Chapter 28
Debt
He went that evening.
Not because he felt he owed her -- debt was a concept he was careful about, the way you were careful about any mechanism that could be used to move you in a direction you hadn't chosen. But because the question of why was one he needed an answer to, and not having the answer was the kind of thing that sat in the back of his mind and pulled at his attention when he needed it elsewhere.
Upper Dormitory was the Gold and high Silver track housing -- better rooms, better facilities, the architecture reflecting rank the way everything at the Academy did. Room 7 was larger than his dormitory room, with a single occupant's space and a desk covered in organized notes.
Sera opened the door before he knocked. Either she'd heard him in the corridor or she'd been expecting him at approximately this time, which itself said something.
She gestured to the chair by the desk. He sat. She sat on the edge of her bed, arms crossed, studying him with the same calm assessment she'd had in the corridor.
'You want to know why I helped you,' she said.
'Yes.'
'I'm going to answer that question, but I want to answer it accurately, which means I need to tell you some context first.' She held his gaze. 'I've been having a recurring dream since I was eight years old. I know that sounds like something irrelevant. I'm telling you because it's the most relevant thing I can tell you and I've spent nine years trying to decide whether to tell anyone.'
He said nothing.
'The dream has a figure in it. A person, always the same person, though I can't always see their face clearly. They're standing in a ruined throne room. There's a mark across their chest -- lines, dark, like a broken pattern. And there are six lights in the room, one by one going out.' She said it steadily, like she'd rehearsed it, like she'd been over it so many times the telling had become separate from the feeling. 'I've had this dream hundreds of times. I've been researching it for five years.'
Cyan looked at her.
'When I saw you in the orientation,' she said, 'I recognized something. I don't know how to describe it more precisely than that. Something about how you sat. How you looked at the room. Something.' She paused. 'I didn't act on it immediately. I watched you for two weeks. And then the hearing happened and I decided that whatever I thought I recognized, I wasn't going to let it get expelled before I found out if I was right.'
'You don't know if you're right,' he said.
'No. I know the dream. I don't know what it means or whether the person in it is you. I have theories.' She met his eyes. 'The mark on your hand. I haven't seen it directly. But I've seen you keep that hand covered and I've seen you move in ways that suggest you're managing something no one else in this building has to manage.'
He was quiet for a moment.
'If I told you something,' he said slowly, 'you'd want to use it for your research.'
'Yes,' she said. 'I won't pretend otherwise. But I also won't report it, and I won't tell anyone, and I won't make any move that could hurt your position here.' She held his gaze. 'I've been sitting on this dream for nine years. I know how to keep something to myself.'
He looked at her for a long time.
She was telling the truth. He could feel it in the steadiness of her mana -- Gold-rank, clean and powerful, not agitated the way dishonesty made people's passive output agitate.
'I'm not ready to tell you anything,' he said. 'Not yet.'
'All right.'
'But I'll come back,' he said. 'When I am.'
She nodded once. 'That's enough for now.'
He left.
Walking back to the dormitory he thought about a girl who'd had a dream about him for nine years before she'd ever seen his face, and what that meant about things that were arranged in advance, and whether he was moving toward something or being moved.
He didn't have an answer.
He filed the question in the section of his mind labeled: wait.