The air shimmered with ceremonial resonance.
The moment Lynchie stepped through the veil-like arch of iridescent light into the grand entrance plaza of Halcyon Spire Academy, a hush fell across the assembled crowd. Thousands of gathered eyes from the lower terraces to the obsidian balconies above turned to appraise the new arrivals.
The plaza, suspended on a floating platform high above the capital city of Miravelle, resembled an altar carved from pearlstone and crystalroot. Each step upon it seemed to echo with the memories of centuries. Above, monumental banners fluttered in the windless air, embroidered with the twelve constellation signs of the Academy's Houses. Somewhere above that, an immense dome—part sky, part shielding spell—reflected the heavens as though the cosmos itself watched.
Lynchie kept her chin up, her eyes wide but unreadable. Her school robes still bore the scent of mistwood and cinderbrush, faint echoes from the forest glade where the Rift first cracked open.
Around her, new students filed in through the shimmering gates—some with heads bowed in nervous awe, others boasting loud laughter or conjuring glamours to flaunt. But Lynchie felt the pressure of attention fold toward her like a tide. They knew her name already. Or at least, they thought they did.
"Is that her? The Riftborne girl?"
"That's Lynchie Regino, right? The one with the forbidden Glyph flare?"
"Why'd they let someone like her pass Trial Marking?"
Whispers. Carefully unkind. Cloaked in curiosity and fear.
"First impressions cut deeper than steel," murmured a voice beside her.
She turned. A boy with slate-gray eyes and a half-mask of woven dusksteel over his left cheek gave her a nod. His robes bore no crest, only an unclaimed thread-glow. Unaligned.
"You must be Zev," Lynchie said.
He smiled—just enough to confirm, never enough to relax. "If we're guessing names based on rumors, then you must be the girl who dreamed in reverse."
"Or forward," she said, walking ahead.
In the Hall of Names, aspirants presented their soulmarks before the Faculty Ascendants—towering figures cloaked in starlight and dawncloth. Here, soul heritage and celestial compatibility were weighed.
When Lynchie placed her hand upon the Sigil Pedestal, the air thickened. A low harmonic ripple passed through the chamber, and briefly, the symbol that bloomed beneath her palm flickered through dozens of overlapping constellations before crystallizing into something fractured—like a Glyph that wanted to split itself across dimensions.
The Ascendant presiding—a horned woman with parchment-colored eyes—tilted her head but said nothing. A brief murmur passed among the judges.
Zev, too, saw it.
Later, in the assigned dormitory spires, as students chose bunks and joined orientation cliques, Lynchie found herself under heavier scrutiny. Her assigned House—Noctis Umbra—was notoriously cold to newcomers. The students within were chosen not for brightness but for endurance, intuition, and what the instructors called "soul resilience."
At dinner, she sat alone.
Until Evanthe approached. Silver-eyed, faintly bioluminescent in dim light, and draped in a robe of ink-dyed leaves and glinting threads, she carried herself like someone used to attention. She was no mere student—she was a Prefect.
"You walk strangely through fate," Evanthe said, settling across from her.
"I wasn't aware I was being watched."
"You're always being watched here," Evanthe replied, plucking a spiralfruit from a tray and biting into it. "Especially by those who don't believe you should exist."
"And you?" Lynchie asked.
"I think you're necessary," Evanthe said simply.
Their gazes locked. Something unspoken passed between them—not an alliance, not yet. But perhaps a pause in the siege.
From the top of the spire, unseen, another set of eyes watched the table. Ardella leaned against the window frame of her assigned chamber, arms crossed, the wind teasing at her cascade of braids. Her expression was unreadable, but her fingers traced the old Halo sigil sewn into her cuff. Cracked. Burned.
"Let's see what you become," she murmured.
And below, far beneath the floating spires, beneath even the shimmer-locked root tunnels of the Eternal Tree fragment, something stirred—drawn to the fractured Glyph that had dared to stabilize itself in front of the Sigil Pedestal.
Something old.
Something watching.
Something remembering a name long forbidden.