Corbyn woke at two in the morning.
Not from a sound. Not from Ishtar. From something in the pool itself.
He lay still and tried to locate it.
Heat. Faint. Directional. Not external — the dormitory room was cold, the narrow window dark, Dex breathing steadily on the other side. The heat came from somewhere below his sternum. Like a lamp burning two floors beneath him that he couldn’t see but couldn’t stop being aware of.
He pressed a hand to his chest.
The pulse was there. Steady as always. But underneath it something else was moving. Slower. Heavier. Like a second heartbeat that hadn’t decided yet whether it was waking up or going back to sleep.
That’s not your mana, Ishtar said.
Her voice in his mind was more awake than the hour warranted.
She felt the bond activate fully during the duel, Ishtar said. A Calamity-class manifestation after two centuries of dormancy. She would have felt it the way you feel a door open in a dark room.
’She’s been aware of me since the duel?’ Corbyn thought.
Since the ceremony, Ishtar said. The duel was just the first time you gave her something worth paying attention to.
Corbyn stared at the ceiling crack.
’Is that good?’ he thought.
It means you haven’t done anything wrong yet, Ishtar said. With Sekhmet that’s the best starting position available.
His system chimed once. Small notification. The border looked different from the standard recovery updates. Older somehow. Like it had been pulled from a deeper part of the system than the usual functions.
[POOL RESONANCE ALERT]
[ENTITY: SEKHMET — THE UNQUENCHABLE FLAME]
[STATUS: ACTIVE AWARENESS]
[NOTE: ENTITY IS FORMING AN OPINION OF THE HOST]
[ESTIMATED CONTACT WINDOW: 10-14 DAYS]
Corbyn read the last line twice.
Forming an opinion.
He lay with that for a moment.
’What does she respond to?’ Corbyn thought. ’You said fire. Ambition. Conviction.’
She responds to people who know what they want and don’t apologize for wanting it, Ishtar said. She has no patience for hesitation that comes from fear rather than strategy. She can tell the difference. A pause. She also has no patience for people who confuse being given power with having earned it.
’That’s going to be a problem,’ Corbyn thought.
Why? Ishtar said.
’Because I was given this,’ Corbyn thought. ’All of it. The class. The pool. You. I didn’t earn any of it.’
A longer pause than usual.
Aldric’s letter, Ishtar said. What did it say?
Corbyn thought about the line. He’d read it three times in Lyra’s dormitory room before handing the letter back.
Not because they were born right. Because they were shaped right.
Shaped, Ishtar said. Not given. Not born. Shaped. Another pause. Everything that happened to you in Ashfen. Every line you stood at the back of. Every room that wasn’t built for you. Every morning your mother carried laundry up four flights of stairs and you knew exactly what that cost her. A pause. That is not nothing, Corbyn. That is the work. It just didn’t look like training because nobody was watching.
Corbyn was quiet for a long time.
Outside the narrow window the campus was completely dark. The lanterns had gone out. The kind of dark that only exists between two and four in the morning when even the buildings seem to be waiting for something.
’Ishtar,’ Corbyn thought.
’Mm,’ she said.
’When Sekhmet comes,’ Corbyn thought. ’What do I do?’
Be exactly what you are, Ishtar said. Don’t perform strength. Don’t apologize for the gap between what you inherited and what you’ve earned. Just be what you actually are and let her decide.
’And if she doesn’t like what I am?’ Corbyn thought.
Then we have a difficult fourteen days, Ishtar said.
Corbyn closed his eyes.
The heat beneath his sternum was still there. Slow and patient and waiting.
He breathed through it until sleep came.
Five in the morning.
Cold courtyard. Cole already there with his documents and his paper cup. The session began without ceremony the way it always did.
Footwork. Weight transfer. The combined movement and mana awareness drill that had clicked on day two and was now something Corbyn could hold consistently if he didn’t think about it too hard.
Cole watched him run the pattern.
Made a note.
"Less tension in the right shoulder," Cole said.
Corbyn adjusted.
"Better," Cole said. "Again."
He ran it again.
The pulse behind his sternum moved with him through the pattern now. Not something he had to maintain separately. Just present, the way breathing was present, the way balance was present. Part of the same system.
At six thirty Cole set his pen down.
"Something happened between yesterday and today," Cole said. Not a question.
"Sekhmet," Corbyn said. "She’s aware of me. Notification came through at two this morning."
Cole was quiet for a moment.
"How long until contact?" Cole said.
"Ten to fourteen days," Corbyn said.
Cole picked his pen back up and wrote something.
"Then we have ten days to make sure you’re ready for whatever that looks like," Cole said. He looked at Corbyn. "What does Ishtar say about her?"
"That she responds to people who know what they want," Corbyn said. "And don’t apologize for wanting it."
Cole considered this.
"Then the next ten days," Cole said, "we work on that too." He picked up his things. "Not just the body. The other thing."
"What other thing," Corbyn said.
Cole looked at him.
"Knowing what you want," Cole said. "You have a class, a pool, a mentor, a principal who went to significant trouble to keep you enrolled, and a student who pulled your opponent’s match records to map his activation timing." He paused. "None of them are doing that for someone who hasn’t decided what they’re for yet." He picked up his empty cup. "Decide. Before Sekhmet asks."
He left.
Corbyn stood in the courtyard in the early morning light.
Ishtar appeared on the wall.
She didn’t say anything.
Neither did he.
============
The corridor outside Corbyn’s first class of the morning was the usual pre-class crowd. Students moving between buildings. Bags. Communication devices. The low noise of a hundred conversations happening simultaneously.