Rethan did not sleep that night.
Neither did I.
The academy was quiet in the way only large institutions could be when pretending nothing was wrong. Lights dimmed at their usual hour. Patrol routes remained unchanged. Schedules continued as written.
But something underneath had shifted.
I felt it when I tried to rest. The pressure in my chest was not agitated. It was not warning me of danger. It felt… alert. As if something was approaching, not fast, but deliberately.
I sat on the edge of my bed for a long time, hands clasped, listening to the distant hum of mana moving through stone and air.
Rethan's words from earlier echoed in my mind.
You cannot keep doing that.
Making me look weak.
I knew he did not mean it the way it sounded. Or perhaps he did, and I simply did not want to believe it.
When dawn came, it arrived pale and uncertain.
The slate appeared an hour later.
Not outside my door.
On my bed.
I froze when I saw it.
No one was supposed to enter the dormitories without authorization. Not instructors. Not administrators. Certainly not without waking the occupant.
The slate was blank at first.
Then words etched themselves slowly across its surface.
Lower Mid Archive. Third descent. Immediate. Come alone.
My pulse quickened.
The Mid World.
Archives down there were rarely accessed and never alone. They sat close to unstable Scar zones, layered deep beneath the academy, where mana behaved unpredictably.
I stood slowly.
This was not official.
It was not formatted like an academy summons.
And that made it far more dangerous.
I dressed quickly and left without alerting Sil. Without telling anyone.
The descent platform was unguarded.
That should have been my first warning.
The lift carried me downward through layers of stone and reinforced glass. The deeper we went, the heavier the air became. Mana thickened, pressing against my skin like humidity before a storm.
The pressure in my chest stirred, responsive but restrained.
When the platform stopped, the doors opened onto a wide corridor lined with ancient shelves and sealed vaults. The light here was dimmer, tinged faintly blue by ambient mana.
I stepped forward.
"Rethan?" I called quietly.
No answer.
I moved deeper into the archive, every sense alert. The floor sloped downward slightly, leading toward an older section I had only seen in diagrams.
Then I heard it.
A sharp intake of breath.
I turned.
Lira was pressed against the far wall, wrists bound by mana restraints that pulsed faintly red. Her face was pale, eyes wide but focused. She did not cry out when she saw me.
"Do not move," she said softly.
Too late.
Rethan stepped out from behind a pillar.
He looked… wrong.
Not unhinged. Not wild.
Resolved.
His posture was stiff, controlled. His aura flickered unevenly, the steady green of Aero disrupted by sharp fluctuations.
"You came," he said.
I swallowed. "Let her go."
"She is not hurt," he replied quickly. "Not yet."
Lira's gaze flicked to him, then back to me. There was fear there, yes. But also understanding.
This was not random.
"This was not my idea," Rethan said, voice tight. "Not at first."
I stepped forward slowly, keeping my hands visible. "Then whose was it?"
He hesitated.
That hesitation told me everything.
"The administrators?" I asked.
"They are watching everything," he said. "They wanted proof. Something clean."
"Proof of what?"
"That you are unstable," he said. "Or that you are worth protecting."
My stomach dropped.
"And you agreed?" I asked quietly.
Rethan's jaw clenched. "They said if I did not cooperate, they would find someone else. Someone who would not care if she got hurt."
Lira inhaled sharply.
"You used me," she said, not accusing. Just stating a fact.
Rethan looked away. "I needed leverage."
"No," I said. "You needed certainty."
His eyes snapped back to me. "I need to know where I stand."
"You already know," I replied. "You stand with us."
Rethan's lips pressed into a thin line.
"With you," he repeated, quietly. "Do you know what that sounds like to someone like me?"
I did not answer.
"I trained because I believed effort mattered," he continued. "That if I refined my circuits, disciplined my breath, obeyed the system, I would earn my place. Not inherit it. Not be forgiven into it."
His eyes flicked to Lira, then back to me.
"And then you arrived," he said. "Failing where we succeeded. Breaking rules without trying. And everyone began adjusting around you."
"That was never my intention," I said.
"I know," he replied. "And that is why I cannot hate you."
The words landed harder than anger would have.
"I hate what you prove," he went on. "That control is not the same as worth. That the system can be bypassed. That all my effort might have been… preparation for nothing."
Lira shifted against the wall, the restraints humming softly as her mana reacted to stress.
"Rethan," she said carefully, "this will not give you answers. Only consequences."
He looked at her then, really looked.
"I never wanted you involved," he said. "You were supposed to be a variable I could manage. Something they could not dismiss."
Her voice stayed steady. "You turned me into proof."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"Yes."
The honesty hurt more than denial.
"They told me," he said, opening his eyes again, "that if I helped them measure him, they would protect me from being erased. From becoming unnecessary."
My chest tightened.
"And if I refused?" he continued. "They would find someone else. Someone reckless. Someone cruel."
"You still had a choice," I said.
"I chose survival," he replied. "I chose to stay visible."
The silence stretched.
In that moment, I understood something I had been avoiding.
Rethan was not betraying me.
He was betraying the version of himself he could no longer afford to be.
He laughed bitterly. "With you? I have trained my entire life to earn power the right way. And now I am invisible."
"That is not true."
"It is," he said. "They look at you and see a future. They look at me and see a variable."
The restraints around Lira's wrists pulsed brighter as the air thickened.
"Rethan," I said carefully, "this ends now."
He shook his head. "No. It ends when you choose."
I felt the pressure rise sharply then, instinct reacting before thought. The space around me tightened, responding to the threat, to Lira's fear.
Rethan flinched.
"Do not," he warned. "If you use that, they will record it. This entire place is monitored."
I froze.
That was the trap.
Use my power and confirm their fears.
Hold back and let her suffer.
Lira met my eyes.
"Do not," she said softly. "Not for me."
My heart pounded.
"Release her," I said to Rethan. "This is not you."
He swallowed. "I am tired of being patient."
"I know," I said. "So am I."
He raised his hand, and the mana restraints tightened slightly. Lira gasped, then steadied herself.
Something inside me snapped.
Not violently.
Decisively.
The pressure did not explode.
It folded inward.
The space around Lira softened, the restraints losing coherence as the structure holding them together unraveled quietly.
They fell to the floor with a dull clatter.
Rethan staggered back.
I did not touch him.
I did not strike.
I simply stood between him and Lira.
"This is over," I said.
Sirens began to wail.
Footsteps echoed in the distance.
Rethan's face crumpled.
"I did not want this," he said.
"I know," I replied.
He looked at Lira once more. "I am sorry."
Then he turned and ran.
The guards arrived moments later.
Questions followed.
Accusations.
Records.
Lira was taken for evaluation. I was escorted separately.
Rethan disappeared into the lower corridors before they could catch him.
That night, the academy buzzed with quiet panic.
A line had been crossed.
And everyone knew it.
Lira found me hours later, after the chaos settled.
"You saved me," she said.
"I endangered you," I replied.
She shook her head. "You chose."
We stood together in silence.
Somewhere beneath us, the Mid World shifted, responding to tension it did not understand.
And deep inside me, something ancient acknowledged the choice.
Not with approval.
With acceptance.
The burden had never been about power.
It had always been about deciding who you were willing to lose.