The academy had a specific way of processing information.
Slowly at first. Then all at once.
By the time Corbyn got back to the dormitory the match had already been described, exaggerated, and redistributed across every student communication channel Valdenmere had. He knew this because Dex was sitting on his bed with his device open to three different accounts of the same fight and reading all of them simultaneously with the focused attention of a man fact-checking his own memory.
"This one says Ishtar destroyed half the arena," Dex said without looking up.
"One section cracked," Corbyn said. He dropped his bag and sat on his bed.
"This one says Stellan yielded because he was frightened," Dex said.
"He yielded because he’s smart," Corbyn said. "There’s a difference."
"This one," Dex said, holding up the device, "says you’re a noble who faked commoner enrollment as a social experiment."
Corbyn looked at him.
"Someone wrote that," Corbyn said.
"Someone shared it nineteen times," Dex said. He set the device down. "How’s the jaw."
Corbyn touched it. The area around the bone had swollen enough to feel different when he pressed it.
"Fine," Corbyn said.
"You should go to the infirmary," Dex said.
"Tomorrow," Corbyn said.
Dex looked at him with the expression of someone deciding whether to push it.
He didn’t push it.
"There are currently twenty-three versions of what happened in that arena," Dex said, picking his device back up. "Twenty-three. In two hours."
"What’s the most common version," Corbyn said.
Dex scrolled.
"That it was a draw," Dex said. "Both walked away, no clear result. Most shared version by a significant margin."
Corbyn lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling.
Not a draw. Stellan had yielded on record in front of faculty. But he understood why the draw version was spreading. A draw was a category people already had. A commoner from Ashfen making an SS-rank heir yield in a formal duel three days into term didn’t fit any existing category, so people were reshaping it into one that did.
He didn’t have the energy to correct it.
You won’t need to, Ishtar said in his mind. The official record exists. Let people say what they need to say for now.
’Is that what Aldric would have done?’ Corbyn thought.
A pause.
No, Ishtar said. Aldric would have made a point of correcting every single person individually. Another pause. It was one of his less efficient qualities.
Corbyn almost smiled at the ceiling.
’Ishtar,’ he thought.
’Mm,’ she said.
’Stellan’s last words before he left,’ Corbyn thought. ’He said he wouldn’t underestimate the gap again. What does that mean for what comes next?’
It means he’s recalibrating, Ishtar said. He went into that arena expecting to gather information about an untrained commoner with a borrowed class. He came out with different information than he expected. A pause. Patient people who receive unexpected information become more dangerous, not less. He will not move again until he understands what he’s dealing with.
’And when he does move?’ Corbyn thought.
Then we deal with it, Ishtar said. But that is not today.
Dex set his device down and looked across the room.
"Can I ask you something?" Dex said.
"Yes," Corbyn said.
"Ishtar," Dex said. "In the arena. She didn’t do anything."
"No," Corbyn said.
"She just stood there," Dex said. "And Stellan still yielded."
"Yes," Corbyn said.
Dex was quiet for a moment.
"That’s somehow more frightening than if she’d attacked," Dex said.
Corbyn thought about that.
"That’s exactly why it worked," Corbyn said.
Dex nodded slowly. Then he picked his device back up.
"Twenty-four versions now," Dex said. "Someone just posted that Ishtar is actually a sophisticated illusion and the whole thing was staged by Cole to make a point about commoner potential."
"Is that version getting shared?" Corbyn said.
"Seven times already," Dex said.
Corbyn closed his eyes.
======================
The knock came just before seven.
Dex was still on his device. Corbyn had been lying with his eyes closed for the last twenty minutes, not quite sleeping, just letting the day finish settling.
He opened his eyes at the knock.
"I’ll get it," Dex said, already standing.
He opened the door.
Looked at who was there.
Then looked back at Corbyn with the expression of someone who had predicted this and was recording it for future reference.
Lyra stood in the corridor.
She was holding a small paper bag and had her notebook under her other arm. She looked past Dex at Corbyn on the bed, specifically at his jaw, which had continued doing what Dex had predicted it would.
"You didn’t go to the infirmary," she said.
"I was going to go tomorrow," Corbyn said.
"You said that already," Dex said helpfully.
Lyra held out the paper bag.
"From the nurse," she said. "A compress and a restoration vial. Drink the vial and hold the compress for twenty minutes. Swelling comes down in about an hour."
Corbyn sat up and took the bag.
"You went to the infirmary," Corbyn said.
"I passed it on my way back from the library," Lyra said.
"The infirmary is in the east annex," Dex said. "The library is in the west wing."
Lyra looked at him.
Dex looked back with the expression of someone who had said the true thing and was comfortable with that.
"Can I come in," Lyra said, to Corbyn.
Corbyn moved his bag off the desk chair.
She came in and sat down. Dex relocated himself to the end of his own bed and picked his device back up with the practiced ease of someone making themselves small in a room.
Corbyn opened the bag. Drank the vial. It tasted cold and faintly metallic. He pressed the compress to his jaw.
"The noble families are going to respond to today," Lyra said. She’d opened her notebook on her knee. "Not Stellan. He made his choice and he’ll stand by it. But House Draves and the families behind them won’t find it comfortable that the heir yielded to a commoner in a public assessment."