Chapter 171: Chapter 171: The first day passed.

“Six currently registered in the same general structure,” Voss said. “Again, not all in daily attendance. Some are in advanced stages, some on reduced-residency models, and some in restricted practical sequences.”

Sylvia stared at him for a second. “That’s it?”

“Yes, my lady.”

Dean folded his arms loosely. “That does sound less like a university population and more like an administrative curse.”

Voss, who was either very brave or had stopped fearing consequences, said, “Dominants are rare enough that the university treats each file as a separate management matter.”

“That,” Dean said, “is offensively personal.”

“It is statistically practical.”

Sylvia looked between them, then back toward the corridor around them, where students continued moving in ordinary clusters, arguing over assignments, coffee, schedules, and whatever disasters belonged to people not born with this particular set of biological inconveniences.

“So the average student here,” she said slowly, “isn’t dominant, isn’t royal, and isn’t being routed through a building like a controlled weather event.”

“Correct,” Voss said.

Dean looked at her. “Your tone suggests betrayal.”

“It is betrayal,” Sylvia said. “I knew you people were rare. I did not realize I had effectively been imported into a very expensive statistical anomaly.”

Nero’s mouth twitched. “That is accurate.”

Voss adjusted his glasses slightly. “To put it in broader terms, alphas and omegas together account for roughly fifteen percent of the wider population. Dominants are approximately one percent of that group.”

Sylvia blinked. “So you’re telling me the entire institution has built reinforced routes, emergency fields, controlled schedules, and specialized course structures for a number of students small enough to fit around one lunch table.”

Dean tilted his head. “A very hostile lunch table.”

“Yes,” Voss said. “But still a small one.”

That landed well enough that even Sylvia laughed.

—

The rest of the day passed with almost insulting efficiency.

After all the talk of dominant tracks, emergency fields, controlled routes, and the university quietly admitting it had built entire systems around a number of students small enough to fit around a hostile lunch table, the practical part turned out to be simple.

Schedules.

Rooms.

Faculty names.

Access permissions.

Most of it had already been handled by Arion’s office.

Dean’s program was already arranged with careful precision – dominant omega courses, mixed modules, private review windows, and routes that made far too much sense for him to feel comfortable about it. Sylvia’s was even easier, mostly central lectures and standard seminars, with her access linked smoothly to Dean’s where needed.

Nero finished his own confirmations quickly, because naturally he treated university the same way he treated everything else: efficiently and with deeply offensive competence.

By noon, everything was done.

Voss handed them their finalized schedules with the careful restraint of a man who had survived the morning and very much intended to leave while his luck still held.

“If there is nothing further,” he said, “your transport has already been notified.”

Sylvia watched him for one beat after that. “He barely waited to get away from us.”

Dean looked down at the schedule in his hands. “It’s hurtful.”

“No,” Nero said. “It’s healthy.”

Dean glanced at him. “Your concern remains unwelcome.”

“And yet correct.”

A few minutes later, Nero peeled off toward his own faculty reviews, while Dean and Sylvia were escorted back toward the private eastern exit. The palace transport was already waiting, because apparently Arion’s office had predicted not only the structure of Dean’s academic life but also the exact moment he would be done with it.

Again: offensive.

Again: useful.

The ride back was quieter.

Sylvia went through her timetable first, making comments about professors, lecture halls, and which classes looked survivable. Dean listened with one elbow against the window, his own file resting across his lap, answering only when necessary.

The day had happened.

The university existed now as something real instead of abstract. He had seen the halls, the rooms, the routes, the way the institution bent around people like him not out of affection but because experience had forced it to.

And at the end of it, he was not returning to some student housing arrangement near campus.

He was going back to the crown prince’s palace.

Back because Arion wanted him there at the end of the day.

That thought sat in Dean’s chest in a way he found deeply irritating.

When the palace gates came into view, Sylvia glanced at him. “So, are you going to pretend this was a disaster or admit it could have gone worse?”

Dean kept his eyes on the window. “It was a disaster. I was handed paperwork.”

Sylvia snorted. “You were also relieved.”

Dean turned to look at her with slow offense. “That was an unnecessary use of observation.”

The car rolled through the final gate and stopped in front of the palace steps. Dean stepped out after Sylvia, schedule packet in hand, collar warm against his throat, and looked up at the open doors waiting ahead.

Then he muttered, mostly to himself, “This is how they get you.”

Sylvia heard him anyway. “Through logistics?”

Dean started up the stairs beside her. “Through competence.”

“How was your day?” Arion’s voice came from directly behind him, and Dean flinched so hard he nearly committed a diplomatic incident on the palace steps.

“Where did you come from?!” Dean snapped, turning sharply.

Arion stood two steps above and slightly behind them, as if he had always been there and reality had simply failed to inform Dean in time. He had already shed the outer severity of the formal court day, the whole effect somehow even worse because it made him look less like the Crown Prince of Alamina and more like the specific private problem Dean was trying, with uneven success, not to get used to.

“Inside,” Arion said.

Dean stared at him suspiciously.

Sylvia made a helpless noise beside him that was much too close to laughter.

Arion’s gaze moved once over Dean, taking in the schedule packet in his hand, the lack of visible damage, the fact that Dean had returned upright and sharp-eyed and still perfectly capable of outrage. Only then did something in his shoulders ease by a degree.

“Was it tolerable?” he asked.

Dean narrowed his eyes. “No. Your university has systems.”

“It does.”

“And routes.”

“Yes.”

“And one administrator who looked at us like we were the reason bureaucrats drink.”

“Voss is competent.”

“He’s traumatized.”

Sylvia made a helpless sound. “That’s true.”

Arion looked at her. “Lady Sylvia.”

“Your Highness. It went well,” Sylvia said. “Dean insulted the schedule, the biology, and at least one concept, so I think that means he’s recovering nicely.”

Dean turned to her. “You are not my spokesperson.”

“No,” Sylvia said. “I’m just going to my rooms before this becomes a private issue.”

Dean looked at her. “Traitor.”

“Correct,” she said, and slipped inside, leaving them alone on the steps.

Dean immediately disliked that.

Arion took the folder from his hand, glanced at the first page, then looked back at him. “Come inside.”

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