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“How long before the gates open?” Ryven asks, drumming his fingers against the rail.

“Six minutes.”

“And how long before the first one decides another candidate is worth more dead than alive?”

“Before sunset.”

Seren barely moves beside me. “Optimistic.”

Ryven snorts. “Five hundred people, seven days, and every one of them knows there’s one less person between them and the top scores every time somebody gets taken out. I give it an hour.”

“Forty minutes,” I say.

Ryven turns his visor toward me. “You over-the-top fucker.”

Dad’s voice rolls over the hall, promising futures as the three of us stand behind him, discussing how quickly the candidates will start hunting one another.

This is the part nobody puts on the invitation.

My little liar is still standing too straight below us, eyes pinned to his boots like that stops me from seeing him.

Yeah, this one’s going to be fun.

The gates groan open, and outside air rushes through the intake, dry and electric, already carrying grit. The hall empties in a slow pour as the candidates spill into the trees.

Down by the gate line, a guard dog comes up on its toes at the crowd, all teeth and want, until the guard takes one turn of the leash around his fist and makes it sit.

I’ve always wanted a pet. I look for the blond again and wonder what Onyx Mercer would look like with a leash around his throat.

Fuck. I enjoy that thought far too much.

The monitoring grid goes live on my multi-slate, and within minutes the trackers begin spreading through the forest.

Forest is generous. The whole thing sits behind glass and exists for one reason. The Hunt. Trees planted where somebody decided they should grow, trails cut where we wanted candidates to run, weather systems built into the sky above them. Every season, the highest bidder gets to choose what the forest throws at the candidates.

This year, somebody paid for a sandstorm.

Dust is already rising beyond the trees. One signal breaks away from the others. I don’t need to open the tag to know whose it is.

He can go wherever he likes. I’ll find him anyway.

“Gentlemen.”

Dad has come up to the gallery without his stage voice, and the nine of us turn from the railing. This part never gets a speech.

“Two hours, then you deploy. Let the forest do the first round.”

He walks the line slowly, straightening nothing, touching nobody, owning everything.

“The families have asked for a lean year. Rare stays valuable, so thin generously. The slow. The loud. Anyone who would embarrass a sponsor at selection. Preserve anything with a buyer. The rest belongs to the weather. Correct no rumors out there. What they imagine does half the sorting for us. Assignments at midnight. Good hunting.”

Good hunting.

Once Dad dismisses us and the line breaks up, I leave the rail and take the stairs back down to intake. Anne is clearing the last of the scanner logs when I stop beside her desk.

“Pull up Onyx Mercer.”

She looks at me once but does it.