Chapter 33
The Warden's Office
The summons was waiting in his dormitory room when he returned that evening.
Same administrative card as the first time. Report to the Warden's Office. At your earliest convenience. He went immediately, which was his interpretation of earliest convenience -- waiting was for situations where delay gave you information, and this wasn't one of those.
The Warden's office was lit by a single lamp and looked exactly as it had the first time: organized, deliberate, the space of someone who thought carefully about what they kept and where.
The Warden was behind his desk. He looked at Cyan when he came in and gestured to the chair across from him.
Cyan sat.
The Warden was quiet for a moment. Then he said: 'Did it hurt?'
Cyan looked at him.
'The duel,' the Warden said. 'Holding that much absorbed mana for that duration. The compression. Did it hurt?'
He thought about the pressure during the duel -- the building weight of Orris's spent spells sitting in him, compressed, waiting. The burn of the Mark at full pull.
'Yes,' he said.
The Warden nodded slowly. 'Good,' he said.
Cyan waited for the rest of that thought.
'Not because pain is desirable,' the Warden said. 'Because it means you felt the limit. Students who can't feel their limits don't learn them until they break them, and breaking them is a significantly worse educational experience.' He folded his hands on the desk. 'You held more than you should have for your current development level. You released it in a way that worked but was structurally unsound. You won the duel and you could have damaged yourself seriously doing it.'
'I know,' Cyan said.
'What you did is going to require you to move faster than you'd otherwise prefer,' the Warden said. 'Half the Academy saw that Mark today. Vael can manage the record-keeping, and she will, but managing what three hundred students saw is a different problem.'
Cyan met his eyes. 'You knew about Vael.'
'I recommended she approach you.' A pause. 'I've known about Vael's research for twelve years. She's the most knowledgeable person on the Seventh school's history that I'm aware of, and she knows how to handle sensitive information.' He looked at Cyan steadily. 'I want to be clear about something. I've arranged things around you since before you arrived here. The acceptance letter, Vael's approach, the specific placement of resources you'd be likely to find and use. I haven't told you this because timing matters -- I needed to know what you'd do with information before I gave you more of it.'
Cyan looked at him.
'And?' he said.
'You've exceeded what I expected,' the Warden said simply. 'In the time frame and the quality of the conclusions.' He paused. 'I'm going to tell you more. Not tonight -- tonight you need to process what happened today and so do I. But soon.' He held Cyan's gaze. 'I also want to ask you something. The duel today was a choice. You understood what it would cost and you decided the cost was worth paying. I want to know why you made that choice now rather than later.'
Cyan thought about it.
'Because waiting was starting to feel like hiding,' he said. 'And I've been hiding for a long time. I needed to know if I could stop.'
The Warden looked at him for a long moment.
'Can you?' he said.
'Ask me again in a month,' Cyan said.
The Warden did something that was almost a smile. It lasted about as long as Fen's had earlier.
'Go get some sleep,' he said.
Cyan went.