Aren spent two days in the Academy infirmary with three broken ribs and a healer who did not like him.
She was a stern woman with grey hair, and she treated him the way she treated everyone from Class D, which was quickly and without conversation.
On the first morning, she pressed her glowing hands against his side until the bones knitted with a sound like knuckles cracking.
On the second morning, she told him he could walk if he did not do anything stupid.
He promised he would not.
She did not look like she believed him.
Mira came both evenings.
She brought bread from the dining hall wrapped in a napkin and sat on the end of his bed and did not talk about the Rift.
She talked about Nell instead, who had heard about the accident from a nurse and was very angry that nobody had come to tell her in person.
She talked about Tam, the boy from her team, whose leg would heal.
She did not talk about Roderick, the boy who had been pulled under the ground, because nobody was talking about Roderick yet.
His family had come to take his things.
That was all.
“Holt says he ran to get help,” Mira said on the second night.
Her voice was flat.
“That’s the official story now.
He saw the danger and ran to warn the instructors.
Very brave.
His father wrote a letter to the Headmaster.”
“And Team Four?”
“Team Four are commoners.” She shrugged.
“We told them what we saw.
Someone wrote it down.
That’s all that happens when commoners tell the truth.”
Aren nodded slowly.
In his old life, he had seen this many times.
A powerful man made a mistake, a lawyer wrote a letter, and the mistake became a story about courage.
It was not even interesting anymore.
It was just how money worked.
“You’re doing the thing,” Mira said.
“What thing?”
“The thing where you go quiet and do math in your head.” She pointed at him with a piece of bread.
“You’ve done it since we were eight.
You did it when we found that purse in the canal, and you did it before you sold those stupid rocks.
Whatever you’re planning, don’t.”
“I’m not planning anything.”
“Liar,” she said, but she smiled a little when she said it.
On the third morning, a clerk came to the infirmary and told him that the Headmaster wished to see him.
Headmaster Ysolde Marr’s office was at the top of the oldest tower in the Academy.
It was a round room full of books and dried plants and windows that looked out over the whole city of Highcrest.
There was a fire burning even though it was not cold.
The Headmaster sat behind a desk covered in letters, with a cup of tea that had gone cold beside her elbow.
Up close, she was older than Aren had thought.
Her face was thin and lined, and her hands were spotted with age.
But her eyes were sharp, and they watched him cross the room the way a cat watches something small move in the grass.
“Sit,” she said.
He sat.
“A Rank D monster appeared in a Rift rated F to E,” the Headmaster said.
She did not waste time on greetings.
“This has never happened in the two hundred years since the Academy began using it.
A student is dead.
Four are injured.
One of them is you.” She tapped the letters on her desk.
“Seven noble families have written to me since yesterday.
They are very upset.
Some of them are upset that their children were in danger.
Most of them are upset that their children were frightened in front of commoners.”
“I understand, Headmaster.”
“Do you?” She tilted her head.
“Then you will understand what I am about to offer.
The Academy takes responsibility for the injuries of its students in an examination.
You will receive compensation for your injuries.
Twenty gold crowns.” She slid a small paper toward him across the desk.
“In return, you will sign this.
It says that you were injured during an unexpected monster attack, that the instructors responded correctly, and that you have no complaint against the Academy or any of its students.”
Aren looked at the paper.
Then he looked at the number.
Twenty crowns was more money than he had ever held in this life.
It would pay for Nell’s medicine for months.
It was also exactly half of what he needed to stay at this school.
He did not pick up the pen.
“May I ask a question, Headmaster?”
Her pale eyes narrowed very slightly.
“You may.”
“How many of the injured students are getting twenty crowns?”
She paused.
It was a short pause, but it was there.
“All of them receive compensation suited to their situation.”
“So the noble students are getting more.” He said it gently, as a fact, not a complaint.
You never accused the person across the table.
You only showed them the numbers.
“That makes sense.
Their families can cause more trouble.
I’m a commoner with no family and a stolen relic on my record.
I can’t cause any trouble at all.”
“I’m glad we understand each other.”
“Except for one thing.” Aren folded his hands on his knees.
“Darius Holt didn’t run to get help.
He threw me at the monster.
Four students from Team Four saw it.
They already told your instructors, and someone wrote it down.
Right now, that paper is sitting in a drawer somewhere, and it doesn’t matter, because they’re commoners.”
He let that sit in the room for a moment.
“But if the Holt family’s letter says their son was a hero,” he went on, “and the Academy’s own written report says he threw a student to a Rank D monster and ran, then someone, someday, might find both papers.
The Ashgraves, for example.
Lady Ashgrave stayed and fought while her teammate ran.
I imagine her family would be very interested in the difference between those two stories.”
The Headmaster said nothing.
The fire crackled.
“I’m not threatening anyone,” Aren said.
“I’m going to sign your paper.
I have no complaint against the Academy.
I’m only saying that my signature is worth a little more than twenty crowns, because it’s the one signature in this whole mess that you NEED to buy.”
Ysolde Marr studied him without moving.
Then, slowly, the corner of her thin mouth turned up.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“My term fees.
Forty crowns, paid by the Academy, so I can stay this term.”
“And?”
He had not expected an “and.” He took a breath.
“My sister has Rift sickness.
She’s at the healer house in the lower city.
I would like the Academy’s healers to examine her.
The ones here, in the infirmary.
They’re better than anyone she can see down there.”
“Rift sickness.” The Headmaster’s eyes moved, very briefly, toward the window and the city below.
“That is an illness of the lower city.
Our healers do not treat it.”
“Then this would be the first time.”
Another pause.
Then the Headmaster picked up a pen, crossed out the number on the paper, and wrote something new.
She added a line at the bottom, signed it, and slid it back across the desk.
Compensation: payment of term fees in full (40 crowns).
Additional: one examination of the student’s sister by the Academy’s healers.
Aren read it twice.
Then he signed it.
“You are a very strange servant,” Ysolde Marr said, taking the paper back.
“Where did a boy from the lower city learn to bargain like that?”
“Selling rocks, Headmaster.”
“Hm.” She blew on the ink until it dried.
Then, without looking up, she said, “Lady Ashgrave has told me three times now that she was saved by a man with a rag over his face.
Nobody else saw him.
The instructors searched the area and found nothing.” She folded the paper and put it in a drawer.
“You were found in the trees, not far from where she says he came from.
Did you see him?”
Aren kept his face perfectly still.
“I saw a lot of trees, Headmaster.
Most of them hit me.”
She looked up then.
For a long moment, her pale eyes rested on his face, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that she was not looking at his face at all, but at something behind it.
“You may go,” she said at last.
He walked back to the scholarship dormitory slowly, one hand on his healing ribs, with the numbers finally adding up in his head.
His fees were paid.
He could stay at Highcrest for the rest of the term.
The Academy’s own healers would look at Nell, which was something no money in the lower city could buy.
Mira’s week and his week at the healer house were covered.
For the first time since the trial, he could breathe without counting.
He opened his status window as he climbed the stairs.
[Name: Aren.]
[True Class: Zero (EX, Unique).]
[Rank F: Level 4.]
[Skills: Reduce to Zero (Lv.
1), Crescent Moon Blade (Grade S, Mastery 0%).]
[Anchors: 1/1.
Vivienne Ashgrave (Primary).]
Level 4.
Vivienne was Level 9 now, after Gravemaw’s core.
Soon she would reach Level 10.
That would be a big moment, the kind the System paid well for.
And Darius sat at a perfect one hundred percent hatred, waiting for a second Anchor slot that would not open until Aren reached Rank E himself.
To get there, he needed six more levels, and he had no idea yet where they would come from.
One problem at a time, he thought, and opened the door to his room.