Chapter 161 Interest Accrues

Riven sat on his bed at dawn with the Counter open, turning a Peek over like a coin. He paid the fifteen thousand without haggling, the panel unrolling nine days of future in a white scroll.

Mara leaned in the doorway, "Is that the future in your hand or the laundry list?"

The scroll ended in a single bell drawn in red, standing at the edge of the ninth night. Riven touched the ink and felt it ring faintly, like a fingertip circling the rim of a glass.

"Nine days," he said aloud. "Nine days until the Night of Long Bells."

"Then we have nine breakfasts left to eat in peace," she said, "so let’s go eat the first one."

Resonance climbed through his chest until it reached the daily cap, pooling under his ribs like warm water. He flexed his fingers, feeling Overdue answer from across the room, its red-gold crack glowing in the dimness.

[ Resonance: daily cap reached | Peek: -15,000 RF | Night of Long Bells: nine days | Balance: 17,282,600 ]

’Nine days isn’t many when the song wants a thousand names... but it’s enough if I’m already counting.’

The dining hall was loud with plates and gossip when he arrived, the long benches crowded to the walls. Lucas stood at the counter with an empty tray, staring at the food as if it might accuse him.

"Porridge, eggs, or toast?" the cook asked, tapping a ladle against the pot.

"The burnt toast, please," Lucas said, pointing past the fresh loaves on the shelf.

"That’s the pile we scrape off, it’s meant for the pigs behind the kitchen."

"I know... I want the slice nobody else would choose."

The cook offered porridge, eggs and a stack of toast gone dark at the very edges. Lucas lifted a single slice of the burnt toast, studying it carefully like a rare coin.

"How is it?" he asked, sliding onto a bench beside him.

"Terrible," Lucas said, crunching with great seriousness, "and I love every bite of it."

Riven felt the Interest before the panel opened, a thin warm trickle running down the inside of his wrist. It was small, almost shy, as though the System were embarrassed to be paying for somebody else’s free breakfast.

"I witness: I chose this myself," he told the room, which wisely let him.

Yukine swept past the benches with a folded letter between two gloved fingers, the royal seal already cracked open. She held the corner over the nearest lamp flame until it caught, watching the wax drip to the floor.

"Was that a betrothal?" he asked, nodding at the smoking corner of the letter.

"From a duke’s heir, arranged by a court matchmaker in my absence," she said calmly.

"You burned it, right in front of the porridge, with people watching."

"I declined it with fire, I do not accept pieces placed on my board by another hand."

A second trickle followed the first, cooler this time, like a drop of water falling in a cave. The panel opened above his tray, listing both payments in tidy ink and a line about his Core.

[ Interest: Lucas, a free choice +90,000 | Interest: Yukine, a free choice +110,000 | Balance: 17,482,600 | Core: rising ]

’Two small choices, two small payments... freedom pays in pennies, but the pennies add up.’

The dining hall doors banged open, Pryce marching in at the head of a column of Class One cadets. He wore a wider hat than before, a rapier hanging from his hip with a hilt like a swan.

"I will have satisfaction for the humiliation at the—" Pryce announced.

"Fountain, yes, we’ve met."

Pryce stopped at the end of Riven’s bench and flung a glove, which landed in the porridge. The whole hall went quiet, spoons halting halfway between the bowls and open mouths all around them.

"I challenge you to a public duel of honor," he said, "in the yard, at noon."

"You threw your glove in my porridge, that’s my breakfast."

"It is traditional, the porridge is incidental to the insult."

Ysabel arrived through the side door carrying two pies on a silver platter, each as wide as a shield. She set them on the table with a thud and unfolded her fan, calm as a queen at court.

"I have come for our rematch," she said, "an eating contest, one pie each, during his duel."

"At the same time?" he asked, eyeing the platter.

"I refuse to waste an afternoon on a single humiliation, I prefer to stack them."

"Stack carefully," Nix murmured, "the keystone slot in the songbook is inked in your violet, so stay out of the chapel."

The yard filled in a few minutes, students packing the fountain’s rim and hanging from windows to watch. Pryce took his mark in the center of the chalk circle, his rapier gleaming, his chin lifted high.

"Even odds on the pie," Cael called, chalking a slate, "I’m backing the pie."

He strolled to the opposite mark with a pie balanced on one forearm, Overdue loose in his other hand. Ysabel stood at the edge of the circle with her own pie, matching him bite for bite with focus.

"Begin the duel of honor," Selh bellowed from the fountain, ringing his bell with both hands.

Pryce lunged, a bright line of steel stabbing for his throat across the chalk like a thrown needle. Riven stepped off the beat and took a bite of pie, letting the point slide past his collar.

"He is eating," a Class One cadet whispered, "in the middle of a duel."

"He’s taking me lightly," Pryce hissed, "I will not be taken lightly."

Pryce recovered, slashing a second line, then a third, each stroke faster than the one before. Riven parried them one-handed with the flat of Overdue, chewing slowly, never spilling a single crumb.

"Stop chewing and fight me," Pryce shrieked, "this is a serious matter of honor."

"I’m multitasking, it’s called efficiency."

Ysabel finished her pie first, setting the plate down with a clink and glaring at him in triumph. Riven looked at his half-eaten slice and sighed, knowing the contest was already lost beyond any reasonable hope.

"Forfeit," she announced, "the pie is mine, and so is the afternoon."

"Give me one more bite," Riven said, "I’m very close."

He ended the duel with a flick of his wrist, Overdue catching the hilt and spinning the rapier skyward. It landed point-first in his half-eaten pie, wobbling there like a small flag planted on a tiny distant hill.

"The pie wins the duel," Selh announced to the crowd, "by forfeit of the rapier."

Pryce stood panting with his empty hand outstretched, the wide hat sliding down over one ear. Around the circle the students waited, grinning, to hear what he would say about it next.

"I swear revenge upon your house, your descendants and your sword," Pryce shouted.

"He has no house," Tobin called from the rim.

"No descendants either," Nix added, "I checked the paperwork."

"I do have the sword," Riven said, "so that’s one out of three."

Isolde knelt beside him on the fountain’s rim, winding a bandage around his split knuckles in firm tidy turns. He cracked them on the plate during the final parry, an injury so absurd that no one dared laugh.

"Hold still," she said. "This is the worst injury in the history of pie."

Nix dropped her tray with a crash that rang across the yard, spoons bouncing over the cobbles. Veska froze mid-step with her spear half raised, Mara staring at Isolde as though the fountain spoke.

"Did you just make a joke?" he asked.

"I have been saving it," Isolde said, tying off the knot, "I thought the occasion deserved it."

---

At dawn the Student Council chamber stood open, violet curtains drawn back to let in the light. The President’s chair at the head of the long table sat empty, its cushion still faintly dented.

"Who sits there?" he asked a passing student.

"Nobody, as far as I know."

Only Riven remembered who sat there, her name still lingering on his tongue like iron.