Chapter 178: Chapter 178: Like him.

Professor Var folded her hands once, the movement small and precise. “His Highness is not course material.”

The girl went pale at once. “I’m sorry, Professor, I only…”

“I know what you meant,” Var said, and her tone was not cruel. “Which is why I’m answering carefully instead of removing the question entirely.”

That only made the room listen harder.

Var glanced once across the lecture hall, not lingering on anyone, then continued in the same measured voice she had used from the start.

“There are documented cases,” she said, “of high-risk minors exposed before full dominant manifestation who later survived through extraordinary intervention, accelerated medical management, and induced biological stabilization.”

Dean’s fingers tightened around his stylus.

Not enough for anyone else to notice.

Enough for him.

“Those cases are rare,” Var said. “Their survival does not make the exposure less severe. It makes the response exceptional.”

No one spoke.

Dean kept his eyes on the notes, though for a second the words blurred.

He knew enough already, in fragments and implications, to understand what that meant. An infected attack. A child too young to be protected by the very biology that would later make him difficult to touch. A body pushed forward too early because waiting would have been worse.

The scar on Arion’s right brow and cheek flashed through his mind with sudden, ugly clarity.

The girl swallowed. “So there are reasons for the protocols around dominant children.”

“Yes,” Var said. “Those reasons are written in blood, not paranoia.”

That landed harder than a direct answer would have.

Var changed the slide.

PRE-MANIFEST DOMINANT PROTECTION PROTOCOLS

– movement restriction under contamination risk

-layered escort doctrine

-immediate isolation after exposure suspicion

-rapid manifestation support review

-external specialist escalation pathways

“Protective rules around dominant minors are often criticized by people who have never read the archives,” Var said. “That criticism usually disappears once they do.”

A student near the right asked cautiously, “Rapid manifestation support review means…”

“It means,” Var said, “that in catastrophic exposure scenarios, medical teams may assess whether accelerated dominant stabilization is survivable, advisable, or necessary.”

Var continued through the rest of the section in the same measured tone, but Dean only half heard it.

He kept thinking of Arion at eight.

Not the Crown Prince.

Not the man who pinned him with one hand and reorganized his life through administrative precision.

A child.

A child who had survived because someone had stepped between him and the wrong kind of death and because other adults had been brutal in time.

When the lecture finally ended, most students filed out more slowly than before. Dean remained seated until the room had mostly emptied.

“Lord Dean,” Var said.

He looked up. “Professor.”

“You’re hearing more in this lecture than some of the others are,” she said.

It was not a question.

Dean considered denying it, then didn’t bother. “Yes.”

Var nodded once. “Then hear this too: historical precedent is useful. Personalizing every precedent is not.”

Dean’s mouth twitched faintly. “That sounds suspiciously like advice.”

“It is.”

He gathered his notes and stood but paused near the aisle. “The phrase you used. Extraordinary intervention.”

Var looked at him.

“That means it almost failed,” Dean said.

She was quiet for a beat.

Then: “It means survival was not the expected outcome.”

Dean absorbed that in silence.

Then he walked out into the corridor, bright and ordinary in the offensive way universities always were after lectures like that.

—

Sylvia had barely managed three steps away from the window when a hand caught Sylvia by the elbow somewhere down the corridor and redirected her with enough confidence to make her stop first and complain second.

“What the—”

“Come with me,” Nero said.

Sylvia, who had been on her way up the central stair with a coffee and the expression of a woman prepared to survive one more afternoon of academia through caffeine and spite alone, looked at him in outrage. “That is not how invitations work.”

“It’s working now.”

“That is kidnapping with posture.”

Nero ignored this and guided her across the corridor before she could decide whether the coffee was throwable.

“Why am I involved?” Sylvia demanded. “I’m a beta with a timetable.”

“Because Dean will either vanish into a morally questionable internal monologue after his last lecture or pretend he’s fine until someone annoys him into violence.”

Sylvia blinked once. “That is… irritatingly accurate.”

“I know.”

“And you need me because?”

Nero glanced toward the hall ahead. “Because if I go find him alone, he’ll assume I’m about to say something sincere and become hostile on principle.”

“That is also accurate,” Sylvia muttered. “Fine. But if I spill this coffee because of you, I’m billing Saha.”

Nero found Dean exactly where he expected: just past the lecture wing, near the long window overlooking the inner court, standing with his tablet in one hand and the expression of a man who had recently been educated against his will and was still deciding whether the building should suffer for it.

Dean looked up as they approached.

His gaze moved first to Sylvia, then to Nero, then narrowed at once.

“No,” he said.

Sylvia stopped. “We haven’t said anything yet.”

“You arrived with agenda energy.”

“That is not a thing,” she said.

“It absolutely is.”

Nero came to a halt in front of him. “You’re coming with me.”

Dean stared. “That is not a sentence that invites cooperation.”

“It isn’t meant to.”

Sylvia folded her arms and sipped her coffee with open interest now that this had clearly become other people’s problem.

Dean looked at Nero with bright, exhausted deference. “Why?”

“I have my pheromonal manipulation exam.”

Dean blinked once.

Then again.

And somehow looked even more insulted.

“Your what?”

“My pheromonal manipulation exam.”

Dean’s mouth flattened. “No.”

Nero did not appear troubled. “Yes.”

“I am not attending that.”

“You are.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because,” Nero said, with the calm patience of a man who had already decided the outcome, “first, you’ve just come out of a biological horror lecture and should not be left alone with your own brain for the next hour. Second, you’ll find it interesting. Third, I want your opinion.”

Dean recoiled slightly. “That third reason is deeply suspicious.”

“It’s honest.”

“That makes it worse.”

Sylvia looked between them. “Wait. Is this a written exam, or are you about to do something illegal with scent in a controlled environment?”

“Controlled environment,” Nero said.

Dean stared at him. “Absolutely not.”

“You already said that.”

“And I meant it both times.”

Nero tilted his head very slightly. “You sat through beast mutation theory. You can survive a demonstration exam.”

Dean’s expression turned dangerous. “I did not survive it. I endured it out of spite.”

“That still counts.”

“No.”

Sylvia, still drinking her coffee like a woman blessedly uninvolved in dominant nonsense on a biological level, said, “What exactly is a pheromonal manipulation exam?”

Nero looked at her. “Precision control. Directed influence range. Discipline. Sensory layering, response interruption. Command suppression.”

There was a beat.

Sylvia lowered her cup. “That sounds terrible.”

“It’s useful.”

“It sounds like monarchy became a practical skill.”

“It did,” Dean muttered.

Nero looked back at him. “You’re coming.”

Dean crossed his arms. “Still no.”

Nero’s mouth moved faintly. “Arion would come too.”

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