The silence didn't break.
It just… shifted.
A few whispers returned first. Not from the students—but the summons. Whispers not spoken aloud, but carried through Veinlink—quiet pulses of thought vibrating between bonded pairs.
That's not a summon. That's something else.
Why is it wearing a suit?
Did it just wink at me?
Root stood still, hands at his sides, face calm. He didn't need to say anything else.
The declaration was already spiraling through every chamber in the Forum.
He survived deletion.
He refused the throne.
He named his summon Veyr—and Veyr answered.
On cue, the little masked figure floating beside Root gave a cheerful two-finger salute to the crowd.
"Greetings, future admirers and inevitable enemies," Veyr said, his voice crystal-clear despite the lack of amplification. "Please remain seated, unless you're about to soil yourselves—in which case, feel free to stand."
The room didn't laugh.
It didn't move.
Only the instructors on the balcony shifted—glancing at each other like bureaucrats watching a fire start in a vault full of paper.
Root's system prompt pulsed again.
[ Awaiting Evaluation: Summon Classification – Veyr ]
[ Type: Null – Subcategory: Unregistered ]
Threat Potential: ???
Control Index: ???
Committee Override Requested
And then—
A new presence entered.
Not physically.
But through the system.
A sigil blazed above the Forum's center—spiraling gold and white, threaded with Crownlight.
[ Override Approved – By Order of Crown Strategos Hellean ]
Action: Observation Deferred
Subject: Root (Riftborn)
Ruling: He is to be watched. Not touched.
Addendum: If he destabilizes, erase the Academy, not the boy.
Gasps rippled through the Forum.
Not just at the decision—
But at the Addendum.
Root turned slightly.
Even he hadn't expected that.
Veyr chuckled, spinning midair.
"Well," he said, "either I'm charming… or the Crown's afraid of what happens if you really get mad."
Root said nothing.
But he was already planning what came next.
Because being spared wasn't mercy.
It was containment.
And containment always had limits.
The moment Root stepped off the stage, the Forum's silence fractured—not with noise, but with tension. Eyes followed him, but none dared meet his directly. Threads of Veinlink activity whispered all around him—low, fragmented pulses of fear, awe, and disbelief.
"Did the Crown actually back off?"
"He walked through deletion."
"No summon should be able to do that."
Root walked forward, every step unhurried. He didn't rush. He didn't look left or right. It wasn't confidence—it was calm. The kind of calm you only get when you've already seen the worst they can throw at you… and walked through it.
The crowd parted in subtle ways. Not outward, not dramatic—but sideways, like a tide avoiding something it couldn't quite classify.
Behind him, Veyr drifted in slow orbits, his mask angled up toward the towering light arrays that lit the Forum's ceiling.
"You know," Veyr mused, "I was going to make a scene. Maybe summon a gravity well under the disciplinary panel and invert their expectations. But this was much funnier."
Root didn't respond. His mind was still in the throne chamber. Still feeling the echo of that deletion field. Not pain—just a pressure. An imprint left behind, like gravity in a space where a star had collapsed.
A voice called out from the edge of the open floor.
"Root!"
He turned.
Lyra.
She strode toward him with a look halfway between relief and restraint. Her summon followed—a sharp-eyed, upright rabbit with silver sparks flitting from its winged back. It moved like a ghost with speed issues.
"I saw the whole thing," she said. "They couldn't classify him?"
Root shook his head.
"No category. Just… Riftborn."
Veyr gave a little wave.
"We prefer aesthetic mystery, thank you."
Lyra ignored him. Her eyes studied Root with the focused intensity of someone who'd just watched a myth form and wasn't sure if she believed it yet.
"You're not hiding anymore," she said. "Not beneath rank. Not beneath a borrowed name. They'll come for you now."
"They already tried," Root replied. "Didn't work."
Veyr leaned over to Lyra's rabbit.
"If you bite me, do I get cursed or promoted?"
The rabbit hissed quietly.
Lyra sighed.
"There's something else. My summon saw it before the lights reset. For a second—behind you—there was a… crown."
Root froze.
"I know."
"You do?"
"I saw it too. In the glass."
Lyra looked around. "That wasn't the system giving you rank."
Root nodded. "It wasn't giving me anything."
Veyr hovered between them, now upside down.
"What you both saw," he said gently, "was the system bracing for its first mistake."
"So what's next?" Lyra asked, voice low. "You plan to keep walking into every trap they send?"
Root's voice was like frost.
"Only if they forget who set it."
As Root left the Forum chamber, a new message blinked into his vision. Not the usual static prompt from the system.
This one was personal.
[ Manual Message: Faculty Override – Encrypted ]
Sender: Instructor Fex Hollowmire
Location: Subwing X – Vault 3
Access Key: ROOT.001
Request: Come alone. Veyr is permitted.
Tone: Friendly (ish)
Root raised an eyebrow.
"Fex Hollowmire?" he muttered.
Veyr perked up immediately.
"Ah. Hollowmire. I thought he got locked in the Bone Archives for trying to tame a parasite-class summon using his spine."
"That a joke?"
"Nope. He's a legend. Or a cautionary tale. Or both."
Root considered ignoring the summons. But something about the tone—the manual override—felt different. Most Crown staff sent their messages through official channels, clinical and stiff. This one bypassed the entire system.
Whoever this instructor was, they didn't want Crownlight knowing about this meeting.
"We go," Root said.
"Oh, excellent," Veyr replied. "I've always wanted to meet the only man on campus weirder than me."
Subwing X wasn't listed on the main transit system. Root had to access it through an abandoned lift shaft behind the decommissioned alchemy labs—half-swallowed by vines and rust. The moment he stepped inside, the shaft moved on its own, lights flickering down into red.
Veyr whistled.
"This place has vibe. Ten out of ten for ominous entrances."
The lift stopped.
An iron door slid open, revealing a cavern-like room lit only by rune lanterns and the glow of ancient summoning circles etched into the floor. Scrolls, bone fragments, and hollowed-out summoning shells lined the walls.
And in the center sat a man.
Pale.
Broad-shouldered.
Eyes like melted ink.
Wearing a cloak that smelled like dust and dried blood.
"Root," the man said, smiling like a butcher. "Or should I say… Riftborn."
Root didn't flinch. "Fex Hollowmire?"
"The same. You've got their attention now. Which means you've got my attention."
"I'm not looking for a mentor."
Fex laughed. It sounded like gravel getting crushed under glass.
"Good. I'm not offering. I'm offering options."
"Go on."
Fex gestured to a cracked summoning relic behind him—shaped like a ribcage, stitched with faded Crownthread.
"You're not the first anomaly they've tried to erase. But you're the first who made the system change itself in response. That means you're no longer a student."
"Then what am I?"
Fex leaned forward.
"You're leverage."
The word hung in the air like smoke.
"To them?" he continued, "you're a wild card. To me? You're a signal. The system is decaying. Ranks don't mean anything anymore. Control is slipping. And I think you—with that summon—could be the crack that splits the throne wide open."
Veyr clapped politely.
"I like this guy."
Fex held up a black badge—hexagonal, with no Crown crest.
"Take this, and I'll show you the back halls of this academy. The projects they buried. The summons they sealed. The students who didn't make it—not because they failed… but because they refused."
Root stared at it.
"What's the price?"
Fex smiled again.
"Just your attention. For now."