Chapter 27 | Campus Gossip

Chapter 27: Chapter 27 | Campus Gossip

"What does that mean," Corbyn said.

"Ishtar can feel living things through the bond," Cole said. "You told me that yesterday. She used it to locate the hidden operatives without Dex’s information." He looked at Corbyn. "That capacity flows both ways. You should be able to access it if the bond is strong enough."

Corbyn hadn’t considered that.

He’s right, Ishtar said. I didn’t mention it because you weren’t ready before. After yesterday I’m less certain of that.

’Can you walk me through it?’ Corbyn thought.

In a moment, she said. Let Cole set the exercise first. He and I can coordinate.

Corbyn relayed this to Cole.

Cole looked at the space where Ishtar’s voice had come from.

"Tell her the exercise is simple," Cole said. "He stands still. Eyes closed. Bond open. He tries to feel what she can feel without her describing it first."

Corbyn passed it on.

Reasonable, Ishtar said. Tell him I said reasonable, not good. There’s a difference at this stage.

"She said reasonable," Corbyn said.

"I’ll take it," Cole said.

Corbyn stood at the center of the courtyard. Closed his eyes. Found the pulse. Let it sit without reaching for it.

Then he tried to push his awareness outward through the bond the way he’d pushed the pulse outward against Stellan’s pressure. Not a summon. Just awareness. Just trying to feel what was on the other side of the connection.

For a long moment nothing happened.

Then something opened.

Not dramatically. Not like a door. More like a sensitivity he hadn’t known he was missing suddenly becoming available. The courtyard around him filled with information that hadn’t been there before. Not visual. Not sound. Something below both.

The stone wall to his left. Nothing living there.

The bench with Cole’s notes. Nothing.

Cole, three meters to his right. A presence. Distinct. Calm. The specific quality of someone who had made peace with early mornings a long time ago.

And beyond the courtyard wall, in the academy grounds beyond, other presences. Faint. Multiple. Some moving. Some still. The groundskeeping staff starting their morning work. A student awake early in the dormitory building across the path. An animal of some kind on the roof of the equipment storage building.

He opened his eyes.

Cole was watching him.

"Well," Cole said.

"I could feel you," Corbyn said. "And people beyond the wall."

Cole made another note.

"How many beyond the wall," Cole said.

"Four," Corbyn said. "Maybe five. One wasn’t clear."

Cole looked at his notes.

"Five," Cole said. "There are five groundskeeping staff on the morning shift. I checked the schedule before coming out." He set the pen down. "You’re accessing bond awareness. Three weeks earlier than the historical records suggest it should be possible."

The class is responding to him, Ishtar said in Corbyn’s mind. Faster than it should. Aldric developed this in his second month.

Corbyn relayed it.

Cole absorbed that.

"Which means the class isn’t just sitting in you," Cole said. "It’s developing." He looked at the notes. "Which also means the Rift’s information about what you should be capable of at this stage is already outdated."

Corbyn thought about the lead operative’s report.

He held the bond under active severance. Three days into his first term.

The report had been accurate at the time.

Now it was ten days in and he was doing things that should take months.

"Is that good," Corbyn said.

"For you, yes," Cole said. "For managing expectations, complicated." He picked up the notes. "We work this every morning from now on. The bond awareness. Range extension. Precision." He paused. "By the time Sekhmet makes contact you should be able to feel her in the pool before she announces herself."

"Will that help," Corbyn said.

"It will mean you’re not surprised," Cole said. "With Calamity-class entities, not being surprised is most of the work."

He left.

—-----------------------

The dining hall.

Corbyn and Dex arrived to find the atmosphere different from yesterday.

Not dramatically. Just in the way rooms change when something has happened and everyone in them is still deciding how to carry it.

The gate attack had spread through the student body overnight. Not with the fractured exaggeration of the duel — this time the accounts were more uniform because more people had been there. The basic facts weren’t in dispute. What was in dispute was what it meant.

At the noble center tables the conversation was lower than usual. Several students were on their communication devices. A few were watching Corbyn walk in with expressions that were harder to read than they’d been before.

Renata Ashcroft looked up when Corbyn passed.

She held the look for three seconds.

Then she nodded once. Clean. Unambiguous.

Corbyn nodded back.

At the commoner table Corbyn and Dex sat down. Lyra arrived two minutes later with her tray and her notebook and the expression of someone who had been awake for several hours before breakfast and had used the time productively.

She sat across from Corbyn.

"The archive," she said.

"What did you find," Corbyn said.

"Nothing taken," Lyra said. "Which is worse than something taken." She opened her notebook. "If something had been removed I could trace when and how. But the information about the bond severance technique is in the archive in a sealed section that hasn’t been accessed since my parents died." She paused. "Which means the leak isn’t from the archive. It’s from somewhere the information was recorded independently."

"The Council’s classified files," Corbyn said.

"Yes," Lyra said. "Vael is already looking. But Council files are harder to trace than family archives." She looked at him. "There’s someone inside the Council who has been passing information to the Rift. Possibly for a long time."

"How long," Dex said.

Lyra looked at him.

"The bond severance technique is specific," she said. "Designing it requires detailed knowledge of how the Calamity Summoner class bonds work at a mechanical level. That knowledge existed in two places — the Voss archive and the Council’s Sovereign Era files." She paused. "The technique was used yesterday by people who clearly knew what they were doing. Which means the leak has been active long enough for them to develop and refine the technique." She looked at her notebook. "Decades minimum."