The fluorescent lights had barely flickered on when Matt swaggered into the lecture hall and flopped down next to Solan, a crinkling bag of chips in hand.
Solan stared at him.
“How is that possible?”
“You drank,” he said.
Matt tilted his head. “And?”
“You drank,” Solan repeated. “Half a bottle.”
“Correction,” Matt said, opening the bag. “A shared half-bottle. Community effort.”
“How is that possible?”
“You have a lot to learn about this place.”
Solan, meanwhile, felt like he was dying. Not dramatically. Just the slow, grainy kind of dying that settled behind the eyes and refused to migrate. Two and a half hours of sleep and several emotional crises he refused to classify as emotional. She might be here today.
He had left Juno’s dorm early, told himself he’d sleep. Instead he lay awake in the dark, summoning and dismissing the Black Blade as if repetition might train it into obedience. It didn’t. It never had. It came when it wanted. Or didn’t. He still didn’t understand the terms.
Matt crunched loudly.
“You look like you lost a war,” Matt said.
“I lost sleep.”
“Same thing.”
The hall filled in waves—people louder than necessary, like surviving a blackout had upgraded them to veterans. Jokes about “best Silly Week ever.” Shrugs about the drakespawn. No one knew anything. Or if they did, they were pretending not to.
Solan sat there jittery and exhausted, aware of the way Matt’s chewing grated against something already frayed.
“Can you be quiet,” Solan muttered without looking at him. “And put those chips away before we both get kicked out.”
“Yes, sir.” Matt rustled the bag on purpose. “You said—and I quote—‘She might remember me. I can’t be the only idiot in the room.’ I mean… that moved me, man.”
“I shouldn’t have told you anything.”
“You really shouldn’t have.” Matt grinned. “You’re nervous.”
Solan’s fingers tapped against the desk, rhythmic and unsteady. His gaze stayed on the entrance like it owed him an explanation. Late August heat pressed down; the air-conditioning hadn’t recovered from last night. The room felt swollen, oxygen thinning by increments.
The door opened.
For a second he couldn’t tell what arrived first—the faint clean scent or the outline of her in the doorway. The room shifted in the subtle way rooms do when something aligned enters them. It should have calmed him. It did the opposite.
His pulse spiked.
She looked like someone meant for a better morning.
The air felt thinner. He didn’t look again. He didn’t need to. His hands steadied. His thoughts didn’t.
She slipped into a seat one chair away, leaving the space between them empty. Not close. Not far. Just deliberate enough to register.
Matt’s grin widened like he’d just been handed a cue card. With a theatrical rustle of chips he stood, swung around, and claimed the buffer seat, dropping down between them with a satisfied thud.
“Oooh,” Matt breathed. “You two sitting like this? It’s giving divorced parents at therapy.”
Solan’s ears flared hot. “You absolute—”
But Matt was already leaning forward, smiling at her. “Hi. I’m Matt. This is Solan—he’s usually very articulate, I swear.”
She blinked once, lashes fluttering, soft and startled. “Clara Vale.”
Solan swallowed. The name caught somewhere halfway up his throat. “Solan… Elric.” The syllables landed unevenly, like he’d borrowed them.
Matt clapped slowly. “Historic breakthrough. Should we get matching tattoos or—”
Clara hesitated. Just a fraction too long.
Solan noticed. The tiny recalibration in her gaze. The way it settled again, more carefully this time.
He coughed into his fist, sharp and unhelpful. Shot Matt a look that promised violence. Then, to her: “Just ignore him.” He meant to add something else—something casual, something human—but the words deserted him.
So instead, while Clara bent over her notes, he dragged a thumb lightly across his own throat in Matt’s direction. Matt only grinned wider, as if this confirmed everything.
Clara opened her textbook. Her hair fell forward, hiding the flush gathering at the tips of her ears.
Solan stared at his own page. Didn’t read a single word. His heart slowed, then accelerated, then reorganized itself into something he couldn’t diagram.
Matt leaned close again, breath warm against his ear. “Was your voice shaking just now?”
Solan didn’t look at him.
“Matt,” he said quietly, through his teeth. “I swear to God.”
-
Matt had wingmaned him. That was the only word for it. One smug grin, a casual excuse about “study group,” and suddenly Solan was standing there, phone in hand, watching Clara Vale type her number into his screen like it wasn’t the single most perilous moment of his short life.
And then what? He had no idea. Numbers traded, door closed, and he was left holding an artifact far more unstable than any Kamuy.
Now came the follow-up: Introduction to Draconic Factor Theory. A required foundations course, which meant nearly five hundred students crammed shoulder to shoulder into a tiered hall that looked more like a parliament chamber than a classroom. The air buzzed with voices, friends finding friends, classmates reuniting like they’d been separated for decades instead of a summer.
**Solan slid into a seat halfway down and tried not to notice how easily people already knew each other. He half-hoped Clara would materialize in the crowd, maybe wave, maybe nod like what had just happened wasn’t a hallucination. But she didn’t. Different section, probably. **Good. Safer.
Except—why did he want to see her again? That was a dangerous mindset. A slippery slope. He wasn’t here to chase distractions. He had a blade that hummed in his veins like a migraine and a life expectancy hovering somewhere around “don’t ask.”
Still… she was really pretty. No. Wrong again. Bad trajectory. Abort mission. He dropped his head into his hands for a moment, let the din of the lecture hall swallow him up. Five hundred students, and he was the only one already losing the battle against his own brain.
The room quieted not with a bell or microphone but with the soft scrape of shoes across the stage. Professor David Kline stepped to the podium like he had all the time in the world. Glasses perched low on his nose, plaid suit neat to the point of severity, silver hair groomed back to reveal a narrow mustache. He looked like an aging librarian, until you noticed the military cut of his overcoat draped over the chair, the campaign ribbons stitched discreetly along the inner lining. And in his hand, a fountain pen, held with the weight of a sidearm.
Solan had glanced at the syllabus: Former UN field logistics and disaster-planning architect. Which meant, in practice, the man had probably built cities for people who’d lost theirs.
Kline rested the pen against the lectern, surveyed the sea of students, and spoke in a voice steady enough to slow the room’s pulse. “We live in the Post-Miracle Society,” he said, “and this is not the class where you become a superhero. If that’s your intention, join the army. Or the police. Or the fire service.”
A ripple of laughter broke out, scattered but genuine. Even Solan smiled faintly, though mostly because he couldn’t imagine this man ever raising his voice above “mild disapproval.”
Somewhere behind him, two students whispered.
“Yo, I heard he fought in the Old War.”
“Shhh. Don’t call it that. It wasn’t even a war—it was the Event. ”
“But still,” Kline continued, the corner of his mouth tilting like he found the laughter predictable, “congratulations to those of you who’ve already made the Scratchlist.”
That set off a different wave—cheers from somewhere in the back, a slap on someone’s shoulder, the communal noise of envy disguised as applause. Heads turned, searching for the name, the face. Who was the hero in their midst? Solan looked too. Not out of admiration. Not envy. Just practical calculation. It seemed useful to know whose path not to block in the hallways, who deserved a wide berth when you carried a tray of noodles past the cafeteria exit. That was all.
Kline’s voice carried easily across the hall, measured, unhurried, as if the acoustics bent to accommodate him. “The Draconic Factor,” he said, “can manifest in physical enhancements. Increased strength, speed, reflex.”
A murmur rippled through the seats. Someone cracked their knuckles, like the idea alone might unlock hidden muscles.
Solan, meanwhile, thought about the news story Matt had read aloud two days ago—half a dozen Kamuy-bearers trying to rob a billionaire’s compound in Seattle. Enhanced bodies, crackling powers, the whole cinematic package. They lasted all of twelve seconds before one personal security guard with a .45 turned them into meat confetti.
So much for evolution.
By the time Kline moved on—“…and the Factor is like a hidden vein of uranium buried inside you—its amount fixed, impossible to increase or reduce. All you can decide is whether to set it off. That is to say: if you awaken your Kamuy. And nobody in the world knows how, or why, or when.”—Solan wasn’t writing anything down.
He was thumbing his phone under the desk, brightness turned low, typing **Clara Vale into every platform he could think of. Search. Scroll. Refresh. No matches. Just a handful of Vale cousins who clearly weren’t her. He locked the screen. Unlocked it again. Typed her name slower, as if that would change the algorithm. What am I even doing? I barely know her. This wasn’t curiosity, it was reconnaissance. Or worse. He should be paying attention to the man at the lectern, the one explaining why some people burned holes in walls and others couldn’t light a match. He locked the screen and shoved the phone away, cheeks heating as if Kline could see right through him. I’m such a creep, he thought. And maybe worse—an obvious one.
**Kline capped his pen, the click sharp against the microphone. “Your first assignment is simple,” he said. “Read chapters one through three of Draconic Factor: A Brief History.” Solan knew the book—standard curriculum ever since the Post-Miracle reforms, its first chapter opening with the line ‘There are no more miracles, only systems.’
“No summaries. I want analysis.” A low groan rolled across the hall, swallowed quickly when Kline’s gaze flicked over the rows like a searchlight.
The grind of seats, the hollow snap of fold-out desks flipping up. Bags rustled. Students halfway to freedom before the man had even finished his sentence.
Solan’s stomach growled—audible, traitorous. The girl two seats over glanced at him; he coughed, looking down. Shepherd’s pie, he decided. Hot. Heavy. Something to glue the day back together.