Worse news: after a stretch of cramming, Rod finally decoded the unknown script in his dream.
On the blue star it read:
Icy Azure
State: On the verge of going out
Star-skill: Revival of the Soul
Infusion: Soulless spirits
Quantification: Unavailable
Rank: Dim Flame
Strength: 13
Note:We must still love with our lives, even when the world repays us with spite.
On the obelisk:
The erosion has begun. A stronger nightmare is coming. The next incursion will arrive after thirty-three sunsets.
Warning:Crossing the River of Ever-Death is imminent. The incursion may change in unknown ways.
After reading, Rod felt… bad.Just as he'd suspected: the invasions weren't over. A bigger monster would show up in thirty-three days. Worse was that last line—River of Ever-Death was never going to mean anything nice. But who was crossing it? How? No hint.
And "the incursion may change in unknown ways" rattled him most. He couldn't even scratch the last invader; without those bursts of golden light he'd have died twice. The gold was spent. If something stronger came next time, he'd be paste.
His biggest crisis since arriving was here.If he kept to the normal pace, he wouldn't last thirty-three days.
I need combat skills—fast. I need to power up. That second star cannot go out.
Same problem as always: where was he supposed to find souls?Not on campus. Absolutely not.
He had to get off campus.
But Kingworth's gates were tight. Short of an Inquisition officer, no one whisked students out at will.
Asking around, Rod learned the easiest path for him: win the Star of Kingworth medal.
The Star of Kingworth is a monthly award for "most improved" students, with three tiers and hefty prizes. Rod needed Tier One—the only one that grants free in-and-out access.
It wasn't easy. Each of the three colleges awarded one Tier One medal per month. One college = ten departments; each department = ten groups; ~20 per group. So roughly one in two thousand gets it—basically year-rank #1.
But the scoring method favored him: faculty compare your new numbers against your previous recorded metrics; the bigger the jump, the better the score. For first-years, that baseline is the entrance test.
Rod's edge was huge—he'd lit a second star. Few freshmen manage that in a month. Sure, top students like Kashan had two, even three, but they had them at entry, so their "improvement" score lagged.
That was the award's point: boost the ordinary kid, give more people a shot.
Still, Tier One needed more than star-count and soul-power. He also needed faculty endorsements—teacher scores were 25% of the total.
So Rod became the most visible kid in Third College.Front row. Hand up first. Buttering up teachers. Out-studying classmates.Which earned him and Kashan the campus-wide nickname of "that shameless pair" (mostly teasing, rarely mean).
There was one exception: Hublin, red-haired, thickset, Group Leader of Third College, Second Department, Group Two. He hated it. Shared lectures meant he kept seeing that "country bumpkin" grandstanding, and it soured his mood.
Worse—Lady Kashan of House Mipor seemed faintly interested in the bumpkin.
Since the founding of Trorian, the houses Mipor and Manolobana have been ancient flame-chosen nobility. Hublin's father—Manolobana Gula, one of the Inquisition's four High Justiciars—had long eyed an alliance. Mipor hadn't agreed, but they hadn't refused either.
Hublin adored Kashan's beauty and pride and had already decided she was his future fiancée—though Kashan herself was far from enthusiastic.
Then his flunkies brought back worse gossip: the two lived door-to-door in the dorms, visited each other daily, chatted without a care, and had even been overheard discussing having children. Supposedly Rod wanted Kashan to bear his child, and Kashan had refused.
Clearly not a simple friendship.
Hublin felt like his soul was burning away.
So on a rest day, when his father visited campus, Hublin poured out his misery and asked dad to crush that peasant—make sure he never got the Star of Kingworth. Also, transfer Kashan out of Tenth Group to Second Department, Group Two, move her dorm opposite his.
Hublin's father—a tall, gaunt man whose iron mask had hardened into his face over the years—listened, asked for every detail about this "Rod," and then gave a cold laugh.
"Don't fret, Hublin. He'll be a pile of bones soon."
Hublin only half grasped it and whooped: "Great! I'll wrap my arm around Kashan's waist and kiss her in front of him—see how he likes the taste of defeat!"
The iron mask smiled thinly and didn't bother correcting him.Before leaving, he handed Hublin a spirit-raven messenger. "Report Rod's movements. All of them."
Kingworth, Third CollegeDormitory Building Six, Level Three
A blond middle-aged man listened, amused and worried, as his precious daughter bubbled about campus life—all ten sentences, five somehow about someone named Rod.
At last he sighed."Kashan, write home more when you can. I'm… interested in this young man. Tell me more about him."
Kashan beamed. "Okay, Papa."
"Huh?"
Staring gloomily at the blue star dimming by the day, Rod suddenly raised his head.
"Who's calling me?"