I didn't win the match.
Not officially.
Isenelle Valcroft lay on the dueling platform, panting, magic flickering around her like a dying sun. Her illusions had fractured, her last construct—a fiery wolf, all fangs and fury—crumbled to ash at my feet.
I hadn't touched her.
I hadn't needed to.
But that was the problem.
In the end, I walked away.
No spell. No surrender. I just turned my back and stepped off the platform.
The judges called it inconclusive.
Students called it arrogance.
But to me? It was a warning to myself.
Because when I looked into Isenelle's eyes and saw the fear, the kind that went deeper than pain, I understood something I hadn't admitted since I got here.
I liked it.
Not the power.
The control.
And that scared me more than anything.
—
After the match, I didn't return to my spire.
I wandered.
Down the ancient corridors of Obsidian Academy, past statues of forgotten kings and shrines to gods whose names had been scratched out. The torches here burned blue. Cold. Like the fire had forgotten how to be warm.
I stopped in front of one of the sealed doors, a relic from the time before the Academy became a school.
An old chapel.
No one prayed there anymore.
Except the dead.
I pressed my hand against the iron, expecting resistance.
Instead, it opened with a groan.
Inside, the air was thick. Not with dust, but with memory.
Stained glass windows shimmered with runes that pulsed faintly, like the heartbeat of something dreaming just beneath the surface of the stone.
And at the far end, a cracked altar waited.
I walked toward it, footsteps soft on the obsidian floor. No shadow stirred. No whispers rose.
Only silence.
And then I spoke.
To no one.
Or maybe to the part of me that still remembered Earth.
"If you're watching," I said, "I'm trying."
That was the first honest thing I'd said in days.
—
The next morning, they made it clear:
I had enemies.
A note was nailed to my door, carved not with ink, but scorched into the wood.
MONSTERS DO NOT BELONG HERE.
Under it, a glyph pulsed once, then burned away.
No sigil. No signature.
Just hate.
I didn't report it.
I just tore the wood down and left it outside my room.
If they wanted me to play the villain, I'd at least choose the script.
—
Classes resumed, though the tension between students had thickened like stormclouds. Alliances were hardening. Rumors spread faster than wildfire—especially about me.
They said I was Ravianne's pet assassin.
They said I drank shadowblood.
They said I had no heart.
I didn't correct them.
Sometimes it's easier to survive when they believe you're worse than you are.
One of my instructors, Professor Vell, pulled me aside after Spell Theory.
She was one of the few who didn't flinch when I looked at her.
"Do you know why they're afraid of you?" she asked, brushing chalk off her sleeve.
I didn't answer.
She continued, "It's not the magic. Or the bloodline. Or Ravianne."
Her gaze met mine.
"It's because you don't try to belong."
And with that, she walked away.
—
A few days later, Caidros came to me again.
He didn't speak at first. Just watched as I traced sigils across a stone slab in the practice yard, the light dimming with each stroke.
Finally, he said, "You're holding back."
"Is that your observation," I replied, "or your concern?"
He folded his arms. "Neither. It's a challenge."
I looked up.
"You want a fight?"
"I want the truth," he said. "About you."
That made me pause.
Because part of me wanted to lie.
Wanted to bury it all under sarcasm and shadow.
But he didn't ask like everyone else. He didn't want answers to feel safer. He wanted to understand.
So I told him the truth.
At least a piece of it.
"I died before I came here," I said. "And I'm still learning how to be alive again."
He didn't flinch. Just nodded slowly.
Then, "That's a strange answer."
"It's a strange world."
He smirked. Just barely. "Maybe you'll show me how to survive it."
"Maybe," I said. "If I learn how first."
—
That night, the dreams returned.
Wings. Fire. Screams.
But this time, something new.
A mirror.
In the center of a black cathedral.
And inside it—me.
Not the boy from Earth.
Not the student.
Something else.
Eyes like burning gold. Veins lit with shadow. Mouth curled in a smile too sharp to be mine.
It reached toward me.
And said in my voice, "Soon."
I woke in cold sweat.
The room was still.
But I wasn't alone.
A figure stood near my door.
Shrouded in illusion, but I saw past it.
Not with magic.
With instinct.
"Who sent you?" I asked.
The intruder didn't speak.
Just threw a dagger.
I caught it mid-air.
By the blade.
Blood dripped onto the floor.
The shadows surged.
They wanted release.
I didn't give it to them.
Instead, I stepped forward, fast and silent.
The attacker backed away, stumbled into the wall.
"Last chance," I said. "Tell me who."
Their voice cracked.
"A name. That's all I have. Valemir."
I frowned.
Valemir wasn't a student.
He was a noble.
A cousin of the Crown.
And if he'd sent someone to kill me…
This wasn't just academy politics anymore.
This was war.
—
I let the intruder go.
Not because I was merciful.
Because I wanted them to report back.
Fear was a language even nobles understood.
And it was time they remembered that monsters could speak it fluently.
—
Later that night, I found a page from the Vesper Codex tucked beneath my pillow.
I hadn't placed it there.
The writing shimmered, glowing faintly.
"He who walks with death must learn to walk slower.
For the faster he runs, the sooner he forgets who he was."
Maybe Seravin left it.
Maybe the Academy itself was watching.
Didn't matter.
I folded the page, tucked it into my jacket.
And whispered a line of poetry under my breath.
"Not every path leads home.
But some are worth walking anyway."
The shadows stirred.
But for once, they didn't feel heavy.
They felt like armor.
And I was ready to wear it.