The infirmary smelled like antiseptic and old wood.
Corbyn woke up staring at a ceiling he didn’t recognize, which took about three seconds to resolve into something that made sense.
Right.
He’d fainted.
In front of the entire senior class.
He turned his head.
Clean sheets. Six beds, his the only one occupied. A narrow window letting in afternoon light, which meant he’d been out for at least a few hours. His shoes had been removed and placed neatly beside the bed. Someone had also folded his jacket over the chair.
He sat up slowly.
His body felt like someone had wrung it out and put it back wrong. Not painful. Just hollow. Like a cup somebody had emptied without asking.
He’d read about mana exhaustion before. Most students didn’t experience it until their third or fourth year of active summoning. Overextension during high-output sessions. The textbook said it felt like physical fatigue compounded by mental fog.
The textbook had been generous.
He looked around the room again.
Lyra Voss was sitting in the chair beside his bed.
She had her notebook open on her knee and a pen in her hand, but she wasn’t writing. She was watching him with the same grey eyes she’d fixed on him across the hall. Still unreadable. Still patient.
"How long have you been here?" Corbyn asked.
"Since they brought you in," Lyra said.
He looked at the window again. The light had the quality of late afternoon. The ceremony had ended around noon.
"That’s a long time," he said.
"I have a reason."
She closed the notebook and set it on her knee without opening anything else.
"The Calamity Summoner class," she said. "It belonged to my ancestor."
Corbyn looked at her.
"Aldric Voss," he said.
Something moved through her expression. Fast. Controlled.
"You know the name."
"The system told me. When the pillar read me it showed me the intended recipient." He paused. "It also said he’s been dead for centuries."
"Two hundred and seven years," Lyra said. "He died before my grandmother’s grandmother was born."
She said it the way someone says something they have rehearsed not for this moment, but simply from living with it long enough that the edges had worn smooth.
"The class never found another host," she continued. "Our family spent generations trying. No one was ever strong enough to match his soul signature." She looked at Corbyn steadily. "Then you touched the pillar last."
"Because commoners go last," Corbyn said.
"Because commoners go last," she agreed.
Silence.
"I’m not saying you took it," Lyra said. "I know you didn’t. But that class has my family’s name attached to it. Two centuries of history." She held his gaze. "I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t matter to me."
"It matters to me too," Corbyn said. "Even though I never knew him."
She looked at him a moment longer than she needed to.
Then something shifted. Not much. Just enough.
"Tell me what the system showed you," she said. "Exactly."
Corbyn pulled up the notification and read it to her, word for word. The error. The intended recipient. The failed reroute. The warning at the end that the system did not endorse the outcome.
When he finished, Lyra was quiet for a moment.
"The system doesn’t make mistakes," she said.
"It called itself a glitch," Corbyn said. "Twice."
Another silence. Longer this time.
She looked out the narrow window, jaw set in the particular way of someone working through something that didn’t fit any existing framework.
"Aldric spent his entire life building that class," she said finally. "Eleven years of trials before his first summon. Sixty more building the rest of his contracts." Her voice stayed even. "He walked into the Harren Gate alone because there was no one else ready. Sealed it from the inside. Gave up everything to keep people he’d never met alive."
She looked back at Corbyn.
"And the class went to you "
"Yes," Corbyn said.
He didn’t dress it up. There was no version of this that sounded better with more words.
Lyra held his gaze.
"You’re not what I expected," she said.
"What did you expect?" Corbyn asked.
"Someone who would try to justify it." She picked up her pen and turned it between her fingers once. "Most people do when they get something they didn’t earn."
"I didn’t earn it," Corbyn said. "The system said so itself."
The corner of her mouth moved. Not quite a smile.
Not quite not one either.
The door opened.
A voice came from the corner of the room.
"She has his eyes."
Both of them turned.
Ishtar stood beside the privacy curtain near the far bed. She hadn’t been there a moment ago. Her arms were loose at her sides. Her gold eyes were fixed on Lyra with an expression that was different from anything she’d shown in the hall.
Not pity. Not assessment.
Recognition.
The deep kind.
Lyra went still.
"You were there," Lyra said. "In the ceremony. You came through the—"
"I fought alongside Aldric Voss," Ishtar said. "For a long time. Through things this world no longer has records of." She looked at Lyra steadily. "He was a good man. Better than most who carry that kind of power. The fact that he walked into that gate rather than let someone else carry the cost—" She paused. "That was not nothing."
Lyra’s hands had tightened on the notebook.
"He spoke of his family," Ishtar continued. "More in the years before the end than before. He was worried about the weight the name would become after he was gone." Her gaze didn’t waver. "You should be proud of him."
Lyra was quiet for a moment.
"I am," she said.
Very quiet.
Ishtar’s expression shifted. Something small and unannounced.
"Before he went into the gate," Ishtar said, "he made me promise something. If I ever encountered his bloodline—" She stopped.
"What?" Lyra said.
"He asked me to help them. However I could." A pause. "Aldric was always sentimental about family."