Mira Threadwell's Arc

Chapter 4 of 13

Mira left the lodge with the numbered slip folded in her palm. Before she reached the corner, a woman pressed a rolled paper into her hand and walked off fast. Mira opened it. Charcoal lines showed a competitor's face above bold words warning the unknown entrant. The other fighters had already agreed to knock her out early. Three days. Her cloak had been built to slow a blade, not to swallow a coordinated rush. She found the meeting place by following two registered fighters at dusk. They went down concrete steps to a heavy metal door set into the ground. She crouched behind a low wall and listened. Voices carried through a vent. Hammers. Blunt strikes from three sides. Take the cloak down before the crowd sees the seams hold. She wrote each voice and weapon on the back of the protest sheet in pencil. Back at her workshop, she pinned the sheet to the wall and read it again. Hammers meant crushing force, not cutting. Her layered wool stopped edges. It bunched and absorbed. It had never been tested against a blunt drop from above, or three angles at once. She spent the next day building outside, behind the shed. She lashed scaffolding poles into a tall frame. She hung chains and pulleys from the top beam and tied her cloak across a stuffed dummy below. She rigged sandbags to swing from two sides while a third weight dropped straight down. Three angles. Just like the voices had said. She ran the rig. The cloak held the side blows. The drop weight tore a seam along the shoulder. She watched the split open and felt her stomach drop. She cut the cloak free, carried it to her bench, and worked through the night. She doubled the shoulder layers with strips from an old wool blanket. She added bone toggles along the seam to lock the patches in place under impact. She ran the rig again at dawn. The cloak held. She sat on the ground beside the frame and stared at the patched shoulder. The cloak was ready for what they planned. She had three days left, a map of her enemies, and gear that could take the hit she now knew was coming. But they had counted on surprise. When she walked into the trial whole, they would know she had been listening, and they would change the plan.