The chill in the Academy's halls was no longer just a trick of wind or stone.
Since the vanishing of the student—Liora, a quiet girl from the alchemy track—an unspoken fear had gripped the castle's bones. Her cloak had been found at the edge of the South Hall courtyard, damp with dew, but no trace of her scent remained. Not even Kaelara's wolf could follow it. The walls themselves had swallowed her.
The next morning, curfews were enforced. Doors were locked magically after dusk. Professors roamed the halls like sentinels, their robes stiff with enchantments. Still, unease bled into every corner of the Academy.
Avenya stood by the window of her chamber, watching the storm clouds churn far beyond the wards. She barely heard the knock before Zerina entered, uninvited but expected.
"She's really gone," Zerina said, closing the door behind her. "I checked the north towers and even the Lower Vaults. No trace."
Avenya nodded. "And yet... something remains. The air tastes different."
"Like burnt stars and silence," Zerina agreed grimly. "I hate it."
Behind her, the air shimmered. Kaelara and Serenya stepped through the veil, their concealment spell melting from their shoulders.
"We've been searching the old classrooms," Kaelara said, voice low. "And found this." She unrolled a parchment across Avenya's bed. "Runes. Burned into the walls beneath the paint."
Avenya's breath caught. The symbols were older than even Velharon's ancient texts—jagged, alien, pulsating with dormant power. She touched one with her fingertip and felt it stir like a waking eye.
Serenya's face was pale. "They weren't just watching. They were calling."
"Who?" Avenya asked.
"The ones from beyond the veil," Serenya whispered. "In my dreams, a being cloaked in starlight spoke. It said: You awakened the gate. Now the gate watches."
The room fell into stillness. Even Kaelara's wolf whined.
Later that day, the Academy buzzed with activity. A royal delegation had arrived from the eastern court—glittering nobles, emissaries from kingdoms that once knelt before Velharon. Among them were members of House Merovelle, Calla's lineage.
Calla moved like a ghost among them, her veil drawn low. But her aunt, Lady Virelle, spotted her within seconds.
"You!" the woman hissed, pulling her aside behind one of the statue alcoves. "Callandra? Is that you?"
Calla froze.
Virelle grabbed her wrist. "We thought you were dead. How are you alive? Where have you been?"
"I go by Calla now," she said, pulling free. "And I'm here as a student."
"Student? Don't insult me. You vanished after your Initiation. There were whispers... that something ancient had claimed you."
Calla met her aunt's gaze. "It did."
The noblewoman stumbled back a step. "You have her eyes now."
"I always did," Calla said quietly, then turned and walked away—leaving behind the first crack in the mask that had shielded her for years.
That evening, Avenya sat cross-legged in her chamber, the runes from earlier laid in a circle around her. She was tracing the central one again, trying to will it open, trying to understand.
There was a shift. Her candle flickered. A whisper, like leaves in wind: You wear the crown, but not alone.
She bolted upright.
A sudden pressure built around her—the feeling of being watched from inside her own skin. The mirror on her wall shimmered, revealing not her reflection, but a tower of black stone wreathed in fog.
Then came the knock.
She opened the door—and was greeted not by Kaelara or Zerina, but Professor Veyren. The new one.
Handsome, enigmatic, too perceptive by far.
"I sensed something... odd," he said, stepping inside with a feline grace. "Dark magic in this room."
"I was meditating," Avenya lied.
He looked around, eyes scanning the parchment circle. "Mm. You have a natural pull for power, Lady Avenya."
She narrowed her gaze. "You shouldn't know my title."
He smiled thinly. "I make it my business to know many things."
He turned to leave. But at the door, he said without looking back, "Be careful what you open. Some things stare back."
That night, Avenya barely slept. She tossed restlessly until footsteps in the hallway jolted her upright. Quiet, quick—too quick. Not student. Not professor.
She reached for her blade.
But before she could move, her door creaked open.
A figure in gray slipped through, dagger drawn, its eyes glazed over with silver—a possessed Arcanist. Old, marked by flame scars along their arms. Eyes locked on Avenya.
Avenya raised her hand, summoning her magic—but Zerina crashed through the window first, fire bursting in her palms.
The assassin lunged. Zerina blocked the strike with a blast of searing heat. The room ignited in a glow of crimson.
"GO!" Zerina shouted. "Get help!"
"No," Avenya growled, stepping into the fray.
The possessed Arcanist moved like a shadow, but Avenya's new powers surged from within—black lightning lashing from her fingertips. The force flung the attacker into the wall.
Zerina pinned them with flame, burning away the sigils on their body. The Arcanist screamed—and then collapsed, free from the possession. Breathing but unconscious.
Avenya fell to her knees, panting.
Zerina knelt beside her. "You okay?"
"I will be," Avenya whispered. "But this wasn't just an attack. It was a message."
Zerina looked down at the Arcanist's hand. A black sun had been burned into the flesh.
The next day, the Academy was a fortress of silence and fear.
The possessed professor had been taken away—under heavy magical guard. But whispers spread. Students talked about curses. About the broken seals. About death.
And then... it happened again.
Another student vanished. A boy named Jarek. Loud, cocky, fond of illusions.
This time, blood was left behind.
Smeared across the walls of the east tower stairwell, drawn in jagged strokes.
The same sigil: a black sun, circled by bleeding moons.
Headmistress Morwyn fainted when she saw it.
The Queens met again, this time in the old ritual hall—abandoned since the sealing of Velharon.
Kaelara slammed her fist against the stone. "They're hunting us."
"No," Serenya said, voice hollow. "They're warning us."
Calla turned, her face pale. "They know we're here. They've always known."
Zerina lit the center flame of the hall. "Then we stop hiding."
Avenya looked up at the tall windows above them. "We need to know what this sigil is. What it wants. Who it serves."
"I think I do," Serenya said, stepping forward.
The others looked to her.
"In my dream," she whispered, "the being cloaked in starlight told me something more: You carry the light of the old blood. But even light casts a shadow. And that shadow is stirring."
The flames flickered.
Avenya stepped forward, eyes glowing with the black fire of Velharon. "Then we'll find it. And burn it before it burns us."
But in the shadows of the hall, unseen by them all, the sigil pulsed—once.
And then, again.