Three days passed.
Three days in which the runes hummed quietly from under Rowan's mattress, the air around him felt charged, and the world seemed to watch.
Lys didn't return to the clearing. The stone altar remained quiet. Rowan and Elise still crept out most nights, just in case, but nothing stirred. Even the trees seemed to lean inward, listening.
On the fourth evening, a carriage arrived.
An actual carriage, lacquered black, wheels of silvered iron, pulled not by horses but by something else entirely. The creatures looked like elk, except their antlers shimmered like polished obsidian and their eyes glowed faintly blue.
No one saw it arrive. No sound announced it.
It was simply there.
Waiting at the gate.
Mrs. Greaves, the headmistress, nearly fainted when the knock came. Rowan and the other children watched from the hall as the front door creaked open.
The figure who entered wasn't tall, but somehow carried the room in their presence. They wore a long coat of weather-dark leather, a silver brooch at their collar shaped like a lantern flame, and dark gloves etched with faint rune-marks.
Their eyes swept across the children, sharp and calculating.
And then, they smiled.
"Rowan. We've come to collect you."
Rowan's stomach twisted as every head turned toward him.
The silence in the foyer stretched, thick as fog. Mrs. Greaves' mouth opened and closed, like she meant to object but had forgotten the words. Even Elise, standing halfway down the hall behind a cracked door frame, looked stunned.
The stranger stepped forward.
"I'm called Thorne," they said, their voice even, clipped like someone used to command. "Flamebinder of the Southern Watch. I've been sent by the Lantern Archive. We received the signal."
Rowan blinked. "Signal?"
Thorne's eyes dropped to his hand.
"The mark. It flared three nights ago. Very few survive the first surge without... damage."
They gave him a faint nod, almost respectful.
"You're more prepared than most. That's rare."
Mrs. Greaves stepped forward, finally regaining her voice. "And what exactly do you mean by 'collect' him?"
Thorne offered her a folded letter, sealed in black wax with the same lantern sigil. "He's been invited to study at Noxhollow."
The name struck Rowan like a bell in his bones.
"An academy," Thorne explained, "for those like him. Those with the rune-blood."
Later, after the carriage had been drawn further into the orchard and dusk settled thick and blue across the grounds, Rowan sat in the headmistress's office, the letter in his lap.
The seal was warm to the touch.
He hadn't opened it yet. Something about it felt... final.
Thorne leaned against the far wall, gloves clasped behind their back, watching him.
"You have questions."
Rowan nodded. "Why now? Why me?"
Thorne tilted their head. "Rune-blood runs deep. It waits. Sometimes for generations. But it always stirs when the Veil thins."
"And what's Noxhollow?"
Thorne's smile was faint. "A refuge. A forge. A cage. Depends who you ask."
That didn't comfort Rowan.
"Will I learn more about... the mark? The things that came through the woods?"
"You'll learn how to stop them."
Thorne stepped forward, their boots making no sound on the old wood floor.
"But be warned. Noxhollow is no safe haven. It's not like your schools here, old uniforms, no chalkboards. You'll study rune-work, yes. You'll wield blade and spell alike. But some of your classmates will be monsters in finer clothes."
Rowan's mouth went dry.
Thorne looked down at him, not unkindly, but not gently either.
"We don't polish students. We shape weapons."
Outside, the sky had turned molten orange, streaked with black crows flying east. Elise waited under the old elm tree near the gate, arms crossed, eyes rimmed red.
"You're really going?" she asked.
Rowan nodded, then held out the letter.
She didn't take it. Just gave him a tight, crooked smile.
"Don't let them change you too much."
He hesitated. "I'll find a way to write to you."
"You better," she said, and punched him lightly in the shoulder.
Rowan smiled, for real this time.
Then the coach door opened.
And he stepped inside.
The carriage rolled silently through the night.
Rowan wasn't sure when the real world had slipped away.
One minute they were crossing a muddy road bordered by cow fields and crooked fences. The next, mist poured over the hills like falling cloth, and the path beneath the carriage shifted, no longer cobblestone or dirt, but dark slate that shimmered faintly in the lantern light.
Outside the windows, fog and shadow. The landscape unfurled like a dream unspooling in reverse, trees too tall and narrow, hills that bent at impossible angles, stars in unfamiliar constellations. Rowan sat with his forehead against the glass, watching shapes move in the distance. Too far to see. Too close to forget.
Thorne sat opposite him, gloved hands resting atop a walking cane of polished bonewood.
"You'll want to remember this part," they said quietly. "Most forget. The journey, the change. The sky isn't quite the same here."
Rowan turned to face them. "Where is here?"
Thorne smiled faintly. "The world beneath the world."
The fog broke without warning.
And there it was.
Noxhollow.
The castle rose like something carved from a storm. Spires pierced the clouds, some broken, some gleaming. Towers leaned at impossible angles. Arched bridges stretched between wings of the fortress high above the ground. Its vast stone walls were blackened with age, crawling with ivy and silver moss. Windows flickered with orange light like stars in a dead sky.
The castle didn't sit atop a hill, it was the hill, sprawling in every direction, half-submerged into cliffs, forests, and the winding lake at its feet.
Rowan gawked.
Thorne leaned forward.
"Not what you expected?"
"I didn't expect anything," Rowan whispered. "It looks like it's alive."
Thorne's eyes twinkled. "In some ways… it is."
At the castle gate, they were met by figures in uniform.
Five students stood in a line, each wearing a long coat of deep navy blue trimmed in gold, high boots, and stiff collars fastened with rune-inscribed clasps. Their belts were adorned with small pouches and thin rune-knives. Across each chest ran a sash, but in four different colors: red, green, blue, and gold.
Thorne stepped down first, then opened the door for Rowan.
"Your first glimpse of the order," they said. "Those sashes? They mark position. Red for the First Rung, your year. Gold for Fourth Rung. Each rank grows harder. Fewer make it."
Rowan stepped down slowly, eyes wide.
The Fifth Rung student bowed shallowly. A tall girl with dark skin, her hair braided and pinned with bone charms. Her crimson sash was embroidered with silver runes.
"Welcome to Noxhollow," she said. Her voice was like music played on broken glass. "You must be the Veil-marked."
Rowan froze. "I… how do you know that?"
She smiled, not unkindly. "We all saw the flare. Your arrival was… felt."
She turned sharply on her heel. "Follow me."
Inside the gate, the world changed again.
Stone hallways stretched like rivers into the dark, ceilings arching high with rune-stamped glass. Oil-lanterns hung from iron arms, their flames green-blue and unnaturally still. Suits of armor stood in alcoves, some bearing weapons Rowan didn't recognize, crescent-bladed scythes, chains etched with runes, blackwood bows that vibrated softly as they passed.
Banners hung from the vaulted ceilings, each bearing a different sigil: a sword in a tree, a serpent swallowing its own tail, a three-eyed owl.
Rowan didn't understand any of them.
But something inside him stirred a strange mixture of fear, awe, and something else.
Longing.
They arrived at a set of double doors marked with a single rune, ᚾ.
The girl pushed them open.
Inside was a small, round chamber. A hearth burned at the far wall, and above it hung a massive tapestry of the academy… but in motion. Students walked across its threads, battles played out in slow loops, and one tower shifted slightly each time you looked at it.
"Wait here," she said. "Someone will fetch you for Rune Awakening."
Rowan blinked. "Rune Awakening?"
She gave him a look that almost passed for sympathy.
"Every student is ranked. You're tested, scored, and placed. Your sash color determines not only your dormitory and privileges, but how the school watches you."
She stepped out, leaving the doors open behind her.
Rowan stared into the flickering fire.
A school of magic and swordsmanship. A castle where shadows moved and colors marked strength. Ranks. Power. Expectation.
You'll be shaped into a weapon, Thorne had said.
He didn't feel like a weapon.
He felt like a child standing on the edge of something enormous.
Still… he didn't run.
He waited.
And the flame crackled on.
Rowan waited in the chamber for what felt like hours. The fire twisted through strange hues, blue to green to amber, and the moving tapestry occasionally flickered, as though reacting to his breath.
At last, the door opened.
A robed figure entered, face obscured by a deep hood. Runes shimmered along the hem of their cloak, sliding like oil. In their hand, they carried a lantern that burned with a cold, violet flame.
"Rowan," the figure said. "You are summoned for Awakening."
He rose cautiously. "Awakening?"
The figure turned without answering and glided silently through the open door. Rowan followed.
They descended deep beneath the castle, into colder, older places. Stone gave way to bedrock. The torches dimmed. Runes lit themselves as they passed, whispering just beyond hearing. Rowan's mark itched against his skin.
At the bottom of the stairwell stood a single iron door. Runes encircled its edges like thorns.
Etched above it: "In Flame, The Truth Uncoils."
The door creaked open.
The chamber beyond was vast and circular, its floor carved with ancient spirals and rune-lines. At the center stood a brazier, cold and dark. Around it, five figures in varying robes stood watching, silent.
The hooded guide gestured. "Step into the circle."
Rowan obeyed.
"This is the Rune Awakening," the figure said. "You will place your hand in the basin. The flame will seek the truth of your blood. What rises from within you will determine the path ahead."
Rowan glanced around. "Will it hurt?"
"Yes," said one of the robed figures at the edge. "If you've been hiding from yourself."
The guide nodded.
"Begin."
Rowan stepped to the basin.
The cold stone bit his palm.
As his skin touched the carved surface, flame surged from the brazier, not red or yellow, but silver and violet. It climbed his arm, spiraling with symbols, runes Rowan had never learned but somehow knew.
Pain shot through him, not physical, but deep, like something was being pulled loose from inside. Images surged in his mind:
A sword bound in roots.
A tree with no leaves, growing upside-down.
A voice calling his name from beneath ice.
The mark on his hand blazed white.
The basin cracked.
The flames shot skyward.
Gasps rippled through the watching figures.
One of them stumbled back. "It's not reading him. It's reacting."
Another hissed, "No known rune-pattern. This boy's essence doesn't match the glyphwheel."
"Not unstable," said a third quietly. "Unwritten."
The flames shrank back, leaving the chamber dark and quiet.
Rowan stood, swaying.
The guide stepped forward. "You are rune-born, that much is clear. But your thread runs wild. Your runes are… still forming. You are beyond the scale."
They produced a sash from beneath their robe, silver, etched faintly with black thread. Blank, like a page not yet inscribed.
"You will wear this until your essence declares its alignment. Until then, you walk without category."
Outside, in the shadowed corridor, a boy waited.
He looked maybe eleven, lean and sharp-eyed, his own sash forest green, Second Year. He gave Rowan a crooked smirk.
"Well. That was loud."
Rowan didn't reply.
"You're the blank one, yeah?" the boy asked. "No rune match?"
Rowan hesitated. "I… guess."
The boy stuck out his hand. "Cassian. I'm supposed to walk you through things. Come on. You don't want to miss Initiate's Eve."
Rowan followed.
As they walked, Cassian added, "No category, huh? That means you either become a legend…"
He turned, grinning.
" …or a cautionary tale."
The halls of Noxhollow were not made for comfort.
Every corridor arched high above Rowan's head, lined with towering windows and crooked chandeliers that hung like blackened bones. Candles floated in metal cages above their heads, their wax melting upward. Some stairs moved. Others didn't appear at all until you whispered to them.
Cassian strode ahead, sash swinging with the practiced swagger of someone who had learned where not to step.
"Mind that mirror," he called as Rowan stepped close to a full-length oval of frosted glass. "She lies."
Rowan jumped back.
Cassian smirked. "She'll show you what you fear you are, not what you are."
They passed more students as they walked, older, taller, clad in the same black-and-gray uniform, each with a sash marking their level: red, green, blue, gold. The colors gleamed under the cold torchlight.
Some glanced at Rowan. Whispers followed.
"That him?"
"Silver, yeah."
"Can't read his runes."
"Can't read him at all."
Cassian led Rowan into a long vaulted hall, a dining chamber of sorts, but not like the ones Rowan had ever seen. Blackwood tables stretched endlessly beneath banners that hung like sleeping beasts. At the far end of the hall sat an empty throne carved of obsidian and thorns.
"That's where Headmaster Virex would sit," Cassian said. "If he ever showed up."
"He doesn't come here?"
Cassian shook his head. "Not unless the stars go out. Or someone breaks the oath."
A bell tolled, deep, metallic, and somehow wet, as if rung underwater. The air in the hall changed. Students stopped talking. The doors at the far end creaked open.
A procession entered.
The Instructors.
They walked in a staggered line, each bearing a staff of different design, some twisted with vines, others crowned with orbs or knives. Their faces were strange. Not unkind, but… distant. Like they were listening to something the rest couldn't hear.
Cassian leaned close. "We're not supposed to speak during the Lantern March."
The instructors made their way toward the central aisle. At the front walked a woman with hair like spun moonlight, her robes lined with starlit ink. She carried no staff… only a lantern of blackened brass.
As she passed Rowan, the lantern flickered violet.
Several students gasped.
The woman did not stop. But her gaze flicked toward him… and lingered.
Cassian noticed. "Well. That's not subtle."
After the instructors took their places at the far end, a voice echoed through the chamber, though no mouth moved.
"Let the Flame recognize the new threads in the weave."
Lanterns floated down from the vaulted ceiling, one for each new student. Rowan's descended slowly, its light flickering between silver and shadow. It hovered inches from his chest.
Cassian muttered, "Don't flinch. They can smell fear."
Rowan didn't move.
The lantern hovered… then dimmed.
A scroll unfurled in front of him, bearing his name, and a place.
Dormitory: West Wing. Section B. Room 11.
Rune Status: Unreadable.
Rank: Unknown.
Then it burned to ash, curling upward and vanishing.
The lantern bobbed once, like a nod.
Then it disappeared.
The feast that followed was not made of ordinary food.
Plates shifted shape based on who sat before them. Cassian's platter filled with roasted meat and wildroot stew. Rowan's brimmed with honeyed bread, blackberries, and warm chestnut broth.
"You'll want to eat," Cassian said through a mouthful. "Initiate's Eve Trials start at midnight."
Rowan blinked. "Tonight?"
Cassian nodded. "They want to see if we break when we're half asleep and full of nerves."
"What are they?"
Cassian grinned. "Nobody knows. Changes every year. Could be mazes. Could be duels. Last year, they dropped students into the Echo Caves and told them to find their way out."
"And if you fail?"
Cassian wiped his hands on his sash. "Depends. You might get a lower rank. Or get reassigned. Or get watched. Or…"
He lowered his voice.
" …you vanish."
Rowan stared at his plate.
Cassian nudged him. "Don't worry. You've already made a stir. That'll buy you some protection. Or paint a target. Hard to say."
As the feast ended and the students were dismissed by rank, Rowan followed Cassian through the labyrinthine halls again, this time up three towers and across a covered bridge made of bones, or what looked like bones, to the West Wing.
The dormitory door creaked open with a whisper of runes.
Inside, the room was surprisingly warm. A high-arched ceiling, two beds, a large window looking out into the night-shrouded forest, and on the far wall, a mural of constellations, which moved slightly as Rowan entered.
Cassian flopped onto one bed.
"Room 11. You're in with me. Lucky you."
Rowan stood in the middle of the room, overwhelmed.
Cassian watched him.
"Don't worry, Silver," he said. "Everyone's scared on the first night. Some just hide it better."
Rowan sat down slowly on the edge of his bed.
Out the window, lightning flashed across the distant hills. The forest of dead trees writhed in the dark. Somewhere in the school, a deep horn sounded.
Midnight.
Initiate's Eve had begun.
The horn echoed like a dying beast, low and drawn out. Rowan jolted upright.
Cassian was already standing, sliding on his boots with practiced speed. "Come on, Silver. You don't want to be late."
Rowan stumbled after him, barely having time to fasten his uniform. The silver sash hung around his waist like a question no one wanted to answer.
The corridors were darker than before. Torches flickered with green flame, and the walls seemed to lean inward. Other first years emerged from rooms and stairwells, some walking confidently in crimson sashes, others clinging to nervous silence.
Cassian looked Rowan over as they descended the winding staircase. "You look like a ghost. That's good. They won't expect you to bite."
"I don't want to bite anyone."
"You say that now."
They reached a circular atrium where all the first-years were gathering. Instructors stood at intervals around the room, tall and motionless, their staffs glowing with runes.
At the center of the floor was a massive circular emblem, the same sigil that had burned in the Awakening Chamber. This time, it pulsed dimly, like a heartbeat under stone.
The woman with moonlight hair stepped forward. She raised her lantern, and the room dimmed.
"Initiates," she said. Her voice did not echo. It didn't need to.
"You have crossed the threshold. The world you knew lies behind. The truth lies ahead. The trials begin now."
A stone wall behind her groaned and began to split down the middle.
What lay beyond was not a hallway.
It was a descent, a staircase carved into bedrock, spiraling downward into shifting mist and heat. Faint screams echoed up, too distant to be certain.
Cassian muttered, "Well. That's worse than last year."
The instructor continued, "There are no rules but one. Return to the upper halls before the third bell tolls. Whether you return whole is… up to you."
Without another word, the first row of students was ushered forward.
Rowan's name was called in the third group.
Cassian gave him a crooked smile. "Don't die."
Then Rowan was pushed forward, down the stairs, into the unknown.
The passage narrowed as they descended. The stone felt too smooth, not carved by tools, but worn by time or water or something worse. The air grew thicker. Rowan's mark burned faintly under his sleeve.
At the bottom, the staircase opened into a chamber of mirrors.
They weren't ordinary mirrors.
Each one reflected a version of Rowan… older, younger, darker, crueler. One showed him holding a sword of bone, eyes hollow. Another, burned and broken, crawling through ash. A third smiled sweetly as he set fire to something behind him.
He turned away.
But the room didn't let him.
A voice echoed — not aloud, but inside.
"Choose."
Rowan froze. The mirrors pulsed with silvery light. One cracked. Another darkened entirely.
He stepped backward.
The mirrors followed.
"Choose," the voice repeated.
Something sharp pierced his mind, an image, maybe a memory, of fire in the sky and voices crying out. His breath caught.
"I don't understand!" he shouted.
Silence.
Then, a shape stepped from one of the mirrors.
It was Rowan, but taller, older, eyes black as night. The silver sash was gone. In its place, a chain of runes wound around his chest like armor.
The doppelgänger smiled… and charged.
Rowan ducked instinctively. The reflection's blow missed by inches, shattering a mirror behind him. Shards exploded into the air, turning into shadowy moths.
Rowan scrambled backward.
The figure lunged again.
Rowan raised his arm, and his rune flared.
A pulse of light erupted from his hand, raw and wild.
The doppelgänger staggered, then dissolved into smoke.
The mirrors stilled.
A door appeared in the wall, rune-marked and faintly glowing.
Rowan stumbled through.
The next room was colder. Smaller. A single instructor stood there, faceless behind a veil of pale silk. In their hand: a chalk slate.
They wrote one word.
"UNSTABLE."
They paused. Then scratched it out and wrote another.
"UNFORMED."
Finally, they set down the slate.
"Go," they whispered. "Your flame has not chosen a shape… but it burns nonetheless."
Back in the atrium, students returned in slow waves, some pale and shaking, others quiet and thoughtful. One girl sobbed silently, her crimson sash burned black at the edges.
Cassian spotted Rowan emerging from the stairwell and raised an eyebrow. "Well, look who's still breathing."
Rowan didn't answer. His hand still trembled.
Cassian clapped him on the back. "That's the spirit. First trial's done. Only a few hundred more to go."
The instructor with the lantern passed by once more, and as she did, Rowan could've sworn he heard her murmur beneath her breath,
"The boy with no reflection… will shape the mirror."
He turned… but she was already gone.
The morning after Initiate's Eve began with silence.
No bells rang. No instructors called roll. No breakfast summoned them to the great hall. The academy had simply... stopped.
Rowan lay in his bed beneath the towering window of Room 11, staring at the ceiling where the mural of stars still glowed faintly. The constellation of the Serpent shifted every few minutes, coiling around the twin moons. It was both mesmerizing and unsettling.
Cassian finally stirred from the other bed and sat up with a grunt. "The first morning's a trick," he muttered. "They let you believe you're safe before the real chaos begins."
Rowan looked over. "So there's no class?"
Cassian stood, pulling on his boots and adjusting his green sash. "Oh, there's class. You just have to find it."
Rowan frowned. "That doesn't make sense."
Cassian grinned. "Exactly."
They left the West Wing and made their way down through the twisting castle. The torches that lit the halls were now blue, and the portraits on the walls had changed. Where once they had depicted noble mages and sword-wielding knights, they now showed twisted landscapes, floating islands, storms of glass, great shadow-beasts stalking through fields of bone.
Cassian stopped in front of a hallway lined with doors, each labeled with a different rune.
"Each of these," he said, "leads to a different lesson. But they only open for the ones they choose."
Rowan stepped closer. One door bore the same rune that had appeared above his bed the night he arrived, a spiral intersected by three slashes.
It opened.
Cassian raised an eyebrow. "Well. Looks like you've got your first."
Rowan hesitated. "Aren't you coming?"
"Different door," Cassian said, nodding down the corridor. "Mine changes every week. Go on, Silver. Don't keep your mystery waiting."
The room beyond the rune-marked door was nothing like a classroom.
It was an open circular chamber, walls of stone inscribed with ancient scripts. Floating books hovered in midair, occasionally flipping their own pages. A narrow bridge crossed above a chasm with no visible bottom, and beyond it stood a figure robed in dark violet… tall, with a helm shaped like an owl's skull.
They did not speak.
Instead, they gestured to the center of the room, where a single rune hovered in the air, pulsing with silver light.
Rowan approached.
The rune flared and began to shift. It broke into fragments, spiraling around him like snow. His mark burned under his sleeve again, more fiercely this time.
He winced, stepping back. But the pieces of the rune followed him.
Then, in a flash, they reformed.
Not into the same rune as before.
Into something entirely new.
The instructor tilted their head. "It is not of the known glyphs," they said in a voice like dry parchment. "And yet… it obeys the rules."
Rowan swallowed. "Is that bad?"
"Not bad," the instructor said. "Just... unwritten."
They waved a hand, and a book floated toward him, its cover blank, its pages untouched.
"Write, then. The unwritten must begin somewhere."
Rowan left the class in a daze. He clutched the blank book like it might vanish. The rune was still in his mind, not just as a symbol but as a sensation. It felt… alive. Like it was watching the world through him.
He didn't understand what it meant.
But it had chosen him.
Back in the atrium that evening, the dining hall was buzzing. Students whispered and pointed at him more openly now.
"Silver sash…"
"Wrote his own rune…"
"Heard the Nighthelm watched him."
Cassian plopped down across from him at their table. "You're becoming quite the campus ghost story."
Rowan said nothing, pushing a piece of bread around his plate.
Cassian leaned in. "They're scared of you. Not because of what you've done — but because they don't know what you might do."
Rowan looked up. "I didn't ask for this."
"None of us did." Cassian smiled faintly. "But that's the deal. Noxhollow doesn't give you what you want. It shows you what you are."
Rowan glanced around the room. The gold sashes, the green, the red. His silver stood out like a sore thumb.
He clutched the blank book tighter.
What am I… ?
Later that night, as Rowan returned to his dorm, he passed a hallway he hadn't noticed before. It was narrower than the others, torchless, and colder. Something about it tugged at him, a pull, soft but insistent, like a whisper in the back of his mind.
He took one step toward it.
And a shape moved at the far end.
Too tall. Too thin.
Eyes gleaming violet.
Then it vanished.
Rowan blinked. The hallway was empty.
He stepped back. The pull lessened.
He hurried to his room without looking back.
In the silence of his bed, the stars overhead moved slower than usual. The serpent curled tighter. Outside, the forest howled with distant voices.
And somewhere in the halls below, something unseen whispered his name… not aloud, but within the rune that still pulsed under his skin.
The following week at Noxhollow passed in a blur of shifting corridors, unpredictable lessons, and cryptic instructors who spoke more in riddles than rules. Rowan barely slept. His dreams were thick with symbols and ink, and his rune pulsed beneath his skin like it had a heartbeat of its own.
He never knew what class he was going to until the door appeared.
And some days, no door appeared at all.
He tried to stay invisible. In the dining hall, he sat at the end of the table. In the atrium, he waited until the crowd thinned before finding his path. But the silver sash clung to him like moonlight in darkness. Students stared. Some whispered.
A few, mostly red-sashed first years, started avoiding him entirely. One boy in particular, Keegan, always spat at the ground when Rowan passed.
Cassian told him not to worry. "They'll either fear you or try to fight you. Both are compliments."
Rowan wasn't sure he liked either option.
One evening, after a lesson in spellweaving with living thread (which ended with someone's tunic attacking them), Rowan wandered out into one of the academy's lesser courtyards. It was small, choked with ivy and old fountains, and half-forgotten by the other students.
He liked it for that.
There, he could breathe.
The moon hung low, casting silver on the flagstones. And as he sat by the fountain's edge, he took out the blank book the Owl-Masked Instructor had given him.
Still empty.
He didn't know what to write. He barely knew what he was.
But as the wind stirred the ivy, something changed.
The page began to glow.
Only faintly — like dew under moonlight. And then, a word appeared in ink that bled like smoke.
"Threshold."
Rowan blinked. He hadn't written it. At least… not consciously.
The book shimmered again.
"The doors of stone remember what the world forgets."
He read it three times, heart racing. The rune on his arm grew warm.
Then the ink faded, as if embarrassed.
Footsteps echoed nearby.
Rowan shut the book, slipping it into his coat just as a figure emerged from the shadows beyond the courtyard arch.
It was not Cassian.
This boy was tall, sharp-featured, with a gold sash that gleamed like a badge. He moved with the certainty of someone used to being obeyed.
"Rowan, isn't it?" the boy said smoothly. "Silver sash. The unreadable."
Rowan stood slowly. "Who are you?"
"Callum Vale. Fifth year. Prefect." He tilted his head, studying Rowan like a chess piece. "You've been... noticed."
Rowan swallowed. "By who?"
Callum smiled. "Everyone. But more importantly, by them."
He gestured upward, not toward the sky, but toward the spires of the academy itself. One in particular… a narrow black tower that jutted above the others, wreathed in storm clouds that never seemed to leave.
"No one goes there," Rowan said, remembering Cassian's warning. "It's forbidden."
Callum's smile didn't falter. "Exactly."
He stepped forward. "I know what you are, Rowan. Or at least, what you might be. And you'd do well to learn quickly. Power like yours? It doesn't stay buried for long."
Rowan clenched his fists. "I don't want power. I just want answers."
"That's good," Callum said, turning away. "Because at Noxhollow, those are the same thing."
Then he vanished into shadow, no footsteps nor sound. Just gone…
That night, Rowan didn't sleep. He sat by the window in Room 11, the book open in his lap, waiting for it to speak again.
It didn't.
But the rune did.
He felt it stir when the hour turned past midnight. And somewhere far below the castle, something answered.
The wall behind his bed groaned. A single stone shifted — just slightly.
And from the crack, something slipped through.
It wasn't solid. Not entirely. A shape made of smoke and shimmer, like a creature that had forgotten how to be flesh.
It whispered his name.
"Rowan…"
He froze.
Then the rune on his arm flared, not hot, but cold. So cold it burned.
The creature hissed and recoiled, vanishing into the crack.
The wall sealed behind it.
Rowan lay there, wide-eyed, unable to move.
He knew, somehow, what it had been.
A Watcher.
And it had not come for anyone else.
It had come for him.
The next morning, Rowan kept quiet.
He didn't tell Cassian about the whispering shade that slipped through the stone.
He didn't mention the book writing on its own, or Callum Vale's warning about being noticed. He even tried to ignore the strange pressure in the walls of the school, like Noxhollow itself was watching.
But none of it left his mind.
Especially not the rune.
Classes that day were unpredictable.
His first was a puzzle room filled with shifting stairs and traps of illusion. The only way to solve it was to feel the right paths… to trust instinct over logic.
Rowan completed it in less than half the time. The instructor, a squat woman with copper rings through her ears, just stared at him.
"You've never studied this art?"
He shook his head.
"No lineage?"
"No family."
She scratched her chin. "Then who taught you how to listen to magic?"
"I didn't," Rowan said honestly. "It just… tells me."
By midday, word had spread again.
He passed students whispering behind bookcases, pointing at the silver on his sash. Others didn't bother hiding their stares anymore.
A few younger students watched him like a storm about to break.
Cassian walked with him to lunch, munching on a sweetbread roll. "You've officially become a rumor," he said. "Congrats."
"I don't want to be a rumor."
"Doesn't matter," Cassian replied. "This place feeds on myth. The moment you arrived without a color, the school started writing its own story about you."
Rowan glanced around the gothic hall. Candles flickered in iron chandeliers. Banners fluttered over the long tables, deep red, green, gold, blue, and now, hanging alone: a blank gray banner with a single silver thread stitched through the middle.
His.
After lunch, he tried to find a place to be alone.
He ended up on the eastern side of the castle — a wing that hadn't been restored in decades. Dust clung to every surface, and most of the windows were boarded up or stained dark.
There, behind a stack of forgotten crates and an old coat of arms, Rowan found a door.
A door that shouldn't exist.
It had no handle.
Just a single rune etched into the iron — the same one that had burned above his bed when he first arrived.
The book in his coat pocket grew warm.
Without meaning to, he reached out.
The rune glowed.
And the door opened.
Inside was a circular chamber, much like the first rune room he'd entered. But this one was older. The stone was cracked. Vines curled through the floor, and a tree had broken through part of the ceiling. Light filtered down in green shafts.
At the center stood a pedestal with a mirror.
But it didn't reflect him.
It showed something else.
A version of Rowan, older, perhaps sixteen, wearing a long coat with the silver rune glowing on his chest.
Behind this future Rowan were shadows, hundreds of them, all watching.
And in his hand…
A sword of black steel, carved with runes that shimmered like stars.
Rowan stumbled back.
The mirror flashed, and went dark.
A voice came from behind.
"You're not meant to be here."
Rowan whirled.
A woman stood in the doorway, robed in deep emerald. Her hair was white as snow, her eyes like winter lakes.
She wasn't angry.
She was… curious.
"Who opened this room for you?"
"No one," Rowan said. "I found it."
She stepped closer. "This chamber is sealed to all but the Runeborne."
"I don't know what that means."
She studied him for a long moment. "You will."
Then she turned and walked away, leaving only two words behind:
"Not yet."
Back in his dorm that evening, Rowan opened the blank book again.
This time, it didn't hesitate.
More words bled across the page:
"The sword sleeps. The seals remember. The key is not a key."
"Your rune is a warning."
"The last one wore silver too."
Rowan stared, heart thudding.
The last one?
He turned the page, and on the next was a symbol he hadn't seen before.
Not his rune. Not any rune he recognized.
But somehow…
He knew it meant end.