The summons came in the morning. Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just a folded letter beneath each of their doors.
No signature. No seal.
But everyone in Umbravale knew what black parchment meant.
Administrative oversight.
Not optional.
The hall was deep in the east wing a place most students never saw unless they were in trouble, or worse… special.
Kieran stood at the head of the group, arms folded. Calla walked beside him, flame flickering faintly in her palm like a nervous tic. Selene, quiet. Rei looked ready to punch a wall.
They stepped through the door together.
The room was long. Cold. Built of smooth obsidian, veined with faint golden light. At the far end stood a single platform, behind it a half-circle of three seated figures in gray robes.
No names.
Just eyes. Watching.
"We appreciate your cooperation," one of them said, voice smooth and genderless. "This is routine. Survivors of unsanctioned Trials must be documented. Your safety is our concern."
Liar.
Kieran didn't speak. But the word sat behind his teeth.
One by one, they were called forward.
Talon. Nova. Rei. Calla. Sera. Selene.
Questions about the Trial's shape. The terrain. The beast. The mental effects.
All of them answered cleanly.
Then came Kieran.
He stepped forward. The floor pulsed once under his feet, faint as a heartbeat.
"Your Trial," said the center figure, "was not recorded in our current database."
"I assumed as much."
"What triggered its activation?"
"I don't know."
"What was the creature's class?"
"Wretch. Awakened rank."
"An awakened inside the first trial?"
Kieran said nothing.
---
A pause.
About the beast you all fought together.
Then a second voice: "Did it leave a core?"
His jaw tightened. "If it did, we didn't retrieve it."
"Unfortunate. That energy would have been useful to the Academy. Was anything else… left behind?"
Behind him, Calla shifted slightly. Selene's gaze flicked toward Kieran.
"No," he said.
Another lie.
Revelation twitched behind his eyes, a pulse of knowing. He saw the flicker in the speaker's hands — the minute flex of control. These weren't scholars.
They were hunters in robes.
"You may go," the first voice said.
He turned to leave, but one last question stopped him.
"Do you feel different?"
Kieran paused.
Then: "Should I?"
They walked the halls in silence after that.
"Routine check, huh?" Rei muttered. "Felt more like a courtroom."
"They're scared," Selene said.
"Of what?"
"Of what we brought back with us."
Kieran said nothing. But as they passed the black wall of runes in the atrium — the ranking slate — his steps slowed.
A new name had appeared. Low tier. Glowing faint silver.
Kieran Thorne
Rank: Initiate
Threat Evaluation: Irregular
Flagged
He stared at it.
No one had told him.
He hadn't earned it.
And somewhere far beneath Umbravale, in places even Head Instructors didn't walk...
...something else had taken notice.