at. Ae the differences in their ranks, she had fed an unlikely friendship with her Mistress.

  Mistress Bcksword, as she asked to be called, was fierd brilliant, with a ugh that could light up the darkest room of Banor. She treated Jezeri not as a servant but nearly as an equal in all but hey shared whispered versatioo the night, discussing matters far beyond Jezeri’s station. Politics, strategy, even dreams for a future where House Bight rise again to its flory.

  Jezeri smiled faintly at the memory, though the smile did not reach her eyes. Those days had ended abruptly. Mistress Bcksword had been forced to leave the Imperial Academy, and Jezeri’s pce at her side had ehe bonds that had once given her a sense of belonging were severed, and Jezeri found herself adrift. She hadn’t been with Mistress Bcksword when it started, but she ter learned what had happened with the s of House Bright from others.

  It had started with words. A subtle insult here, a veiled remark there — sharp-edged barbs exged between Mistress Bcksword and S Bright.The Brights were one of the most iial noble Houses in the western region of the Empire, in rge part due to how their coffers were overflowing with wealth accumuted from trade and their covert war against House Bcksword. House Bright had a reputation fetting what it wanted, no matter the cost, and their s that shared Mistress Bcksword’s year was worse than most of that greedy House. Valdar Bright had a reputation fetting what he wanted, and fing acts for those that prevented him from doing such.

  Mere rivalry, even open hostility between Mistress Bcksword and S Bright she could uand, even expect. But what Jezeri hadn’t expected was what Mistress Bcksword had fided in her several weeks into the esg flict. The star elf remembered that night, and the fury and disbelief with which Mistress Bcksword spoke, well.

  “Valdar Bright had the audacity to ask for permission to court me,” Mistress Bcksword had said, pag the length of her private study. “He cimed it was to mend the rift between our Houses. But the truth is far uglier. He lusts after me, Jezeri, and worse — he has a pn to ensure I won’t survive past our wedding night.”

  Jezeri had felt her blood run cold. “How do you know this, Mistress?”

  Mistress Bcksword had given a bitter ugh. “Because I listen, and I watch. Much like you, Jezeri. There are always whispers if you know where to find them.”

  Jezeri had bee at the edges of the ensuing flict, her role limited to support and intelligehering among other servants outside House Bcksword. She had watched from the shadows as Mistress Bcksword navigated the dangerous terrain of noble politics, maneuvering against Valdar Bright and his scheming allies. Jezeri had admired her ce but had also felt growing uhat things were slipping beyond her Mistress’ trol.

  The final blow had e swiftly, as such things often did. A and had e down from House Bcksword itself — her Mistress was to be withdrawn from the Imperial Academy. No formal reason was given, but Jezeri uood the truth. House Bright had won.

  Jezeri still didn’t know all the details of how it had happened. Other servants spoke of betrayals, political pressure, and perhaps even bribes exged. What mattered was the oute: Mistress Bcksword was gone, exiled from the Academy and stripped of nearly everything she had onahe estate’s vast assets the Mistress had painstakingly built up were liquidated in a humiliating series of aus, leaving only the manor itself intact. Even the servants had not been spared. Jezeri, despite her close ties to Mistress Backsword, was also to be included in the aus.

  Jezeri’s hands ched tightly around the Sentinel mask in her hands, so tight the edges began to cut into her palms. Mistress Bcksword had sworn to return, that she would find a way to recim what was being taken from her. Jezeri had believed her then. Mistress Bcksword had never beeo break her word after all. But days turo weeks, and weeks to months. No representative came for her.

  The aus were to proceed.

  And so, Jezeri had stood on that dias once again, her hands tremblie her best efforts to appear posed. The aueer’s voice had droned oailitributes and skills in impersonal tohough she was no longer a wide-eyed girl, Jezeri knew her features — soft aic yet marred by faint scars — still made her desirable in a way she wished they did not. She had caught more than one pair of eyes lingering on her during that wretched event, but none had filled her with more dread than Valdar Bright.

  The s of House Bright had lounged casually he front of the audience, his rank aff him excelleing. Her eyes had unwillingly drifted his way, attention attracted to how his golden hair gleamed in the light. His lips curled into a smile that didn’t reach his cold, predatory eyes. Jezeri had known that smile too well; it was the kind worn by those who saw others as unthinking prey.

  She remembered the moment his gaze had locked onto her, a spark of cruel amusement fring in his eyes. Lust and violence simmered beh his aristocratieer. Even now, years after he had graduated from the Academy, the memory made her skin crawl. He had leaoward one of his syncophants, whispering something while looking in her dire that made his supporter chuckle darkly.

  Jezeri's fear had been a sharp, biting thing, but she had fought to keep her expressioral. That grew harder o was her turn, and a number of ss began bidding on her. All had examined her with expressions much like that of S Bright. For a moment, in her weakness, she had sidered biting off her tongue.

  Then, salvation, ued and strange, had e from the Sentinels.

  A representative of the Sentinels had appeared seemingly from nowhere. He observed the bidding war unfoldiween House Bright and several lesser houses with an inscrutable expression. When the bidding reached a fever pitch, the Sentinel representative simply raised a gloved hand. A murmur had swept through the audience, but Jezeri had felt the brief stirrings of hope. Even Valdar Bright had stiffened, his smug expression faltering. After a moment of tense silehe aueer decred Jezeri sold to the Sentinels.

  While Jezeri had left the dias in a rush, eager to get to the Sentinel’s side before one of the ss, perhaps even S Bright, sought to attempt a final time to secure her for themselves. She had been lucky. She khat. The rest of the Bcksword servants hadn’t been. Even to this day, their fates remained a mystery to her, all of them lost to the whims of whatever buyers had cimed them.

  Her life with the Sentinels had been far different from the life she'd known under House Bcksword. There were no luxuries, no indulgences, aainly no friendships. Training was grueling, discipline absolute. Even the small freedoms she had oaken franted were forbidden.

  Her purpose was singur: to serve the Imperial Academy as a on and protector. Nothing more.

  For a long time, she had fotten about House Bcksword entirely. The bitterness and longing had been buried beh the cold steel of duty. She had vinced herself that those days were gohat she was no longer Jezeri but only J-65, a Sentinel without a past.

  Then Krion had arrived at the Imperial Academy.

  She remembered the moment vividly: the s of House Bcksword, disheveled and still covered in blood, stepping off the oint. His clothes were all but ruined, his face set in a grim mask. Jezeri had felt herself pulled to him from that moment, but when she learned who he was, that he was a Bcksword, a surge of anger had nearly undone her posure.

  It was only a testament to her Seraining that she mao suppress her emotions enough to remain polite. Krion’s disheveled state had made it easy to jump to clusions. She had assumed he was just another spoiled noble who had likely been off gallivanting and gotten himself into trouble before arriving at the Academy.

  When she had first elected to guide him, she'd expected to enter yet another privileged noble, coddled and arrogant, raised on luxury and self-importance. Her memories of Mistress Bcksword had always been of a poised and fident woman who moved through the world as though it owed her deference. But Krion, however, was none of those things. From the moment she id eyes on him, disheveled and bloodied, she'd sensed something was off.

  It wasn’t until they reached the tailor's workshop that her suspis crystallized.

  Alecto, one of the greatest tailors in the Academy, had been disapproving of Krion when he walked in, his clothes in tatters and stained with dried blood. The man had been terrified at the state of Krion’s clothing and had only too eagerly agreed to help the young Bckswet out of it and into one of his magically crafted uniforms.

  It was while she lingered by the door, bound by the rules of the Sentinels not to let a s who had arrived for the Indu Ceremony out of her sight before delivering him to the amphitheater, that everything had ged.

  As Krion struggled to shed the remnants of his ruined garments, and Alecto had used his magic to help, Jezeri's breath had caught ihroat as soon as she saw his body. Scars crisscrossed his entire form—faint silver lines and harsh, raised ridges that spoke of harsh battles and near-death enters. The sight of them struck her like a physical blow, for they were so much like her own.

  Suddenly, the narrative she'd built in her mind about Krion shattered. This was no spoiled s, raised in the safety of a luxurious manor before being shipped off to the Academy for a prestigious education. No, this was a young man who had danced with death and survived. He bore the evidence of a life lived on the edge, where pain and struggle were stant panions.

  Jezeri had initially po lead him astray, to make him te for the Indu Ceremony as a petty act of defiance against House Bcksword. But as she looked at Krion, standing there with the weight of unseen battles etched into his flesh, she couldn't bring herself to follow through.

  He wasn’t what she had expected. And, for the first time in a long time, something intrigued her.

  As she spent more time with him, she got the sense of a strength about him—not the loud, boastful kind ong the young ss who strutted around the Academy’s campus, but a quiet, unyielding resilience. Even more surprising to her was how it was tempered by a surprising kindness. Krion had been polite to her, even deferential in a way that nobles rarely were toward others, let aloinels. That, bined with his scars, pced him in a category entirely separate from the rest of the ss she had met, even Mistress Bcksword herself.

  Jezeri found herself making a decision she didn’t fully uand at the time: she would help him, not hinder him.

  So, she ensured he arrived at the Indu Ceremony on time, guiding him through the Academy campus with practiced efficy. Krion had thanked her sincerely, his expression genuine, and something about that simple gratitude lingered with her long after she watched him disappear into the grand Amphitheater of Indu.

  It was how he had treated her that she decided to… slightly bend the requirements of her duty after he emerged from his ceremony. She had easily been able to justify the logic of it in her own mind, but all her reason had fled when he emerged from the Ampotheatre of Indu. He was taller, broader, his presence sharper and more anding. It had made her breath catew red-gold eyes gleamed with iy, their gaze magid almost unnerving. The awkward, kied young man she’d escorted to the ceremony was still there, but ed now in the first yer of the man he would bee.

  Her pulse had quied despite herself. She thahe Seven that she was covered by Sentinel armor, and that the mask she wore covered all her skin. She could feel how the heat crept up her neck beh that mask, staining her cheeks with a blush no one could see. Years of discipline warred with a sudden, unwele awareness of him as more than a mere s she was tasked with monit in her capacity as a Sentinel.

  Sitting at the bench, Jezeri shivered, hands loosening around the mask she held, and she almost dropped it as she remembered the feelings that had coursed through her body in those moments in front of the Amphitheatre of Indu. She had pushed them away then, a her voice steady as she talked to him. Despite the warmth that tio linger in her chest.

  How Krion had treated her, those feelings aside, ended up reinf the choice she had made then. She hadn’t taken him to one of the more opuleaurants favored by the noble ss. Those pces were dens of intrigue and manipution, frequented by the likes of House Bright and their slimy hangers-on. Krion, with his unrefined hoy, would have been easy prey. Instead, Jezeri had led him to Hearth & Ember, a modest tavern tucked away on the edge of the campus grounds. The establishment was owned and run by Ordran, a grizzled veteran of the Imperial Legions who had been granted permission to set up his tavern at the Academy. Jezeri had a good opinion of Ordran—he was fair, straightforward, and didn't tolerate nonsense.

  The tavern catered more to servants, Serainees, and grunt workers than to nobles, which made it a sanctuary of sorts. The slimy ss who thrived on manipution a avoided the pce, unwilling to sully themselves by mingling with "lesser" folk. That made it the perfect spot for Krion, at least in Jezeri's estimation. She had been pleased when he had reacted much as he had so far in their iions: with thanks and appreciation.

  Jezeri had watched him quietly sihat night, even followed him several times, though well back out e of the ears of that Leporine bodyguard of his. But for all her attention, apparently, she hadn’t been following him often enough.

  Her jaw ched, suppressing an almost animalistic growl, as she recalled the versation with the the Academy Infirmary. Krion had returned from the dungeon barely ging to life, having nearly died in a reckless attempt to save his bodyguard, that same Leporine who she had known would be woefully unprepared for the dangers of the Dungeon. It had been an assassination attempt, clear as day to someone like Jezeri, who had seen her share of ba plots and deadly ambushes. Krion was strong, but he was oo trusting, too inexperienced ireacherous world of noble politics. That bination made him an easy target.

  And it enraged her.

  His foolishness had nearly gotten him killed. He had fallen into the trap like a naive fledgling, thinking only of saving his bodyguard without sidering the rger threat. She had to give the Leporine credit, though—from what she could tell, the Leporine was trying harder now in her bodyguard duties, pushing herself to be better. Still, it grated on Jezeri. She could have done a better job proteg Krion, and she k.

  But none of that mattered now. What mattered was stopping whoever had tried to kill him. And Jezeri had a strong suspi about who was behind it.

  She still didn’t fully uand why she was helping him, but there was something about Krion that drew her in. He was kind but strong, unrefined yet capable. Ah it all, there was a sense of vulnerability that resonated with her own past. The path ahead for Krion would be filled with challenges, but she found herself hoping he would rise to meet them. He was different, yes—but sometimes, different was exactly what was needed. Exactly what she needed.

  She brushed her fingers over the smooth surface of her mask, a symbol of the life she'd had thrust onto her as a Sentinel. She hesitated briefly, then smoothly do again. Jezeri stood, the weight of memories still present but lighter somehow. The park’s tranquility finally ed around her like a f embrace after she made up her mind. Krion Bcksword was not what she had expected—but then agaiher was the path her life had taken.

  She left the small park and its a star-oak behind, her armor king softly as she moved.

  It was time to visit S Copperhand.

  Alright, this is one of a pair of chapters (both featuring J-65) I have been looking forward to for a while. Its a bigger ooo (3.7k words). I hope this is ohat begins to answer some questions about what is going on with J-65, House Bcksword, and why House Bcksword has not reached out to Krion.

  Additional information will be gradually revealed iure, but in the meantime, I hope you ehis chapter! Stay tuned for J-65's visit to see Chadwick!

  If you want to support me as an author, please sider following my work, sharing the story with others, leaving a review, or cheg out my Patreon, where you read ahead. Oime support via Paypal or Ko-fi is also greatly appreciated and will help me head towards being able to write more chapters per week. Thank you for reading my story!