The commander snapped toward a nearby squad.
"Captain Vonn!"
A grizzled woman saluted through a grimace, her left arm wrapped tight in torn cloth.
"You'll take three squads and a medical unit. Get every student, every wounded civilian out of here. I don't care how—blow a hole in the earth if you must. Go. And also send a message to the royal palace of what happened here."
Mirell hesitated. "And you, Commander?"
Elric looked at the construct, then back at his soldiers.
"I was always meant to stay behind."
And then—
Elric stepped forward.
He stumbled at first. Blood soaked through the side of his battered armor, pooling in his boot. His sword arm trembled, but he lifted the blade.
Upright. Unbroken.
"I see you," he said, voice like gravel dragged through fire. "Every one of you."
Eyes turned to him.
"I see your fear. I feel it too. We bleed the same."
He turned slowly, facing the battered line.
"You think this wasn't supposed to happen?" His voice rose. "You think we were meant to live forever? You think because we're scholars, students, healers, that death should pass us by?"
A breath. A heartbeat. Then fire.
"No. That's not why we're here."
"We are here because we chose to stand. We are here because this kingdom—your families, your friends, your future—is worth more than our fear!"
He limped to a chunk of fallen stone and climbed it, raising his blade.
"You're not teachers now! You're not students! You're not healers! You are Aldrael! And Aldrael does not cower!"
His words thundered across the courtyard.
"They want us to falter. To break. They want us to run so they can burn everything behind us. But we will not give them the satisfaction!"
He looked to the students—bloodied, shaking, too young.
"And to you—our future—we will die so you don't have to!"
He raised the sword to the sky. Firelight caught the blade, refracting through the smoke like a beacon.
"Give them nothing! Take from them everything! For your kingdom! For your people! For the ones who cannot fight back!"
His voice was raw now, shouting through blood and fire.
"We are Aldrael! We stand! We fight! WE DO NOT BREAK!"
Then he pointed the blade forward.
"WITH ME!!"
"CHARGE!!"
The roar that answered was a rising storm.Battered instructors, mangled soldiers, trembling mages—they screamed as one and surged forward, a tide of fury and mana and deathless courage crashing against the encroaching dark. Shields lit. Spells surged. Blades ignited. They charged not as survivors, but as defenders of something greater.
The construct stood at the heart of the destruction, wreathed in smoke and broken light. Its molten eyes glowed brighter as it watched the desperate charge with an almost regal calm.
Then—it smirked.
"So be it." Its voice cut through the din like a blade through silk."All of you shall die here. Forgotten. Ashes beneath the heel of vengeance."
And it raised its arm—gleaming with runes and plated death—toward the charging line.
The clash to come would decide more than the fate of a school.
It would mark the first true echo of war.
Elric leapt into the front line, a blazing standard of will and steel.
Behind him, chaos churned. Commander Mirell Vonn barked orders, her own blade drawn despite the wound on her arm.
"Three squads on me!" she shouted. "We're the goddamn gatekeepers now—no one dies unless we say so! Secure evac tunnels! Keep the kids moving!"
Students, medics, and wounded were dragged into the depths of the earth. Spells lit the tunnels in flickers. Screams echoed. But there was movement. There was hope.
"Move, damn it, move!"
Commander Mirell Vonn's voice rang like a whip through smoke and ruin. Her sword was drawn, the blade nicked and glowing with reactive wardlight, her injured arm tied close to her side. She didn't let the pain slow her—didn't give it the honor of notice.
"Three squads on me!" she bellowed. "We're the goddamn gatekeepers now—no one dies unless we say so! Secure evac tunnels! Keep the kids moving!"
A crumbling section of wall collapsed behind her, and she didn't flinch.
Students stumbled forward, half-dragged, half-running. Medics barked healing incantations while hauling the wounded by shoulder and waist. Blood stained stone. Burn marks smudged Academy sealwork. But the line—the line was moving.
There was no room for elegance now. Only momentum.
Cael moved with them, pushed into the fray by a soldier's gauntlet as another tremor rolled through the earth. Siva limped beside him, one arm slung around Derric's shoulder. Arven supported Irene, her robes soaked with blood—some hers, some not.
Behind them, Leon brought up the rear, his sword in hand, eyes darting over every shadow with soldier's focus.
They burst into the outer tunnel, breathless, bloody, bruised—but alive.
Outside, the world was cruel with light.
They emerged into the ruins of a training ground—once a proving field, now a cratered scar of broken earth and collapsed battlements. Wind hit them, cold and full of ash. They ran, stumbled, and collapsed near a ruined observation tower now barely standing.
For one long second… silence.
Then the blast came.
The sky behind them lit up.
An explosion tore through the center of the Academy grounds. Mana fire, arcane detonations, and the collapse of an entire central spire. Stone shot into the heavens. Lightning arced unnaturally. Smoke climbed high, an inverted mountain blooming into the sky.
The shockwave hit a breath later.
It slammed into the survivors like a wall of hate, knocking several off their feet. The air turned to static and heat. A ripple of dust rolled outward, casting everything in brown and gray.
And then the screaming started again. But quieter now. Distant. Disbelieving.
They turned back, one by one, watching the place they had called home burn and break.
Siva whispered, voice hoarse. "They were still in there."
Cael didn't speak.
He couldn't.
Beside him, Leon staggered to a knee, coughed, and then barked a bitter laugh that almost sounded like a sob.
"This is it?" Derric muttered, staring at the smoke. "This is how it ends? The greatest academy in the realm, turned into a bonfire?"
Irene sank onto a rock, eyes hollow. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this."
"It never is," Leon said quietly, brushing soot from the child's face.
Siva sat down hard, dropping his war staff beside him. "We trained for duels. For patrols. Not—not gods-damned doomsday beasts that talk like philosophers!"
Derric grunted, voice low and bitter. "That thing spoke. It knew what it was doing."
Cael didn't respond.
His hand still hovered near his spellhilt.
Still. Even now.
Kaelith, seated beside him, leaned close. Her voice was softer than anyone had ever heard it—quiet, warm, laced with tremor.
"Darling… are you alright?"
Cael blinked. For a moment, her voice didn't register. Then his eyes shifted to hers—wild, uncertain, like he didn't quite know where he was.
"Yeah…" he started. But the words trailed off.
He wasn't. Not really. Not even close.
Irene looked up at the smoke-choked sky, voice barely audible. "Do you think… do you think they're still—?"
"No," Arven said flatly.
Nobody argued.
Not because they agreed. But because the silence was easier.
Mirell Vonn trudged past them, slower now, her limping gait favoring the wounded side. Her armor was cracked, her blade nicked, but her eyes burned with clarity. She stopped near the edge of the ruin, staring out over the carnage. The Academy—what remained of it—was little more than broken bones jutting from scorched earth.
After a long pause, she turned back to the group.
"We're not safe here," she said, voice firm despite the exhaustion in her stance. "That thing might still be hunting. And if it's not, more might come."
A few students shifted uncomfortably. Cael felt Kaelith tense beside him.
Vonn raised her voice slightly. "We move now. We regroup at the Heartspire. The capital will have answers—healers, shelter, military force. We're heading to Aldrael City."
Leon stood, stiffly. "That's five days' march."
"Four if we don't stop," Vonn replied. "Three if we run and don't die."
Derric groaned. "Well, that's optimistic."
Vonn ignored him. She turned to a young soldier whose left eye was bandaged. "Tallis. I want a bird in the sky within the hour. Send word to the Royal Palace: The Academy has fallen. Confirm Commander Elric's last stand. Survivors en route to Heartspire. We need response teams, medical battalions, and mages. And get eyes on the skies for anything not wearing our colors."
The soldier saluted, grimly, and vanished into the smoke, a shimmer of wings forming around his shoulders as he activated his messenger glyph.
Vonn surveyed them all—students, soldiers, medics, broken survivors. She pointed toward the shattered path leading into the woods beyond the crater field.
"We move in ten."
She met Cael's gaze briefly.
"And we survive. That's an order."
Then she turned and walked off, gathering the others, issuing orders with the iron edge of a blade honed in fire.
Cael finally let go of his spellhilt.
But not because the danger had passed.
Because now… the real storm was beginning.